gun control/Hoosier

Indiana Empty Holster protest

Posted on by Caleb

The Lafayette Journal and Courier has an article about the empty holster protest that was conducted at the local community college and Purdue University.  Additionally, on their front page they have a poll up about whether you favor relaxing concealed weapons prohibitions on college campuses.  Right now, the “No CCW for students” are winning about 66% to 34%, so go over there and vote.

The actual article on the student protest is pretty much par for the course, the J&C does a half decent job of reporting the protest, presenting both pro-gun and anti-gun sides in a relatively balanced light.  My biggest issue is that they and other MSM outlets keep repeating this line:

If anyone could carry a firearm on campus, Mishler said, how would police separate legally licensed students from an assailant?

Uh, generally speaking, the guy running around murdering people is probably the assailant.  You won’t know who the law-abiding armed citizen is until his or her life is threatened and they have no other option than to resort to force.  Color me crazy, but people who go through the hoops and long, long, long, waiting period to get a carry permit in Indiana aren’t going to be the ones committing mass murder, they’re going to be the ones who go to class, socialize with their friends, and you never know they’re armed unless that person’s life is imminent danger of death or grievous bodily harm.

Thanks to reader Rob K. for the heads up.

Hoosier

Spotlight: Indiana Primary

Posted on by Caleb

Thanks to Hillary’s 10 point win over Barack in the Pennsylvania primary, the spotlight is on Indiana’s primary for the first time in my short memory, or for that matter in my wife’s long memory. This is the first installment in what is going to be a lot of coverage as we lead up to the May 6th primary.

CNN’s website has a pretty good election center coverage, including a cute little breakdown of the “relevant” information regarding my state’s upcoming primary. However, there’s a lot of information that their Indiana Primary web page doesn’t cover.

Obama, from neighboring Illinois, has been endorsed by former 9/11 Commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton — an ex-U.S. representative from Indiana. Clinton — who was raised in Illinois — has won endorsement from Indiana’s popular former governor, Sen. Evan Bayh.

People here loved Evan Bayh when he was governor, and even my lifelong Republican friends from the state said that he did right by Hoosiers. Amongst Indiana’s Democrats, many of whom are of the “church-going gun owning” variety, an endorsement by Sen. Bayh carries a lot of weight. In fact, had the Democrats run a Richardson-Bayh ticket for the presidency, I would have voted for it in a heartbeat. Now, with Obama being from Chicago, there is a good change that he’ll attract the votes of a lot of people from The Region, who like to act like they’re from Chicago. Region politics run pretty blue, so Obama stands a chance to pull pretty well in that area.

Indiana’s House is narrowly controlled by Democrats who have engaged Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels in legislative battles including a proposal to privatize the state’s lottery.

A lot of those Democrats are “blue-dog” Dems. The kind that vote for the right to keep and bear arms, and are genuinely interested in protecting small business and farms. That’s not to say that there aren’t some hard left types in the Indiana House, but as my friend said “A Democrat in Indiana is a Republican in California”.

Three of Indiana’s GOP incumbents in the U.S. House lost their seats to Democrats in 2006 — an unusual turn of events for Indiana. The turnover was blamed in part on an anti-incumbency mood among voters, dissatisfaction with Republicans and the Iraq war.

That was odd, actually. I know that the rep from my district kept his seat, but Hamilton County is a pretty Republican stronghold. Off the top of my head, I want to say that one of the reps who lost their seat was from the Fort Wayne area, which is Paul Helmke’s old stomping grounds.

No Democratic presidential candidate has won Indiana since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Very Red State. But honestly, we have two Democrat governors that I can remember, so it’s not that the Democrats don’t have people that could win Indiana, but they insist on running the hard left candidates like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I would almost guarantee that if the Democrats would run a true moderate like Evan Bayh or Bill Richardson, the Indiana vote would become a lot more complicated.

