Update: Due to a WP issue, registration is now disabled. Will enable once this issue is fixed.

In light of the recent fight with spam and some readers being unable to comment, I have set up registration. You can register here. It requires a valid email address to send a confirmation and password that no one but me will see. You’re spam-safe here at sayuncle.

The advantage to this is that if you’re logged in, your comment will be approved automatically. So, you blogspot users who are having troubles and are not seeing your comments appear because SK2 thinks they’re spam, feel free to use that feature. It’s not required but it does ensure your comment gets through.

If you have any trouble, let me know.

In light of the recent fight with spam and some readers being unable to comment, I have set up registration. You can register here. It requires a valid email address to send a confirmation and password that no one but me will see. You’re spam-safe here at sayuncle.

The advantage to this is that if you’re logged in, your comment will be approved automatically. So, you blogspot users who are having troubles and are not seeing your comments appear because SK2 thinks they’re spam, feel free to use that feature. It’s not required but it does ensure your comment gets through.

If you have any trouble, let me know.

Also added a link to this on the right.

Update: If you registered, leave a comment and tell me if it worked (particularly if your url has blogspot.com in it). You can email me at:

R. Neal over at Knoxviews briefly comments on another WATE editorial story decision gone astray. Today’s question is what does the word “volunteer” mean?

Great minds will parse this question to the finite bounds of semantic understanding. Is it only a matter of time before more knowledgeable people like UT professors of Ethics or Political Science must be brought in to help the “common’ folk understand the meaning of simple words?

Here is the ten cent tour.

Sheriff Hutchison did not “volunteer” for anything he was requested to bring helicopters and pilots to Louisiana by Jefferson Parish Sheriff Henry Lee.

Betty Bean wrote about the WATE story here.

Gene Patterson is once again the designated arrow catcher for WATE on his blog here. Be sure to check out the Walker Johnson comments. If I was WATE I would hire Walker Johnson to do on-air commentary. He not only gets it but he is very funny.

Does Gene get overtime for his blog? Just curious. God knows he deserves it.

My take on this is that the local “progressive” political machine in Knoxville does not habla what “overtime pay” is. If they don’t have it at the large local/national gas convenience store truck stop chain they why should anyone else receive overtime?

Of course the real fun to be had is what would have happened if the Sheriff had refused gas and overtime reimbursement. WATE would have had one heck of a story about that.

Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. That’s the way media in Knoxville works.

Via Brittney, comes MTA who tells us that the phrase That’s Mighty White of You is racist. Don’t know that I agree, really, as one of the definitions of white is Honourable; square-dealing – though it is possible that definition came about through racist intent, I suppose. So, no, I tend to not think such a phrase is inherently racist.

There are a few phrases that I hear quite often that are inarguably racist. I think these phrases are so ingrained in the local vernacular that people who use them do not really mean them in that racist way but they’ve just been used for so long that it’s acceptable. Heck, I’ve even heard my black friends (both of them) use them. One phrase is nigger-rigged (i.e., shoddy quality and thrown together haphazardly). And I hear it a lot.

But there is a bit of overeagerness in labeling things racist, which is what I think MTA has done here. For example, there was that time a public official was almost fired for using the word niggardly, which turned out to really be a sign that a lot of folks needed to buy a damn thesaurus. Then there was the time when a Tennessee school official used the phrase yard-apes, which I’ve always heard as being a derogatory term for children, not black folks. Some folks are just overly sensitive.

Where do we draw the line? Beats me. I hate racism and racist comments with one exception and it is: if it’s damn funny. Sure, some jokes are crude and offensive but if they’re funny, go for it. Hell, Carlos Mencia and Dave Chappelle made entire careers on that premise. And I think they’re hysterical. Feel free to make fun of Asians who can’t drive, black folks who can’t swim, Jews who complain a lot, or how white people can’t dance if it makes me laugh. But do it in a way that’s funny. If it’s just mean, I don’t want to hear it.

Also, I wonder what stereotypes there are about white folks that I don’t know about? I mean funny ones, not the ones about us being in league with Satan.

What’s white and 12 inches long?
Read the rest of this entry »

Ford will not be the next senator from Tennessee. Particularly, if he keeps listening to Chuck Schumer:

“Anyone who thinks the South in 2006 is the same as the South in 2004 is mistaken,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Ford, to stand a chance, needs to run far and fast from Chuckles.

