RememberSchiff

Well speaking for myself

Do you consider the right to own a fire arm as important as the right to vote or the right to free speech?

Yes. Maybe because I have been a crime victim more than once, I consider the right to self defense (life) most important.

Second.... people keep saying a restriction is unconstitutional. If the majority of the population thought it needed changing couldn't you just change the constitution?

Our constitution can be amended/ratified only by our elected federal and state legislatures. We the people cannot vote for a Constitutional Amendment. Our Founding Fathers had concerns about majority rule, in particular, an uneducated, emotional majority rule so they wanted the Constitutional to be rather difficult to amend at least without some heavy consideration.

Finally. Folks talk about freedom from tyranny. Does anyone in the USA actually fear that the federal government would ever become tyranical? Really? You honestly think one day you might become an Orwellian nightmare? We're talking about a country that is the ultimate democracy. From what I can see you vote on pretty much everything from The President through to your local Fire Chief. That is the culture you live in, or it is the one that I see as an outsider. Maybe the reality is different. So do you really fear government power?

Well we are not a democracy, we are a constitutional republic which elects its representatives and obeys its constitution. Some fifty years ago, I learned in Civics class, that we are a nation of laws, the same law applies to everyone and that the distinction between a right and a privilege is that you cannot forfeit your rights and government cannot take your rights away. I am less sure about that.

In my lifetime, the US has been in many wars. None were declared by Congress as required by the Constitution. There were Congressional authorization of funds for these undeclared wars. Even the War Powers Act was not followed in our recent attack on Libya. Our Constitution also requires that treaties be approved by Congress but that occurs less and less. Checks and balances among our three government branches (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial) is vanishing.

If the IRS "thinks" you ran afoul with your federal taxes, you are presumed guilty until you prove yourself innocent. IRS now there is tyranny.

Speaking of tyranny, there is the Patriot Act allowing indefinite detention if someone rightly or wrongly is labeled a terrorist. Whatever happened to due process?

So that's just some points. Hope this helps.

(This message has been edited by RememberSchiff)

Might be useful to ask families why they chose those scouting programs over ours. Open response not canned multiple choice.

Maybe, but Hacker scouts appears targeted at upper elementary, middle school kids.

Yes, I would like steel shot used at the shotgun range and if the lead deposits at the rifle range are a threat to the ground water, excavate berms and either rebuild to trap the lead for recycling or use green ammo for short range target practice. The latter is more likely as the use of lead ammo is getting banned more.

Do it sooner or the government will tell you to do it later?

My $0.02,(This message has been edited by RememberSchiff)

Not hackers breaking into computers but kids with adult mentors USING tools, woodworking, robot-building,...Badges but no uniforms. Inclusive. Membership 32,000 nationwide. Website https://diy.org/

Probably more hands-on than our survey STEM merit badges?

News Story from NPR

http://www.npr.org/2012/12/23/167285991/with-growth-of-hacker-scouting-more-kids-learn-to-tinker

Geek Scouts and Maker Scouts are similar but not nationwide,...yet.

http://www.geek-scouts.org/

http://makerscouts.org/

Maker Scouts is a burgeoning group looking to build a next generation scouting organization. Our main drive is bringing modern science, technology, engineering, art, and math to children outside of a school environment. Maker Scouts seeks to foster a well socialized, moral, and tech savvy generation of boys and girls.

This is getting interesting.

Another $0.02,

Sorry, I forgot. Checking the Fieldbook..."Lead by example"? ..."often mistaken for rabbit scat by Tenderfoot scouts"...must be somewhere else in here...

Yes as does mercury, arsenic, E.coli,... The issue is where and concentration level.

I dunno, great question. We had fist fights not gun fights back then.

Fist fights on the bus, in school, in the neighborhood, at scouts, everywhere except church where the nuns hit us

Anger needs an outlet or a quick release?

Another $0.02,

I would say something like

Many current and past scouters and scouts are working at the local level to make scouting more inclusive...to reach all boys interested in being a scout.

I would mention units that have stated on their websites their policy of inclusion and where that inclusion has grown to their councils. In some cases these inclusion policies have been in place for years.

Mention Mount Diablo-Silverado Council approved a gay Scouts Eagle application and sent it to National.

Mention that two National Board members support a policy change and one of those two is line to be National Executive Board president in 2014.

Major corporate supporters have withdrawn financial support as have individual supporters.

Change is coming from the bottom up and the outside in. Slow, but it is coming.

My $0.02, hope this helps(This message has been edited by RememberSchiff)

I was out on openin' day of waterfowl season this fall. I wish we could ban semi-automatic shotguns just so some fellows would learn how to shoot. By the time you've lit off your 5th round, it's time to admit that yeh missed the dang thing and should stop sprayin' lead in a big arc heedless of what's around yeh.

