Delaware police deny 81-year-old woman’s application to buy a guy gun because she’s 81 and a woman

(Whoopsie! Thanks to Dave D. for spotting my (ahem) little slip-up in the headline!)

From On High posts about this story sure to make any supporter of the 2nd Amendment angry:

Delaware State Police stopped Alvina Vansickle from purchasing a .22-caliber pistol for self-defense because she was too old and a woman, said Superintendent Col. Thomas MacLeish.

The outrage that followed led to the revelation that Delaware State Police had been keeping lists of gun buyers for years; state law requires them to destroy these records after 60 days.

Without so much as a traffic ticket, the 81-year-old Lewes resident should have sailed through the mandatory state police background check when she tried to buy a Taurus revolver from Charlie Steele’s Lewes gun shop last August.

Read the story and you find out that this woman wanted to buy the weapon for self-defense purposes. She and her husband are an elderly couple and he’s in a wheelchair having lost both legs to diabetes. Fascinating information, to be sure. And 100% immaterial to the question of whether her application to purchase a firearm should have been granted under state law.

Even the commander of the state police knows – and publicly admits – that neither gender nor age are matters to be examined in determining approval or denial of the purchase. Yet that’s what guided the numbskull cop who made the decision to put a stop to the sale. To make matters even worse, he admitted to having searched 7 years of gun purchase records to determine whether she’d ever bought a gun before. (Note that the fact that she hadn’t done so weighed against her in the decision.) It’s bad enough to have included that matter in the decision when such a determination isn’t referenced in the law on whether to grant approval. The fact that the police had at least 7 years of records to go through when they’re only supposed to have 60 days is just astonishing. I’ll take a brief moment to note that the presence or absence of a person on that list is also immaterial to whether the purchase should be permitted.

The NRA general counsel has requested 2 separate investigations into this situation, one to focus on the denial (and any other similar denials) and one to figure out who was responsible for not purging the records as required by the law.

This is just the most recent example of why most 2nd Amendment supporters I know are against allowing the government to keep records on who owns guns and who doesn’t. Aside from the fact that, historically, such lists have led to confiscation efforts, it’s now clear that such lists are prone to being used by police and government agencies to influence decisions where they should have no bearing. At the very least, there should be an independent audit of the Delaware State Police’s records and procedures. Every single officer involved in this sad event should be reprimanded and should undergo training to learn what the law is, since they clearly don’t know. If a determination is made that they knew the law and deliberately broke it, charges should follow and they should face the consequences under the law.

Moreover, this should be a warning to all Americans to be wary of allowing such records to be compiled and kept.

Tag Greason: Loudoun’s Class Act

The Loudoun Scoop directed us this morning to a post on the Living in LoCo blog appropriately titled, “A Kind Gesture of Crossing Party Lines.” The story begins with a couple in Belmont Country Club who awoke the other morning to find their Obama sign stolen out of their front yard. Erica Garman over at Living in LoCo writes:

Kapil, quite disappointed that someone stole his sign, asked his good friend and neighbor Tag Greason, “Why would someone do this?”

Jokingly, Greason offered Kapil one of his many yard signs, but understandably, Kapil refused the gesture. Greason, you see, is actively involved with the Loudoun County Republican Committee and has been campaigning across the county for the GOP’s McCain/Palin ticket.

But to assist his neighbor, Greason shot off an e-mail to Tim Buchholz and Bob Moses with the Loudoun County Democratic Committee and asked if they would be so kind as to replace the Kapoors’ Obama sign.

Buchholz and Moses both e-mailed Greason with the news that they’d be happy to do so immediately

That’s a class act by Tag Greason, an honorable man if ever I’ve met one. (And yes, I’ve met him, although I’m not sure he’d remember.) There’s no question he’s an ardent supporter of the GOP stance on things and of the McCain/Palin ticket. But Greason obviously remembers something that slips the notice of many political supporters these days: he’s an American, first and foremost. His neighbors are fellow Americans. Good Americans stand with other Americans.

Buchholz wrote back to Greason, by the way, to thank him for interceding on his neighbor’s behalf and to offer his appreciation that Greason hadn’t hesitated to cross party lines to do so. He and Moses also showed class in this whole situation. All three should make we Loudouners proud.

