eBay Gives the Finger to Gunowners

I am livid.

I've bought a lot of stuff through eBay, including my last car and a lot of firearms accessories. Today I went to see what prices are like for Remington 700 barrels, with an eye for eventually having one rethreaded for use in a Mauser sporter I've been slowly building. But there were none listed. This seemed strange so I searched for rifle barrels of any kind. Nothing. In fact, suddenly there seemed to be next to nothing in the way of rifle parts at all beyond stocks and sling swivels.

Then I looked at eBay's recently revised policy on prohibited items. The following gun parts are now prohibited on eBay:

• Assault weapon-related parts or accessories. This prohibition applies to all parts and accessories related to any firearm defined as an "assault weapon" by federal or California law. For more details on assault weapons, please visit
  http://ag.ca.gov/firearms/awlist.htm and
  http://ag.ca.gov/firearms/awguide/awguide.php.

• Firearm receivers or frames, whether complete receivers and frames, components and parts of receivers and frames, or "cut" or "80%" receivers.

• Parts or accessories prohibited for sale by federal or California law, including items related to short-barreled shotguns or short-barreled rifles, fully automatic weapons, large-capacity magazines, multi-burst trigger activators and camouflaging firearm containers.

• Any of the following items, including those that are required for a gun to fire: silencers, converters (items that can be used to give a firearm automatic capability), kits that can be used to create a firearm, barrels, slides, cylinders, magazines, firing pins, choke tubes, trigger assemblies, potato guns and cannons, flares, flare launchers, flare guns, flare gun receivers, short barrels and any illegal firearm-related items.

What the hell? Suddenly eBay lets the State of California tell everyone in America what they can and can not purchase online?

EBay's previous policy made sense. No sale of any complete firearms, ammunition or receivers. In other words, obeying federal law. The way that firearms regulations work, you can not just buy each part individually without a background check and put them all together to have a working weapon. This is because the receiver is considered the firearm. The receiver is something akin to a car's chassis. All of the other parts can be bought and sold freely, but they don't do you any good without a receiver. And the receiver is considered 'the gun.'

So eBay was in good shape legally and ethically by banning the sale of receivers while allowing other gun parts to be traded. No criminal could have built a complete weapon through parts obtained on eBay. He would have had to get a receiver first, in which case he might just as easily have bought a complete weapon.

Now we are presented with bullshit. Especially with this 'assault weapon' nonsense. There is no such thing as an 'assault weapon.' This is a phrase invented by hack politicians and the Brady campaign who have no actual technical knowledge of firearms and have no idea what they are talking about. All firearms can be used for an 'assault.' More Americans are killed by the simple .22 long rifle cartridge every year than by any other caliber. There are no 'safe' guns and 'dangerous' guns. That kind of thinking leads to accidents and deaths. They are all potentially dangerous depending on who is using them.

Most so-called 'assault' parts are simply items of convenience. For example, California considers a muzzle brake to be an 'assault weapon device.' Why? Because it looks scary. People who know nothing about guns look at that and think 'scary gun,' yet 99 out of 100 people could not tell you what that thing does and how it could make the weapon more dangerous. What does a muzzle brake do? It reduces recoil so that a marksman of small stature can fire the weapon without pain. Many female hunters use these devices to reduce recoil from their deer rifles, since using a very small caliber is not an option for game of that size. Taking away muzzle brakes is essentially just giving the finger to women and people with medical conditions that make it difficult for them to deal with recoil. So only large, strong people will get to use firearms. How very democratic.

It's this business with the rifle barrels and other parts such as trigger groups that has me especially pissed off. As a collector of antique and relic rifles, I often find myself in need of a part for something that hasn't been made for as long as 100 years. There is no way to buy a lot of these parts brand new. The only source has generally been from some other collector on eBay who had a few extras squirreled away. The same type of parts are often available from Cabelas or even Walmart for much newer rifles without any requirements under the law or company policy for background checks or anything that would differ from buying a pack of gum. So these new rules of eBay's do not serve to make anyone any safer. It's just a way of giving the finger to people like me.