I beg to differ with UpChuck, here. The south is pretty much about the same, generally speaking. In fact, here’s something I wrote on the subject about two and a half years ago:

It’s getting to be election time. This is a rare occasion because it represents the only time the rest of the country gives a fuck about the South. The rest of the year, our region is made fun of on sitcoms, reality TV, and in various op ed pieces. We’re ridiculed by snooty intellectuals and hated. We’re belittled a bit because our region consists mostly of troublemakers. At least we’re viewed as troublemakers. After all, we did secede.

At election time, we’re no longer inbred, toothless hillbillies. We suddenly become this mysterious voting bloc of gun-toting, God-fearing conservatives who like free stuff from the government (aka, southern Democrats – by the way, are there any of those left nationally?). It’s true. Most southerners like their guns and their God. We also have liberals and conservatives here in the south, though our definition of liberal typically includes people fond of guns and God but place free stuff higher on the list than other folks.

Democrats tend to write the south off nationally, which is a mistake. After they write us off in terms of votes, they often write us off in terms of policy (that gets back to the vote thing). Al Gore wrote us off in terms of policy and it cost him votes. There’s a reason his concession speech mentioned something about mending fences at home.

And here in Tennessee on the local level, we’ve elected quite a few Democrats lately. The Democrats shouldn’t write the south off completely. But what wins Democrat votes in the rest of the country doesn’t fly here in the south.

With elections, the fun begins. We suddenly get the people who used to try to appeal to snooty intellectuals interested in appealing to us. They try to pass their gun control legislation off as common sense stuff by stating things like We don’t mean your shotgun, Ethyl. We’re talkin’ ‘bout them there assault weapons. Or they attempt to dumb down their agenda. And every politician before visiting the southeast finds Jesus; eats pinto beans at a Ma & Pa diner; and goes hunting.

We southern folks really like it if you’d slow down a bit when talking to us. It’s not because we’re slow to understand, it’s because fast talk makes you seem rude. That should illustrate why you snooty intellectuals don’t understand us. But it only illustrates that to other southerners. The snooty intellectuals don’t get it. We do things differently in these parts and that’s why people love the south or hate it.

We call a woman Ma’am and we do it to be polite. We don’t do it because she’s old. When I address the 16 year-old girl who works at Target, I say Yes, ma’am.

Most of us know how to kill, skin, and prepare various animals for food. Well, I do. My family was really country. This does not make us a freak show to be talked about. I was on a job once in Maryland. We got on the subject of hunting (which most people on the job hadn’t done) and I mentioned I have killed and eaten various animals. Suddenly, everyone began asking me about it like I was this wild mountain man. Hell, I was just an accountant. By the way, SayUncle is opposed to killing in general and hasn’t hunted since his teens. I don’t even kill spiders; I escort them outside. This annoys the wife, who thinks all things with more than four legs should be eradicated from the planet.

We drink our tea sweet. And we can make a meal out of nothing but pinto beans, corn bread, and an onion. You can say things here like He needs killin’ and people will sympathize.

But make no mistake; we’re not a bunch of dumb, uneducated simpletons. If you treat us like we are, that’s your mistake. There’s a reason most presidents come from the South and it’d be wise to remember that.

I’m pretty sure every bit of it is still applicable today.

Michael says he’s back. Well, let’s see some blogging.

Gun Law News has a round up of gun items worth checking out.

Remember that time the press said the court ruled that whistleblowers weren’t protected? Well, that’s not really the case.

Here’s a summary:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner said Tuesday he will summon Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and

FBI Director Robert Mueller before his panel to explain their decision to raid a lawmaker’s office for the first time in history.

“I want to have Attorney General Gonzales and FBI Director Mueller up here to tell us how they reached the conclusion they did,” said Sensenbrenner, one of
President Bush’s most loyal House allies. Sensenbrenner’s hearings, which began Tuesday, are examining whether the May 20 raid violated the Constitution.

From the AG:

For his part, Gonzales has said that the search of Jefferson’s offices was legal and necessary because the Louisiana Democrat had not cooperated with investigators’ other efforts to gain access to evidence. An affidavit on which the search warrant was based said investigators had found $90,000 stashed in the freezer of Jefferson’s house.

And kudos to Reid and Frist:

Across the Capitol meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., joined his Democratic counterpart, Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, over the weekend in declining to criticize the FBI for the raid. Frist said he does not believe the law enforcement agency violated the separation of powers.

