And the aggregate IQ on campus plummeted

Fred Camillo, Jim Himes waiting to be fed

Camillo, Himes, appear at GHS to support gun control

Both were disappointed that the legislation stopped short of where they’d have wanted it, but apparently they’re satisfied that the state’s taken a great first step.

Too bad no one asked these yokels how barring a hunter from purchasing a box of skeet shells or .22s was going to prevent another Newtown, but at least the students saw how politicians milk tragedy for votes. Cynicism towards and suspicion of government cannot be started too soon.

Next election, don’t forget not to vote.

UPDATE: A reader sent along this pearl of wisdom from Himes’ lecture yesterday:

“If you make the decision to keep a weapon in your home, you have made a much more dangerous home, in which it is much more likely that you or your spouse or one of your children or neighbors will die with the gun you have chosen to keep,” he said. “If you want to do that, I believe that’s your right. But it’s not a debatable proposition that if you have a gun in the home, you are safer.”

Can we expect the Congressman to say the same thing about private swimming pools, which cause more  infant and child drowning deaths than guns by a factor of 100? I think not.

Throw Scott from the train

I didn’t know the gun was loaded – really!

I’m just formulating how to do this, but a concerted effort by Greenwich gun owners to punish our legislators for their betrayal of this week should, I think, focus on Scott Frantz. Not because he’s the worst of the four; far from it, but his defeat would garner national attention, while ridding ourselves of any of the others will  be of local interest only. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t throw them all out, but we should focus on Frantz.

Whose defeat will best send a message to other wavering politicians across the country: an amiable garbage man, a small town lawyer, the local drunk in a Chanel dress, or a multi-millionaire scion, host of presidents, a man with huge political ambitions and a state party aligned to help him achieve them? Make Frantz pay the ultimate price for his perfidy and politicians across the country, of both parties, will feel a loosening of their bowels and endure sleepless nights, the poor dears.

Scott is a very decent guy, but he bartered our trust for a bowl of pottage from his political bosses. We can and should make him pay for that betrayal, and his defeat will place the story right in the middle of the national debate. Besides, we’ve done the Lowell Weicker thing before, sending a local rich boy off to the national scene – do we need to repeat it?

Unlike Weicker, Frantz’s heart is in the right place: he articulates fiscally conservative views, advocates for a (somewhat) limited government and certainly doesn’t line his pockets at the public trough like Weicker). But he is totally ineffective, both because Republicans are irrelevant in Hartford and because he’s a patsy, susceptible to being rolled by scary Democrats and even his Republican peers. Losing his seat to a Democrat won’t affect us here in Greenwich one iota:  there’s  always been a bullseye on the town’s coffers, stapled there by the Democrats long ago. Frantz’s weak voice of protest has done nothing to protect us up to now and will do nothing in the future. He’s expendable.

But as a symbol, as someone to serve as an example to other politicians who vote against their principles, he’s priceless.

Greenwich Republicans cheer new gun law

Greenwich Republican delegation returns from exercising their Second Amendment rights in Hartford

We send four representatives to Hartford – there are many, many people in town who have begun to actively look for replacements to these noodle-spined RHINOs. It’s time to elect men and women who understand gutter fighting and guerrilla political warfare, not ladies and gentlemen who gently whisper their protest and return home claiming, “well, we certainly gave it the old college try, at least. Boohla boolah, Eli Yale and pass the martinis.”

Our Riverside patrician Scott L. Frantz, Esq., doesn’t understand why anyone would be mad at him.  “I tried to exempt shotguns, he whined, “to protect the many sensible Republicans like me and my friend Jack Moffly who shoot skeet at the Country Club, but would they listen? They would not, and I’m oh so sorry that they wouldn’t. And to think I went to the trouble of having an elastic waistband sewn into my silk briefs just to make it easier for them. Such ingratitude (but oooh, such brutality!)”

It’s a little late to be running articles on the absurdities of the new gun law Scott Franz voted for

20-year-old soldier back from Afghanistan barred from buying a .410 single shot shot gun. Thanks, Scott, thanks Livvy, and thank you Jack Moffly: without sensible Republicans to help our moronic Democrats craft a “bi-partisan” bill, ordinary citizens might have at least questioned what critics were complaining about. But a law approved by both parties is clearly just a “common sense” safety measure. And of course, they’re right:  I feel safer today than I did yesterday.

It’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity

Libertarian Advocate writes, speaking of Scott Frantz,

I’d thought he was a tough minded businessman. He fell for the Chinese Ploy: Demand the most egregious terms, pretend to cave and get more than you’d ever dreamed for.

Bye Scott.

