Free In Idaho!

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church.  It was the opening salvo of the Reformation.

Sola Scriptura - Scripture Alone
Solus Christus - Christ Alone
Sola Gratia - Grace Alone
Sola Fide - Faith Alone
Soli Deo Gloria - The Glory of God Alone
 

The Gun Nut over at Field and Stream has printed an article from Fred Thompson concerning the United Nations and their demand for all nations to disarm their citizens.

Last year, the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights declared that international human rights law requires all nations to adopt strict gun control laws. These “minimum” provisions are much more restrictive than any of those on the books anywhere in the U.S. and would almost certainly violate the Second Amendment of our Constitution.

Besides concluding that all nations are obligated under international human rights law to control the small arms and light weapons to which its civilian population has access, the UN report remarkably denied the existence of any human right to self-defense, evidently overlooking the work of Hugo Grotius, the 17th century scholar credited as the founder of international law, who wrote, “It is to be observed that [the] Right of Self-Defence, arises directly and immediately from the Care of our own Preservation, which Nature recommends to every one. . . ,” and that this right is so primary, that it cannot be denied on the basis that it is not “expressly set forth.”

There are so many issues on the table in the upcoming elections, and so few citizens paying attention to them. The dinosaur media can keep a lot of the people focused on “baby bonds”, mortgage relief, global warming, and who has the most or least scary religious beliefs, but they never try to inform or educate anyone concerning where we are in the world and who is trying to take our rights and national sovereignty away. Don’t laugh… do you remember the flap over American troops answering to foreign commanders during the Clinton presidency? Do you think, after seeing Obama dancing with Ellen on TV, that he’s the one to defend our national sovereignty? Do you think Mrs Bill Clinton’s allegience is to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?

Kyoto Treaty, Law of the Sea Treaty, International Human Rights, disarm your citizens, Islamo-fascism… do you ever think to check out what a candidate says about the relationship between the United Nations and the United States?

So now the UN wants to disarm civilians? Where was the UN when the massacres in Rwanda occurred? What did the UN do to protect the victims of ethnic massacres in Bosnia? Disarming civilians under the guise of international human rights law will only lead to more such genocides by ensuring that civilians can never defend themselves! It would be funny if it weren’t so perverse.

Thankfully, the Framers of our Constitution recognized this potential peril to our liberty, and enshrined in our Second Amendment the more basic right of self-defense. The U.N. can say what it likes about other countries’ citizens’ possession of small arms being a violation of human rights law, but so long as the United States is a sovereign nation governed by its Constitution, its words will have no effect here. And I am glad for it.

Great, as far as it goes. I’m glad too. But I, as a citizen can’t do much about it except to vote for a candidate who WILL do something about it. Fred sounds like he gets it. But he didn’t say what he’d do about it. Fred, WHAT WILL YOU DO to ensure that “so long as the United States is a sovereign nation governed by its Constitution, its words will have no effect here”?

Well I’m driving to a meeting this morning, and the morning talk guys on the radio news channel  are more annoying than normal, so I decide that it is a perfect opportunity to practice my duck talking.   Just happen to have the lanyard with my call right there in the cupholder too, imagine that.

I should tell you that my bedside book right now is a collection of short duck hunting stories.  I fall asleep reading about guys who “raised the call to his lips and proceeded to call them in, sounding like a willing mallard hen reading from the menu at Le Maison”… wow!  Lines like that are really inspiring.  I want to be able to call like that.  Right now, I sound more like a 5th grader with a terrible head cold… I’m as likely to call in a school nurse as a flock of ducks.  I need to practice.  That’s why the call is in the cupholder of the truck, where I won’t bother anyone.  I’d never practice at home… I hate it when my sweetie laughs at me.

So I turn off the radio and reach down to grab the call.  Cup my hand around it, bring it to my lips and let ‘em have it.  Hey, this works pretty good.  Bring it to my lips again, and drive right by the local cop as he pulls up to the main road.  Oh hell, he’s seen me now.  I’ll bet he thinks it’s a bong.  Crap!  I never noticed how much these things look like bongs before!  I keep looking in the rear view, as the cop pulls out on the street behind me and starts moving up.  You know that heart pound you get when you know you’re not guilty but it might have “looked suspicious”?  I imagine I can just hear the cop asking himself, “should I pull this old grey-haired guy with the suit over for the bong, or should I wait for a big cloud of smoke first?”

But this is an Idaho cop.  He pulls up beside me, sees me quacking away on a duck call, gives me a smile and a wave, then goes around me.  I love it here.  And a few more practice sessions, I might start sounding like a willing mallard hen, with a horrible head cold.

Swinging by Ryan Horsley’s Red’s Trading Post Blog, he brought my attention to this article from the Magic Valley Times-News about Idaho trying to attract more firearms related manufacturers. 

..When it comes to guns, Idaho economic development officials are starting to see green.

The Gem State, eager to attract new jobs and industry, is positioning itself as the best possible home for the nation’s 200 small arms manufacturers - companies worth a collective $2 billion per year but unwelcome in many of the states that have long been their home.

It appears that the attraction is mutual.

“Like any smart business, gun manufacturers are looking for places that facilitate low operational costs, such as business taxes, utility costs and a good place for employees to live,” said Richard Schelowitz, an analyst for AFC, which monitors the firearms industry.

“But unlike some businesses, this industry is also growing weary of regulations and public perceptions that might make it more difficult - and therefore more costly - to do business.”

Almost by accident, Idaho has created a business environment that gives gun makers exactly the tax and regulatory climate they like.

Interesting article.  But I have to agree with one of the commenters over at Red’s… the state should also be just as eager to be friendly to retailers and dealers, even to the point of going to bat with them against BATF for what many consider harrassment, or worse.  I’m not talking Cabelas sized retailers, who got a generous tax advantage when they moved to Idaho. 

