San Francisco's Hand Gun Ban: Why Worry in Wisconsin?

Once again, the Left West Coast is at it trying to deprive its citizens of their Constitutionally guaranteed rights under the Second Amendment.

This time it is the San Francisco board of supervisors who last December submitted to the Department of Elections a proposed law that would ban the possession of handguns, and the sale, manufacture and transfer of all firearms and ammunition in the city and county of San Francisco.

Why should we here in Wisconsin worry about what they do in California? Well, I think there are two good reasons.

First, anti-gun zealots start where resistance is least. Just as California banned .50 caliber rifles (very few people own these) as a stepping stone to banning other calibers (wait and see; time will prove me right on this one), they will ban handguns in San Francisco as a stepping stone to other cities. They need these precedents as arguments for their case where resistance is greater. Given the liberal, law-making attitude of so many courts these days, you can see why this is so important to them. It is something for these judges to grab onto and use in their arguments.

Second, take a look at our Governor Doyle. In 2002 Doyle, then Attorney General, submitted legislation (Senate Bill 363) through Senator Jim Baumgart that would have made every gun in the state (except single shots) illegal as well as basically all ammunition. Go here for a synopsis and some excerpts of the legislation. It makes you wonder if Gov. Doyle isn't watching closely the results of San Francisco's proposal with designs on similar legislation for Wisconsin.

The point is this: each time there is an assault on our Second Amendment it serves as a launching pad for more anti-gun legislation somewhere else.

The point to really drive home however is that even if you don't like, own or use guns, the fact that the left is trying to legislate away our Second Amendment should be a very serious concern to you. Which part of the Constitution are they going to attack next???

Finally, go here to read an article about what life is like in England these days after the passage of all their gun-banning legislation. (Search for "An Englishman's Home is his Dungeon", by Mark Steyn. You may have to register to view the article.) Do San Franciscans really think they'll be safer with this type of legislation? I wonder...

National Geographic to air "In the Womb"

On March 6 at 8 pm Eastern time National Geographic will air a show entitled In the Womb on the National Geographic channel. Go here to (maybe) find out more, but be forewarned: I searched and could find no information on the special except that it is scheduled to air.

Call me naive, but to me this can be nothing but a convincing argument against abortion. I don't have cable, so if anyone watches this show, please come back and comment on the context of the show. Thanks.

Wisconsin is So Great!

Wisconsin is great! This morning I was having my coffee, looking out over our snow-covered/-2 degree F backyard starting to plan our garden! My wife, who is from Paraguay, I am sure thinks I'm nuts (the fact that I really like winter and never notice that the sun hasn't shone for the last 2 weeks doesn't help!). As far as she is concerned, summer never quite makes it up to Rhinelander!

In any case, no matter what season you are in, there is always great stuff to do, and at the same time great stuff to look forward to in the next season (except spring - see below). Here's what I mean. In summer you can go camping, garden ,open water fish, barbecue, and all that good summer stuff. At about the middle of summer you can start thinking about walks through the colorful fall woods in search of elusive ruffed grouse, rabbits and squirrles!

And just as fall sets in and hunting is in full swing, the air starts getting cooler, and then ice fishing settles on the brain. To be truthful however, late fall/early winter is a very difficult time once the lakes freeze over - serious decisions must be made. Should I go ice fishing today, or give Ruffed Grouse another shot (no pun intended)?

Then comes winter; hunting is basically over except for snowshoe hares, and ice fishing is in full swing. That season also passes too fast. As I write this, there are only two weekends left before tip-up fishing for walleye and northern pike (my favorites) is over. And that is when you start thinking of the garden, paging through the Jung catalog, picking out plants to order for this summer (we are going to order some asparagus plants this year). Once summer hits, the cyle starts again, and another year flys by.

[I skip spring because there really is nothing to look forward to, and nothing much to do either - no hunting, no fishing, and no gardening because the soil is still too wet. Give me another 2 weeks of winter and 1 of summer!]

Anyway, Cheers! to Wisconsin - it's a great place to live!