Come what may next Tuesday let’s all keep this story and the example of these quite fierce supporters of their respective parties firmly in mind. A critical decision is to be made and we can argue the merits of the choices. After than decision is done, we’re still neighbors and we can still be friends. Read the whole post, it’s worth your time.

Iowahawk hits the bullseye. (Within a certain margin of error.)

There are 3 types of lies, the saying goes: lies, damned lies, and statistics. A good mathematician can solve a formula and give you a great depiction of the real answer. A good statistician can take than same data and make it depict any damn thing he’d like it show. Iowahawk has a hilarious-because-it’s-true post up about that wonderous “margin of error” we’re all hearing about when political polls are reported:

Works pretty well if you’re interested in hypothetical colored balls in hypothetical giant urns, or survival rates of plants in a controlled experiment, or defects in a batch of factory products. It may even work well if you’re interested in blind cola taste tests. But what if the thing you are studying doesn’t quite fit the balls & urns template?

One of the things my stats instructor taught me was that when the subjects of the analysis are intelligent they have the ability to act in random or non-random fashions at will. That automatically skews any kind of statistical analysis because statistics rely on the given characteristic being studied to remain constant. In Iowahawk’s example, a given ball of a given color is always that color regardless of whether it’s sampled or not. Human beings’ political positions don’t behave that way.

You really need to read that whole post because it’s seriously on-target.

Tragic accident: boy firing Uzi at a gun fair shoots himself and dies.

(Note: As with any accident that occurs in split-seconds, I encourage everyone to be patient for the results of the investigation.)

A Massachusetts boy has died as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot would at a gun fair being held in Westfield, MA. The 8-year-old boy was firing a full-auto weapon, an Uzi submachine gun, when he lost control of the weapon and was shot in the head. From the story:

With an instructor watching, an 8-year-old boy at a gun fair aimed an Uzi submachine gun at a pumpkin and pulled the trigger as his dad reached for a camera.

It was his first time shooting a fully automatic gun, and the recoil of the weapon was too much for him. He lost control and fatally shot himself in the head.

Now gun safety experts — and some gun enthusiasts at the club where the shooting happened — are wondering why such a young child was allowed to fire a weapon used in war. Local, state and federal authorities are also investigating whether everyone involved had proper licenses or if anyone committed a criminal act.

I’ve personally fired the type of weapon being used in this situation and it should be no surprise to anyone who’s ever done so that the barrel of the weapon rises as you fire it on full auto. It’s not too difficult to maintain control of it if you’ve got adult-sized hands and the mass to back them up. You see, when I saw the headline on this and noted the age of the shooter, the 1st question in my head was “yeah, but how big was he?” My daughter’s 7½ but she’d be hard pressed to get her hands around the forward grip of an Uzi and that’s using both of them. The gun also has a mass that’s a significant percentage of hers and the recoil – light and controllable for me – would present a force equivalent to roughly half of her arm-strength.

In short, there’s no way at all that I’d let her fire a fully-automatic weapon without my own hands being on the weapon along with hers.

I’ll wait for the investigation to complete before I weigh in fully, but I also can’t believe the boy was holding the weapon raised to his shoulder. He was likely holding it low and to his side – Hollywood “from the hip” style – when he pulled the trigger. That’s the only way I can think of that the barrel would rotate up tightly enough to put the shooters own head into the line of fire. Again, though, let’s wait for the official findings.

Halloween costumes with a classical flair

Well, you probably knew from reading the classics that Cerberus was the 3-headed dog guardian of the gates of Hades from Greek mythology. I’ll bet you never thought to ask what breed of dog, tho…

Blogger Dean Barnett dies at 41.

It’s been a busy day and I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire. I’m sure you’ve had similar days. Then, when you’re busy multi-tasking your head off, something happens that causes your day to come to such a jarring halt you’d swear you’re hearing the squealing of tires on the speeding vehicle that is your life. That just happened to me. Checking in on HotAir.com, I found this heartrending post, titled “Horrendous: Dean Barnett passes away.”

One of the smartest and sweetest people I’ve ever met, online or otherwise. Gone at 41. I’m speechless.

I had to read that line twice for it to sink in. I first ran into Dean’s writing when he started a guest spot over a Hugh Hewitt’s blog. He was a quick wit, eloquent, and as firmly grounded as anyone I’d ever read. Seeing this post just left a hollow feeling within.