MSNBC:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder for government employees to file lawsuits claiming they were retaliated against for going public with allegations of official misconduct.

By a 5-4 vote, justices said the nation’s 20 million public employees do not have carte blanche free speech rights to disclose government’s inner-workings. New Justice Samuel Alito cast the tie-breaking vote.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the court’s majority, said the First Amendment does not protect “every statement a public employee makes in the course of doing his or her job.”

First off, 7.1% of US Citizens work for the government? Second, I generally concur that no one has carte blanche free speech involving their workplace but the details of this case make it more troubling:

The ruling sided with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, which appealed an appellate court ruling which held that prosecutor Richard Ceballos was constitutionally protected when he wrote a memo questioning whether a county sheriff’s deputy had lied in a search warrant affidavit.

Ceballos had filed a lawsuit claiming he was demoted and denied a promotion for trying to expose the lie.

Dissenting justices said Tuesday that the ruling could silence would-be whistleblowers who have information about governmental misconduct.

Unless such employees have legitimate recourse for such, their motivation to come forward when necessary is seriously diminished.

David Hardy has more, including the details regarding lying on the warrant.

Bloggers getting death threats is nothing new. Bloggers getting death threats from Reuters reporters, however, is:

A Reuters employee has been suspended after sending a death threat to an American blogger.

The message, sent from a Reuters internet account, read: “I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut.”

It was sent to Charles Johnson, owner of the Little Green Footballs (LGF) weblog, a popular site which often backs Israel and highlights jihadist terrorist activities.

In the threat, the Reuters staff member, who has not been named, left his email address as “zionistpig” at hotmail.com.

Reporting the message to his readers, Johnson wrote on his website: “This particular death threat is a bit different from the run of the mill hate mail we get around here, because an IP lookup on the sender reveals that he/she/it was using an account at none other than Reuters News.”

Go here now (about 2:10) to chat with a supposed expert on gun safety. Addison asked:

I asked a question.

I asked if my low SN 1903 would be safe with modern factory ammo.

He is a safety expert, right?

Wonder if he’ll answer it?

Update: I submitted:

You claim Hemenway is unbiased? The DOJ cites numbers much higher than any of your sources regarding defensive gun uses (which often go unreported). And you list anecdotal examples. You seem to reference the discredited Kellermann study in today’s piece. Despite your claims, armed active resistance has been shown to be the most effective deterrent to crime. Not off to a swimming start. But here goes:

Do you advocate keeping guns locked up and never mentioning them? Seems a bit odd as, while I can control access at my home, I can’t control access when my kids are at others’ homes. Thoughts on kids and gun safety when they’re at another’s home? Seems teaching them real gun safety would be more beneficial than the head in the sand version.

Update 2: And there it is:

As hardy points out in the article i’ve alraedy cited,”passive prevention efforts require no effort at all on the part of individuals (for example, choosing not to own a firearm).

Lame.

Update 3: Heh. Looks like the copied and pasted wrap up has been posted. None of my questions nor question readers told me they wrote have been answered. And hes’ broken out the propaganda by pro-gun advocates and their flawed tendentious research. He does that and quotes Hemenway? Puh-lease. Not surprised.

Impressive:

The five suspects pulled up in a car and confronted the victim in the 500 block of Penn Street just before midnight.

The victim began running down the street yelling for help. Residents who heard him called 911. While he was running, the victim pulled a pocket knife from his backpack.

Two of the robbers jumped from the car. When one of the robbers pointed a shotgun at him, the victim kicked it out of his hands.

At that point two of the robbers jumped on the victim. During the struggle he stabbed both of them. One, a female, died of her wounds. A second is in critical condition.

Don’t ever jump a Marine, apparently. Note to the press: Is the Rambo reference really necessary?

I am remiss in mentioning that my buddy Scoot, the one who was arrested by the ATF, emailed me that:

The government is planning to push the fact that I had sold firearms parts and was now making receivers so obviously I would sell them also. Ever own a gun part or accessory and sold it because you don’t want or use it anymore? You are now in the firearms business.

They are also saying there is an interstate nexus with the firearms I “supposedly” manufactured.

Got that? If you sell a firearm part (which is subject to about as much regulation as a stapler) and possess firearms, thay may be used as justification that you’re dealing firearms without a license.