A Sad Day for Terri

I heard on the news today that Judge Greer (Hat Tip to Mary Eileen for the Judge's name!) has issued a final order that will be the beginning of the end for Terri. Come March 18, Terri's family will no longer be able to feed her, and must basically let her starve to death, or, I would imagine, face criminal charges or contempt of court for not killing another human being.

Of course the MSM had to have their say in it in that "15 years since Terri became unconscious....". I'm sorry, but if you have taken the time to browse Terri's web site, you can see videos that clearly show she is anything but unconscious.

Say a prayer for Terri.

Law and Order's Hunting Massacre Show

Hat tip to Badger Blog Alliance for the heads up on tonight's episode of law and Order. The show didn't focus much on the hunters that were killed, but on the guy who tried to be a hero in chasing down the person that did the shooting.

They did however get in their anti-gun agenda, and here is how that went:

First, at the beginning of the show (and you have to forgive me because I don't know the actor's names at all), a detective pulls a Remington bolt action rifle out of the trunk of a car, and comments on what a nice deer rifle it is, how he used to hunt with one, etc. Basically, they are setting themselves up as "pro hunting/pro-gun" in this scene. I wish I had caught the model of the Remington, but if anyone did, I'd like to know what it was. I'd bet a 6-pack it was a single shot model (no magazine capacity of any kind).

Later, a detective pulls a rifle out of a dumpster (supposedly the one used to kill the hunters). He looks at it, and with a disapproving tone to his voice says "Semi automatic. That's no hunting rifle." The gun is one of those that looks like a military gun, an assault rifle, but of course isn't. They are relying on the fact that if the gun looks military to most people, they will associate semi-automatic rifle with military rifle with "bad gun that should be outlawed".

Of course as we all know, whether the gun is a semi-auto, bolt action, lever action or any other type of action is irrelevant to what the gun is used for. Just like the Clinton Gun Ban (thankfully now deceased), they are basing their judgment on purely cosmetic features of the gun. If it looks bad, it must be bad. All you need to turn any rifle into an assault rifle (including the bolt action shown at the beginning of the show) is a bad person behind the trigger.

In the last piece of this anti-gun episode, a police officer under oath in court says, "…semi-automatics are inappropriate for hunting. That kind of gun maims deer more often that it kills them."

That is a blatant lie. Any gun will maim a deer if the shooter can't hit what he/she is aiming at. Semi automatics are as appropriate for deer hunting as the bolt action they came out with first on the show.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be a very well choreographed effort to instill bias against semi-automatic weapons in the general public. Just as unfortunate, there are far too many people out there that will actually believe this anti-gun propaganda (that semi-autos aren't appropriate for deer hunting and they maim more than they kill, and the unspoken implication that they should be banned).

Disgusting. Sometimes I wonder why I watch TV at all. Then I realize I have to in order to find out what kind of tricks the anti-gun left is up to.

Real ID Legislation

Oops - I had a bad link in my post yesterday about the Real ID legislation passed by the House. Go here instead, do a search on "HR 418", and you should get two results. This is the one I read through:

2 . REAL ID Act of 2005 (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by House)[H.R.418.EH]

Sorry about that.

Life and Death in the Winter Woods

I work in the woods a lot, and today was a beautiful day: cool (low 20's), light flurries on-and-off, sunshine poking through the clouds a bit, and a cool breeze out of the North.

I was standing in a fairly open part of the woods, not moving because I was checking my data recorder for the trees I had to measure next. Out of nowhere came a small brown (grey? It was moving!) bird, dodging like crazy with a hawk on its tail (no pun intended). Somewhat lagging behind the small freaked-out bird and the determined hawk in chase was another hawk, a bit higher up - it seemed to be enjoying the chase from a good vantage point. It was keeping up, but wasn't actively pursuing the smaller bird.

Well, about the place where I had been working 20 minutes earlier, I heard the birds crash into some light brush, and then couldn't see them. I wondered what the outcome of the chase had been - did the little guy get away, or is it lunch time for the hawk?

Then I saw a few feathers blowing across the snow in the area where the birds zoomed by me. Close call I thought; they almost got him right here before I saw them coming. It didn't look good, or sound good though, over there.

