Smart holsters are still dumb

On: By: admin

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reports:

“Autonomous Ballistics, a team from New York University Tandon School of Engineering, took home the $1 million prize in a Smart Gun Design Competition funded by Borough President Eric Adams. And the winning team’s design is not a gun — but a smart holster …”

The idea of a “smart” gun has been around for probably close to 50 years.  All attempts to produce one have failed.  Knowing this I will give these guys credit for trying a different approach.

“… The smart holster uses fingerprint ID, RFID and voice identification to keep out everyone but the legal owner (and up to 200 other users), Cohen and Raj Kumar said. A small fingerprint reader is embedded into the wall of the holster. The beauty of their design is that you “don’t have to change your gun at all. It’s just a holster similar to the one you have except this is maneuvered so that it’s almost inherent that you put your finger [on the fingerprint reader] when you pull it out,” Cohen said …”

I’d guess the idea came from the retention-type holsters police use.  The problem here is any system is only as reliable as the least reliable part of it.  Electronics are less reliable than mechanics so their idea has an inherent flaw.  How could you market such a product?  Would trail lawyers consider the liability aspects of marketing a product with a known “defect”?

“… The concepts were evaluated based on their adaptability into the market, feasibility, flexibility, potential impact on public safety and potential for other uses. So far no word has come in on the design from gun manufacturers on the idea …”

Their silence says enough.

Notice too, the NYPD isn’t jumping on this.  If Adams, who is a former officer, believes in the concept so much why isn’t he promoting it to Commissioner O’Neill?

2A supporters haven’t forgotten

On: By: admin

Phil Boyle’s flip-flopping on gun rights (by my count at least 3 times) doomed his bid for Sheriff.

According to Newsday:

“… [Larry Zacarese] showed the savvy of a veteran political operative last week when he tapped a crucial and highly energized bloc: Gun owners who were angry at his opponent, state Sen. Phil Boyle, for voting for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s gun-control measure known as the SAFE Act. Zacarese … drubbed Boyle in a GOP primary, in part due to two mailings to 3,000 gun owners throughout Suffolk. Zacarese also did ads on two local radio stations on the East End, where the gun issue is a significant concern and where the sheriff’s department handles gun licensing. As a freshman senator, Boyle voted for the SAFE Act but said shortly thereafter that his vote “was a mistake.” Boyle further angered gun users by saying he might have realized the mistake “if we were given more than two hours to read the bill.” …”

Boyle was lying about gun rights before voting for SAFE.  That was just the final straw.

“… Gun owners are a powerful bloc in low-turnout primaries — about 7 percent of Republicans voted Tuesday in the sheriff’s race — because they vote in force. That also gives them clout beyond their numbers in a general election. One gun owner, Dov Neidish of Commack, said in an interview that Boyle had “no backbone” and “staunch supporters of the Second Amendment haven’t forgotten.” Boyle admits the issue was “definitely a factor” with some voters even though he considers himself a Second Amendment advocate and co-sponsored SAFE Act repeal measures, though they have yet to pass. “Some folks will never forgive my original support, which was based solely on the law’s gang provisions,” that increased penalties for gang-related crimes involving guns, Boyle said. …”

His support for SAFE was based upon 1.) the fact he does not support gun rights, and 2.) the sleazy no-compete deal the Senate Republicans have with Cuomo which is the only thing keeping them in power.

My prediction: Long Island Republicans won’t learn a darn thing from this.

H.R.38 adds more co-sponsors

On: By: admin

Don’t know if this is in response to the Breitbart article, but H.R.38 has added two more co-sponsors bringing the total to 211.

Primary aftermath

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Most party endorsed candidates won their primaries yesterday.  A few positive results for gun owners:

  1. Michael Kearns won three minor party endorsements in his bid for Erie County Clerk.
  2. Steve McLaughlin defeated the party candidate to win the Republican nomination for Rensselaer County Executive.
  3. Phil Boyle went down in flames in the Republican primary for Suffolk County Sheriff.  Unfortunately he still keeps his job in the Senate, but his humiliation is most entertaining.

Is Ryan holding up reciprocity?

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Is Paul Ryan blocking H.R.38?

That is the claim made by Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie:

“The Speaker told me he didn’t think the timing was right.”

H.R.38 currently has 209 co-sponsors.  It’s virtually certain to pass the House with plenty of votes to spare.  There’s no reason to hold it up.

Ryan needs to take Ben Shapiro’s advice.  The time is right to move your agenda when you are the majority party in both houses and your party holds the presidency.

