Via The Tampa Bay Times: Longtime NRA Florida lobbyist Marion Hammer retiring

“I have fought for Second Amendment rights and the rights of gun owners for many many years, and that’s my legacy,” Hammer said in an interview Thursday. “I stood tall against a wall of people who wanted to destroy the Constitution and punish law-abiding people for the acts of criminals.”

Different people have different views of Marion. I think Miguel summed it up best with this picture of her being the only guns right person in a meeting with representatives while a half dozen Mom’s Demanding sat in their red t-shirts across the aisle from Marion.

She has been in the fight for a very very long time. She has been there when nobody else took the time to speak on our behalf.

There are others that look at her huge salary from the NRA and wonder if it is worth it. They wonder if she is part of the group keeping Wayne in power.

Regardless of what she is getting paid, regardless of how much she took from the NRA, the place where Florida is today regarding Stand Your Ground, Shall Issue and many other issues are because of her efforts, her lobbying.

Because of Florida, many other states moved to shall issue. When I got to my home state it went from a multi-month task with a low probability of success with hundreds of dollars involved to $10 and 10 days. My state went to Shall Issue because Florida went there first and proved that blood would not fill the streets.

So thank you Marion Hammer.

Via CNBC: Lego to invest over $1 billion in first U.S. brick plant

Lego is going to open a brick plant in Chesterfield County, Virginia. It is the first Lego plant in the US.

Toymaker Lego said on Wednesday it will invest more than $1 billion in its first factory in the United States, which will be carbon-neutral, to shorten supply chains and keep up with growing demand for its colored plastic bricks in one of its biggest markets.

The factory in Chesterfield County, Virginia, will be the Danish company’s second in North America and seventh worldwide, after it announced a new factory in Vietnam last year.

Don’t any of you tell me this isn’t gun related… Those Legos make the best caltrops ever. Just ask any parent that’s found one with a bare foot at oh dark thirty

Via AP News: Tentative Senate gun deal has surprises, and loose ends

The outline of a bipartisan Senate agreement to rein in gun violence has no game-changing steps banning the deadliest firearms. It does propose measured provisions making it harder for some young gun buyers, or people considered threatening, to have weapons.

The deadliest weapon is a man with nothing left to lose. The tool he uses does not matter.

They are proposing allowing juvenile records to be part of a NICS check. This seems to be a reasonable path, if we have NICS make sure it includes the records of the animals that have juvenile records. “Well known to law enforcement until they turned 18” seems a poor tactic.

They are talking about extending the time till a NICS check defaults. Currently a NICS check either gives a “proceed”, a “deny” or “wait.” After three days an FFL can proceed after a “wait.” The proposal changes that from 3 days to 7 with the ability to proceed after 10 days. So instead of half a week, two weeks if the government does a slow down.

When I first moved here I found that every time I did a NICS check I got a wait. Turns out that Maryland just never responded to NICS check requests that would result in a “proceed” thereby adding a 3 day waiting period for anybody that moved out of state.

This went on for nearly 5 years. I can easily see them doing an intentional slow down. All you have to do is look at how long it takes to get permission to by ear protection devices that attach to your firearm. (Suppressors)

There are proposals to increase the removal of firearms without due process. Unlikely to have any punishment for those that abuse the system. The biggest push is to allow casual relations to result in the ability to get an EPO. So you might want to not stick it in crazy.

They claim that they aren’t going to ban semi-automatic rifles, but keep an eye out. There is no reason to trust these people.

Via BBC: Why is inflation in the US so high?

Inflation is at a nearly all time high in the US at 8.6%. This is amazingly high, higher than in most other countries in the world.

In an attempt to protect the socialist policies put in place, the BBC points the finger firmly at the people of the US spending so much.

A recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco concluded that pandemic relief packages probably contributed to 3 percentage points of the rise in inflation until the end of 2021 – a factor that goes a long way to explaining why US inflation outpaced the rest of the world.

Oscar Jorda, senior policy adviser at the bank and one of the people who worked on the study, cautioned against reading too much into the exact percentages, but said the overall picture is clear.

“These programmes… were a considerable infusion of liquidity into consumers’ pockets at a time when perhaps industry wasn’t quite ready to respond to an increase in demand,” he said in an interview in May. They “signified a big push of what I would call demand push inflation”.

There you have it. Because you were out of work because of shutdowns and the government handed you a few dollars, YOU caused the inflation when you spent it.

If you had just saved that money then inflation wouldn’t be so bad.

Historically, when inflation gets bad, people spend money as soon as they have it to convert money into hard goods. To put this in perspective of today, people are moving to keeping their vehicle gas tanks mostly full.

The cost, to me, of filling my tank last week vs filling my tank this week was about $8.50. That’s a $0.50 increase in the price of gas. When you are afraid your money will be worth less tomorrow, you want hard goods now. We bought a 1/2 cow because we know the price of beef is going up. We bought more chickens, we know that the price of eggs is going up and making our own eggs reduces our weekly food bill.

In addition to all of the above, the demand continues to grow for hard goods. This also increases prices.

If you are interested in a good introductory book on economics:
Basic Economics, Fifth Edition: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell

Via Yahoo Finance: More than half of U.S. teachers are considering leaving the profession: Survey

Can we get the politics out of the classroom?

–Randi Weingarten

My wife is a teacher, she applied for an online teaching job this year. She wants out of the brick and mortar schools. And it isn’t the money. Nor is it ungrounded fear of “school shootings”. It is violence within the schools.

For the last school year they have had two or three students that have controlled the school. These are kids that refused to stay in class. Refused to obey instructions. Threw things, broke things, vandalized classroom, attacked and teachers. One teacher had her arm broken by one of these children. (Grades k-5).

