Greg Stoltz's blog

Writing over at Philly.com, Patrick Kerkstra slanders gun owners by saying:

From the perspective of bloody Philadelphia, gun-rights advocates - and their allies in Harrisburg and Washington - appear all too willing to tolerate death in the city so they can protect the sanctity of the Second Amendment in the country.

Yes, us evil people who believe the Constitution, until amended again, closed the door on gun control once the bill of rights was ratified. We are willing to tolerate deaths in the city so that we can continue to cling to our guns.

One good thing about his article is that he sees that the era of gun control has passed. The American people no longer want to have their rights stripped. He attributes this change in attitude over the past few decades to the fact that the violent crime rate is down significantly and therefore guns are less scary than they used to be. Yes, the crime rate is down but the other part of the equation is that gun ownership is up and the number of people able to carry a concealed gun is also way up. Perhaps those armed citizens are the reason crime is down?

He admits that the crime rate is also down in Philly but not to the same degree as the rest of the country. Perhaps this is because of the restrictions Philly has seen fit to enforce on those wishing to obtain a LTCF. Philly goes out of its way to make it hard for citizens to exercise their right to arms. Obtaining an LTCF for a resident of Philly is much more difficult than it is in other counties. Maybe less guns in the hands of the law abiding means more crime?

disenfranchisedpast participle, past tense of dis·en·fran·chise (Verb)

While Pennsylvanians like me will have the right to cast a vote during the Republican primary in late April, we certainly are marginalized.  Included below is the schedule for the primaries.  Iowa and New Hampshire are done and South Carolina is in the on deck circle.   The PA primary isn't until April 24 by which time, as usual the "winner" will already be decided.  So yes, I get to vote, but no, that vote has been deprived of the power to impact the race. Continue Reading »

For the the past year and a half, I've been working to build up a couple of sites, including BagIdiot.com and ShoeIdiot.com.  These sites are both twists on product comparison engines, one focused on bag (handbags, luggage etc) and the other on...  yeah, shoes.

I've written before about the pieces and parts I used to put them together, including drupal running under apache.  Recently I've added a new feature that shows the color(s) of the products and includes those colors in the search index.  This feature was put together by modifying some handy code I was able to find on the web, including:

Extracting the most common colors was easy enough and the php package above meant that I didn't have to code it.  All you do is open the image and look at it pixel by pixel to figure out the color.  The code I implemented from phpclasses.org made this trivial but then I ended up with a list of hex color code and how many times that color was used in the image.  Now I needed to turn those hex codes into English that is meaningful to users and that is where the code from github came in.  That code is a phpized version of a nice javascript that you can see here only it wasn't quite done.  I made a few changes to stick the hex color codes and associated names into a DB table. Continue Reading »

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I'm looking forward to taking a couple of extended solo motorcycle rides in 2012. I'd like to ride all the way to Washington state, but such a trip would require a lot of time, so I'm planning on doing a couple of rides within a 1,000 mile radias of home. That way I can be there and back in about 5 days and spending 4 nights in hotels, one night on the way, two nights at the destination and one night on the way back. Continue Reading »

In a radio interview in Iowa, Huckabee demonstrates his disdain of his own party.  Huck is one of those big government republicans, you know, the kind that are closer to what the dems used to be, before that party was consumed by radical progressives. 

So Huck is concerned that Republicans are too focused on beating Obama and not on fixing what is wrong with the country.  Well, when the guy you are trying to beat:

The list could go on and on.  The guy in the white house is a major problem and a huge roadblock to turning the economy around.  Step 1 in rebuilding America is to elect and executive who believes in America.  

Oh yeah, Huck also promised not to endorse anybody until after Florida.  Whew, that had me worried.  Seriously, does anybody really care what this guy thinks?

Over the past few weeks there have been two widely reported incidents of otherwise law abiding citizens with valid concealed carry permits/licenses, being arrested in New York City.  This includes a former marine from Indiana and a late 30s woman from Tennessee.   Both of these people were arrested when they observed a "no firearms" sign and then asked security personnel about checking their firearms.  Naturally the DA in Bloomberg's NY is going after them with both barrels.  These people made an honest mistake, they simply believed that NYC is part of the U.S.A.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Only the wealthy and well connected are allowed to obtain a permit to carry a gun in NYC.  Even upstate New Yorkers with a New York permit are barred from carrying within the hallowed confines of the rotten apple. Continue Reading »

I picked up a Walther PK380 last year while at the Washington county gun show.  I liked the relatively low price, the size of the grip and the overall size and weight.  I've already written about some of the issues with the gun like the lack of a de-cocker, pulling the trigger to lower the hammer with the safety on just isn't a good thing and represents poor design.  Needing a stupid plastic tool to field strip the gun for cleaning is another "genius" idea. Continue Reading »

A few days ago the USA Today reported, a young woman in a Wyoming Starbucks had her pistol go off in her purse.   Fortunately nobody was hurt, other than the purse itself and a wall of the cofee shop.

