The San Rafael city council recently passed an ordinance that makes it illegal to smoke in your own home. The excuse ‘logic’ for this breathtaking coup of social engineering is, you guessed it, ‘public health and safety.’ The same reasoning that brought you Prohibition, anti-sodomy laws and bans on interracial marriage now invites the police into your home to snuff out your Marlboro. Cigarettes probably don’t matter to most gun owners, so why should we care? . . .
Any Government With The Power To Give You Everything You Need, Also Has The Power To Take It Away
San Rafael’s shocking intrusion into private homes applies to all multi-family residence (condos, apartments, duplexes, co-ops) of three or more units, and to any unit which shares a common wall with another residence. The only homes you can smoke in are completely separate single-family homes.
Despite the fact that it tells you what you can do in the privacy of your own home, city officials insist that this rule isn’t an intrusion into your privacy. They say they don’t care if you smoke in your home (yeah, right) but that this new rule is needed because without it a few molecules of Marlboro smoke might seep through two layers drywall and four inches of insulation and contaminate the apartment next door.
Secondhand smoke seeps through drywall and kills people who live in separately heated and ventilated apartments? Dictating what you do by yourself in your own home isn’t an invasion of privacy? What bullshit.
For a bunch of non-smokers, the San Rafael city council is sure blowing a lot of smoke up our asses.
One Rule For Them, Another Rule For Us
The ‘separate housing unit’carve-out will largely exempt San Rafael’s ruling class (and the city council) from having to live under the law they just passed.
San Rafael happens to be the county seat of ultra-expensive Marin County, just across the Golden Gate bridge from San Francisco. Census figures show that San Rafael has a population density of more than 2,500 people per square mile. Almost 49% of San Rafael’s 60,000 residents live in rental housing, and almost all of them are now prohibited from smoking in their own homes. That 49% doesn’t even include thousands more who live in condos, or in their own duplex. When you combine apartment and condo and duplex dwellers, way more than half of the population will now have the police at their door if they have a smoke at home.
Only the wealthiest San Rafaelitos, who happen to own their own detached single-family homes, are exempt from this new government intrusion. According to Zillow, the average price for a detached single-family home in San Rafael is $817,000. This is almost twice the $430,000 average price for condos and co-ops.
How many students and working stiffs can take out an $800,000 home loan without selling either both kidneys or several pounds of uncut methamphetamine? None of them. They have to leave their homes (and stand at least 20 feet from an entrance or window) to have a smoke.
How many of San Rafael’s upper crust might enjoy a Cohiba and a single-malt in their living room after dinner? Plenty. How clever of them to make sure the cops won’t mind.
‘The majestic equality of the law’ may prohibit the wealthy as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges, from begging in the streets, and from stealing bread, as Anatole France observed. But it still allows the wealthy to smoke in their $800,000 homes, while the rest of the San Rafael peasantry cannot.
Why This Matters
The ‘logic’ of the San Rafael smoking ban can be used to justify absolutely any nanny-state rule you could imagine. By combining a concern for ‘public health and safety’ with bad science (or no science at all, as in this case) governments could prohibit smoking, drinking, gambling, martial arts training, fried foods, popular music, video games, big trucks, Big Gulps, fast motorcycles, salt shakers and sugar bowls. In many of these cases, it has already tried.
We care because our guns will be banned first. And our knives. And magazines. And ammunition. But only for us, because the Dianne Feinsteins and Donald Trumps and Michael Bloombergs of this world will always have their own CCW permits and their (often taxpayer-funded) security details.
The only thing standing between them and us is the Second Amendment. Keep it strong.
News link here.
I’d try it. I can smell a nice juicy USC 1983 settlement in there.
This seems like it’s just ripe for bad publicity. Of course, someone will have to have their life turned upside down and be dragged through the court system for that to happen, but still…
Wow, dusty all of a sudden.
Wish I could have that. But I guess I’ll be happy when I get my rock island 1911 layaway paid off. Happy….but never satisfied.
Wow!, that is one fine firearm.
So even back then the gun companies were screwing the people.
This very well-written piece just goes to show the power of appealing to emotions. In fact, both writing contests have shown the power that a well-crafted emotional story can have for our side of this debate. Very few posters jump on the comment board and argue that a submission discussing legal nuances or crime statistics should win. A good story which touches our crusty, gun-owner hearts and causes us to complain about the amount dust in the air, those win. We need to remember that when it comes to trying to bring people over to our way of thinking of the Second Amendment. And, I am darn glad that this writer is on our side and not working for Bloomberg. He deserves an FN, even if he’ll have to dig up a 7-round mag for it.
