That’s going in the gym rotation.

LawDog

“An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.”

~Simon Cameron

I make no secret of my contempt for the Leftist parasites who, having befouled their own little paradise, are flocking to my beloved Texas with the stated aim of “making Texas just like [Insert Leftist Hellhole Here]”.

The number of people who show up around here because Los Angeles is too expensive/ too regulated/ too expensive/ too crime-ridden/ too expensive and immediately start trying to make the Lone Star State into a carbon-copy of the place that they just bloody well left because it was too expensive/ too regulated/ too expensive/ too crime-ridden/ too expensive just make my teeth ache.

My blood pressure is through the roof just thinking about it.

“San Francisco is just too expensive, and I just couldn’t bear to live there anymore, not with the kids.  Texas is so nice, but we need to pass just a couple of little laws …”

Bite me, you parasitic, mouth-breathing, patchouli-reeking, socialist, Big.Gov-loving, regulation-worshiping, juvenile bed-wetters. Get the hell out of my State, you snivelling little ‘safe-space’ pismires with your delusions of adequacy.

Pack your bums with salt, and go piddle up a rope!  SOMEWHERE. ELSE.

GIT! SCRAM! [DELETED] OFF!

Which brings us to the Left’s latest Darling Du Jour, Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke.

Today someone (who really should have known better) breathlessly exclaimed to me that “At least Beto is an honest politician!”

Setting aside the facts that: a) Anyone who puts “politician” and “honest” in the same sentence with neither sarcasm nor irony should not be allowed to vote; and

2) Nobody who dots their cupcakes over any politician should be allowed within three city blocks of a polling booth, let’s look at that statement.

If Robert “Beto” O’Rourke is an “honest politician”, then using Mr Cameron’s elegant definition above, I damned sure don’t want him staying bought … because he’s been bought by California (4.1 million as of noon today), New York (2.7 million, noon today), Massachusetts ($930,000), Illinois ($565K), and Washington State ($558K).

Show of paws here:  Who thinks the University of California (owns $82,116 worth of O’Rourke) will let Texas be Texas? Or has a clue what Texas is?  I’ll bet they have some really good ideas, though.

Of the top five metro areas fundraising for O’Rourke, number 5 is Los Angeles/Long Beach at one million, three-hundred and forty-eight thousand, five hundred and sixty dollars.  As of noon today.

As the meme goes:

“The fact that New Yorkers and Californians think that the people of Texas should vote for Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke is EXACTLY why Texans should not vote for him.”

You’re damned right.

LawDog

Well, I am back from LibertyCon 31, and am thoroughly knackered.

Herself didn’t get to join me — again.  This year a nasty bout of strep throat put the kibosh to any thoughts of her climbing into a pressurised metal tube for the flight.  Sigh.  I swear to any number of godlings that I will get her to to LibertyCon 32 if it harelips every cannibal in the Congo.

I had — somewhat (okay, very much) nervously mentioned to the Con staff that I would do a panel, and they proceeded to put me on one named “No [Deleted], There I was, Just Minding My Own Business …”  “It’s war stories. You’ll do fine” I was informed.

Gentle Readers, I’m here to tell you that when you plonk down on a dais, and you realise that you’re sharing it with David Drake, John Ringo, Michael Williamson, and others whose books you’ve been reading for decades … that’s the sort of thing that’ll launch you, shrieking, straight for the rafters.

Honestly, between 1)  The sheer number of people in the room not only staring at me, but breathing my air; and 2) Mentally chanting “Don’t[deleted]thisup, don’t[deleted]thisup, don’t[deleted]thisup” the memory of the stories I told are pretty much white noise and incipient panic.

At the request of a fan, (Hi, CrankyProf!) I told the Armadillo story (which seemed to go over rather well); and I was planning on telling the Hog story — both of which I’ve told a million times, but I practised again just to be sure …

… and then Ringo told a sidesplitter …

… and my very-competitive monkey-brain slipped past the censor gibbering in the corner, cut sling-load on the Hog story, and launched (fully unprepared) into the Pink Gorilla Suit story.

When I’m not wearing the Cop Suit, my voice tends to be somewhat soft.  And when I’m jazzed to the gills on over-stimulation, mild panic, and PEOPLE, I tend to run my words together; so when the white noise cleared, I was checking the crowd to see how bad I screwed up the delivery of the story, when I hear Mike Kupari clear his throat, “Not exactly fair, having to follow LawDog.”

From the expressions in the crowd, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t embarrass myself.

The rest of LibertyCon was a blast. Sipped some really nice booze, swapped stories, met some genuinely nice people, wound up with a gift-wrapped box of 1/4″ nuts delivered by a minotaur representative of ACME Industries, and got hugged.

Good convention.  Good people.

We’ll be back next year.

LawDog

Friend Peter Grant over at Bayou Renaissance Man has a new book out.

Support starving authors!

LawDog

One of the things being discussed around the tables at this years NRAAM are “Extreme Risk Protection Orders” (or “Red Flag Laws”, if you want to be less overt about it.)

These are laws which allow for guns to be seized by law enforcement based on what seem to be subjective opinions about whether someone might be dangerous or not. 

Note, do, that the guns are seized without an actual crime being committed — to say nothing of an actual criminal conviction.

Indiana’s Red Flag Law is being touted as the model for the nation (side note:  Indiana?  What the hell, Hoosiers?), based solely upon alleged “due process” protections for gun owners.

These “due process” protections involve a two-step process.  First,  judge has to find that probable cause existed for the initial seizure of the guns, if done so without a warrant.  A warrant would require review for probable cause before being issued.