Editorial boards have stock arguments they use when promoting any new firearm regulations, including one-handgun-per-month purchase limits. Well, that’s what I say. They say:

The National Rifle Association has stock arguments it uses when anyone suggests new firearm regulations, including one-handgun-per-month purchase limits.

The NRA’s stock arguments tend to be more convincing than those contrived by editorial boards at papers. Like this one:

Two bills languishing in Pennsylvania propose such a limit. The legislation is meant to make it harder to buy handguns – the weapon most often used in Philadelphia homicides – through a transaction known as a straw purchase.

In a straw-purchase scheme, a felon, barred by law from buying guns, recruits someone who can legally buy numerous guns at one time. The intermediary fills out forms, passes a background check, purchases the guns, then gives them to the felon, who uses them to commit crimes or illegally resells them for a big profit.

Handguns bought this way don’t end up in the homes of law-abiding citizens who want to defend their families against intruders.

A handgun purchase limit would help to dry up the illegal market that sells to criminals and young people.

Being that they are alleged to be doing this by straw purchases, they are already breaking the law. What makes you think they’ll abide by another? And, of course, there is the little detail that such laws have been shown to have roughly zero impact on crime, according those NRA cronies at the Centers for Disease Control.

I told you about the guy having the gun safety thing at the WaPo. Well, some more:

A new study involving 201 parents and an equal number of their children has found that 39 percent of kids knew the location of their parents’ firearms, while 22 percent said they had handled the weapons, despite their parents’ assertions to the contrary. Parents who had talked to their children about gun safety were just as likely to be misinformed about their children’s actions as those who said they never had discussed the matter.

[...]

The gun safety study is the first to compare the responses of parents and their children, ages 5 to 14, who were interviewed separately.

And:

“Adolescents act impulsively, whether or not they have psychiatric problems,” Miller said, noting that studies have found that a gun in the home increases the risk of suicide and homicide, as well as accidental shootings. “It’s up to parents — not children — to provide a safe environment.”

Well, other than relying on the bogus Kellerman stat, he’s on the right track. But:

He advises parents who don’t want to part with their guns to lock unloaded weapons in a place separate from ammunition, which should also be locked. Guns should be accessible only by a key the parent carries at all times. If guns are stored in a safe with a combination, only parents should know the combination.

Personally, I can’t wait to take my kids shooting when they’re old enough. I keep my guns safely away but that’s not 100%. Instead, I’ll talk to them about them. And I will have a standing rule:

Do not touch the guns without me around. However, any time you want to go shooting, we will go.

Hopefully that will eliminate some of the curiousity.

Independent Online:

Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies’ products.

Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking information about stations across the country after a report produced by a campaign group detailed the extraordinary extent of the use of such items.

The report, by the non-profit group Centre for Media and Democracy, found that over a 10-month period at least 77 television stations were making use of the faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs). Not one told viewers who had produced the items.

This coupled with the adminstration’s production of propaganda news in Iraq is troubling.

Funny how they also slipped in faux news.

In the latest in Bloomberg’s sting against gun dealers (a summary can be found here), comes this:

William G. McMahon, special agent in charge of the ATF’s New York field division, announced Friday that the agency would review the intelligence gathered by the city and target any federally licensed firearms dealers who broke the law.

In a twist, ATF’s inquiry will also include a review of whether the city acted legally in setting up the sting.

Several gun-rights advocates have questioned whether the city itself broke firearms rules or committed fraud by attempting to simulate straw sales in other state

And:

Among the issues being explored: Did the investigators provide accurate information on ATF forms at the time of purchase and did they comply with laws requiring them to be residents of the states where they acquired the weapons?

My prediction: nothing will come of it. Special classes protect special classes.

Dunno if you’ve ever watched the show but it’s good. Anyway, he says of politically incorrect dog bans:

Ontario’s pit bull ban is an unfair law based on ignorance – because getting rid of a breed of dog doesn’t get rid of the problem, says celebrity dog trainer Cesar Millan.

Millan, known as the Dog Whisperer for his uncanny ability to solve canine behavioural problems, was in Toronto this week promoting his National Geographic Channel show and the recent DVD release of the first season’s episodes.

“In the United States, in the ’70s, they did the same thing to the Doberman. In the ’80s they did it to the German shepherd, in the ’90s they did it to the Rottweiler, and now they’re doing it to the pit bull,” he says.