I have half a mind to go visit just to stand in front of their city hall with a carton of Camel straights. Better yet a box of nice cigars….
May not be the best out there but certainly my favorite.
May it go another 100 years and become the 1st ray gun.
I don’t know why they have bothered to make this gun??
While Im sure its well built and a nice gun.
Too many out there that already fill this bill.
As a 1911 fan and owner of a RIA Compact.
I see no place for this one at its price point.
NY and NYC can shove it up their collective poops.
Id just move………………………………………
Hey wait I did.
the firing pin of my Rossi 92 seems to have no spring back action at all in fact it kind of goes in and out of its own free will.. is this a broken firing pin ?
Thanks for articulating your considered, full-of-shit opinion. HUMBUG.
Oh, and THIS:
“I support the Second Amendment. Period. No buts.”
LIAR.
Here’s the problem, Jim.
Gun rights is not a fight that will be resolved with one decision, it is one that will be fought and either won or lost hundreds of times.
Paper cuts, not artillery shells.
So, sure, the position of ‘pragmatic moderate’ seems perfectly reasonable. After all, shouldn’t there be SOME sort of regulation? Surely we don’t want people running around the streets with full auto MP5K’s, right?
And that’s where it always starts, with equivocation. Come on, who needs a gun that shoots more than one round per trigger pull? Come on, who needs a gun that shoots 30 times before it needs to be reloaded? Come on, who needs a gun that, that, that.
And there will always be those ‘pragmatic moderates’ in the middle of the debate making what they believe to be the rational case for common sense negotiation between the two parties where the side of gun rights always gives up a little, just not as much as the gun control crowd wants. Surely 20 rounds instead of 30 is plausible, right?
That’s what negotiation is, after all. Compromise.
That, Jim, is why people on the side of gun rights will always take after you or others who profess some interest in curbing gun rights, even when you think it makes sense.
Because we all know that’s not where it ends. The next Sandy Hook, the next Columbine, the next whatever… the day that tragedy occurs the same crew of people will be right back out with fresh signs hunting after some new bit of ‘compromise’.
There’s nothing about the absolute border of a nation that makes it somehow more valuable than the next foot inside it, but a country would be insane to allow a neighbor to annex it without fighting for that ground to the fullest extent of it’s power, lives lost over an ostensibly valueless periphery.
Because the land itself isn’t the point, it’s the principal of the thing. Everyone knows if someone can take a foot from you they’ll come back for the yard next. Then the mile. Then the whole thing.
Not an inch, Jim. Not in this, and not even to you.
Hoorah!
Amazing is all I have to say! It would be nice if someone put out a firearm that looked like that these days. Its like looking at a rare hand built car. You can see where the human factor came in to build a beautiful completed product.
Easy solution
Ban fire, no fire no smoke
How hard was that to solve
PS: should probably ban anything that smells at the same time, save even more tax payer enforcement $
Enforcement should be when smell inspector smells anything, identifies location of said smell, federal government (our $) provided MRAP with SWAT team will be driving through your front door
So, what are all the different interpretations of “shall not be infringed”? Just sayin’
If you are not in jail/prison/mental institution after a trial by a jury of your peers, and you have reached the age of 18, which seems to be when we’ve decided you’re a “real” citizen, then you have a right to buy, own, and carry whatever the eff you want. No license, no permit, no required training, no background check.
And what’s funny is, you seem to forget that we DON’T get this right from the Constitution…it is IN the Constitution to PROTECT the right we all have from government.
Oh my God. This is disappointing and not a little disturbing. Lost all credibility in my book.
Yet another “I support the 2A but…” post. I grit my teeth when some arrogant anti is trying to fleece me with one of these but to see this from a TTAG editor is severely disheartening. Their definitions of “reasonable” and ours are not compatible. Never will be. You know this. And your definition of a 2A absolutist is textbook strawman argumentation.
I hold nothing against you as a person Mr. Barrett but this article was best left untyped.
I guess it might be notable if she was wearing it during the shoot, but does someone need to clear their warming apparel by the thought police before they put it on before ever handing an evil gun again?
Is a police officer or service member “allowed” to wear one before going on duty?
Wow, I wonder if all the VT students realize how insensitive they are being should they head out to the range… Ever!
