Why I am an NRA member despite some misgivings

Stories like this one from the legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy: "Felon Steals Gun, Accidentally Kills Himself, Estate Sues Owner and Gun Manufacturer".

Yes the plaintiff here was the deceased felon's estate who wanted to sue the arms-maker Glock for not designing a safer storage box for their pistols and the owner of the Glock pistol which the deceased felon stole and then shot himself with. And they may well have done so except that the National Rifle Association's brainchild  The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005 required that the Masshole courts decline to allow such lawsuits to proceed.

Many of my libertarian friends are often telling me that the NRA while good on RTKBA issues represses freedom in other areas and is stupidly, blindly, pro-war and pro-cop. I agree that it usually is, but in this instance it kept a decent if misguided person from being sued and the Glock firearms company from having to defend an expensive lawsuit leading to potentially ruinous claims for damages. So, like them or not the NRA can be "useful idiots" on occasion. Occasions like this for example.

U.S. Navy SEALs are known to be physically tough, but apparently not all that bright, esp. when alcohol is involved

News item: "...San Diego police said the unidentified man [later identified as a SEAL] was handling the gun and pointed it at his head to show his girlfriend it wasn’t loaded, but pulled the trigger and shot himself. Both had been drinking at a local bar earlier that night,..." [Navy Times]

The latest converts to the church of It’s Okay When We Do It

The subset of the lawyerly elite who happened to be Democrats became apoplectic when the Bush administration held POWs at Gitmo (without trials!), used water-boarding (on a few), and did whatever they wanted to in order to prosecute their wars. And now? Well now that they're in power they've pulled an Emily Litella on all that shit.

Since taking office the Obama administration did stop with the water-boarding stuff it's true but they escalated things by starting to do targeted killings of  terrorists some of whom were American citizens,  and Gitmo remains open for business .) It now seems to Obama that the Bush-era executive war powers excesses are somehow okay now that they're the ones doing it. Lawyers that once condemned Bush as a constitution shredding maniac are now writing legal memos justifying the use of the same measures that Bush used and even worse they are presenting them with a straight-faced seriousness that defies understanding. And those of us who opposed all of this when Bush did it (and still oppose it now as well) are ridiculed as isolationists, legal nit-pickers, and worse! Go figure?

Well that was then, and this is now you  see.

Weblog

Macomb county jail inmate suing over porn access (Robert Snell, Detroit News)
While serving time for assault, assault & battery and awaiting sentencing for an armed robbery Kyle Richards spends his time filing lawsuits. Richards latest suit wants the state of Michigan to order Macomb county jail authorities to let him have porn, have a private TV, radio and electronic entertainment devices. All of Richards suits have been dismissed ( at least so far).

Motorcyclist protesting helmet laws crashes, hits head, dies (USA Today.com/)
Oh the irony.

Electric cars the future? Some bet on returning to the horse (Jason Peters, Front Porch Republic)
"I said in conversation recently, to my auditor’s utter bafflement, that I fully expect horses to be the technology of the future and that learning to drive a team would be good work for our rising youngsters.
This isn’t cheek. I mean it. What we did when we discovered how to use oil was build a Hot Wheels world with no thought for its limits. We backed the horseless carriage, and now it is coming up lame in the final turn."

The author's screed is about how clueless the New York Times is these days. But what he uses for examples of their cluelessness is interesting too.. Those electric cars like the Volt, Prius and the rest need to run on has to come from somewhere too,  just like the oil we burn now.  And that's a path that leads us all right back to the nuclear power plants and coal mines we're currently trying to phase out, eh? Just saying.

The atavistic appeal of the double-barreled "coach gun" even in modern times (Popular Mechanics)
"Although repeating rifles held more rounds and had a greater range, only in Hollywood does one score consistent hits on moving targets from the bouncing box of a fleeing stagecoach. The multiple-shot charge from a smoothbore was far more likely to score, and since only hits counted in that situation, shotguns were the choice of savvy stage guards. There were some repeating shotguns available that could hold more than the two rounds of the double barrel, but their mechanisms were rather delicate and not up to the rigors of stage travel. That made them less than reliable. The sturdy little double barrels suffered no such ills. They were virtually indestructible, and even if heavily fouled they would fire as long as shells could be rammed into the chambers and the action closed."

In fact, the term "riding shotgun" is still in common use today.

Jury duty = involuntary servitude (AKA "slavery") (Lew Rockwell, LRC blog)

"...I heard yesterday that the jurors [in the Casey Anthony trial] will have spent about seven weeks for this government trial. The judge is paid; the lawyers are paid; the court clerks and guards are paid. They are all there voluntarily. Jury 'service' should be paid, and voluntary, too. How about a per diem equal to the judge's?"

Seems fair to me. That's a long time to be putting your life on hold in the service of the state without any compensation. Even draftees back in day got paid something.

The American nosedive (Jim Goad, Taki's Magazine)
In moral courage anyhow.

"Reading the Declaration of Independence 235 years after it was written, it’s kidney-punchingly obvious that the United States government has become precisely the sort of bloodsucking tyrant against which the Founding Fathers revolted."

Sign of the times...cont'd.

"Excuse me, I have take this call.."

Oh the irony: Suicide bomber blown up by incoming spam text message.
"Security sources believe a message from her mobile phone operator wishing her a happy new year received just hours before the planned attack triggered her suicide belt, killing her at a safe house."