Which is true, but more distressing is the demonstrated ineptness of our local Republicans to employ the very basic principle that when you’re outnumbered by your enemies, out think them.

Frantz and his few compatriots should not have attempted to water down the bill but instead should have cheered it on. By removing the most egregious elements of the law they helped the Democrats minimize the chances of the entire law being declared unconstitutional. But better than just standing aside, they should have encouraged, even introduced the grossest excesses advocated by the confiscators. Two possible results, had this strategy been adopted: either the law would have been stopped from enforcement by the federal courts and ultimately declared unconstitutional or, had smart Democrats seen what was happening and blocked the Republicans’ proposals it would have put the Democrats in the position of seeming to resist “common sense” laws to end violence. The general public  doesn’t know a constitutional issue from their right nostril and so wouldn’t understand or approve of the Democrats spurning the chance do “really do something”.  Result: Democrats lose, Republicans win the PR game.

Instead, Frantz fell for the Democrat’s gambit, accomplished nothing and looked like the fools that they are. Stupid, stupid , stupid.

Feel safer now? Then you’ve been bamboozled

Greenwich’s Jack Moffly Republicans and their “bi-partisan” pals have whooped through what they proudly proclaim is “the toughest gun law in America” and will now get back to their regularly scheduled business of finding new ways to reward unions and punish the middle class.

All of which was expected, of course, but it is a bit galling to hear these gun confiscators pretend that yesterday’s action wasn’t merely the next step in banning guns in Connecticut and was instead a genuine, sincere effort to ensure the safety of their fellow citizens, just like the two week waiting period to purchase guns, enacted a decade or so ago.Unless you’re a hunter, you probably don’t remember that law, ushered in with the same solemnity as this new one, because it gets absolutely no attention from the press or the Hartford Harassers. They’d prefer you’d forget it because it has done nothing – nothing – to reduce gun homicides; the gangbangers who cause that mayhem are (a) already ineligible because of their criminal histories to own or possess guns and (b) Ignore the law by buying guns out of channel, just as they did before its passage.

Now we have another set of laws which will be ignored by the very people this legislation is purportedly aimed at. If you believe that gangsters intent on murder will be deterred from breaking the law  requiring a background check when they are already violating laws against murder and the possession of any kind of weapon by a criminal, then you deserve the government you have.

So given that these laws will have no effect on criminals, who will they punish?

Law abiding citizens who can no longer buy ammunition on the Internet or even purchase box of shells from a sports store without proof of an “ammunition certificate”. The politicians claim that this certificate will only cost $35 but don’t mention the six month process of local, state and federal investigations of their suitability to own a bullet and a mandatory “gun-safety” class. Each step will cost money and the cost of each will rise every year the legislature meets. Internet sales will indeed stop: no supplier will bother to set up a compliance system for citizens of our tiny state, they’ll just stop shipping to Connecticut, as they have done with California. The lack of legitimately purchased ammunition  will not stop a criminal from obtaining it, just as the lack of legitimate heroin or cocaine has not stopped drug use. There are “alternative sources.”

Suffering from depression, anorexia or any other mental affliction? Don’t check into a Connecticut hospital unless you want to be on a permanent register of crazies, barred from exercising a constitutional right and subject to a newspaper like The Journal News publishing your name and home address on an interactive map. Would this law have stopped any of our mass murderers in the past century? Nope, but it will certainly discourage troubled individuals from seeking professional help. How many people suffering from depression will now shun treatment, how many deaths by suicide will that cause? We’ll find out, over time.

Banning high capacity ammunition magazines. The best estimate I’ve seen of the difference this would have made, had he obeyed it (and anyone eager to shoot school children is an unlikely candidate to comply with this law) is that, instead of his killing spree lasting 5 minutes, Adam Lanza would have had to spend 5 minutes and 20 seconds. So it won’t stop that sort of incident but it will make felons of every citizen who owns such magazines and fails to register it or surrender it to the police. While I certainly don’t own any of these evil things – police, take notice – I haven’t heard a single gun owner who does have one state that she will comply. When a law makes felons out of tens of thousands of law abiding citizens there’s something wrong with the law, not the citizens.

Banning “assault rifles” which are merely ordinary  rifles mocked up to look like military weapons. Do you think that banning gun stocks that adjust in length to fit different sized people – women tend to be shorter than men, for instance – would have prevented Sandy Hook or will prevent a massacre in the future? No? Well certainly the new prohibition against bayonet mounts will do it.

I could go one (and on – the bill has 92 sections and hundred of pages) but here’s the gist: this law will not affect criminals one whit, but it will make gun ownership in Connecticut more expensive and burdensome. Which, again, is the entire point of this exercise. Advocates for confiscation of all guns in our state have already acknowledged that this scheme is just another step towards achievement of their ultimate goal and have vowed that they’ll be back, again and again, until they win completely.