The young woman was carrying a derringer style handgun in her purse that was given to her by her father for protection.  Too bad she was only 17 and therefore underage to be carrying around a loaded gun, it is also too bad that her father didn't teach her about gun safety when he gave her the pistol.  Although some Derringer style guns do have a trigger guard, most like the one pictured here, do not.  Imagine something like that flopping around in your purse?  Now you understand why this accident happened.  Although such a gun isn't a great defensive weapon, it is better than nothing, as long as it is stored and carried properly, in a holster! Continue Reading »

Although I've got problems with Newt and I'll never forgive him playing kissy face with Pelosi on that damn couch, he'd be a much, much better choice for the Republican nomination than flip-flop Mitt.

Now he seems to be surging in the polls.  I certainly agree with Allah over at hotair:

Now, serious question: How is it we’ve landed on Newt instead of taking a second look at Perry? Perry’s last few debates have been fine and he’s spent months groveling to make amends for calling his immigration critics heartless. And of course he’s still got that glamorous Texas jobs record to wield against Obama in the general if he makes it that far. 

How did we get to the point that Newt is overtaking the Robot Romney and Perry is looking dead in the water?  Perry, in spite of his mistakes, would be my second choice and who I was hoping to be able to cast a vote.  My first choice, Gary Johnson, doesn't have a hope in hell in gaining the nomination but if he is still in the game when the PA primary rolls around in the spring, I'll be voting for him, unless it looks like a two man race between Newt and Mitt.  If Mitt is giving Newt a run in PA, I just might have to cave and vote for him.

Johnson would be a great libertarian, small government president but Romney would be the king of suck.  We can't let this flip-flopping, say whatever people want to hear, spineless piece of shit get the nomination.  Not because he's a Mormon, but because he is a principles liberal learning RINO.  Newt's not perfect but he's a hell of a lot better than Mitt. Continue Reading »

We spent the Thanksgiving holiday week in Cozumel, aside from a bit of rain, the weather was perfect.  Our best day was Wednesday, six of us went out on a small boat so that my sons and I could scuba dive and the girls could snorkel.  This was a two tank drive that started with a drift dive along the reef and wow was the current strong, the second dive was in a somewhat crouded area called Paradise reef.  I only wish we had reversed the order of the dives, I've not been out for two years and was a bit rusty on my scuba skills and depth control but it was still fun.

While on the bottom at 40 foot of Paradise reef, it was funny to see a big group of snorkelers cross over top of us and pointing us out.  Snorkling in the crystal clear water is fun but nothing beats scuba diving down to the reef.  If you've ever thought about giving it a try, you really should and Cozumel is a great place to do it.  When we last visited, my sons and I spent the week in the water earning our PADI open water certification.  That was an awesome, if tiring week.

This past week was more for relaxing in the sun.  The boys did a two tank dive on Monday so that had some extra time under the water than I did but those dives re-ignited my love of it and I've got to find a place to visit and dive this spring.

I'm starting to get a rather sick feeling in my stomach about the fast approaching Presidential election.  Sadly, Perry seems to be flaming out, although if he is still in it when the Pennsylvania primary rolls around, he'll get my vote, unless somebody better jumps in late.

Last time we got stuck with McCain and this time my fear is that we'll be stuck with Romney.  Against Obama, Romney has my vote, but that's like saying if I had a choice between Satan or Hitler, I'd go with Hitler.  A marginally less bad choice between two really awful selections.  No, I'm not comparing Romney to Hitler, I'm comparing the choice.

Newt is showing some signs of life, while Herman Cain get's the equivilant of a 21st century political lynching.  I really liked Cain until I discovered he hadn't really even thought about abortion or rather much about any of the other issues before deciding to run.  He is a bit too shallow in his thinking for me.  Given Newt's hanging out with Nancy in support of the Global warming scam, I'm no longer much of a fan.  Thanks for the work you did in 1994 but, no thanks in 2012.  Although, I'd certainly take Newt over Romney.

Although there are others running, I just don't see any of them getting the nomination.  I'm starting to get the feeling that Romney will end up with it and it really makes me sick.  Not because he believes in 19th century fabels, but because the man stands for nothing but getting elected.  I'm sorry but I can't imagine ever supporting a Republican who was able to get elected in Massachusetts...   Is it going to happen again?  Are we going to be stuck with another liberal nominee?  

Last Friday, Veteran's day, I picked up the Kindle version of M.J. Mollenhour's new book,Amazon Avenger.  One of the best $.99 I've spent :)  If you like thrillers and reading about the good guys kicking some Islamofascist terrorist ass, you'll enjoy the book.