What eBay did here was not remotely necessary. Not even from a liability perspective. As eBay themselves have argued during the ongoing legal fight with Tiffany over sale of Tiffany branded luxury goods on eBay (Tiffany says that eBay should prohibit most sales of Tiffany items and assume that they are all fake), eBay is a marketplace, not a retailer. They are not responsible for the quality or failure of the goods that are sold through their market any more than the owner of a mall is responsible for a case of salmonella poisoning at a fast food chain in their food court. If this were the case then they'd have been sued into oblivion ages ago over used cars sold through eBay motors that could not pass a safety inspection.

So goodbye, eBay. I think I'm pretty much done with them because of this. The only purpose of this change in policy appears to be giving gun owners the finger. I encourage all of my readers who care about this sort of thing to stop buying from eBay. For lack of a better point of contact at eBay, I suggest that you hop on over to their government relations site to tell them what you think of their new rules at this location.

It's tempting to just say 'oh well, it's their company and they can make the rules. Shop someplace else.' However, in this case it rises above that level. What is the Coke to eBay's Pepsi? There is none. The internet is becoming increasingly dominated by a very few mega corporations that are continually merging and buying up other companies. Amazon, eBay, Microsoft and Google. They each control and direct so much trade that the influence of their decisions are nearly on par with that of government. When eBay bans the sales of gun parts, this has an effect similar to a federal ban on interstate trade in those items and as such their corporate rules should be opposed and shouted down just as loudly as federal regulations would be.

The State of the Race

It is the nature of personal political blogs to permit idle rumination about elections. Which is exactly what I'm going to engage in today. I'm going to look at the state of both Presidential nominating contests and where I see each one going for each of the major candidates.

The Democrats

John Edwards is my preferred candidate among those who are actually running. So it pains me to say that I think he's screwed unless Barack Obama develops a sudden problem with a wide stance or something of that nature. Either Edwards or Obama can beat Hillary Clinton in a 2 way race. But neither will beat her in a 3 way race. They are dividing the 'stop Hillary' vote, with Obama getting the clear lion's share. Edwards is behind both Obama and Hillary in both Iowa and New Hampshire. He's even trailing badly in South Carolina. There just aren't any likely victories for Edwards on the radar screen that would happen soon enough to keep his campaign afloat. He doesn't have the kind of money that would be necessary to sustain his operation through, say, February 5th since incoming donations will dry up after he tanks in the first 2 states. Even if he did, I don't think it will help. The feelings about Hillary Clinton run so strongly that even Edwards' stronger supporters like myself will have left him for Obama by then in order to ensure that Clinton doesn't win with a plurality. I predict that Edwards will drop out after losing either New Hampshire or South Carolina.

Hillary Clinton will be in this thing for a while. No question about that. She is the candidate to beat. However, as soon as this thing narrows down to a 2 way race she will be in serious trouble. Her leads have typically depended on pluralities in most states. Not majorities. In most cases this wouldn't be such a big deal. But a lot of people really just don't like her. Like me. When I've seen straw polls over the last 6 months or so examining what happens to the numbers if you take out either Obama or Edwards, most of one's support goes over to the other. Hillary rarely picks up anything. Half of the Democratic party seems to really just want anyone but Hillary Clinton. She has a decisive lead in New Hampshire but Obama is starting to edge her out in Iowa. The situation is not unlike that of Romney vs. Huckabee right now. Hillary's money should be a big strength for her except that Obama matches it and a large portion of her funds raised thus far can only be used in the general election.

Barack Obama is ascendant at the moment. It had seemed like he'd peaked too early but he is clearly building up steam again in the polls. His biggest problem now is not actually Hillary Clinton but rather John Edwards, who is threatening to serve as a spoiler for Clinton. Obama needs Edwards out of this race, ASAP. That moment will come in January. I believe that Obama will probably win Iowa and lose in New Hampshire. With an early win in each of these 2 candidates pockets and Edwards out of the way, they will settle in for a tough slog all the way into February or possibly later.