Blacksburg is located in pretty rural Virginia in the Appalachian mountains. I was gonna ask how many VT students spent the last few weekends in tree stands?
Gorgeous…perfection!
extremely well articulated. thank you.
I agree with Jim Barrett.
Yes, even the 2nd Amendment is not completely unlimited. It never was, never will be, and should not be.
However, the current restrictions on the 2nd Amendment are way beyond anything The Framers could have imagined, or would have accepted.
Imagine this conversation between an anti-gunner and me:
Anti: “The people who wrote the 2nd Amendment never intended for it to be unlimited.”
Me: “I agree.
(Strange look on the Anti’s face)
Me: “So the big disagreement between you and me concerns the amount of restrictions we want on the 2nd Amendment, right?”
Anti: “I guess so.”
Me: “So how much can we restrict the 2nd Amendment, without violating it? Where do we draw the line, and say this much is reasonable, but that much is too restrictive? That’s the big question, right?”
Anti: Right. Now we’re starting to get somewhere! Where would you draw ‘the line’?”
Me: “Turn around. Can you see that line way back there, about 90 years back there? That is where I would draw the line.”
I think this encapsulates what Jim was saying, and I agree with that completely.
Slow news day, Huffington Post?
I went to VT. I have no idea why she is wearing one of my alma maters hoodies, to my knowledge she didn’t attend and has no affiliation with the university. Anyway, what does it say when I wear a VT shirt, hoodie, pullover, zip up, hat (of which I have many of each) or anything else VT related when I head to the range? Nothing, in my opinion. Are all the alumni of the university supposed to lay down our arms because this incident took place where we went to college? This makes no sense as usual, just the mainstream media’s brand of sensationalism at its finest. I only wish more people had been armed that day, maybe the shooter would not have ruined so many lives. We are Virginia Tech! And I for one am proud to have attended, to be a Hokie and even more proud to exercise my second amendment rights as protected in our Constitution. I’m just sad our media and our govt. sees our founding document as something to be destroyed instead of respected and defended as their oath would suggest.
[supposed to be a reply to Bova immediately above]
Nah. You smoke in your own house with a patio door open. You extinguish them in an ashtray on your patio. If anyone complains, you were smoking outside.
As to the subject of guns and self defense.
Always have a second gun and out of state CCW permit , stashed in a secure location.States with purchase and ownership permits will very likely seize and either suspend or revoke your CCW/FOID /Purchase Permit until the case is concluded.That makes it difficult to buy a replacement gun-and depending on the ventilated bad guys’ local connections, you may need one with a quickness .
Point two:don’t carry a gun you’re not prepared to lose.Leave granddads WWII 1911 in the safe, and pack something you don’t mind losing.You may emotionally love hauling your $4K custom pistol , but can you walk away from it if some liberal azzhat DA orders it melted down ?
Last point:you never know where you have to defend yourself.Anti gun DAs and Police CLEOs are spread out all over America like sprinkles.I live in a pro 2A county ,one where I know the city attorney and chief of police.I doubt I’ll deal with shennanigans here.
Two hours north in the Big City and it’s a different situation-an area with a totally different culture regarding guns.Fat lotta good knowing my hometown DAs gonna do me if I drop a scumbag on MLK drive in Progressiville, USA.
This article is just regurgitating anti gunrights advocates lies and distortions. I expected more from TTAG.
Great celebrity camouflage, Britney. I would walk right past you in that outfit, without giving you a second look.
so any cops here, would it make a difference to you if I am calling out my movements before I make them?
what if I am in a situation where I believe I need to remain armed until police arrive? I live quite a bit out from any town, and sherriff does not patrol near me at all.
Is there a filter to ensure a don’t give Jim any more views to feed his ego on future posts?
Some people are simply gun-snobs… they are ALL ABOUT whatever is popular… after all “38 Billion sold” can’t be wrong… surely McDonald’s must make the best hamburgers!
You gave up trying to talk to them long ago… they can’t figure out why those old guys are down there at the far end of the range shooting those archaic M1 Garands at targets 200 yards away… off-hand…
Meanwhile, those internet experts and video game warriors… well, they are still trying to get their tacticool 46 zillion candlepower flashlight aimed-in at 25 yards…
I love my model 64… I hardly ever use it… maybe once every couple years… what’s to practice? With what do I need to re-familiarize myself. I have other guns to practice my stance, trigger control, presentation, timing, posture, etc. So, my 64 looks brand-new… it feels great in my hand, nestles down there and makes its self comfortable, the trigger is smoooooooooth as silk… It’s just that it’s… well… boring… no muss, no fuss, no drama. On single action… just an easy touch sends the projectile to its mark, the target right next to the one the guy with the AK is shooting at… and, not all that much difference in the size of the groups.