Keep it right here for plenty of Indiana primary coverage, including some special coverage podcasts and other exclusive content.

handguns/revolvers

Taurus Gun Porn

Posted on by Caleb

I am practically a spokesman for Taurus firearms.  I love their guns, and spent a lot of time at their SHOT ’08 booth acting like a silly fanboy. I own and regularly use 3 different Taurus firearms, my little Taurus family.

First is my everyday carry gun, a Taurus Tracker in .45 ACP with a 2 inch barrel. Click all pitures for fullsize.

My other Taurus revolver is another Taurus Tracker, this time in .357 Magnum and with a 4 inch barrel and 7 shot cylinder. This is a fantastic “general purpose revolver”, I’ll carry it sometimes and am planning on using it for the upcoming pin shoot.

The final (for now) Taurus in my collection is a Taurus PT92, which is basically a copy of the M9 Beretta, but with a couple of key changes. Notably, it gets rid of the accursed slide mounted safety on the Beretta 92 series, a “feature” which I’ve always hated. The safety on the PT92 is frame mounted, and allows for “cocked-and-locked” carry.  The PT92 is my “nightstand gun”, I love the 17 round magazine capacity and the familiarity I have with platform.

And here are all three of The Brothers together, one happy little family of Brazilian handgun goodness.

blogs/humor

Overhead at Obamaland

Posted on by Caleb

From Sebastian:

Obama: Hey man, you told me if you guys endorsed me, all those crackers outside of Philadelphia would cast their vote for me. What the hell?

Bob: Look Barry, we’ll help you out in Indiana, for sure. My buddy Paul tells me we’re sure to deliver Fort Wayne. And there’s Gary Barry, don’t forget about Gary!

There’s more, read the rest of it.

Uncategorized

CNN calls PA for Hillary

Posted on by Caleb

CNN is projecting that Hillary will win the Pennsylvania primary over Barack Obama. The big question right now is how much she’s going to win by, because if she can pull a double digit win out in PA the talking heads say that it will give her lots of “momentum” going in to my state of Indiana.

I was going to live blog with updates and such, but you know what? I’m watching a great ballgame right now, my Red Sox are tied with the Angels in the bottom of the 8th, and I’d much rather watch this than CNN’s insipid election coverage.

Oh man, Dustin Pedroia just hit a SHOT down the third base line, Jacoby scored all the way from first base. This is way better than the Democrat primary.

Back to politics, I guess yelling “Hopeychangey” wasn’t enough for Barack to overcome Hillary’s imaginary job experience.  This does set the stage for Indiana though, as Barack is already in my state beginning his run up for the May 6th primary date which Indiana shares with North Carolina.  As I’ve mentioned before, this is the first time in recent memory that the Indiana primary has actually been relevant.  Hillary does have a lot of appeal to the traditional blue-collar Democrat demographic here, but on the flip side Obama pretty much owns Indiana’s sizable college communities in West Lafayette, South Bend, and Bloomington (especially those dirty hippies in Bloomington – ed).  It seems that calling rural gun owners in PA “bitter” didn’t work out too well for Obama there; one wonders if he’ll pull a similar gaffe in Indiana which is a pretty rural state.

Baseball: Youkilis just popped out to end the inning, but the Sox are back up by a run going into the top of the 9th.  It’s the top of the ninth now, and Papelbon is in the game.  He’s facing some good hitters from the Angels, but hey, it’s Pap.  Also, they’re playing “Shipping out to Boston” by Dropkick Murphys on the P.A. system in Fenway – I love that song.

Politics: It seems that Obama’s downfall was his inability to motivate the traditional blue-collar Democrat base – the people that belong to unions, go to church, and own guns.  That’s a decent enough description of a lot of the Democrats in Indiana as well.   I think that Hillary will likely win in Indiana, barring a pretty impressive stunt by Obama.  However, due to the significance of the upcoming Indiana primary, I’m going to be running a lot of coverage for it, which will begin on Wednesday.