Godspeed, Dean. May God grant your family strength and peace.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual Light shine upon him.
May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, Rest in peace.

Amen

Interesting polling info

Interesting item over at Virginia Virtucon.

DC gun process experiment showed a process so onerous and prohibitive, it’s as good as the ban

I had been keeping track of the efforts of WTOP News reporter Mark Segraves in which he tries to slog through the ridiculous and clearly unconstitutional rat-maze that the DC government has provided as it’s “process” to permit DC residents to legally procure a firearm. Well, my last post on that was back on September 18 when Segraves was pointing out how expensive DC has made the process. (Another attempt on their part to effectively ban the guns by putting them out of the means of many DC residents who need them.) At the time, Segraves was still waiting on the final pieces to the regulatory puzzle to allow him to take possession of his gun. In my recent blogging absence, I missed his latest report in which he finally has his gun in DC:

They may be legal, but they sure aren’t easy to get. Registering a handgun in the District takes time, money and a lot of leg work.

It takes four trips to police headquarters, one trip to an out-of-state gun store, two trips to a gun dealer. You must be fingerprinted. The gun must go through a ballistics test. You have to have one form notarized. You must provide two passport sized photographs. You have to take a written test. And, you have to pay nearly $200 in various fees.

Segraves notes that there’s an 8-10 day waiting period in Maryland no waiting period at all in Virginia – because in Virginia the background check is an instant one, putting the lie to DC’s “requirement” to take this long to check all the background info. Neither state requires testing, notaries, multiple fees or multiple trips to a bunch of places.

Meanwhile, the House has certainly done their part by passing a law that strips these inane processes from DC’s lawbooks and precludes them from re-enacting them. No word on when the Senate will get around to this but it sure couldn’t be soon enough.

Pet peeve: fair-weather Americans

I was directed to a story over at the Washington Post this week but I hadn’t had the chance to follow up and read it until this morning. Titled, “A Happiness Gap: Doomacrats and Republigrins” the story reports on the fact that Republicans tend to be happier with life than Democrats. I’ve heard this before and my personal experience tells me it’s true but I’m afraid I just couldn’t make it past the 2nd paragraph. Have a look at the first 3 sentences of this story:

Now the good news for Republicans: You are happier than Democrats. You always have been, and you probably always will be.

Never mind that your presidential candidate is sinking in the polls while your president plumbs historic depths of popular scorn and your free market squeals for intervention while your investments evaporate on Wall Street.

Emphasis most defintely mine. Ignore that part about “your free market” and the intervention shtick. See my last post for the answer to that: these WaPo lapdogs continue to work overtime to hide the fact that the reason the market intervention was necessary was because Democrats in Congress did everything in their power to block measures that would likely have prevented the meltdown to begin with. No, the part that really yanks my chain is the reference to “your president.”

So, I guess we can now take it as official that the reporters and multiple layers of editors at the Washington Post are admitting they’re not real Americans? America has 1 President and he’s the president that’s elected in compliance with the rules laid out in the Constitution of the United States. He’s not “my” president while not being “your” president unless you’re not an American citizen. You see, referring to President Bush as “your president” is only applicable if he’s not also yours, if you’re, for example, a German citizen or a Japanese national. To stand there alleging you’re an American citizen and reference President Bush in this manner is to suggest he’s the President of only those who voted for him. Which is an un-democratic, un-American, un-patriotic stance to hold.

This is what ticked me off for these past 4 years as I saw people running around with those stupid Kerry bumper stickers on their cars. I even saw people transplant those stickers to new cars just so they could continue their sore loser routine on and on and act like they were being so justified and sophisticated. Un-American is all that was. And it’s still un-American. The winner of the election is the President and he’s the President for all Americans whether they voted for him or not. That’s the deal in a democratic society and if you want to remain part of it then that’s the rule set you play by. That the Washington Post would advocate otherwise by their continued example is most definitely un-American. It’s both a sad commentary to a once-great paper and another example of why they and their industry is dropping into the toilet.

Re-join the American people, WaPo. It’s the right thing to do.

(update: fixed link)

The truth about the financial meltdown? It was Democrats and Obama who stood in the way of preventing it.

Update: While we’re on the subject, let’s talk about that Obama tax plan he keeps saying is going to help the middle class.

(Thanks to HotAir.com for pointing these great ads out.)