In March, Iraqi war vet and current LEO Aaron Weiss from Poughkeepsie, New York spoke at the Dutchess County Legislature on a motion to repeal NY’s SAFE Act. After taking the governor and legislators to task for how the act was passed, he got down to business: “Another issue is the insistence of certain people who stand on the graves of dead children and challenge those that disagree to say it to the parent’s faces. Well, I, for one, will pick up that gauntlet… I’ll say to anyone’s face my right is more important than your dead, because I fought for it first hand… I did more things than people can imagine. So, yeah, my right trumps your dead.” He challenged those in the legislature who voted for the bill to join him and other LEOs on the front lines as they tried to enforce the laws. “…if a clause was in this bill that required you, the elected leadership, our elected leaders to go in the door first, I bet you would not be so steadfast.” Bravo sir, bravo. And elsewhere . . .
Governor Dan Malloy is trying to make sure there are fewer carry permits issued in Connecticut. Peter Kuck, the longest-serving member of the Board of Firearms Permit Examiners, is extremely pro-gun and votes to overturn permit denials more than any other board member. Gov Dan doesn’t like that one little bit. So he sent a letter to the board asking them to provide the names of people to replace Kuck. Past governors have had no success trying to replace him and Kuck is sure he’ll weather this one too.
The Huntsville (Alabama) Stars minor league baseball team was planning to host a “Second Amendment Night” promotion on Wednesday. They were raffling off certificates to be exchanged for a Ruger American Rifle with a scope, a Ruger 22-45 MKII, or a Ruger 10/22 Takedown, redeemable at a local gun store that was co-sponsoring the give-away. As hoped, the promotion received widespread national publicity. Note that these sentences are in the past tense. Yesterday the team announced, after they “heard from both the Southern League and Minor League Baseball headquarters regarding the promotion,” that they’ve canceled it. I wonder if they also changed the name of the promotion to “Roll Over and Surrender Night.”
Colorado pawn shops have found themselves caught in the middle of the state’s magazine ban. Apparently magazines were hot items to pawn – most likely along with rifles – and some shops are holding 50 – 100 of them. Since as of yesterday it’s now illegal to buy, sell or transfer “high capacity” magazines, the lenders are now stuck with them. Even if the former owners come in with cash in hand, the pawn shops can’t return the magazines without breaking the new law. They’re caught between violating the contract they have with their customers by refusing to return their merchandise, or breaking the state law by transferring the magazines back to them. Anyone want to place any bets on how many more “unintended consequences” like this are going to rear their ugly heads in the coming days?
The Fourth of July parade in Belton, Texas this year will be gun-less. The honor guard and Civil War re-creators that normally march in the parade won’t be carrying their rifles this year. And – surprise – this time it’s not because of asinine state laws. It’s because the Chamber of Commerce’s insurance company refuses to provide “any coverage for firearm-related accidents” this year. Because, you know, all those evil guns are likely to start firing on the crowd on their own, even if they’re not loaded. Or operable.
I guess I need to get myself an iPhone so I can take advantage of all the neat gadgets designed for them. Last week it was the “Grip & Shoot,” a pistol grip handle for using the phone as a camera. Now, fresh off the boat from China, we have the “Handgun Style Plating Skinning Plastic Shell for iPhone 5” that adds a real pistol grip to the phone. And if you’re a knife person, you can get the “Knife Handle Style Plating Skinning Plastic Shell for iPhone 5.” Either way you have to wonder how long before someone calls the cops when they see a kid playing with a weapon while their parents ignore it.
If you’re really into multitasking with your iPhone, you need the Yellow Jacket. It’s a case that not only protects your iPhone from impacts, but also provides a long-life battery and a built-in 650,000 volt stun gun. The video on the site talks about how nifty it is, but never shows how it operates when set to stun. The line for the “my kid zapped himself while he was playing Angry Birds/this thing shorted my grandfather’s pacemaker” lawsuits forms to the right.
Inspired by a display of bulletproof plexiglass in a store, Deborah Bay asked the Public Safety Institute of Houston to pump a few rounds of various sizes into some plexiglass for her. Then she used various lighting techniques to illuminate them and photographed them against a black background. The results are found at the smithsonian.com. Of course, she can’t just let it go at that and has to interject an anti-gun message: “Only a small amount of imagination is needed to realize the impact any of these bullets would have on muscle and bone. I just want people to think about what these bullets can do.” She must mean doing things like protecting us from the bad guys. Right?