I've got to give Obama the edge in that slog. Of the 13 states that are voting on February 5th, Obama has 19 offices currently while Clinton only has 5. Barack Obama has been building a true national campaign and spending serious money on a primary ground game designed to compete on a strategic scale of the likes I have never seen before. Usually offices in the later states get thrown together at the last minute, like when the Kerry campaign rolled into the Virginia 5th CD about 3 weeks before we voted in 2004 and more or less set up shop in my office. The lone staffer knew nobody in town and Kerry would have been at a serious disadvantage in winning here if only any of the other candidates had bothered to establish a presence first (Dean had already collapsed by then). Clinton's campaign has made the potentially fatal assumption that the nomination will be wrapped up well before that point and there will be no other candidate left standing with a meaningful beach head in these February 5th states. Bad move. Obama is going to be very much alive and ascendant at that point. He'll get at least a 10 point bounce in the polls overnight when Edwards drops out and he will have all of the momentum and loads of money.

Prediction: Barack Obama will defeat Hillary Clinton for the nomination following a long, tough fight due largely to Clinton's failure to build a national organization capable of surviving in a 2 way race.

The Republicans

Fred Thompson is going through the motions. His poll numbers are lousy in every state that matters, his campaign events are half deserted and it's clear that neither his heart nor head are in this race. His finances are pathetic. He didn't want to get in this thing in the first place and now that it's obviously not turned into the cakewalk that he was promised, the poor guy is stuck pretending that he thinks he can win until after losing Iowa or maybe sticking around until the day after New Hampshire when he can drop out with some dignity. I guess it's not impossible that he could do well in South Carolina if the voting happened today, but his second place spot in the SC polls will fade to nothing once the race is recast after he gets trounced in Iowa and New Hampshire. By the time SC votes, he'll already be finished.

John McCain has a bit more of a pulse than Thompson does at this point but that isn't saying much. He polls in Iowa on par with Ron Paul in the single digits. He just doesn't have the money to stay in this thing much longer. I predict that he will barely hang in there until New Hampshire with his fingers crossed and hoping for a miracle. He simply does not have the kind of money around where he can keep his operation afloat through South Carolina and onward. If the nomination is somehow wider than a 2 way race after Iowa and NH then it's going to be all about money, money, money. Who has the kind of cash to run ground operations in a meaningful percentage of the 13 states that will be voting on February 5th? Certainly not John McCain.

Rudy Giuliani still faces the fundamental problem of being a liberal Democrat running for the Republican nomination. There just isn't much of a constituency there for him beyond what he's already got, which is a nice plurality but not enough to really win with in the long run. He's already maxed out his support and would have a very hard time gaining anything further even as other candidates drop out. My sense is that he needs to win New Hampshire in order to have any kind of momentum. Sure, he polls in the lead in Florida. But how much of that support will have evaporated if he flops in both Iowa and NH and the media narrative becomes that of a 2 way race between Romney and Huckabee? It's a bit of a wait from NH to Florida and a lot of deal-making and realignment will happen between those 2 primaries. The guys who didn't do well in the first few states are going to be left out in the cold unless maybe they have a ton of money sitting ready to sustain a heavy ad campaign and major ground operations. Right now I don't really see any Republican candidates with that kind of money where they can do that in spite of some early losses. Even Giuliani.

Mitt Romney is still the guy to beat. He is way in front in New Hampshire and he's had a lead for a while in Iowa, although Mike Huckabee has now basically tied it. Romney has some big money, he's obviously deeply committed to the race and he will almost certainly come out of Iowa and NH with at least one of those states in his pocket. I predict that after New Hampshire and Iowa it will be a 2 way race between Romney and one other candidate.

Mike Huckabee is, in my opinion, the most likely other half of a two way race following Iowa and NH. He has a natural, major constituency within the Republican party that can mount a fierce and organized challenge to Romney, whose support now seems to be broad but shallow. Huckabee is doing everything right at the moment and his star is ascendant. He has the momentum. If I were in his shoes I would throw everything at winning Iowa, which is exactly what he is doing. Not that I'm really going out on a limb with that one. You really can't go wrong by suggesting that any Presidential candidate in any election should endeavor above all else to win Iowa.