“So whatever dog is in fashion, people are going to blame them for things.”

Sounds like he’s been reading me.

PGP has a lesson they should learn.

The carnival of cordite is up for your gun blogging pleasure.

Seems to be mostly immaterial:

Why has the Kelo backlash largely failed? Sandefur blames the political power of development interests who benefit from private-to-private condemnations and the lack of a strong philosophical commitment to property rights.

Via Fun Bob.

Dr. Helen:

Have you ever noticed how frightened people are of confrontation–even if it just means the slightest bit of displeasure from another person? Normally, these non-confronters think of themselves as “very good and moral people” and believe the reason they do not confront is to save another’s feelings. But in truth, they are so afraid of causing themselves a moment’s displeasure, that they will do anything to get out of being direct with another person.

Yes. But she and I (and very likely you) are probably more confrontational than most because of a group of people we belong to. See, we’re bloggers and blog readers. I’d say this activity would intentionally draw confrontation and disagreement. And we do this sort of thing for that, at least on some level.

Minimal blogging today, holidays and all. Lots of good stuff at The Gun Blogs.

The WaPo:

Matthew Miller, associate director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center and co-author of a new study on gun safety in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, will be online Tuesday, May 30, at 2 p.m. ET to discuss gun safety in families’ homes. He will also field questions and comments about the study.

We wouldn’t want the NRA or some gun people teaching gun safety. You an submit questions.

Update: It’s possible the guy is a gun expert, of course. But based on his bio, that would suprise me.

Fox, who used to blog here, has posted a pic of her AR.

Heh!

Threaten supply and demand goes up:

Weapons traders in Belgium have reported a strong rise in sales since debate opened up around tighter gun control laws.

The rules in Belgium are changing:

Hunting and sports weapons can currently be bought across the counter without a licence on proof of identification. After the person’s details are registered, the buyer can take the gun home.

But new legislation — which has been approved in record tempo after the racist shootings in Antwerp on 11 May — will impose tighter regulations.

In future, anyone who wants to buy a gun will need to undergo a police screening and obtain a gun licence. The new law will also have a retroactive effect to the start of this year.

Over at Tennessee Ticket, they tell you why it’s not all that great.

It’s also here.

The Ammo Can Carnival is up for your gun blog reading pleasure.

Heh. Ain’t that the truth. They never review a gun they don’t like.

Via MC.

The police have once again swarmed congress. Looks like there may have been a shooting in DC at the Capitol, which is odd because they ban guns.

AP New York:

Police acting on information gathered by private investigators working on the city’s civil lawsuits against the gun industry have filed the first criminal charges related to the case.

Two licensed firearms dealers were charged with misdemeanor weapons offenses on Wednesday after police reviewed videotape of a sting operation conducted in connection with the suit.

Police said the dealers, Jack Togati, 40, of the DF Brothers Sport Center in Brooklyn, and Michael Spallone, 43, of the Woodhaven Rifle and Pistol Range in Queens, each illegally sold a firearm without requiring the customer to produce a valid gun license.

But I thought the problem was with out of state dealers? More:

At each store, police said, a male investigator who failed to produce a pistol permit posed as a gun buyer and paid for the weapon, while a female companion produced the required pistol license. State law requires people purchasing guns to have their own licenses.

So, were they trying to see if the other states complied with NY law?

B-Ho notes:

U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, is an enemy of free speech. Allen is launching a new attack on political bloggers with the renewed threat of regulation under the Stifle Free Speech Act Campaign Finance Reform act even after the Federal Election Commission rightly exempted blogs from regulation under that law.

One nitpick: Everyone should be exempted from an unconstitutional act, not just blogs.

Rimfire emails this piece:

Local law enforcement officials have worked at least four cases in the past month involving semi-automatic assault rifles, a rate that has caused some alarm.

[snip]

A modification also turned the gun into a fully automatic weapon, which can only be owned legally by law enforcement officers.

That’s not a semi-automatic. It’s a machine gun, which is generally illegal. Looks like the anti-gun folks’ obfuscation of machine gun and assault weapon is sticking. And this is amusing:

“Everybody has a right to own a gun, but there’s only one reason for owning a gun like that — killing people. There’s no other use other than to kill people. That’s all they’re made for,” Marshall said.

And, you know, they’re fun to shoot – the guns, not people.

Over at The Cowboy’s.