My old 64 will never rust, the finish will never wear off… and, its value keeps going up… someday, my great grand children may need it to help defend their liberty… and, if they do, it will still be working just fine…
Did I tell you about my Ruger GP100 ???
“RF has stated on numerous occasions that he believes that the Second Amendment prohibits any kind of gun control laws. ”
It’s not a belief, it’s a fact. Try…I dunno…reading the damn Constitution? Seriously, what mental gymnastics are you doing to twist “shall not be infringed” into anything other than “shall not be infringed”?
“As I said earlier, RF’s opinion on the specific meaning of 2A is no more and no less valid than Michael Bloomberg’s opinion.”
Again, read the damn Constitution. Rob’s points are things that actually exist in the text of the Second Amendment. Bloomberg’s delusions do not exist in the document at all.
“But I don’t think that just anyone should be able to walk around with anything they want whenever they want wherever they want. I’ve taken a fair number of firearm classes and I can’t tell you the number of dumb-ass things people do with guns.”
So you approve of licensing to vote, have children, voice political views, etc? I’m going to assume your answer is “no” – which means that you’re full of shit. You do not believe in right to bear arms, you believe in the government granted privilege to bear what politicians decide you can bear.
“Administered correctly, the training would not be a real barrier to ownership.”
Annnnnnnnnnnnd that’s where I stop reading. Seriously, screw you and your disdain for people’s rights. I hope you get a SWAT team smashing down your door in the middle of the night to take away the guns that you’re “privileged” to own and ruin your life in the process.
And yet, its the libtards who (falsely) trumpet freedom of choice. What a joke.
I love, love, my Norinco Uzi clone. It has been 100% reliable, and it eats everything, including steal cased cheap Russian 9mm ammo. It is also very accurate. All that being said it is a range toy, and heavy. But it is also a crowd pleaser. I would love to get a full auto UZI, but alas I do not have the 6 to 8k it would require.
Okay. Another Sturmwaffle Geshictengruple rifle!!
Last time I got Sturmwaffles they didn’t come with any syrup. They were also really damn crunchy, which the syrup definitely could have been helping with.
Someone please take this abomination of a post and turn it into something actually good.
Ignore the letters, then shoot the pork off the porch.
Look at that, polishing after roll-marking. Who would think of something like that?
Seriously, that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Right up there above the Mauser pistol, which, although it doesn’t have the same level of finish quality, is a mechanical masterpiece.
This may sound dumb. But is Britney even allowed to possess a firearm? She was involuntarily committed at least once for mental health issues.
I may be wrong, but I seem to recall her now longtime boyfriend is a Hokie…not sure when he graduated from VA Tech but I am pretty sure, I’ve seen pictures of them together before like shopping or whatever and the guy is always wearing some VA Tech garb, hat or shirt. Don’t ask me why I know this crap. I blame my wife who is celebrity-obsessive. God help me…
And yes, I agree, she is looking better these days…
Awesome. I find this to be quite valuable. Thanks!
She looks like a fugly middle age male attempting to impersonate a female.
I wondering how long before this is used to erode what is left of the 4th amendment; when the odor of a legal product is evidence of a criminal act you pretty much have nothing left of the expectation of security or privacy in your home.
I’m also wondering why no one hit on the actual solution to the problem of your neighbors smoking; civil suit. If you can prove harm then you ought to prevail (good luck with that).
No matter what your position is on smoking (and it’s really not the point) this law stinks.
Go ahead and convince the lawmakers, because you’ll never change the laws of physics.Particularly the portion regarding KE of a moving object.
Isn’t it wonderful to openly “explore more philosophical, in-a-perfect world” positions, Jim?
(By the way, I would defend your 1st Amendment rights to do just that with my life if I had to, as much as it pains me to read your rather untimely theoretical drivel, on my favorite firearm blog none-the-less).
Would I like for all firearm owners to be safety-trained and for truly, violently mentally ill people not to be able to ‘access’ firearms to go on shooting sprees with? Of course, Jim.
Unfortunately, as you note: “In the real world, of course, it doesn’t work that way’.
So why the hell are we even talking about it again????????