I think that if Huckabee pulls off an Iowa win (or even a very close second place), it's going to set off a protracted 2-way race that reaches well into February. Romney has the money to keep going for a good while and he has the organization in place to make that money mean something. Huckabee doesn't have half the organization or money that Romney does, but his evangelical ghost dance is suddenly bringing together a group of Republican voters that are very, very powerful when they are united. The evangelicals bring with them an instant political organization through churches and special interest groups. They can make money appear overnight and instantly mobilize cadres of experienced volunteers in nearly any city in America.

Prediction: Mike Huckabee will edge Mitt Romney out and win over the course of a long, tough slog.

As for the lower tier candidates in both parties, the best of them are really just crossing their fingers and hoping that someone in front of them suddenly drops dead or suffers a major scandal. Some of those candidates could do very well under those circumstances. Chris Dodd comes to mind. But that's getting into the kind of stuff that I can't possibly predict and will leave for some other blog entry.

So what I seem to be predicting at this stage is a contest in the general election between Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama. Based on the overwhelming evidence of polling data over the last few months, it's hard to see a Republican winning the White House in any combination of Huckabee and Romney versus Obama or Clinton. Romney polls very, very poorly for the general election and it's doubtful that the evangelicals would turn out in force for him. Even Hillary Clinton beats him head to head in many red states according to a series of Gallup polls. Huckabee is affable and really a very good candidate in many ways, but there's no way that so open a fundamentalist can win a majority of votes in the general election. George W. Bush cut it about as close as you really can. He didn't wear the fundamentalist thing on his sleeve. It was a lot of dog whistle politics. He didn't go around saying that evolution never happened. Huckabee does. I commend the man for his honesty, but most voting Americans view Huckabee's brand of evangelical Christianity as crackpot stuff. Huckabee has made it very clear that his religious beliefs will not be set aside as President. So effectively, any weird ideas that Huckabee gets about what God wants America to do are going to be translated into policy. Ned Flanders is a great neighbor and a nice guy, but would most people want him to be President? Not gonna happen.

The Great Virginia Elk Expedition of 2007 Begins

On Friday morning I'm headed off for my 5 day elk hunt in Wise County. Boy am I ever glad that the state-wide burn ban is no longer in effect because this would be no fun without a campfire waiting for me at the end of each day. Since I'll be completely incommunicado, please nobody do or say anything remotely important on any blogs because I wouldn't want to miss it. Also, please hold the release of any new polls or major political announcements.

Many thanks.

In the extremely unlikely event that we are successful in actually killing an elk, I am hoping to write an article on the hunt and submit it to various hunting magazines. The very idea of attempting to hunt elk in Virginia is so novel that the premise should be worth something. We'll see how things go.

The way I see it, I'm getting a good deal here no matter how you look at it. Even on guided hunts in serious elk country out west, less than 30% of first time elk hunters succeed in taking an elk. That's after they've paid all sorts of money for the guide and the land access and the elk tag and so on. Thousands of dollars. If the odds are that I'm not gonna get the elk on my first time out no matter where I go, then I might as well save my money by hunting right here in Virginia on public land without spending money on anything except gas and ammo.

Come to think of it, the same principle would also apply to pitching a base camp in my backyard. But at least in Wise County there is the theoretical possibility of encountering an actual elk.

Incidentally, this is not just a hunting trip. It is an expedition. What's the difference? The fact that each of us is packing about 400 pounds of gear into our canoes, including some simple furniture, a pretty decent library and half my rifle collection. That, to my way of thinking, is the difference between a trip and an expedition. A metric pant load of stuff in your base camp .

On Deer Season and Politics

The first day of rifle season is only a few days away in most of Virginia. Those of us who hunt deer spend all year waiting for this. Sure, there's archery season and black powder season. I got a nice spike buck some weeks ago with a crossbow out in back of my house. But that isn't really what you think of as hunting. It wasn't cold enough and the leaves were still mostly green. We went through the meat pretty quickly and will shortly do the same with the doe that I bagged last weekend. So I'm grateful for the food. It just didn't quite feel like real hunting. More like very messy grocery shopping.