Sorry about that. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Here’s some more rimfire porn.

In this post on a William J. Jefferson getting arrested for taking a bribe, you saw that I wrote:

If anything, those who are trusted to such office should be held to higher standards and should face more severe treatment when they break that trust.

To those congressmonkies protesting his treatment, I say on behalf of the American people: go fuck yourselves.

However, I initially wrote:

Rope. Tree. Congressmen. Some assembly required.

Despite the fact it was meant as a general statement to the congressweasels protesting the rather tame treatment of that warrant and acting as though they are better than others, I opted not to use that phrase because I discovered William J. Jefferson was black and I didn’t want to be accused of being a racist advocating lynching. And, of course, I say tame because it’s not like the agents stormed in and put 10 rounds of 9MM in his chest because he had less than an ounce of weed and a handgun carry permit. So, I left that out and opted for something slightly less offensive:

It’s nonsense like this that makes people want to grab their torches and pitchforks and storm the capitol.

But then, I thought, I don’t want to be accused of inciting violence. So, I left that out too. My thinking was that my initial rage would go away and I’d calm down the next day. You know, things better left unsaid. I figured the heat of the moment was weighing on me, that I’d get over it, and that I should be more cautious in what I wrote and that my cool head would prevail. I was wrong. I did not get over it. And that troubles me as I am not a particularly violent sort (yeah, says the guy with all the guns – ed.). I did all that before I published the post so no one saw that stuff. Though these things are usually my first thought, I eventually calm down and get over it. I usually take care not to say such things in the heat of the moment (despite thinking them frequently) for fear of being labeled an extremist. But this one, like Kelo, did not go away.

I was relieved, somewhat, to discover I wasn’t the only one particularly angered by this superiority complex from congress. In this post, insty writes:

INSANITY BREAKS OUT SPREADS

Initially, though, the post said something about Bush be will be impeached. I have no proof but you’ll have to take my word for it. I didn’t grab a screen shot but know for damn certain I saw it. Looks to me like he had the same reconsideration and quickly changed what he wrote as well.

There is a certain advantage to remaining a bit cooler. Sure, I told congress to go fuck themselves but that doesn’t involve lynching nor does it involve pitch forks and storming the capitol. It’s rhetoric to display my dissatisfaction in a manner that is mostly non-specific and generally non-violent. Well, fuck that. Why? Because as insty noted:

President Bush stepped into the Justice Department’s constitutional confrontation with Congress on Thursday and ordered that documents seized in an FBI raid on a congressman’s office be sealed for 45 days.

And Radley said:

Congress now plans to hold a rare recess hearing on the “aggressive” raid on Rep. William Jefferson’s office, called “Reckless Justice: Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?”

There is no controversy in the treatment of William J. Jefferson. There is only controversy that William J. Jefferson and members of congress have betrayed the American people. And, worse, think they are above the laws that they are responsible for. Hastert’s only pissed because he’s next. So, if this attitude by congress that they are superior continues, I say:

Tree

Rope

Congressmen

Some assembly required.

Oh, and they can still go fuck themselves.

Tarring and feathering is good too.

No, Bloomberg is a certifiably nannyist loon:

Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg thrust himself into the national immigration debate Wednesday, advocating a plan that would establish a DNA or fingerprint database to track and verify all legal U.S. workers.

Insane. Why is the mayor of one city so seemingly involved in national legislation?

1,635 crimes that didn’t happen.

David Hardy has the skinny on some gun bills in the works. I wish the NRA would get on that repealing the sporting language stuff.

Blake video blogging is pretty damn funny. Love the Sopranos thing and he scored an interview with a Bredesen spokesdemon.

Yes, even though we established the proper spelling of dildos last time, I just like the legalese better.

R. Neal at facing south says:

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed the rash of anti-sex toy legislation sweeping the South?

No, it’s not just you. The legislation of things that tingle your naughty bits seems popular lately.

He notes:

South Carolina is the latest to consider a ban, and legislation has already been passed in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas. Similar legislation was proposed in Tennessee earlier this year, but it was quickly withdrawn. Apparently nobody in Nashville wanted to touch the sex toy issue.

Between that and the war on entertaining ways to waste your money, seems someone is always mad that someone else may be having a good time.