Baseball: That’s the ballgame, Pap strikes out two and induces a popup.

blogs/gun control

The hard left: Ultimate Authoritarian

Posted on by Caleb

There’s a thread at DailyKos where a liberal (who will soon be a libertarian) is defending the right to keep and bear arms, and doing a pretty damn good job of it, I’d like to say.  Of course, he’s taking quite the pounding in the comments section because god forbid that people have firearms, but quite happily there are also a lot of liberals that are affirming an individual right to keep and bear arms.  If they could just get their party to run a guy like Bill Richardson…but I digress.

As I was wading through the hip-deep muck that is the comments on DailyKos, I noticed one comment in particular which perfectly exemplified the left-wing authoritarian mindset that we so often see.

The day blogs, or womens’ right to vote, or the right to peaceful assembly find a way to start killing thousands of people each year then I’ll start asking whether we need to further define how a person utilizes that right (albeit without denying it wholly).

Translated – “We respect your rights up to the point where the exercise of liberty becomes a little too messy and makes us squeamish, then we restrict the hell out of them”.

Liberty for its own sake is sort of a lost concept for a lot of these people, isn’t it?  Can you imagine if a Republican said “we respect your right to free speech, unless that free speech is about something we don’t like”?  The left would probably blow a gasket.  But when they say that it’s okay to restrict liberties in the name of safety, everyone on their side sagely nods their had as if some great wisdom has just been passed (note – that is a broad generalization, I know not all self-identifying liberals are authoritarian pricks) and they all go merrily on their way.

H/T Unclesaurus Rex

Uncategorized

My stupid cats

Posted on by Caleb

For the five of you that have asked, here is a picture of our cats.

The white and black chap with his leg up in the air like a retard is Malcolm, who is quite likely a dog in a clever disguise if his behavior is any indicator.  The darker colored cat with the vaguely pissed off expression is Inara, who only wants to sit in my lap when I’m A) blogging, or B) playing video games.

Additionally, they’re excellent home-defense animals, because they would hear an intruded and go absolutely ape-shit long before my lousy ears would pick them up.

And yes, they are named after characters from Firefly.  My coat is kind of a brownish color, after all.

shotguns

BAG Day update

Posted on by Caleb

I’ve got the receiver, and I just ordered the forearm off EBay for the Remington Model 11.  Now, I have a question for the shotgun experts out there regarding a stock and barrel for this thing.  I asked our resident general gun knowledge expert and she wasn’t 100% sure, so I’ll ask the lazywebs in hopes of an answer.

I know that the Remington 11 is a licensed copy roughly of the Browning Auto-5 shotgun.  I have had a hard time finding a barrel and buttstock online for the Remington 11, so I’m wondering if a buttstock made for an Auto-5 is going to fit my gun; and the same question for a 20 gauge barrel.  If anyone knows the answer beyond a shadow of a doubt, drop me a comment or email.  My email address is in the “contact” link up above.

Uncategorized

Obama on the Daily Show

Posted on by Caleb

Just got done watching Captain Hope Obama on the Daily Show; which I haven’t really watched in years, and for some reason I seem to recall it being a lot more funny that it was this time.

Honestly, it really wasn’t that interesting, because everyone there, including Jon Stewart was drinking the Obamaide from the punch bowl of hope.  The thing that struck me about the whole interview was that you do have to give Obama credit for one thing, the man knows how to play to his base.  He was very smooth, laughed at all the right moments, had a couple of good one-liners himself, it’s no wonder that people are constantly fawning over a platform built on insubstantial claims of “hope” and “change”.

I think the most frustrating thing for me is that people can’t see through this guy – I mean, it’s obvious that Hillary is a harpy, and that McCain is kind of angry, but how come no one is calling bullshit on Obama yet?  He’s making promises that sound like the sort of things you’d tell a small child to keep them quiet so they don’t bother you while you’re “doing grown-up stuff”.