And Scott Frantz acquiesced in all this to preserve an illusion of bi-partisanship.

Why I won’t vote for another Greenwich or Connecticut Republican

Deep in the RHINO graveyard

1. They are all what I’ve come to think of as “Jack Moffly Republicans”, cheerful, pleasant individuals with an insatiable need to be liked,  “go-along, get-along” personalities who will support any policy of the Democrats if they think they can get away with it with their voters. Today’s affirmative vote on the misbegotten gun confiscation bill is just the most recent example.

2. (And most important), their participation in the Democrats’ schemes adds a false veneer of bi-partisanship and legitimacy to Democrat Party rule and permits those Democrats to defer responsibility to Republicans. Notice that Fudrucker and other looters respond to complaints about sweetheart union deals and wildly out of control budgets by pointing out that we had a Republican governor installed when the groundwork for our current crisis was laid. Happens all the time.

By their own admission, Greenwich (Connecticut) Republican’s have zero influence in Hartford, a fact frequently pointed out by Fudrucker and his crowd when urging the election of their own candidates who might stand a chance to be listened to. So there’s nothing to be lost in denying them our votes and everything to be gained if the Democrats lose their ability to evade responsibility for the results of their policies. Stay home in November; I know I will.

Connecticut democrats (with a small d”, not the Hartford Muggers) might wonder about this

Today our legislators will impose draconian restrictions on a civil liberty protected under both the federal and state constitutions and will do so by enacting a law whose text has never been revealed to the public. Our local Republican representatives have voiced no complaint about this secrecy, proving, if proof were needed, that they serve no purpose other than window dressing. Toss them out.

UPDATE: (9:45) Two hours before its passage, the bill has been released to the public. 92 sections long, it’s the Evelyn Woods school of democracy.

UPDATE II: Yes, they really are attempting to curtail interstate sale of ammunition by requiring an “ammunition certificate” to purchase or possess it; it will require the same background check currently required for pistol and now, rifles. I suspect that ammunition suppliers will do to us what they’ve already done to California residents in response to that state’s stringent gun laws (which have proved so effective in turning gang bangers with illegal guns into law abiding, non-violent, registered gun owners): they just won’t ship it. Which of course is exactly what the gun confiscators and our Greenwich Republican representatives want.

Here’s another fun item in the bill: an anorexic or anyone else suffering from mental difficulties who voluntarily checks into a mental hospital for treatment will be barred from owning a gun. It is a little known fact that anorexics have been responsible for 87.9 % of all mass shootings in this country, so this is a loophole that, now closed, can assure all of us that our children are safe.

By the way, the remaining 12.1% of such massacres have been committed by shooters wielding grenade launchers and bayonets, so you’ll be relieved that our legislators have responded to Sandy Hook by banning those too.

Nothing – nothing in this secret bill will accomplish anything to prevent another Sandy Hook, as anyone with common sense must acknowledge. Start with the idea that there is already a law against homicide on the books, and puzzle it out: if someone is willing to break that basic law, will he really shrink from committing murder using ammunition he is prohibited from possessing? By violating a gun-free zone at a supermarket? By denying him a bayonet? This is all politics all the time, and our politicians, at least, know that.

I wish him well, but also, politically, adios

And so, as I pass into my next career, I wish all of my former supporters adieu. Now it’s off to be a Democrat.

State rep Fred Camillo has thyroid cancer, I’m sorry to learn, (from his own announcement, and certainly not some private information).  Fred’s an amiable guy, albeit with a terrible taste in sweaters, so I hope he recovers and flourishes.

But in the same article discussing his cancer Camillo says that he regrets being unable to vote in favor of today’s latest round in gun confiscation. I’m aware of a number of people who have supported Camillo’s political ambitions in the past. I rather suspect the ones I know will do so no longer. Certainly I won’t.

Freddie’s got a seemingly bomb proof sinecure here in town, but that security comes from a Republican base. Alienating a large portion of that base and ensuring that they stay home on election day will open the way for a Democrat to oust him.

Dunce.

How to fire up gun owners

Democrats want federal law imposing $10,000 fine for gun owners who fail to obtain “gun insurance”.  In Connecticut, passage of the strictest gun control laws in the nation have merely whetted the appetite of the gun confiscators: “We’ll be back” vows the head of some anti-gun organization, and indeed they will. Non-gun owners wonder why their fellow citizens resist so strongly “common sense” restrictions on ownership. This is why – each new law is merely a step toward the ultimate goal of handing over all weapons to the government.