The book includes some modern day pirates and mentioned a site icc-ccs.org with a live map of reported piracy related incidents.  I found it quite interesting to look at what has occurred thus far in 2011.  

Here's an overview of the map:

As you can see, those Somali assholes have been busy and the number of incidents in our hemisphere are quite tiny.  If, like my parents, you enjoy cruising and you stick to the Mediterranean or the Caribbean seas, theren't nothing to worry about.  However, if you fancy an extended cruise through the Suez canal, around the Arabian penninsula and then ending in Singapore, you might want to make sure your "affairs are in order."

Here's a closer look at the waters between Africa and Arabia:

Continue Reading »

His commercial with Pelosi made him a non-option for me...  I don't even have to bother thinking about it.  This picture says exactly why he can't be the nominee.

In June I ended up in the hospital.  It was only overnight but then there were a number of things I needed to do related to the incident and frankly I needed to stay away from my political addiction for both my physcial and mental health.  So once I got home I stayed away from all of it: no news on TV; no blogs; no radio.  During the summer I simply tuned out the world.   I worked on our business, rode my Harleys and almost forgot about the bastards in Washington.

They never did nail down the source of my issue.  Everything they tested came up negative, which is great, although I'm still dealing with the issue.  Now that fall is here and the next election is just around the corner, I guess I need to tune back into the world and find out what the radical in chief has been up to for the past few months.  I'm not looking forward to it.

I love to shoot the Ruger MK III.  It is amazingly accurate and functions flawlessly regardless of what ammo I feed into it.  I usually just run a barrel snake through it after a day at the range but occasionally it does need to be disassembled and cleaned properly.  Because I don't do it very often, it is easy to forget about how to put it back together again. Continue Reading »

The Hill reports that Republicans on the Judiciary Committee voted down a move to block gun sales to those on the terrorist watch list.  The vote was straight down party lines. 

In a party-line vote of 21-11, the committee Republicans killed an amendment from Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) that would have blocked firearm purchases by those on the FBI's terrorist watch list. The vote came during the markup of legislation renewing certain provisions of the Patriot Act that are slated to expire later this month.

On the one hand, Americans without thinking about the issue would see this as a bad thing and the Democrats voting for it a good thing.  Americans sadly don't think through issues completely.  Anybody can get added to this "watch list."  If you are on it, you may not even know it unless you try to fly someplace.  Names just get added to it without a trial without any sort of due process of law.  Firearms are one of our constitutionally guaranteed rights.  That right can't simply be taken away from us because our name ends up on a list.  There must be due process, I must have the ability to defend against the charge.

So the Republicans did the right thing.  They voted in favor of due process.  The Democrats on the other hand voted against due process.  This demonstrates exactly how they feel about our rights and about the rule of law.  They don't give a damn about either.

I finally had a chance to visit the range and put some rounds through the Walther PK380.  I admittedly purchased this on a whim from a gun show.  The price was good and I really like the way it fit my hand.  I enjoy shooting my Sig P226 but it feels too large for my hands (I've got to try one of the E2s) and this Walther just fit perfectly.

Naturally being called the PK380 it uses 380 ammunition.  I used a mix of inexpensive steel cased ammo and some mid-range brass cased ammo.  The steel cased stuff just plain didn't feed correctly.  It also produced several failures to eject.  The same problems were evident with the mid-range brass cased ammo but for less frequently.  Leaving aside the fact that the gun doesn't like steel cased ammo at all, I really have grown to not like this gun.  Yes it fits my hand but I don't like the trigger, the magazine release, the safety, the lack of a slide release and the stupid tool you need to strip the thing.  Here's some details about those annoyances Continue Reading »

In an editorial today within the Washington Times,  they point out the absurd ways that the Washington DC city council attempts to ignore the constitutional rights of residents.  The landmark Heller law suit made it clear that even district resident have a constitutional right to keep arms.  The city's outright ban on firearms was tossed aside as it should have been.

After loosing the suit, the city went to work making it expensive and difficult for a resident to lawfully acquire a firearm.  Now that the last FFL(federal firearms license) operating within the district is moving out, residents have no way to purchase a gun.  Federal law says you can only buy a pistol within your home state.  Since there are no more FFLs in DC, residents are left without a legal means to purchase a pistol.  The courts ruled they have a right to do so, but now they can't.  The Second Amendment Foundation has stepped up to the plate and filed suit on behalf of Michelle Lane.  Hopefully when this suit is completed, Lane will be able to visit a gun store in Virginia and legally purchase a pistol to defend herself. 