There's a funny thing that I always notice this time of year ever since I took up hunting. Like most hunters, I usually try to hunt a little after work or on Saturday morning or whenever I can squeeze in the time. So I might find myself at the grocery store or the gas station wearing my hunting clothes or at least a Mossy Oak cap. You get two kinds of looks from people when you are dressed like that, depending mostly on what kind of grocery store you're at. There are the people who look at you like you're Adolph Hitler (even though they usually have meat in their carts. Damned hypocrites) and then there are the people who give you a little nod or a smile.

When I'm shopping at Harris Teeter or Giant, it's mostly the first kind of people who I run into. I buy the good beer and will get the organic milk when I'm flush so those are the kinds of grocery stores that I prefer. The whole rest of the year, everybody looks at me like I'm one of them. My clothes, hair and general demeanor identify me as one of the club. But come the cold weather and a camouflage deer hunting hat on my head, everything changes.

I never knew about all this until I started hunting deer 3 seasons ago. But it has taught me that there is a serious social undercurrent at work in many areas that affect politics in a big, yet invisible way. I find myself sizing up political candidates in a way that I never used to. I look at someone and ask myself which of those 2 groups this person would fall into if I ran into them at Harris Teeter with my hunting cap on.

Does this person understand me? Does he or she understand my way of life? So often, the answer is 'no.' And a funny thing happens. Even if I agree with that candidate on every issue of substance, it becomes very difficult to convince myself in the voting booth to cast a ballot for someone whom I don't think understands people like me in that way.

This is still a new experience for me. I grew up in a very middle class, liberal household. In the suburbs of DC until I was 13 and moved out here. Volvos, minivans and a nice colonial style 2-story with an attached garage. A liberal arts college in New England. Garrison Keiler on the radio. Yet today, my lifestyle is probably typical of the rural, red state poor. I live in a run-down little cottage in the country where I'm pretty ok with the 6 foot black snake that lives in the attic since it's eating the rats and squirrels. We have one bathroom and no closets and pretty much live paycheck to paycheck. If the kids are both healthy and there's a still a little heating oil left in the tank, then things seem pretty good. At least we have health insurance. Things could be worse.

Mainstream Democrats do not understand the real depth of disgust that is communicated by many middle class liberals to people like me. We don't want to vote for someone who seems to look down on us or who talks about banning the only thing that we really have to look forward to all year (that being deer season). It's so bad that the issues of firearms or hunting don't even need to come up. We just look at someone and size him up and can tell pretty quick what kind of look he'd probably give us in the parking lot at the supermarket.

I have to wonder if this is why people like Connie Brennan lose to people like Watkins Abbit. Connie ran a first class, professional campaign. She was right on the issues, ready to get down to work and Watkins Abbit is basically just a bump on a log in the General Assembly and hasn't done a damned thing of substance for his district since the day he first took office. But to be perfectly honest, Connie Brennan looks kind of like one of those people who would frown at me in the parking lot and Watkins Abbit, bump on a log though he is, looks like one of those guys who would smile and maybe ask me if I'd gotten my deer yet.

This is why the party's future is with people like John Edwards and Jim Webb. Both guys who would would probably ask you if you got your deer and what rifle did you use and how did that tenderloin taste. The substance of the policies promoted by Democrats is, overall, very much favorable for people like me. We're halfway there. Just give us candidates that we can trust and who will actually understand us.

"You can't be the President and the Head of the Military"

Says George W. Bush to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf; "You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time."

Huh. The White House might want to check on that one. I mean, I always figured that George W. Bush had done a piss-poor job as Commander in Chief. Apparently the problem can be chalked up to a misunderstanding about what, precisely, his Constitutional duties actually entailed.

The Best, Off-the-Shelf Zombie Rifle

I just finished reading 'World War Z' and was googling various things to do with zombies online and I saw the most shockingly ignorant discussions everywhere about what firearms would be best employed against a zombie horde.

Machine guns, shotguns and assault rifles. This is what everyone blabs on and on about and it's all ignorant BS.

