Charlie Rangel, via the eminently unbiased NPR:

"It's a regional thing, it's a cultural thing and it's a sad thing, but it's some type of cult," Rangel said. "'Don't touch; don't take the gun from my dead, cold hands…' and I don't understand it, but obviously there is a political difference about that."

P.S.  When is someone going to tell him that the emphasis should be on the second syllable of his last name?  I'm about as monolingual as they come, but even I cringe every time I hear some NPR goofball say "Congressman Charlie Wrangle."  (To be really technical, I believe the "g" should also be pronounced softly, like an "h").

Was anyone besides myself a little bit freaked out and/or grossed out by that photo on page 14 of the April Concealed Carry Magazine?

If you don't get the magazine, well, too bad.  I'm definitely not going to scan and upload the image, because I have a reputation to uphold, after all.

Thanks, Michele!

Now I know I'm supposed to choose five more blogs for this thing, but just about every other blog I read has already done this.  So if you're on my "regular reads" consider yourself so honored.

I was going to post this this morning, but I got sidetracked.  The old P-22 post is my best regular traffic bringer.  I get search hits for it all the time.  However, I usually get only 50-60 hits per day.  Here is yesterday's traffic report.


The recent incident is causing a lot of people to hunt for info on the P-22.  I'll have to check out StatCounter to see if anyone in particular is looking.

I'm filing this under my Second Amendment category because it pertains to the other posts on this topic.  Normally I'd just file it under "Blogging."

UPDATE:  Hits today from University of Maryland, Hackensack University in New Jersey, North Carolina Research And Education Network, and California Institute Of Technology.

The answer to the hit from North Carolina is 10.  It has a magazine that holds ten cartridges.  The bullet is the projectile.

More than 300 hits today so far, and since I have the free version of StatCounter I get info on only the most recent 100.

People are looking for pictures and information.  For another hit:  the velocity of the .22 is generally not dependent on the gun it is fired from.  It is dependent on barrel length.  Any other gun with the same length barrel will generate the same velocity (in general).

I halfway expect someone to blow a gasket because I posted such a "detailed" article about this gun on my blog.  I'm just watching traffic and trying to brace myself for it.

UPDATE:  186 hits to this post on Wednesday.  An unusually large percentage from outside the U.S.

I haven't ever posted an entire alert from JPFO before, but this time I think it's very important.

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April 18, 2007

JPFO ALERT: Why We Cannot Just Be Quiet and Mourn

In the hours and days just after the mass murder-suicide at Virginia Tech last Monday, many people felt it would be more sensitive and polite if the advocates for gun rights would sit quietly and allow the personal and national mourning to take place without a lot gun policy arguments.

We at JPFO considered the sensitive and polite approach. We certainly feel terrible for the victims and for the families and friends whose lives are shattered by the horrendous crime. The deep evil of the murders makes it all the harder to come to terms with that sickening event. We agree that it would be best if we, as a nation, could gather together with the survivors in national mourning.

But we could not just be sensitive, polite and quiet, for two key reasons. First, we know that the enemies of defense rights always capitalize on strong emotions of the moment to drive their policies.

The Brady Campaign, for example, released a message almost immediately that called for more national "gun control" and said:

"We are building a crescendo of public outcry to ensure that action is taken. We are aggressively rallying support among allies for our solutions."

Those benighted people, who think that making everybody defenseless is a good plan, have already swung into action. Their policy goals ride on strong emotions, not on reason and practicality.

If we stay quiet while the anti-self defense crowd defines the issues and whips up emtions, then we lose. We lose by being absent and by giving the appearance of conceding we are wrong about self-defense. We lose by letting emotional appeals go unchallenged by careful rational thought.

We know also that a bad law driven by high-emotions in Congress and the media will be extremely hard to eliminate later.

A second reason we could not just stay quiet: gun owners have been made to feel guilty for having guns, just because one suicide-murderer misuses a firearm in such an horrific way. In this moment of national focus, many gun owners don't remember some of the key reasons that we have the right to keep and bear arms. Under pressure, many gun owners cannot respond to challenges, and that makes us all look shallow or unprincipled.

Talk host Bill O'Reilly, for example, took to the airwaves the following day to claim that Virginia's gun laws are not strict enough. O'Reilly urged that a 7-day waiting period is necessary, that the instant background check is not enough. A caller to his radio show pointed out the several procedures in Virginia that a buyer must pass through, and said that the 7-day waiting period was not needed.

O'Reilly replied by challenging the man to explain why he couldn't wait 7 days to get a Glock? Why did the man need to take immediate possession?

The caller was unable to answer the question -- because he was feeling defensive and cornered and somehow guilty.

The answers to O'Reilly's challenges are:

(1) a woman who is being stalked should not have to wait 7 days to obtain the means to protect herself from a potentially armed madman,

(2) the police owe no duty to protect individual citizens from criminal attack. Blocking a person from getting defense tools is to cripple the endangered citizen's ability to protect himself or herself,

(3) the suicide-murderer in this case had planned his crime carefully, such that a 7 day waiting period would have had zero effect upon him.

We cannot let the anti-defense people and the ignorant media personalities command the policy discussion while we are sensitively and politely silent. We wish it were otherwise. Innocent lives depend upon the right to keep and bear arms, so we must protect it, even in times of tragedy and grief.

- The Liberty Crew

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From Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

Head on over to this post at Reformed Chicks Blabbing and respond to the anti-self-defense, anti-second amendment comment left there.

But NO BAD LANGUAGE!  Okay?

UPDATE:  I left one more follow-up comment over there, but I'm finished now.  If anyone else wants to clue him in, have fun.