All the teachers are tired of the alert messages that tell them that the good students have to be held inside their classrooms because the animals have taken over part of the school again. (For the liberal bleeding hearts, race doesn’t come into this question.)

But according to Yahoo it is that teachers don’t get paid enough.

But the real reason that teachers are thinking of leaving the profession is:

“What [teachers] really want is they want us to do the common sense gun safety precautions that are being talked about in Washington right now, that Governor Hochul did in New York state with the legislature just a few days ago, that GOP Governor Baker did in Massachusetts a few years ago, what the overwhelming number of Americans — Republican, Democrat, Independent — want us to do: They want something done,” Weingarten said.

Weingarten said this while trying to get politics out of the classroom. Maybe she should keep politics out of the classroom too?

Yes, there are teachers in the local school system that are terrified of school shootings, but hardening the schools with armed guards is not acceptable. It will frighten the children. I don’t understand how that is more frightening than doing lock down drills.

Evaluating Teacher Pay

If some teacher or teacher’s representative tells you they don’t get paid enough, make sure you do the actual math. You need to know the teachers salary, the value of the benefits package and the number of contract hours. A nominal contract is for 185 days per year.

So compare a teacher making $50,000/year and a nurse making $50,000/year. Ignoring benefits.

The nurse makes $24.03/hour. The teacher makes $33.78/hour. If the teacher worked full time, year round like other employees, then they would be making the same $24.03/hour. The difference between being paid $50k/2080hrs and $50k/1480hrs

Via Roger Williams University Law Review, Spring 2006:
The Obfuscation of Rhode Island’s Clearly Expressed Constitutional Right to Bear Arms: Mosby v. Devine

Claudia J. Matzko does a great job of going over how the courts abuse RKBA. Trying to conflate group rights with individual rights.

It never ceases to amaze me that “The right of The People” seems to mean “the right of the state” or “the right of the militia” to so many people.

Via Go Local Prov: Senate Approves Large Magazine Ban on Floor – Bypassing Own Committee

The bill was part of a larger package of gun infringement laws, most in direct contradiction to the constitution:

Article I, § 22 of the Constitution of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Last time I quoted from Google Search referencing Giffards. I love that the RI RKBA is so short and clear.

The Democrats had a large slate of bills infringing on the RKBA. It got side tracked into committee where it stalled in a 50/50 split.

Because they weren’t winning via normal means, the Dem’s pulled this one bill out of committee to the floor where they voted on it and passed it.

I don’t directly follow RI politics but I believe this means the bill is on the way to the governors office for signature now. This is a ban on standard capacity magazines.

Via Fox News Jean-Pierre claims Americans can ‘take on inflation’ because of Biden American Rescue Plan

In an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon:

Jean-Pierre said on CNN that Americans must understand the position President Biden was in when he took office and asserted that the U.S. economy is “bouncing back.” She added that the administration believes they are in a “good position” to take on inflation.

“We’ve got to remember when thinking about gas prices and food this is coming from Putin’s war against Ukraine,” Jean-Pierre caveated. “The moment that Putin amassed forces on the border of Ukraine, we saw from then until now, we have seen a $2 increase per gallon on gas.”

Nothing is Joe’s fault. It is all the fault of the mean tweets.

She said that because of the American Rescue Plan we are all in a place where we can “take on” inflation.

I’m sorry, I’ve not seen my income increase to match inflation. I’ve not seen my wife’s salary increase.

What I’ve seen is that the gap between income and expenses is getting very very thin and soon will be near zero. We are already making decisions on which of two items we purchase. Do we feed the vehicles or do we feed the family. Fortunately for us we have food. It is the costs of everything else that scares me.

From Bloomberg via yahoo news: Biden Ally Floats 21% Surtax on Oil Profits to Blunt Inflation

“The proposal I’m developing would help reverse perverse incentives to price gouge, by doubling the corporate tax rate on companies’ excess profits, eliminating egregious buybacks and reducing accounting tricks,” [Senator Ron] Wyden said about the proposal he plans to introduce in the coming weeks. “By contrast, companies that provide relief to consumers by either reducing prices or investing in new supply would not be affected.”

Inflation isn’t caused by any policy of Joe or the Democrats, nope, it is those evil nasty capitalist oil companies being greedy.

If greed was the driving force, wouldn’t they oil companies have raised their prices long ago to maximize their profits? It would be much easier to sell $2.99/gal gas to public than $5.25/gal.

To quote somebody wiser than me: The beatings will continue until moral improves

A California pet shop and shelter is working to address wrong think.

“We do not support those who believe that the 2nd amendment gives them the right to buy assault weapons,” Kim Sill, owner of the Shelter Hope Pet Shop in Thousand Oaks, wrote on the organization’s website. “If your beliefs are not in line with ours, we will not adopt a pet to you.”

While the Constitution states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, Kim Sill is of the opinion that doesn’t apply to assault weapons.

She has determined that in order for you to adopt (buy) an animal from them you must prove you are scared of firearms and hate them. You will be grilled in a long and detailed interview.

“If you forster for us and believe in guns, please bring our dogs and/or cats back” Kim said. Expressing her firmly held belief that guns are imaginary. And that you are unfit to be a pet owner if you believe in guns.

Being a member of the NRA will also disqualify you. Never mind that the no mass murder has been a member of the NRA nor has the NRA ever advocated for murder. And the NRA being the oldest civil rights organization, fighting to get blacks equal protection doesn’t count.

Animal shelter bans pro-gun supporters from adopting dogs