Rusted Sky

Sen. Feinstein's got a new list up of what she wants to see banned.

You can see the list here... at least, some of it.

Pay close attention to it - if you dig through the list there's a lot of stuff there that's actually pretty low-powered. I know for a fact that the Hi-Point carbine she's referring to uses UP to a 10mm or .45 handgun cartridge. Hi-Points don't equal high power, they're just fun little shooters. But it's a scary black rifle, so it must be banned for the children(tm).

They seriously don't get the idea, do they? It's all symbolism over substance. They don't know what the hell they're legislating against - you can tell that from the list.

They're causing MORE rifles to be bought - of any sort and kind The ammo shelves are seriously bare in the major retailers, and the on-line retailers aren't . Each rifle and box of ammo sold should be a signal 'NO' to Washington - but they're not listening.

They really need to. They didn't listen regarding spending. They didn't listen regarding Obamacare. They haven't done a budget. They're ignoring their most basic responsibilities to focus on 'nice to have' stuff that'll cost us average folks a lot... and the media's been quite cooperative to their desires. The theory the 'progressives' in Washington seem to be operating under is that we're all incompetent, and we must depend on THEM to guide us every step of the way.

All they're doing is reinforcing their own prejudices. Since we're NOT letting them guide us, we obviously need their guidance even MORE. And they'll force it on us whether we want it or not.

Ran across this yesterday... Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun: What Bearing Weapons Teaches About the Good Life It's an interesting read - here's a few exerpts...

Nothing most of us will ever do combines the moral weight of life-or-death choice with the concrete immediacy of the moment as thoroughly as the conscious handling of instruments deliberately designed to kill. As such, there are lessons both merciless and priceless to be learned from bearing arms — lessons which are not merely instructive to the intellect but transformative of one's whole emotional, reflexive, and moral character.

The first and most important of these lessons is this: it all comes down to you.

A second is this: never count on being able to undo your choices.

A third lesson is this: the universe doesn't care about motives.

These are hard lessons, but necessary ones. Stated, in print, they may seem trivial or obvious. But ethical maturity consists, in significant part, of knowing these things — not merely at the level of intellect but at the level of emotion, experience and reflex. And nothing teaches these things like repeated confrontation with life-or-death choices in grave knowledge of the consequences of failure.

All that is self-evident, isn't it? Surprising, really, how many people never learn them. But it's lesson 4 that's the most important.

To believe one is incompetent to bear arms is, therefore, to live in corroding and almost always needless fear of the self — in fact, to affirm oneself a moral coward. A state further from "the dignity of a free man" would be rather hard to imagine. It is as a way of exorcising this demon, of reclaiming for ourselves the dignity and courage and ethical self-confidence of free (wo)men that the bearing of personal arms, is, ultimately, most important.

This is the final ethical lesson of bearing arms: that right choices are possible, and the ordinary judgement of ordinary (wo)men is sufficient to make them.

We can, truly, embrace our power and our responsibility to make life-or-death decisions, rather than fearing both. We can accept our ultimate responsibility for our own actions. We can know (not just intellectually, but in the sinew of experience) that we are fit to choose.

And not only can we — we must. The Founding Fathers of the United States understood why. If we fail this test, we fail not only in private virtue but consequently in our capacity to make public choices. Rudderless, lacking an earned and grounded faith in ourselves, we can only drift — increasingly helpless to summon even the will to resist predators and tyrants (let alone the capability to do so).

The folks in Washington look at 70 million people who legally own and use firearms - and want to disarm them. They WANT the population to be helpless, to be dependent on THEM for protection and guidance. Their desire for power, their lust for importance is leading them down a path that hurts us all, but their pride is such that they can't be bothered to recognize that, and they'll do 'what's good for us' regardless of how much we protest.

Now is the time to say NO - and make it clear that we mean it. Write your representatives, write your senators - send them a PAPER letter expressing your dislike of what Sen. Feinstein's trying to do. Email's fine - but easily deleted. Paper, they have to physically throw away.

They need to know we mean it, that it's time for them to stop this once and for all. No compromise is needed or wanted - it's time to put gun control away for good.

J.