When I returned to the area where I heard them crash into the brush, my suspicion was confirmed: feathers everywhere. That little guy was quick, but not quick enough for a determined hawk.

Life in the wild: hard, vicious and winner-takes-all.

The moral of the story? We're animals, but we live in a different world than these birds do. Take care of them, take care of where they live, but don't get carried away and elevate them to the human level. People are animals, but animals are definitely not people.

The other moral? Hang out in the woods: the best office you can find!

Terri Shiavo

Please go here to read the latest about Terri Shiavo and her husband's attempts to kill her by starvation and dehydration.

It is wrong what her husband is doing, and as Mary Eileen said in her last paragraph, this is "...about a the murder of a woman by court order; it's about the right to life for disabled people; it's about all of us, eventually."

Real ID

There have been a number of posts about this legislation that recently passed the House, and a very good one was put on Badger Blog Alliance by Stand in the Trenches. One of the links in there goes to Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), and his speech before the House against it.

I finally found the entire bill as passed in the House, and actually did read through it. One of the answers that Stand in the Trenches couldn't answer was what kind of information is really going on this card? Well, here is what I found in the bill: "(9) A common machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements." (Sec. 202(b)(9)). What I couldn't find were what these "minimum data elements" are.

Call me paranoid, but here is my problem: the Secretary of Homeland Security has an incredible amount of power written into this bill. You could call him the "Real ID Dictator" - all he has to do is "consult" with the States or the Secretary of Transportation on numerous issues, then makes the call he wants.

What happens if we get an anti-gun administration (aka Clinton/Gore/Reno) again? Will the Secretary of Homeland Security deem it necessary to have all firearms ownership included as well?

That's scary - I think Rep. Ron Paul is right: "This bill establishes a massive, centrally-coordinated database of highly personal information about American citizens". It establishes this by basically coercing the States (through withholding funds if not in compliance) to link their databases.

Do we really need this? I don't think so!

I couldn't find in the bill where it allows for sharing of the database with Canada and Mexico, but it may be in there is legal-eze.

I'm still against this bill - I can only hope it doesn't pass in the Senate. I think we can find a better way to secure our borders that does not infringe on my freedoms!

More on my Views

Well Shaun, you have the dubious distinction of being the first person to post on my blog. Congratulations! (I think?).

Let's start with my being Pro-Life. I guess I don't buy into the argument that it is a woman's choice to kill her unborn infant, under the misconception that it is "her body, her choice". Is it really her body? I don't think so, given that the unborn has its own head, arms, legs, you get the idea. Sure you may say, but that is only after "X" number of weeks (I don't know what the exact number is, but it really doesn't matter - read on), before that it is only a bunch of cells.

Well, a bunch of cells, yes, but human cells nonetheless. The reason the mystery "X" number from above doesn't really matter is, because from conception on, it is a human being and fully deserving to live. It is virtually impossible to draw a line and say "from this point on it is a human being and has a right to live, and before that it isn't and doesn't", because it just is a human. It's not like you have a turtle before and a human after. You get the idea.

As far as my believing the Second Amendment is the most important, think about this: if they (politicians/Government) take away our right to firearm ownership, what recourse do we have if they then try to take away our Freedom of Speech? The answer is none. It would be much harder for them to take the First knowing that if they push us too far we could create a real heck of a mess.

As Rush Limbaugh once said (and this is paraphrased) "the Second Amendment is there in case the Government decides to ignore the First". That's it in a nutshell on the Second Amendment and what I believe. I'd be more than happy to discuss this further with anyone willing to take the time. (Kind of running out of time right now - I'm at the library with the Wife and Daughter and we're leaving soon.)

Lastly, you were right that I am a conservative, but even I have trouble deciding what kind I am. I generally vote Republican, but don't always agree with what the Republican party does. You can watch my comments and posts and let me know when you get a better idea. It would be interesting to see what you come up with!

Under Construction....

If you happened upon this blog by chance, bear with me - I'm just getting it started. Nonetheless, this should suffice for background for now: I'm Pro-Life, Pro-Gun, and Anti-Illegal Alien, among other things.

Feel free to post a comment, especially if you don't agree with my views. We can all benefit from well reasoned, rational debate.