Contact the game warden. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has banned lead shot for waterfowl hunting nationwide since 1991. There's been several studies both pre and post ban about use of lead shot.

I am not a hunter, but I discuss the environmental effects of lead in Environmental Science Merit Badge.

So you are selling your Glock?

Beavah you missed the point. The certain reimbursement for the impressment of your horse, etc. after the war as you would expect if owning a horse was your Constitutional right; that reimbursement was not there. So I doubt, our pragmatic Founding Fathers would have considered owning a horse a right, with all the other bills to be paid.

During WW2 via a FDR executive order, our government impressed Japanese Americans into internment camps for up to three years. The Constitutional rights of these Americans had been violated and in 1988, a $1.6 billion reparation program was set up.

Post 9/11 "reasonable regulation"? More like regulation gone wild. Good to see, the TSA are finally removing those "reasonable" X-ray scanners, maybe "reasonable" groping will be next to go?(This message has been edited by RememberSchiff)

...the investigation is in progress which I hope includes a drug test, mental health background check, motive determination, gun ownership,...

but do yeh think da Founding Fathers would have considered horses a right? That if yeh owned a horse, the government could stop you from using it or take it away?

Doubt it, because like the British, the Continental Congress and Continental Army were documented horse thieves.

"On 4 November 1775 the Continental Congress recommended that the legislatures of the New England states empower Washington to impress wagons, horses, vessels, and other necessities for the transportation or march of his army. This power was to be delegated to the Quartermaster General.37 Subsequently, Washington was authorized to impress goods and services in numerous emergencies. Clearly, Congress believed that an emergency justified the use of impressment. It later urged that in the use of impressment every possible attention be paid to the laws of the states and the rights of individuals. When military operations became centered in the Middle Department and impressment was resorted to with increasing frequency, Congress requested the states to pass laws authorizing and regulating impressment by the Continental Army."

http://www.history.army.mil/books/RevWar/risch/chpt-1.htm

In some cases the "impressed" goods were returned. Our new government was short on funds and deep in bills to contractors and soldiers which took a higher priority than reimbursing citizens; there were also differences over appraised values. I wonder if the New Jersey owner got his Durham boats back or was reimbursed by Washington?

Impressment of horses continued in the War of 1812, War Between the States,...

So no right to own/operate a horse, carriage, or car. The Constitution recognizes the right of freedom of travel* but there are no rights regarding the means, many are regulated. You cannot walk, bike, or horseback along many interstates. You cannot freely operate a car - you must have a license, registration, current inspection, insurance, ...

*Post 9/11, I am not so sure about our right of freedom of travel.

I dislike speakers using backdrops of American flags (just one please, not 30), kids, troops, policemen,... The speaker and his speech should be able to stand without props. However, I do enjoy the rare occasion when someone is asleep in that backdrop.

One backdrop that I would like to see is a stack of money, as in "Today I propose ... and here's the money to pay for it."

My $0.02,

I give the ARRL credit in trying to interest our iPhone, Facebook youth in amateur radio.

Last year, the ARRL helped the BSA released the Morse Code Interpreter strip (above left pocket) and this year the new Amateur Radio Operator strip (right sleeve) for any scout or scouter who holds a valid FCC-issued Amateur Radio license.

http://www.arrl.org/news/bsa-to-offer-amateur-radio-operator-rating-strip

More impressive than OMGWTF Internet Acronym Interpreter or Facebook Friend strips. I made that up as a joke, those don't exist do they?

As to what "arms" we can bear, look at Supreme Court decision District of Columbia v. Heller -

"This Second Amendment rights case was brought by a group of libertarian lawyers on behalf of plaintiffs with respectable backgrounds and appealing reasons for seeking relief from the District of Columbias extremely restrictive gun control regulations. The challenged statute prohibited the possession of a handgun by almost all D.C. residents, and required that all firearms be kept in an inoperable condition. This effort to disarm the citizenry had been in place for over 30 years, and was the most restrictive gun-control law in the country. By a vote of 5-4, the Court held that both the handgun ban and the safe-storage regulation violated the Second Amendment, which protects at least the right to keep a handgun in ones own home and to make it operable for purposes of immediate self defense."

The Second Amendment, Heller, and Originalist Jurisprudence Nelson Lund, George Mason Univ

Justice Scalia concluded: The (D.C.) handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of arms that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose [viz. self defense]. The (D.C.) prohibition extends, moreover, to the home, where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights, banning from the home the most preferred firearm in the nation (BD's Glock?) to keep and use for protection of ones home and family, would fail constitutional muster. . . .