A machine gun is primarily used for covering and suppressing fire. It scares the crap out of the enemy, pinning them down and preventing them from advancing into the hail of bullets. Except that zombies don't get scared. They'll walk right into it. This would be fine if they were human enemies who could be raked down with automatic fire sweeping across the line of their chests. But it takes a headshot to kill and stop a zombie. Chest shots do nothing. You need head shots and for that you have to use careful, steady, well-aimed fire. One measured shot at a time.

So the machine gun is out. What about shotguns? I suppose that I could think of worse weapons, but there sure are better ones. I know of no commercially available shotguns that use detachable magazines or that can be loaded with stripper clips. The range is pretty limited and the ammo is bulky. This is even assuming that you are using buckshot or other loads with larger pellets. Most of the ammo you'd be likely to scrounge as the conflict goes on is birdshot that will not penetrate a zombie's cranium beyond the distance of a few yards.

A rifle is the way to go. But what kind? Lots of people like to say the M-16 or the M-4 or the AK-47. Why? Because that's what they see in action movies. All of these rifles are capable of firing fully automatic, unlike you count the fake, neutered AKs that are rebuilt onto semi-auto receivers and sold in the US as AKs. We've already established that full auto gets you nowhere against zombies, except that you'll run out of ammo faster. Then there's the pesky fact that most civilians cannot legally possess weapons capable of automatic fire in the US or most other countries. Even if you are permitted to have one, the cost is still prohibitive. It's been many, many years since any automatic weapons have been manufactured in or imported into the US for anything other than military and law enforcement use.

What you want is a semi-automatic rifle that can accept either detachable magazines or stripper clips. It must have good open sights, be durable, easily maintained under harsh conditions and chambered for a cartridge that is widely available and easily scrounged. Here's a short list of good candidates.

Ruger Mini 14
SKS
AR-15/AR-10
M1 Garand

Among these choices, the SKS is certainly the least expensive way to arm yourself for the zombie apocalypse. You can still get them for as little as $150 at gun shows or wholesale. I've spent enough time with my SKS to confidently say that it will shoot minute-of-zombie-head out to 150 yards. I usually get 3 inch groups at 100 yards. That won't win you any shooting contests but it will get you well inside of a zombie's head at that range. Beyond 150 yards, few people would be capable of making a head shot under battlefield conditions with open sights regardless of the rifle they were using.

For an all-around battle rifle that will be used at various ranges, you really don't want a scope on there. It will get knocked out of zero and be easily damaged. It's also much harder to shoot a scoped rifle while you are running or otherwise on the move. You're going to need good open sights. Preferably ones that are visible in low light, like the flip-up tritium night sights on the Yugoslavian SKS.

A neutered, semi-automatic AK would work just as well as an SKS. It fires the exact same cartridge with the same rate of fire and the same level of accuracy. With the added bonus of costing twice as much as the SKS. If you already have an AK, great. But if you were out looking to buy weapons specifically for a zombie threat then you should save your money and but the SKS. You can even get detachable 30 round magazines for the SKS if you care to do some minor gunsmithing in order to be able to use them. But I think that one would be better off using 10 round stripper clips with the SKS for the sake of reduced weight and thus more actual ammunition being carried. All of those aftermarket folding stocks and other goodies for the AK are also available for the SKS. Really, the AK variants available in the US have absolutely no advantage over the SKS.

The ARs are great rifles but they are expensive. Generally chambered for .223, both the AR-15 and the Ruger Mini 14 allow you to carry a lot of ammo with relatively little weight as opposed to the weight and volume demands of the M1 Garand and it's 30-'06 cartridge, which is the largest cartridge ever designated for a primary battle rifle by any military in the world, ever. I dearly love the 30-'06, but M1s have gotten pretty expensive due to collector demand and between that cost and the fact that I couldn't carry as much ammo as with the 7.62x39 or the .223, I'd have to pass it up.

Again, like the neutered AK, if you already have an M1 Garand then use it. You've already sunk in the $800-$1,500 that an M1 will set you back these days. 30-'06 is still the most popular deer cartridge in America and you will be able to buy or scrounge it everywhere. I just wouldn't recommend it to someone who was presently unarmed and trying to decide what to buy.