Jay shows of his Marlin. Personally, I’m more of a 10/22 fan when it comes to rimfire rifles:

The AP is getting blog friendly:

AP stories on those sites will show a module featuring “Top Five Most Blogged About” articles. If you click on a story, you’ll be taken to a Technorati.com search page listing blogs that are writing about the story. “Blogger voices will now be heard in several hundred local online news organizations,” said Technorati’s chairman, Peter Hirshberg. “I believe that this is a deep validation of the power of citizen media.”

The Washington Post has mentioned blogs for a while.

Now, this stuff seems a bit too black-helicpoterish to me and I know nothing about the source. But, I love me some conspiracy theories. Sadly, I cant’ say I find it entirely unbelievable. After all, the FBI once issued some propaganda that classified folks who ‘quote the Constitution’ as potential terrorists. There’s some video I’ve not been able to watch. Probably crazy talk but interesting.

Update: Moved my comments to the top of the quote instead of after so that a casual reader won’t think I buy this black helicopter stuff.

Update 2: Looks like black helicopter stuff to me.

Read the rest of this entry »

That’s what headline should be. But this Brady Presser says:

In a rare release of information the gun industry has tried to keep secret, the Justice Department has revealed data naming the gun dealers who rank as the five leading sellers of guns traced to crimes.

[...]

Each of the five dealers, the court documents show, had an average of more than one gun recovered in crime every day of the year in 2005. By contrast, 86 percent of gun dealers in America have no crime guns traced to their stores in a typical year. Just 1.2 percent of gun dealers supply 57 percent of all crime guns recovered across the nation.

I’d say there’s also a correlation between volume of sales and gun crimes. If the dealers complied with the law, there’s nothing really to report.

Went to the KnoxViews get together last night. Got to meet a few folks and put some faces with online names. Always good to see Mr. and (the charming) Mrs. R. Neal. Got to meet all-around troublemaker and commentator persimmon; Steve from Whites Creek; Betty Bean; a couple of folks from The Metropulse (one who sort of apologized for being mean to me on the old blab); Bob Stepno; and KnoxJon (whose blog seems to have disappeared – I apparently called him an idiot once and am happy to report he is, in fact, not an idiot and is actually a nice guy).

A couple of things:

I offered to take Betty Bean shooting. That offer is open any time.

R. Neal agreed to hire me as his CFO and will pay me minimum wage so some folks will stop bitching.

Update: R. Neal on the meet.

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard details of Michael Bloomberg and the city of New York hiring private investigators to conduct a sting on out of state gun dealers that are the source of crime guns in New York. USA Today had the story first:

Wearing hidden cameras, the investigators entered stores in teams of two and attempted “straw purchases,” in which the buyer completes the paperwork and passes the background check, but later hands over the weapon to someone else who is not allowed to own a firearm.

More specifically:

The city said the undercover investigators entered stores in teams of two, usually a man and a woman. While the woman roamed the store and acted disinterested, the man made all the inquiries about the gun and made it clear he was the buyer. When it came time to make the purchase, the woman would step up to fill out the paperwork.

Trouble for Bloomberg is that if this is how it went down, then it’s not necessarily illegal, assuming that the man was not a prohibited person. If the man was a prohibited person, the investigators broke the law. Also, said private investigators from New York have zero law enforcement authority in the states wherein they committed these supposed investigations. They may have also committed felonies by giving false info on ATF Form 4473, which asks specifically:

Are you the actual buyer of the firearm indicated on this form?

Further, it looks as though Bloomberg’s antics jeapordized real investigations:

Mayor Bloomberg’s decision to hire private investigators to conduct undercover stings at Southern gun shops has potentially jeopardized several criminal cases, law enforcement sources charged.

Four cases were compromised and an additional 14 were put at risk by the six-week sting aimed at gun stores in Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia, the sources said.

The sources argued that several suspects being watched by authorities had frequented some of the 15 gun shops–but are now cleaning up their acts or lying low because of the publicity. None of the ongoing cases was linked to New York, the sources said.

“A bunch of private eyes straight out of ‘Barnaby Jones’ run their own sting operation and all the real enforcement agencies find out about it on the day they are having a press conference? Not good,” said a law enforcement source in Washington.

The Justice Department held a meeting last week to review potential problems, another source said. “The goal is to lock up gun criminals, not file civil lawsuits with publicity stunts,” the source said.

And, the final bit of funny, is that the ATF may be investigating this sting:

ATF has said they will be investigating every aspect of these “sting” sales (and there were ATF people present who repeated that). This may be bad news for the city, since IF the sales were illegal straw sales, their investigators committed felonies.