UPDATE: I missed this bit in Connecticut’s new law:  it creates a new “ammunition eligibility certificate” which will effectively ban ordering ammunition from out of state. That’s not seen as a problem for the antis, who envision a requirement that all ammunition be stored at a licensed shooting rage and sold, one at a time, to target shooters, but it’s really a ploy to drive up the cost. The Newtown shooter would not have been deterred by hiving to spend an extra fifty bucks on his bullets – target shooters, who might go through 200 rounds in a day, will be. A box of fifty 45 ACP cartridges at a gun store can cost $75 – that same box on the Internet, bought in quantity is $10. Shooting 100 rounds in an evening at the range will now cost $100, rather than $20 – which is precisely the point of the gun confiscators. This is not “control”, nor is it intended to be.

UPDATE II: Most disgusting, self-serving, duplicitous quote from this entire thing belongs to Republican John McKinney: “Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, a Fairfield Republican whose district includes Newtown, said Republicans and Democrats have understood they needed to “rise above politics” when they decided to come up with a legislative response to the massacre.”

No one thinks anything passed today will actually prevent another mass shooting and in fact what McKinney is so proud of is nothing but politics. It will be interesting to see how many Republicans withhold their support from every single Republican candidate in the next election. Certainly I will: they’re mere eunuchs in this Democrat controlled state anyway, so why keep them around in the pretense that they’re protecting our interests? Off with their heads.

An immodest proposal

Senator Martin Looney

Connecticut Democrat Majority Leader Martin Looney goes after alcohol.

Martin Looney, Majority Leader of the Connecticut Senate, introduced legislation today that would impose new controls on liquor sales and possession of alcohol in private homes and businesses.

“Approximately 80,000 deaths are attributable to excessive alcohol use each year in the United States,” Looney declared at a press conference this morning, citing Center for Disease Control statistics. “Although that number pales against the 443,000 deaths caused by smoking, it is more than 5X the 14,000 homicides caused by firearms. My bill to confiscate firearms is on its way to passage by our legislature and my proposal to quadruple the tax on cigarettes will end smoking within 15 years. With those two goals accomplished, it is time now to turn our attention to alcohol, the third leading lifestyle-related cause of death for the nation. Excessive alcohol use is responsible for 2.3 million years of potential life lost annually, or an average of about 30 years of potential life lost for each death. In 2006, there were more than 1.2 million emergency room visits and 2.7 million physician office visits due to excessive drinking, while the economic costs of excessive alcohol consumption in 2006 were estimated at $223.5 billion. This has to stop, now.”

Looney’s proposed bill would affect alcohol sales and possession in a myriad of ways, including:

• The sale of beer in containers larger than 12-oz bottles or cans is prohibited; sales shall be limited to one six-pack per month.

• Hard liquor shall be sold in no container larger than 16 oz.; sales shall be limited to one quart per month.

• Possession of alcohol in private residences home shall be restricted to registered, licensed consumers only, with a mandatory background check before issuance or any such license. Felons, persons having ever been adjudged mentally ill or convicted of domestic abuse or driving while intoxicated shall be barred from purchasing, possessing or consuming alcohol. Proof of registration must be provided at all points of sale of alcohol including retail establishments, restaurants, bars and private clubs.

• The sale, transfer or gift of alcohol to an unregistered consumer shall be a felony punishable by a fine not exceeding $100,000 and a prison term of not less than one and not more than five years, with a one year mandatory term.

• All liquor in a private residence shall be stored in a locked cabinet or safe, with annual inspections of all such liquor storage units to be performed by the Connecticut State Police or by such liquor control officers as the state police may designate.

• Importation of alcohol from outside the state of Connecticut or interstate online sales are prohibited.

• A new tax of $2 per oz. of alcohol, beer or spirits or wine, will be imposed beginning January 1, 2014. Proceeds of said tax shall be divided, 50% to the state’s general fund, 50% to alcohol cessation programs and repayment of the health costs incurred by municipal hospitals in treating alcoholics.

• All registered alcohol consumers shall provide proof, each calendar year, of a liquor liability insurance policy in the face amount of not less than one million dollars.

“This is just a start”, Looney vowed, “and we will be adding more restrictions as we develop this bill with our fellow Democrats. These are the exact restrictions we are imposing on gun owners after the tragedy of Sandy Hook – yes, a few of them have complained, but not all, and certainly not the majority of our citizens, who recognize these as just common sense regulations that will eliminate the carnage so prevalent in modern society. And while I recognize that these restrictions may seem onerous and even expensive to some state residents, I remind them that drinking is a privilege, not a right: if we can save a family from destruction, a woman from being beaten, if we can save the life of just one child, is any price too high?”

Looney invited all those with questions or comments about his bill to call his district office at 203-468-8829.