Between the .223 and the 7.62x39 cartridges, you've got to consider the fact that 7.62x39 is currently the least expensive centerfire ammunition available in America. Both will do the trick with head shots within 150 yards. Which of course are the only shots that really count with zombies. Meanwhile, .223 is on the expensive and scarce side presently due to the very high demand of the American military for this ammunition. If you were looking to stockpile non-corrosive ammo in the near future, 7.62x39 is the way to go.

All of this leads me to the conclusion that the SKS is the smartest weapon to purchase for all-purpose zombie killing. There are better tools for more specialized roles, but if you might have to go from urban warfare to making your way through the countryside for hundreds of miles to defending a fortified position, the SKS is the best way to do that on a typical budget of a few hundred dollars. Sure, it would be a good idea to have a handgun as a backup and a heavy, edged weapon for those moments when you are out of ammo. But one of the semiautomatic rifles that I have described here should be the most basic weapon that every serious zombie killer will use.

Victory over Camblos!

Jim Camblos was defeated last night by Denise Lunsford, 53-47 in the contest for Commonwealth's Attorney in Albemarle County. The Hook calls it a 'shocker' but to those who have followed this race and Camblos' troubles over the last few years, the only shocker is that Jim Camblos didn't lose by an even bigger margin.

I talk about local and state politics with a lot of Democrats and a lot of Republicans regularly. Every Albemarle Democrat and Republican that I know was opposed to giving Camblos another term. It wasn't a matter of party affiliation. Jim Camblos had gone from first being simply out of step with Albemarle's values to showing signs of being actually incompetent and unable to properly do the job. He failed to file motions or present evidence in a timely fashion and criminals walked free on numerous occasions because of his constant screw-ups. The man always liked to talk a big game about being 'tough on crime,' but where the rubber met the road he constantly let the guilty go even as he zealously pursued high-profile cases in which most observers thought that the defendants were innocent. Throwing a middle school student behind bars without bail because his birthday happened to be the same as Adolf Hitler's was probably not Camblos' finest moment.

The final straw was Jim Camblos' proposal for a new County law to ban the discharge of any firearm within a whopping 200 yards of any dwelling. In a rural county that is still home to a great many law-abiding gun owners, that dog just won't hunt. With Republicans, Democrats and independents all mad at Camblos for one thing or another, he was left without any real constituency. His 47% showing is probably a pretty good indicator of exactly what proportion of Albemarle voters do not follow local news at all. Only ignorance or long-standing personal friendship could have led someone to vote for Jim Camblos.

As for Denise Lunsford, I hope that she will not repeat the mistakes of her predecessor. What I would ask of her is to enforce the law rather than trying to leverage her position to stand in as a legislator. Always consider the fact that you are a lawyer representing the interests of the people of Albemarle County. That doesn't mean pressing charges against someone just because you can. Represent our common values in the courtroom. We're counting on you to get the violent repeat offenders out of our neighborhoods and keep them behind bars. We're also counting on you to show mercy when it's called for. Don't get sloppy. Don't let us down.

Throw Jim Camblos Out of Office

Today is election day. If you live in Albemarle County and you haven't voted yet, remember to get over to your polling place before the end of the day to vote Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Camblos out of office. As long-time readers know, Jim Camblos has been pressuring the Board of Supervisors to pass a new law banning the discharge of a firearm within 200 yards of any home.

Including your own.

This kind of law has no place in a rural county. It has been decades since anyone in Albemarle County has been injured by an errant bullet fired in the course of hunting or target practice. A bullet only goes where you point it. It doesn't matter whether the nearest house is 100 yards away or 1,000. A centerfire bullet can travel for miles. Setting a 200 yard limit doesn't make anyone any safer. If the house is to the rear of the marksman then it is just as safe from the bullet as a house on the other side of the Earth. That's true no matter how close it is.

The Camblos proposal wouldn't make anyone any safer and it seeks to solve a problem that doesn't exist. The rate of injury to non-participants is higher in the game of baseball then it is in hunting and target shooting. This 'threat' he is combating is a straw man through and through. Jim Camblos is just trying to keep law-abiding people from exercising their Second Amendment rights.

Do your part today when you go to vote. Cast your ballot for Denise Lunsford and against Jim Camblos.