Second, a hearing must be held within 14 days, where the subject can petition to get his seized guns back.

I put “due process” in quotation marks, because I have two questions that no-one seems to be able to answer.

The first is:  How many initial Red Flag Law warrants are turned down by judges for a lack of Probable Cause?  What percentage of warrant-less seizures of guns are immediately reversed by the reviewing judge upon initial review?

Second:  How many — or what percentage — of Red Flag law seizures are overturned at the 14-day hearing?

I suspect that the reason I can’t answers to those questions is because the answer to both is under the margin of error.  And that is unacceptable.

Gentle Readers, if Indiana judges are rubber-stamping the seizures of lawfully-held guns no matter how piss-poor the probable cause for those seizures are, then “due process” is NOT being observed.

Indeed, due process by rubber stamp is nothing more than mockery of due process.

LawDog

A week or so ago, a news article came across my news feed regarding some of the shareholders for Sturm-Ruger playing silly buggers.

So, when I hit the convention floor, I headed for the Sturm-Ruger booth to ask media-type questions.

Nobody at Ruger would go on record, but I got one of these little jewels:

With the suggestion that I look at the letter at the URL at the bottom of the card.

Didn’t really answer my question, though.

When I gently pressed, the Ruger rep assured me that the shareholder kerfuffle was a paper tiger, and nobody was worried about it.

I’m going to take them at their word, but I have to admit that I’m a little concerned by the new tacks the anti-gun folks are taking.

Here’s hoping.

LawDog

Edit:  Bugger!  I forgot to coon-finger the 10mm GP100!  Dammit.

LawDog

Thoughts from my first wander of the floor:

The average age of the attendees is younger than in the past conventions, and fitter.  While I’m still navigating around wheezing late-middle-aged gentlemen, there are a lot more fit, squared-away folks.

Is the NRA sponsoring a Crossfit club, or something?

Also, there are more un-accompanied women.  At the other NRAAMs I’ve been to, the majority of the lady attendees are obviously there with the Boyfriend /Husband /Spouse-Like Love Unit.  While most of them still are, there are a lot more moving around the floor by themselves — including at least two ladies standing in line at booths with strollers in tow.

Speaking of which, I spoke briefly with a young mother at the Glock booth who is mildly annoyed that she had to pay someone to take the finger grooves off her Gen4 Glock 19 just before Glock came out with the Gen5. She was intelligent, articulate, and had more gun sense than most folks I’ve run into at gun counters.  If she, and others like her, are the future of the NRA … we’re in good hands.

I am happy to see fewer gun-bro t-shirts on my first swing-through.  Chesty “Cold Dead Snek” t-shirts may be satisfying to wear, but might not convey an image to attract more middle-of-the-road folks.

Ah, well.

I’m off to chase down Tiny Purple Demon and give her some books.

LawDog

Well, my social media feed (yes, I have one. Stop giggling) is blowing up regarding the comments of one Randa Jarrar regarding the death of the former First Lady Barbara Bush.

I’ve looked at her tweets, and what she says of the dead is absolutely repugnant.

However, I am also reminded that those of us on the Conservative side of the house have been continually telling the children of the Thuggish Left that the First amendment isn’t there to protect speech you agree with. Speech everyone agrees with doesn’t need protecting.  The First Amendment is there to protect speech you don’t like.

Yes, what this professor said about Mrs Bush is hateful, rude, profane, and generally tacky — to say nothing about displaying a lamentable lack of a grounding in Classical education that is becoming altogether more apparent on University professors these days — but it is still protected speech.

And Fresno State is still — as long as they accept government funds — part of the government, and thus is exactly whom the First Amendment was written to protect people from.  Any true conservative should be appalled at suggesting that government actually police free speech.

Fresno State would completely be violating her First Amendment rights to fire her, or even sanction her in any way.

As far as her overwhelming a suicide hot-line:  tacky, and far from the first time it’s happened by way of a campus prank.  The hot-line should present her with a bill for the expenses related to her idiocy, with an offer to go to court should she deign not to cough up the money.

We also hear that alumni and long-time donors to Fresno State are considering withholding funds, or not sending their sprogs to that institution.

Oh, ho, that’s a completely different kettle of fish.  Private citizens deciding where to send their money?  Or, in this case, deciding not to donate their dosh to Fresno State for … well, any reason?  Hell, yes, and good on them.

It’s the donor’s money, and if Randa Jarrar decides to exercise her First Amendment right to be a complete disrespectful jackass, the donors likewise have a right to not give money to the university that gave her tenure.

And the gods bless each donor who decides not to send money to Fresno State anymore.

For those who think it’s wrong to punish the entire University for the actions of one of its professors — tough.  You can’t tell me that Fresno State didn’t know exactly what sort of human being they were getting when they granted tenure to Randa Jarrar.

Randa Jarrar, and all the administration and faculty who thought it was a Good Idea to give her tenure, should most certainly be allowed to sit in their offices as the money dries up, and the campus begins to crumble around their ears.

Too Long; Didn’t Read version:

You’re not allowed to fire her for simply exercising her First Amendment rights to be a two-bit, monosynaptic, mouth-breathing, invertebrate honyock; however, any private person thinking of not donating money to the idiot institution who thought it was a Good Idea to not only hire this purulent pismire, but to give her tenure, that private person is on the side of all that is Good and Decent on this little green dirtball.

LawDog

Looks like African Adventures is out on audio book!

Yay!

LawDog