In case you haven’t been paying attention (maybe spending too much time with that M&P air gun?) , there is no middle ground anymore, Jim.
You saw what their ‘middle-ground’ proposals were …their ideas of ‘common-sense compromises’.
You know full well you cannot trust Diane Feinstein and Co. to ensure that anything would be “administered correctly”, let alone some brand new mechanism such as a ‘training’ or ‘mental health’ ‘requirement’.
“And so, we ARE left with two camps”, Jim. And when it comes down to it, you’re in our camp – whether you like it or not.
All those little thoughts of “fair” and open “conversations” got wiped away when they felt unafraid enough (after Sandy Hook) to finally reveal their true intentions, their true vision of a ‘middle-ground compromise’….their blindly emotional, completely devoid-of-logic ideas of how we should ‘react’ just to show that we were ‘doing something’ (even though all it would do is punish us law-abiding citizens, strip away our freedoms and result in almost zero effect on reducing gun violence).
And so why exactly again do I (as a realist) have to spend two minutes trying to show YOU that somehow I’M not ‘crazy’ (the whole crux of your dissertation)? Maybe it’s the other way around?
The “middle ground” you speak now more resembles the DMZ along the 38th parallel… strewn with land mines and targeted by snipers and artillery ready to fire for effect…. And you just walked right out into it, whistling and reading flowery poetry.
Suck it up, Jim. Just like in a war, sides form. And on our side are people who are on the far side of the spectrum in the way they interpret “shall not be infringed” – just as there are people who “in a perfect world” would at least like those people to be safety trained.
Boy, I wish we lived in a perfect world Jim. But we don’t. So shut your pie hole and get back in the trench.
Regarding the second paragraph, the scripture says “faith comes from hearing”. So yes, it’s worth speaking the truth even if you’re the only one listening.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
Open carrying at my family dinner
Glock is late to the game with small variants like the M&P Shield and XDS already on the market (and doing very well).
But it will still SELL if it is door #1.
I can never read one of these sad stories with out thinking of the Mark twain quotation. well over a hundred years ago these were going on and i bet in the age before guns that crossbows were going off andswords were swinging themselves
Don’t meddle with old unloaded firearms. They are the most deadly and unerring things that have ever been created by man. You don’t have to take any pains at all with them; you don’t have to have a rest, you don’t have to have any sights on the gun, you don’t have to take aim, even. No, you just pick out a relative and bang away, and you are sure to get him. A youth who can’t hit a cathedral at thirty yards with a Gatling gun in three-quarters of an hour, can take up an old empty musket and bag his mother every time at a hundred. Think what Waterloo would have been if one of the armies had been boys armed with old rusty muskets supposed not to be loaded, and the other army had been composed of their female relations. The very thought of it makes me shudder.
– Advice to Youth speech, 4/15/1882
http://www.twainquotes.com/Guns.html
Fire Departments are also paramilitary organizations. The have uniforms, a rank structure, and are even organized into battalions and divisions. I have yet to hear a fireman say I shouldn’t be allowed to own a fire extinguisher, large diameter hose, or even a fire truck.
I’ve yet to hear a fireman or Soldier use term “civilian” with contempt (other than the terms DA Civilian or Civilian contractor, mostly because they do soldiers’ jobs, usually for more money).
I’ve been a volunteern fireman, a deputy sheriff, and a soldier. The military is supposed to be militarized. Fire departments are barely militarized, other than when I was a Lieutenant I got to paint my helmet red, I got a cool bugle on my badge, and I got to be in charge of the three other guys on the engine with me. The only one who got addressed by his rank was the Chief, but I think his first name might have been Chief, I was always afraid to ask.
Three years ago the battalion I commanded was ordered to run a live fire MOUT range for some law enforcement agencies. The briefed operations orders, just like I did. They talked about actions on the objective and killing people, just like I did. The talked about targets and collateral damage. They acted like an infantry platoon getting ready to take down an objective. The scenario? Serving a warrant. They were not talking about serving a warrant on a suspect, who if I remember correctly have rights, and in some cases kids and wives living with them. They were talking about taking down an objective. See the difference?
Cops should not be attacking objectives except under the most extreme of circumstances. The problem with SWAT is if you have it, you might as well use it. Much like when I was a fireman we rolled an engine company rather than a brush truck for dumpster and car fires. Over kill, but we had this $300,000 toy, why not use it. We have an MRAP, sniper, and these cool flash bangs. Why not use them?