"Mississippi of the North"

That's what Detroit Branch Chairman of the NAACP, Rev. Wendell Anthony, called Michigan today, after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that a valid photo ID must be presented in order to vote in Michigan.

Somehow, in the twisted logic of Multiculturalism and Diversity, proving who you are in order to vote is racist, suppresses your right to vote, and is a Poll Tax. Rev. Anthony, this ruling is no more racist than you are - in fact, it's considerably less racist than you are, judging by your comments.

Common sense (which seems to be severely lacking in the NAACP/Rainbow Coalition camp) dictates that the principle of "one man, one vote" has four pre-existing conditions. Making sure everyone who votes has met these four conditions will guarantee the integrity of your election (except in the minds of those who think that Al Gore actually won in 2000):
1. You are a live, living, breathing, function human being.
2. You are who you say you are.
3. You are living where you say you live.
4. You are eligible to vote.

When you walk into a polling place you should be able to prove all four of these things, otherwise you should not be allowed to vote. It's that simple. The right to vote is one of the most hallowed rights given to man, and we must not trivialize it with the kind of logic being applied in the media by the good Reverend and those who are his colleagues and constituents.

Since Rev. Anthony is alleged to be a Christian minister, let me apply a little New Testament to his comments and attitude. He should not object to this, since it is supposed to be a part of the source of his faith.

Galatians 3:26-28

for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Here we see three distinctions being made between people: Jew/Greek, Slave/Free, Male/Female. The Apostle Paul (the author of the Galatian letter) was a Jewish Christian writing to a predominantly Roman/Greek audience, who were converts to Christianity from Judaism as well as a host of pagan religions. The cultural differences betweens Jews and the Roman/Greek culture around them was significant, as was their ideas about men and women. And the slave trade flourished throughout the Roman Empire in these times. What Paul was saying to these Galatian Christians was that the distinctions of culture, class, and gender were not important anymore among believers, because they had been made one in Christ Jesus.

It could also be said that this passage should be applied externally by Christians as well as internally. One of the imperatives of the early church was to share and spread their faith with everyone, but if you as a Christian held yourself aloof from others because of these different distinctions, then you were not fulfilling your commission from Jesus himself.

Now let's bring this back to Rev. Anthony's time. Rather than working to promote understanding and acceptance between people who have some sub-cultural differences, you sit back and call everyone (Christian or not) who supports this law and this ruling, as well as the MCRI, racist.

Rev. Anthony, you have a clear choice to make. You can choose to follow Christ who commands you to put away these distinctions and work to bring people to the knowledge of Christ, or you can choose to disobey the clear teaching of scripture to promote your political agenda.

Which will you choose?

Update on New Aquisitions

After a thorough detail-strip and cleaning, I took the new M1 Carbine out to the range this weekend. My main goal was to try to get it in some semblance of on-the-paper, and to see how consistently it groups.

My first adventure was to find ammo for it. I have purchased .30 Carbine at WalMart in the past, but this time there was none to be found there (the WalMart gun counters around here are no longer selling guns so all they have is ammo and accessories, but the ammo is either 12 or 20 ga. shotgun or 9mm, .38, .357, .40 S&W, or .45ACP.) I would have figured with all the CMP carbines that were sold in the last 2 months, they would have stocked a box or two, but they didn't.

I finally found a box at Dunhams at the Lansing Mall. While there I checked their C&R rifles - nothing much interesting: a couple of Mosin-Nagants, a couple of Enfields, and that was pretty much it. Oh well.

So off to the Capital City Rifle Club I went. I also took along my Muzzleloader, as I put in a new trigger spring and wanted to try it out.

Since I didn't know where the sights were going to be, I set them to zero windage and 100 yds (Type 3 sights for those of you who know M1 Carbines) and sat down at the 25 yard line. Ten rounds went into the magazine and promptly went downrange. My spotting scope revealed a nice ragged hole about an inch in diameter slightly high and right. WOW! I didn't really expect that kind of accuracy right off the bat, especially with no more support than my elbows on the table! A couple of clicks brought the group back to center, and then I moved down to the 50 yard line. I didn't shoot quite that well at 50 yds, but I think the caffeine from the large soda I drank on the way to the range was starting to kick in at that point. My groups were about 5 inches here.

A couple of observations. I really like this carbine. It's light, easy to handle, has minimal recoil, and is just plain fun to shoot. I can see why guys in WW2 liked it. Shortly after I set up at 5o, a nice gentleman set up on the bench next to me to shoot his Garand. He had never handled an M1 Carbine, so I let him have a fondle and he made pretty much the same comment: "I would rather carry this than the Garand!" He also observed that it was easier to load the magazines on the Carbine than the en bloc clips on the Garand - another point in it's favor.

I also need to get better magazines. The one that came with the gun is crap, and seemed likely to come apart the more I shot it. The follower would get stuck at an up-angle, so the bolt couldn't grab the rim of the next cartridge and feed it. I made do, but it was frustrating.

Now I have to do the same process for the Enfield. It also seems that I will be buying some reloading dies for these two, as ammo is hard to come by for them at a decent price.

The muzzleloader once again proved itself to be very accurate, hitting the 50 yard bullseye with ease. It's a Thompson/Center Encore 209x50, and I was shooting 295-grain Powerbelts over 105 grains of Triple-7. The trigger is now a very light 2.3 pounds (according to my Lyman trigger gauge), and it was definately lighter than what the original spring was giving me. Trigger finger discipline will be even more important this fall in the deer woods. My thanks to Bellm TC's for the spring and the spring tool to get it in, as well as the detailed instructions on how to detail strip it. Perhaps this year I will notch my first buck, after 6 does.

On Independence Day

I was on vacation over the Independence Day holiday and was not blogging. I found this quote from Ronaldus Magnus that sums up, in his wonderful way, what this holiday should mean for us. Thank you, Mr. President.

"Somewhere in our growing up we began to be aware of the meaning of days and with that awareness came the birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth... In recent years, however, I've come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation. It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history. Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government. Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should. Happy Fourth of July." ---Ronald Reagan