I don’t normally go for ad hominem attacks, but Michael Moore pisses me off no end.  While I won’t comment on his size, given my own particular situation, I have no qualms saying that he’s a gaseous windbag spewing noxious, false bullshit.  So it was with some interest that I came across this campaign:

   BUY A GUN FOR (TO SPITE) MICHAEL MOORE DAY-APRIL 15

It would be such fun to inform his noxiousness that people are out there buying guns because of him and his propaganda crap fake-umentary.

Besides, there’s a gun show at Dallas Market Hall on April 12th and 13th.  That sounds like a good enough excuse to me.

PayPal’s response to my customer service inquiry leaves a bit to be desired:

Dear Aubrey,

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

We appreciate the time you’ve taken to write us with your comments about our service. 

PayPal continuously strives to provide you with the highest quality website features and navigation system.  We carefully consider every feedback email we receive and appreciate your suggestions. 

Thank you very much for your feedback.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.

Sincerely,
LuShawn
PayPal Customer Service

This sounds like they were required to respond, but didn’t know what to say.

I’ve been seeing some back-and-forth between posters on one of the email lists to which I am subscribed concerning a change in PayPal’s acceptable use policy.  So I decided to go check it out for myself.  I was less than pleased with what I read.  Here’s the offending section:

You may not use PayPal to sell any firearm manufactured after 1898. Certain related items and high-capacity ammunition magazines are also prohibited, as described in more detail below. In addition, it is the responsibility of users to abide by all applicable laws when dealing with the sale of permitted antique firearms, ammunition, replicas, militaria and other associated items.

What this does is prohibit the use of PayPal to make payments for sales of legal firearms that are not antiques.  Since PayPal is a private entity, they have the right to dictate these terms, but that doesn’t mean that I agree with them.

When you sign into PayPal you are required to agree with the new terms and conditions.  I declined the new terms this morning, which just means that I am only delaying their effectiveness until June 4, 2003 (when they become effective whether I’ve agreed or not).  I sent the following to PayPal customer service this morning:

It was with consternation that I read your new acceptable use policy concerning firearm sales.  While I am not a seller, I am a law-abiding collector of firearms.  As a private entity, I agree that you have the right to restrict the use of your service.  However, I will not continue to use the service under these terms.  As PayPal bills itself as a payment service, as long as no laws were broken in the transaction, PayPal should only concern itself with brokering payment.

I will continue to monitor this situation in the hope that PayPal will discontinue this misguided policy.  However, I will close my account in June if the policy continues, rather than become subject to the new terms.

The people on the email list were suggesting a boycott of PayPal.  I’m not quite ready to go to that extreme, as I’d like to give them a chance to respond.  However, I will not do business with anti-gun organizations.

I’ve updated my guns page to include my latest acquisitions:

• Bushmaster Bullpup
• Ruger Single-Six
• Mosin-Nagant M1944 Carbine

The Nagant was definitely an impulse buy.  I went to the show on Saturday (apparently I left about the time Rachel Lucas arrived) looking for a scope for my Bullpup.  I found a scope but ended up browsing the rest of the show.  I stopped at this carbine and looked it over.  It caught my eye because it was Soviet-made, stamped 1945, and in good condition (the stock had been repaired, but it was pretty well done).

I printed out a copy of a manual* created in the 1950’s by the Army’s ordinance corps so that I will be able to take it down and clean it.  As soon as the ammo arrives I’m going to schedule some range time to try it out.

* If anyone is interested in manuals for a lot of old military guns, Cheaper Than Dirt sells a CD containing them (in PDF form).  I can’t get to their website right now, or I’d post a link to it.  The item number is ‘MGR-861’.

On today’s range menu we have a main serving of S&W 22s with a side of Kimber Ultra CDP II.  Garnished with a heap of paper targets and served hot.

Update:  No joy.  The range was closed this afternoon because the padding on the backstop has deteriorated too much.  They’ll be replacing it tomorrow, although they don’t know when the range will be open.  At this rate, I guess I won’t get to shoot until Friday.

We spent the time at Bass Pro looking at guns instead of shooting.  I got my hands on a Ruger Single-Six (a single action .22 LR revolver with an interchangeable .22Mag cylinder).  I liked the feel of it as it fit my hand nicely and it seemed to point naturally.  I may have to acquire one of these little revolvers.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I was searching for answers on Condolezza Rice’s stand on gun control.  I’ve only recently gotten back to Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story, but it didn’t take long to find the goods.  Ms. Rice grew up in Birmingham, Alabama during the civil-rights movement.  This is from a section describing the bombings and related violence of 1963 (p. 50):

With the bombings that summer came marauding groups of armed white vigilantes called “nightriders” who drove through black neighborhoods shooting and setting fires.  Condi’s father and other neighborhood men guarded their streets at night to keep the nightriders away from their homes.  Armed with shotguns, they formed night-long patrols.  The memory of her father out on patrol forms Condi’s opposition to gun control today.  Had those guns been registered, she argues, Bull Connor would have had a legal right to take them away, thereby removing one of the black community’s only means of defense.  “I have a sort of pure Second Amendment view of the right to bear arms,” Condi said in 2001.

I can hear the objections brewing.  Just call the police.  They’ll protect you.  But what do you do when the police are in on it?

Shores [a friend of the Rice family and a prominent black lawyer—Ed] and others knew that going to the police didn’t help because the police department itself played a role in the bombings.  “The police would show up and tell everybody to get off the streets,” said Birmingham historian Pam King.  “They’d clear the streets and the Klan would come through and throw the bombs.  They weren’t looking out for the safety of the citizens, they were just trying to clear the way for the Klu Klux Klan to come through and bomb.”  When a firebomb landed in the Rices’ neighborhood—a dud that didn’t go off—John Rice took it to the police and requested an investigation, but they would not conduct an inquiry.

When the authorities are corrupt or indifferent, you’re on your own.  Heck, you’re on your own anyway, it’s just that most people aren’t ready to admit it.

Off to the range to cull the herd of paper targets.  It’s a welcome relief after the way this week has gone.

It’s too bad every day can’t be range day (which is why one of my long-term goals is to have my own land with enough space for my own private range).

Damn!  The stupid train has left the station and these people are the conductors.

I’ve grown weary of this nonsense.  I often wish there were a device that would remove the stupid from the planet.  Bah.

I’m too damn tired to rant about it, but Rachel Lucas has a few choice words for these dipwits.

Now this is the right way to handle the next September 11.  If it involves shooting I’m all over it.

Thanks to the Bitter Bitch for the link.

Thanks to Instapundit I was glad to see this:

A judge threw out a jury’s verdict today in what had been considered a landmark case against the distributor of a gun used in the shooting death of middle school teacher Barry Grunow.

It’s about damn time that people stopped harassing law-abiding sellers of a legal, non-defective product.  That damn jury was out of control and the judge put a stop to it.  It was pure emotion on the part of the jury.  They had found that the gun was not defective, yet still assigned blame to the distributor.  It’s too bad the distributor will still be out legal costs for this fiasco.  Maybe he can countersue or ask for sanctions.  I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know his options, but I would want vengeance if I were him (I want vengeance and I’m not him, but then I’m not a very forgiving type ).

I’m so sick and tired of opportunistic parasites like this trial lawyer and the Brady bunch trying to make hay of every criminal act commited with a firearm.  A pox on all their houses!