So from Scalia, "arms" in the second amendment means what is now in common use in America for protection. This case was about handguns, the next case may be a about semi-automatic rifles, and maybe in two hundred years there will be a case about hand phasers.

My $0.02

(This message has been edited by RememberSchiff)

Boy Scout Troop 358 of Grace Baptist Church, Philadelphia return for the SECOND time to march in the Presidential Inaugural Parade this Monday January 17, 2013, Martin Luther King Day.

They are the only Boy Scout troop marching in the parade, though I am sure other individual scouts are in the parade but associated with leadership, sports, and school programs.

http://www.philly.com/philly/video/BC2103577881001.html

Over the years, I have often heard jokes like "...the only things scouts lie about is having girlfriends" from non-scout acquaintances. "Yeah yuck, yuck, not true!"

Enter Eagle Scout, Notre Dame football player, and Heisman Trophy candidate Manti Te'O with the tragic story of the death of his non-existent girlfriend Lennay Kekua.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/17/fenno-manti-teo-girlfriend-story-a-wild-ghost-chas/

Bizarre and why? Did he want added sympathy in hopes of winning Heisman?

The good news; people and the embarrassed sports media are more interested in Lying Lance who makes Bill Clinton seem like a boy scout.

Another $0.01 for still being grumpy

Annual losses were about $50K, Mount Baker Council gave the Friends of Black Mountion until Dec 31 to

1. raise $60K to cover potential losses, FoBM raise $64,560

2. Get at least 300 campers over 3 weeks, FoBM only got 251 by deadline. Fewer than 20 signed for first week.

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2013/01/17/2842079/boy-scout-board-cuts-summer-camp.html

Just know what I read in article, but it seemed the Council focus was just on dollars and numbers and not the underlying camp summer program.

I can't understand why we don't open scout summer camps to non-member boys sponsored by a troop or another scout. 4H and Y camps both allow and even recruit non-members to fill camp slots and hopefully join later.

No summer camp this year, no camp next year?

My $0.01 for being grumpy

Yeah M1 Garand thumb...Beretta bite too...how embarrassing.

JoeBob,

You are correct the Garand takes a 8-round clip now whether politicians make any distinction between a mag and clip is another matter. Still the Garand has a bayonet lug and the state of NY says semi-auto + bayonet lug = assault weapon. I can't see my Dad grinding if off. Good luck to the state of NY against Walt Kowolski.

Here's an extract of the NY Safe Act

S 37. Subdivision 22 of section 265.00 of the penal law, as added by

chapter 189 of the laws of 2000, is amended to read as follows:

22. "Assault weapon" means

(A) A SEMIAUTOMATIC RIFLE THAT HAS AN ABILITY TO ACCEPT A DETACHABLE

MAGAZINE AND HAS AT LEAST ONE OF THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERISTICS:

(I) A FOLDING OR TELESCOPING STOCK;

(II) A PISTOL GRIP THAT PROTRUDES CONSPICUOUSLY BENEATH THE ACTION OF

THE WEAPON;

(III) A THUMBHOLE STOCK;

(IV) A SECOND HANDGRIP OR A PROTRUDING GRIP THAT CAN BE HELD BY THE

NON-TRIGGER HAND;

(V) A BAYONET MOUNT;

(VI) A FLASH SUPPRESSOR, MUZZLE BREAK, MUZZLE COMPENSATOR, OR THREADED

BARREL DESIGNED TO ACCOMMODATE A FLASH SUPPRESSOR, MUZZLE BREAK, OR

MUZZLE COMPENSATOR;

(VII) A GRENADE LAUNCHER;

OGE, you are probably correct with your good suggestions.

I wonder if William Kunstler is still practicing

My guess 80% Loyalist, 20% Rebel.

Meanwhile New York passed the NY Safe Act 2013 which prohibits AR-15's just by virtue of it's pistol grip alone. Magazines are limited to 7 round capacity. Responsible NY gun owners legally owning firearms which are now labeled as assault weapons have one year to sell them to an out-of-state buyer. I doubt criminals took notice. My father's M-1 Garand (circa WW2/Korea) is now an assault weapon because it has a bayonet lug and takes a 8 round clip. Legally owned 10 round magazines have to be retro-fitted or sold in one year.

Massachusetts is next in line with a similar measure. If it passes, I will have to sell the 10 round mags for my son's Boy Scout Ruger 10-22 rifle.

Some of us shoot service rifle competitions to earn Distinguished Rifleman through the Civilian Marksmanship Program. That may be lost.

Maybe the federal government is not taking our firearms but some states and localities are telling us to sell them or else.