H.R.3576 adds Stefanik and Tenney

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Elise Stefanik and Claudia Tenney have added their names as co-sponsors to H.R.3576 bringing the total now to six.

Should be required reading for Republicans

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Ben Shapiro pens an op-ed at the Post, “Why Republicans should get radical.”

Key points:

“… Republicans in power have an unfortunate tendency to conserve their political capital rather than invest it …”

“… Democrats see their radical legislative moves as building blocks for the future. Republicans, afraid that their carefully crafted tower of electability will come crumbling down, make no radical legislative moves …”

“… If Republicans hope to set a foundation for future victory, they’ll need to do more than act as an impediment to bad Democratic ideas. They’ll need to take political risks in order to shift the playing field itself …”

Exactly.

Congressional Republicans should start radicalizing by passing reciprocity H.R.38/S.446.

Latimer attempts to insert gun control into primary

On: By: admin

It’s a safe bet these two things are related.

Item #1, “GOP urges voters to support Rob Astorino in the Reform Party primary“:

“… In advance of the minor Reform Party Sept. 12 primary, the state Republican committee paid for mailers sent out to registered voters unaffiliated with a specific party encouraging them to write in the name of [Rob] Astorino, who is also running unopposed on the Republican ticket. State Sen. George Latimer, a Democrat and the Reform Party executive committee’s choice for county executive, accused Astorino of “using the Republican state party in an embarrassing attempt to steal this ballot line and do a hostile takeover of the Reform Party.” …”

Item #2, “Westchester County Executive Hopeful Takes Aim At Controversial Gun Show“:

“… “To own a gun is perfectly legal, but it’s not something I think the county should be involved in helping to promote,” State Sen. George Latimer (D) said. Latimer is running for Westchester County Executive, and pointed to Nazi literature, books on Hitler, and confederate flag mementos at the last gun show as reasons why the promoter ‘Northeast Gun Shows’ should not be allowed to hold another event at the county center this January … Astorino said 8,000 people attended in January, lines have traditionally been out the door, and the latest gun show earned tax payers $50,000, so he won’t stop it because of some controversial memorabilia. “These are historical in nature, these are not propaganda to join the Nazis and the KKK, this is about World War II, the same books are in high school libraries,” he said …”

This has nothing to do with guns.  Latimer is following the current Democrat playbook of accusing Republicans of being Nazis in an attempt to gin up the kook-left snowflakes and get them to turn out and vote for him on election day.

Trump gets another court pick

On: By: admin

President Trump gets the opportunity to to nominate another pro-gun justice, this one in the 7th Circuit:

“Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals announced his retirement Friday afternoon … Posner is one of the most consequential legal figures of recent times, exerting significant influence on the practice and study of law from his perches on the Seventh Circuit and the University of Chicago Law School faculty … The Journal of Legal Studies says he was the most cited legal scholar of the 20th century. Posner subscribes to a method of judging called “pragmatism,” which seeks to balance the equities of each case and conform judicial rulings to the social, political, and economic arrangements of the times …”

Posner was critical of Scalia:

“… Posner was also in the headlines in 2012 when then-Justice Antonin Scalia accused him of lying about the justice’s new book in a review published in The New Republic. In the review, Posner had accused Scalia of deviating from his own strict, text-based approach to interpreting law when he struck down a District of Columbia handgun ban in 2008 by considering the legislative history behind the law. Scalia responded to the review by saying, “To say that I used legislative history is simply, to put it bluntly, a lie.” …”

However, his “pragmatism” did extend to gun rights:

“… Posner’s opinon in the new case Moore v. Madigan … “To confine the right to be armed to the home is to divorce the Second Amendment from the right of self-defense described in Heller and McDonald. It is not a property right — a right to kill a houseguest who, in a fit of aesthetic fury, tries to slash your copy of Norman Rockwell’s painting, Santa with Elves.” …”

Hilarity from The Hill

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Michael Hopkins at The Hill opines, “Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand will lead Democrats to 2020 victory“:

“… As the Democratic party looks toward the 2020 presidential election, there are questions about who will take over the mantle of spokesperson and future leader of the party … Rising stars Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) seem to have the rare ability to unite the party and excite the various factions making up the base …”

No.

Gillibrand is Chuck Schumer’s mini-me while Harris is going full Bernie.

“… If Democrats have any hope of winning back the White House in 2020, we have to do more than just run a candidate, we must run a movement …”

Democrats have a movement, Black Lives Matter and AntiFa.  It’s based upon racism, sexism, anti-semitism, anti-intellectualism, and contempt for individuality.  That’s why so many of them, especially Harris, are big supporters of gun control.