I’m talking about the small dealers, who don’t have the deep pockets, political friends, or huge customer bases (read that “constituencies”) that outfits like Cabelas or Wal-Mart can call on.

..”In the ’90s, gun control campaigns turned their focus from regulating the sale of firearms to regulating the manufacturing of firearms as a way to slow the trickle of guns into the civilian market,”said Schelowitz, the industry analyst.
“Right now, I don’t think you are seeing a mass exodus of large manufacturers from states that are imposing tighter regulations, but some of the smaller and more mobile ones are leaving. If the trend continues you should expect to see even the large ones make the move to states that are perceived as ‘gun friendly.”

Outright gun bans haven’t been an effective tool, but the hassling of dealers by the BATF and the legislatures of neighboring states has been effective at reducing the number of gun dealers.  Everyone thinks of Idaho as an outdoor oriented, gun friendly state, and in many ways it is.  But the political BS goes on even here.  Go see a couple of Ryan Horsley’s posts to get an idea of how serious the loss of dealers has actually been.  That, and we have a couple of neighboring states that favor politicians who might, if they could, pass the same kind of leftist gun laws and nonsense we’ve grown to expect from New York or Washington D.C.  Don’t believe me?  The attitude is there, as this article from the Seattle PI earlier this year suggests

..In Seattle, where aggravated assaults with guns rose 19 percent last year, Mayor Greg Nickels and police Chief Gil Kerlikowske are urging legislators to pass bills regulating the sale and storage of guns.

But Democrats in the House and the Senate say their priorities lie elsewhere — increasing funding for education and health care.

And Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said she’s uncertain a push for tougher gun regulations would do much good.

“There are a lot of things to consider,” Brown said. “We still have open borders. Absent federal legislation … people can still walk right across the border and buy guns in Idaho.”

Wild and wooley Idaho, just waiting to sell all you Seattle gangbangers a gun… right.  But in all seriousness, I’m happy to hear that Idaho is courting firearms related businesses.  It’s almost a patriotic duty I’d say.

“This is My Father’s World“.

Rasmussen will be adding Governor Mike Huckabee to its polling results.  Good showing for Huckabee, and encouraging for those who think we ought to hear from more than just the top two the party want to give us.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows—for the first time ever–Mike Huckabee moving into the top four among those seeking the Republican Presidential Nomination.

Guiliani holds the top spot in this poll, with Thompson in second. For some reason, McCain holds third spot, 2 points ahead of Huckabee in fourth. What’s up with McCain? Dumping on Hillary’s Woodstock Museum earmark, and saying he was tied up back then, doesn’t seem like enough to grab him third spot. And Romney being 1 point behind Huckabee is surprising. But then, I believe this is the daily poll, and we’re still 3 months before anyone starts voting… interesting to watch though.

UPDATE:  it was brought to my attention that YouTube seems to have squicked all the “unauthorized” copies of the trailer.  Whatever, so I relinked to the “Official, including the commercial” version.   Boggles the mind, it does, because you can only watch it on FOX… you’d think they wouldn’t need another commercial, what with all the bloggers linking and embedding it… corporate bozos.

……………………. 

I just found this over at Hot Air (thank you AP).

After last season, I gotta tell you, I was burnt out on 24.  But this trailer is enough to REALLY get me going again.

“I can handle Bauer”

“Torture him if you have to”

“TONY!”

Oh yeah, I’m hooked for another season.

If this story is true, it is pathetic, and shows just how screwed up the current political situation is in Washington, and how little our current situation is understood by everyone from George Bush on down.  For crying out loud, we have madmen who want to kill us, and we’re sending a generation of brave men and women out to fight, yet we’re tying their hands with lawyers and pansy assed politicians…

We know, with a 70 percent level of certainty — which is huge in the world of intelligence — that in August of 2007, bin Laden was in a convoy headed south from Tora Bora. We had his butt, on camera, on satellite. We were listening to his conversations. We had the world’s best hunters/killers — Seal Team 6 — nearby. We had the world class Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating with the CIA and other agencies. We had unmanned drones overhead with missiles on their wings; we had the best Air Force on the planet, begging to drop one on the terrorist. We had him in our sights; we had done it. Nice job again guys — now, pull the damn trigger.

Unbelievably, and in my opinion, criminally, we did not kill Usama bin Laden.

What, another funeral?  An Islamic holy day?  Perhaps his birthday party?  Whatever it was, they passed it up again. Do you think we’ll ever get an administration with a spine? Over at Hot Air Bryan wonders

Are we overlawyering the war to the point that our troops won’t even kill bin Laden himself without worrying what the legal eagles may accuse them of after the fact? I hate to think that that may be true, but after so many cases of overzealousness on the part of the military against its own, it sure is possible.

In this condition, we could never have won WWII, and that is a frightening thought… no wonder every lunatic in the world wants to have a go at us.

In the midst of headlines about beating back another attempt to pass amnesty, the news that the California fires are arsons, and the completely absurd picture of Laura Bush sitting next to a couple of black bags, it would be easy to miss this little tidbit

..China has launched its first lunar orbiter, on a planned year-long exploration mission to the Moon.
The satellite, named Chang’e 1, took off from the Xichang Centre in south-west China’s Sichuan province at 1800 local time (1000 GMT).

Analysts say it is a key step towards China’s aim of putting a man on the Moon by 2020, in the latest stage of an Asian space race with Japan and India.

Anyone care to ask Hillary how many Chinese Army officers New York City dishwashers and corrupt American businessmen patriotic Democrat Party supporters it takes to make a Chinese cow jump over the moon?