SB 108  – Regulation of Concealed Weapons Licenses. Click here for the text of the bill.

The bill aims to transfer the Concealed Weapons licensing program to the  Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to the Department of Law
Enforcement.  Other that what seems to be a straight forward change of oversight. I remember reading that this change comes after we elected a pothead for Commissioner of Agriculture and since the writing in the wall seems to be that Florida will sooner rather than later become Colorado, it would be the smart thing to switch the CWP to Law Enforcement rather than a  department that will probably be run by Liberals from now on.

The one part I was worried about was the money.  As you all know, the monies collected by the issuance of permits and renewals cannot be used for anything else but CWP. Several years ago there was an attempt to transfer those funds to the general coffers, but it was fought by the NRA and won. Shortly after the upgrade of all the computers and upgrade to fingerprint scanners began and we now have waiting times that are way short than the three months’ limit. This bill keeps the budgetary independence of the program so in that sense we can breathe easier. Still, bills do not remain untouched, so I will keep an eye on it.

Vacation is over, folks!

Dinosaurs are real and living among us. 🙂

Sebastian nails it so hard, it is not even funny. 

Everyone underestimated how much Bloomberg’s money would make a difference for the gun control movement. It’s made a huge difference. Our biggest asset historically has been our ability to self-organize. There have always been a sizable number of people who would support gun control, but the movement won’t organically provide the money and organizing talent to make them a force. But with Bloomberg’s money, and the money from other elites he’s bringing along, that’s no longer an issue for them. With the money a given, it will buy them a movement.

We surrendered the “horizontal interpretive communities” that got us where we are to top-down social media which are centrally controlled. I can remember seasoned activists from the 80s and 90s tell me they got their message out using informal fax networks to organize back when that was a new technology. We’ve always been on the bleeding edge of self-organization. But our community doesn’t have an answer yet for the problems being caused by Google and Facebook, who would rather see us disappear and largely have the power to accomplish that if they really wanted.

Too many people insisted on bringing unrelated culture war issues along with gun rights, which has made it difficult to expand our base, and has completely removed us as a force in one of the two major parties. I’m not saying that means we support anti-gun Dems: the damage has already been done. Our only hope is keeping the Dems confined to a minority of states to keep them from power until they come to their senses. There is some hope we can accomplish this with the Senate.

The issue of communication is easier to fix but it won’t be sexy: We go back to mail lists and Forums. It is amazing the power of the Forward button.

Money? We need to figure out how do we get several million gun owners to cough up at least $100 a year. I reckon 5 million NRA members filling the coffers with half a billion dollars will make a hurt of difference in Congress.

On the third item: Can we please get the effing Libertarian shit out of Gun Rights? I don’t care for  your “right” to go pew-pew with a big fat doobie attached to your lips or any other nonsensical shit that is not 100% directly gun related. Narrow the focus.

Other things: State organizations, support them but also participate. Tell them what you think, give ideas, criticize if they are fucking up.

Here is  copy for your perusal.

 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission official report. 

’nuff said.

This happened on Christmas Day in Australia.

https://twitter.com/AupolNews/status/1077521221258887168

The Vietnamese immigrant community is being prayed upon by the Sudanese immigrant community.

This incident was the result of thefts from patrons of a Vietnamese business, but this type of situation is not new and the Vietnamese community is sick of it.

Conflict between African and Asian groups is not uncommon for various reasons but we saw similar friction in the US and UK.

The difference here is that the lack of gun rights and self defense rights have put the Vietnamese community at the mercy of the Sudanese.

In the US, the Korean shop keepers were able to defend themselves.

Gun rights are minority rights because it allows minorities to protect themselves when no one else will.

Reader Paul sent me a news item about an armed Good Samaritan who stopped a drunk driver who was playing crash ’em smash ’em with private property in New Hampshire.  But what almost gave him a heart attack is that he found out about the happening via a TV station in Boston!

I tried to embed the video, but they being massholes…

Kudos for the Good Samaritan and we hope Paul recovers from this shock to his system 🙂

And I hope the TV station worker who published the video finds another job soon.