In case anyone’s wondering…still here. Basically been deciding on the format and whether I want to absorb the cost (probably about $500) it would take to bring this site out of the blog dark ages.

I can drop this site and lose the 4+ years of content and move to a pre-formated site, or spend a few bucks and have my webhost buddy have a programmer get me past the 324 newer versions of WP that have come out since I started this blog…sorting it through.

Sorry to disappoint the loyal readers I’ve had. PGP has been a great learning tool for me, and I hope for others. I just haven’t prioritized it, and have been focusing on school and work as of late.

Apologize to RSS feed folks who get spam because of this post.

I’ll be on Cam’s show tonight around 940pm; www.nranews.com.

As you can probably see, the site is under construction and some weird gibberish is appearing. I think comments are disabled. Sorry for the inconvenience. Should be resolved in a couple days.

Working with a new webhost, going to move over to a friend of mine’s service…I’ll probably quit using the same version of Word Press that Thomas Edison used at some point.

If the site disappears or whatever in the next few days or is intermittent, that’ll probably be why. Hopefully no more RSS ads for penis pills and vitamins and mortgage assistance.

I’ve been admittedly wishy-washy on this, but since Al Gottlieb said it last night on Chris Matthews’ show, I guess the ice is broken: guys, I think the argument you *think* you’re making carrying openly to political protests is a sound one (that the RKBA exists and should be respected, and that the mere presence of defensive weapons in the hands of the law abiding actually isn’t really cause for alarm)…but it’s also just not the right forum.

It was actually pretty funny to watch; Gottlieb agreed with Matthews’ premise that while the 2A is an individual and protected right, you’re just not helping the RKBA cause by freaking people out and lending to the suspicion that firearms advocacy is reserved for the far right fringe. Matthews did a double take and stumbled, having expected Gottlieb to defend the practice of protest carry. He rather obviously was getting ready for a blowhard rant about the lunatic fringe, and Gottlieb completely tripped him up. He spent the next five minutes trying to bait Gottlieb into one of his famous shouting matches without much success (I think Matthews’ hardball style is occasionally called for and sometimes his skewering of looney tunes is brilliant…but pretty obviously he was trying to follow a formula, a formula frankly inappropriate for the tone and civil manner of the discussion).

This story keeps rolling; my take remains 1) eh, it’s a non-event, nobody’s getting hurt and they are making a point, but 2) they’re also giving the enemies of the RKBA ample ammo for scaring fence-riding folks.

I’m glad the point is being pushed in public (that all the pants-crapping hysteria is for naught, the mere presence of a lawfully carried firearm isn’t a big deal…and it ain’t like the USSS and the police in the area weren’t at least as well armed as the guy in question), but I remain unconvinced that this is necessarily the way we want to travel. Not because we’re wrong, but because the other side trades in fear.

One of the more pernicious anti-self defense myths is that you only need worry about being a crime victim if you yourself are at fault (namely, by being in the wrong place at the wrong time…stay away from the “wrong areas” and you’ll be fine). Aside from ignoring the fact that the law abiding shouldn’t have to be fearful anywhere in public, making the ridiculous leap that the victim is the person at fault in violent crime, and doing nothing for folks who can’t afford or don’t want to move away from their neighborhoods when criminals show up…the biggest problem with this anti-logic futile position is a pragmatic consideration.

Which is, rather apparently, that the criminals will follow you if you try the “run from crime” approach.

We’ve always been told here in Baltimore than the Inner Harbor, Canton, Fells, and Federal Hill are “safe” and as long as you avoid the rest of the city (the other 95% of it, mind you) you’ll be fine. In the meantime, the BPD are cracking down on gang activity (and I love Marty Burns, Jessamy’s spokesperson, the one who said Zach Sowers looked like a sleeping baby the night thugs beat him to death, saying that we need to make it illegal to be in a gang…how you gonna enforce that one, you fat piece of dung? Freedom of association anyone?) in the rest of the city simply means the gangs have taken it somewhere else and are now descending on the Inner Harbor. You quash gang activity by occupying territory in Edmonson Village and Sandtown and north of Patterson Park, and the gangs just find somewhere else to be bored teenagers looking for trouble.

Now, they’re taking it downtown where Baltimore’s struggling tourist industry can take it on the chin.

BPD will reoccupy downtown, and homicides will explode in the rest of the hood. You cannot arrest your way out of this problem.

There was a great graphic next to a graph displaying the alleged rising number of hate groups and fringe militias this morning on Dylan Ratigan’s Morning Meeting: a picture of a hand holding a Beretta.

Why not just come out and say what you really mean?

Webhost gave me a plugin that’ll disable it, but has no idea how to install it…and neither do I. I speak politics and rights, but I don’t speak geek.

On my WordPress control panel I have a tab for Plug Ins, but it tells me to go to a directory that doesn’t exist.

Anybody have an interest in helping me unfuck this? I don’t read RSS Feeds and didn’t even know I had one. I’m actually quite comfortable with my blog illiteracy.

They keep mentioning it on the news; I’ll confess a bit of tone-deafness on this issue. One half of me is happy the public is seeing that law abiding folks carrying openly in public doesn’t make cats and dogs live together (mass hysteria!)…the other is really annoyed that the media is bleating about how rising militia movements and geeks at NH townhalls means we all need to be vewwwwy, vewwwwy afwaid.

It’ll probably pass when all this town hall nonsense subsides, but it certainly bears watching.

MSNBC is flipping out because somebody wore a gun openly to a protest in New Hampshire. There’s a guy named J.P. Freire did a pretty good job telling David Schuster where he was going far afield from the world of the rational, but as gun rights advocates we should probably be careful about getting into pissing matches with people who buy ink by the barrel-full. Yes, their response is ridiculous…but I guess I’m gonna come out and say it: you’re probably not helping our cause by freaking middle of the road people out, and the media is going to spin that guy’s action as reckless intimidation.

I could probably get away with open carry in my neighborhood in Baltimore since I have the relationship I do with BPD. But you won’t see me doing it.

By carrying openly and having it be a non-event, yeah, he’s winning the rational argument (namely, that gun carry by the law abiding private citizen really doesn’t result in planes crashing, the Large Hadron Collider destroying the known universe, and babies being eaten by snakes). But he’s probably also giving the David Schusters and Mika Brzezinskis of the world the fuel they need for the “guns are scary” bonfires they love so much.

ETA: now they’re talking about police and USSS response to the guy in question. From what I gather, well played, they…he probably was hoping they’d be stupid enough to try to force him to leave or arrest him. The guy in question is going to be on Chris Matthews’ show this evening, so I imagine he got what he wanted–here’s hoping he does well on Hardball and doesn’t paint the RKBA in a bad light.

ETA 2: guy involved is definitely twitchy, a little geeky and probably not the most articulate guy going, but he did alright while being hammered by Chris Matthews. Ed Schultz is flipping out as well…so my guess is our open carry buddy probably did indeed give the hoplophobe blogosphere and media plenty of ammo.

But it’s probably not the end of the world either.

FWIW, my understanding is that both MD and VA forbid carry permit holders from carrying at political rallies concealed…I think VA allows you to still carry if you un-conceal.