It’s time for the gun grabbers to realize they’ve lost the argument on legal grounds and with the general public. The city council is all too happy to blow taxpayer money on the bogus claim that the District suffers from “taxation without representation.” Before the federal city makes the claim that it somehow deserves a pair of Senate seats permanently allied to the Democratic Party, it ought to demonstrate its worth by respecting the entire Bill of Rights, not just the parts it happens to agree with.

The Ohio senate had already passed a similar law that allows those with carry permits to carry their firearms into places that serve alcohol.  The Ohio house, on a vote of 56 to 39, has also passed such a bill.  Governor Kasich has expressed that he is in favor of the measure so hopefully he signs this into law. Continue Reading »

While I've not been a fan of Newt's since he sat on that damn couch with San Fran Nan, he is one rather smart guy.  He would certainly be better than Huckabee and a billion times better than Romney.  Of course Romney would be a better president than the current piece of crap hanging out in the Oval Office, but I sure hope he doesn't win the nomination. Continue Reading »

We finally had some beautiful weather concurrent with my ability to slip out to the range.  This has been a miserable start to the year.  I can't remember the last time we didn't get any golf in during either March or April.  It seemed to be raining almost constantly.  Thankfully we've had a couple of days of nice weather and my son and I could turn some money into bangs and holes in paper. Continue Reading »

Chicago’s Daley A Hypocrite with Your Gun Rights To The Bitter End, Says CCRKBA

BELLEVUE, WA – -(Ammoland.com)- Scheduled to retire from office next Tuesday, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley remains a monumental hypocrite to the bitter end and his request for publicly-financed armed bodyguards proves it, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today

As Daley prepares to leave office, a Washington Times editorial bares the anti-gun Democrat’s hypocrisy. For years, Daley has had armed bodyguards protecting him at the same time he has worked fanatically to deprive his Chicago constituents and every other citizen in Illinois the same level of security, by pushing every crazy anti-gun scheme he or his colleagues could dream up.

Now he wants that same privilege to carry into retirement. Continue Reading »

 "There now are 200 Members of Congress cosponsoring a bipartisan national CCW reciprocity bill offered by Reps. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) and Heath Shuler (D-NC)," gun rights expert John M. Snyder said here today.

"It's time for Congress to move forward on H.R. 822, the proposed National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011," he added. "It would provide a national standard with which nonresidents of a state may carry concealed firearms in the state."

"An individual who has a state-issued permit to carry a concealed firearm ought to be able to carry in any state in accordance with the law," Snyder said. "This would be similar to the way an individual with a driver's license issued by a state can drive in other states." Continue Reading »

 With the backing of the NRA, Florida has passed a new law that the governor is expected to sign, that limits the questions your pediatrician can ask your children.  While the shrill claims of the anti-gunners are probably way out of line like usual, it does seem to be a strange law.  

The intention of the law is to protect the rights of gun owning parents.  Children say the darndest things and asking children about the types of firearms and how those firearms are stored may give out too much information for many parents.  The danger is that insurance companies increase rates based upon firearm ownership or the information is otherwise put to use against the interests of the parents. Continue Reading »

 Because there was no way to get Becker or Solomon through the senate confirmation process, Obama gave them the job anyway via a recess appointment.  The DailyCaller is reporting on a letter sent by Republicans to the President asking him to rethink he decision.  

Several Republican senators penned an open letter to President Barack Obama on Thursday calling on him to immediately rescind National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) nominations for Lafe Solomon and former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) general counsel Craig Becker. Their request comes as the NLRB is leading a charge against Boeing for planning to open a non-union factory in South Carolina.

Obama has been in bed with SEIU for a long time and his selections for the NLRB should come as no surprise.  What is surprising is the outright Marxism promoted by Becker in past Law Review articles. Continue Reading »

 Yesterday the Illinois concealed handgun bill went down to defeat.  The measure fell 6 votes short of the required supermajority.  For a state wide law to pass in that state and therefore take precedence over local laws, it has to pass with a supermajority.  Therefore even though the vote was 65 to 32 in favor of the measure, Illinois criminals don't have to worry about encountering lawfully armed citizens.  The season is still open and citizens are not allowed to provide for their own self defense.

"That particular bill is one that will not in any way protect public safety. It'll do the opposite," Quinn said.

The Democratic governor drew strong disagreement from the gun bill's sponsor, Rep. Brandon Phelps, D-Harrisburg: "We are at the criminals' mercy."

I'm just finishing up the second class that I taught at Washington and Jefferson College.  I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and I look forward to teaching again for them in the future.  Though I've only interacted with 36 students, those students were a mix of all classes and I believe gave me a good idea as to the quality of kids that attend this fine institution.  These kids are bright, engaged in learning and really quite impressive.  I tend toward cynicism but this opportunity to interact with a younger generation leaves me hopeful for the future. Continue Reading »