I’m going to go ahead and call Bloomberg’s latest antics of sending private investigators to investigate gun shops in other states for the purpose of suing them a victory for gun rights. Why, you may ask? Simple. It essentially shows that NY’s stringent and draconian gun laws are not having the desired affect. Since folks are unwilling to deal with the real issues after their ideas fail, they must have a scapegoat. In this case, that scapegoat is SC, GA, VA, etc. The facts are that NY has some of the most stringent/draconian gun laws in the country (in third place, with DC first and Chicago second) but they still have a significant number of gun crimes. Since they passed the laws, there must be some reason those aren’t working and it must be due to the failure of other states. Otherwise, they’d have to admit their laws are not an effective means to their end.

And watching the failures and consequences of the actual investigation unravel is kind of amusing.

In honor of Tourette Syndrome Awareness Week, let me just say titty, titty, assface, cunt.

As you were.

Update: Boobies. Ok, as you were, you pigfucker.

alandp notes:

As gun control laws have been added piecemeal over the years, it has forced gun owners to deal with conflicting and redundant requirements. Furthermore, the interstate requirements for buying a gun have needlessly forced gun dealers to ship firearms via commercial carriers, thus subjecting them to being lost, damaged or stolen.

To counteract this, Rep. Renzi is set to introduce the Firearm Transfer Improvement Act in the next few days. Renzi says that because gun dealers must comply with the laws of two different states in addition to federal law, these regulations are both “redundant and costly.” It is bad enough that the national government has created an unconstitutional federal background check system, but we still have this 1968 interstate ban left over.

“My legislation simply states that federal law and the law of the state of the seller must be complied with for all firearms sales,” Renzi said. “It also applies the same rules to rifles and shotguns, which are currently handled differently than handguns.”

To do something (anything!) about puppy mills, TN is looking to tax dog food:

Cat and dog food would be subject to a $2.00 per-ton tax to help defray costs of stricter enforcement against puppy mills under a bill passed by the Senate Wednesday.

The measure sponsored by Sen. Curtis Person would increase the penalties for people selling more than 25 dogs or cats without a license.

The bill would close what the Memphis Republican called a loophole that exempts breeders who sell directly to consumers.

The TN eminent domain is on it’s way to the governor. Not the best bill, but it’s a start.

Over at Knoxviews, we learn:

President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations.

Seems from the piece that Bush (though this has been around since Carter) is the first to delegate it down. Delegation is nothing knew, really, as many agencies (DEA, USDA, ATF, JD, etc.) have been delegated decision making authority. Honestly, it sucks knowing that important decisions are made by cronies instead of, say, elected officials doing their jobs. We’re be run by bureaus while politicians clamor for more special privilege.

In terms of financial and SEC disclosures, I wouldn’t worry much. The big accounting firms still sign off on those things and they won’t sign off without sufficient evidential matter even if the CEO has a note from mommy.

Crebralfix notes the anti-gunners are excited about micro-stamping. The likely plan:

Step 1: convince folks it’s a good idea.

Step 2: mandate that into law and older guns come under attack.

Dr. Strangegun is back with a cool new project:

And I’m going to convert it to TEN MILLIMETER. WOOHOO!

911 is a joke in your town:

A 911 audio tape obtained by Eyewitness News reveals that, instead of sending an ambulance right away, dispatchers from Memphis and Barlett could not decide which agency should answer the call.

The police can’t save you if they think it’s someone else’s job. And you can’t sue them for that.

Via tom.

Hastert, on the FBI raiding a congressman’s office, thinks the documents should be returned and the agents involved ought to be frozen out of that (case) for the sake of the Constitution.

Separation of powers should not impede with a valid criminal investigation. Ever. It’s a weak argument and TPTB should know better. But that’s not the case:

The raid also has united Democrats and Republicans in a rare, election-year accord. But while they stand together in opposition to an executive branch raid of a legislative branch office, party leaders are acting on different political agendas.

It seems the only thing that both parties holding office can agree on is that they are above the law.

An editorial lauding Bloomberg’s illegal sting appears in The Reading Eagle. They have a comments section so tell them something. Seems their comments are moderated but if enough folks chime in (politely, of course), it my be worth it.

I round up my thoughts on Bloomberg over at No Silence Here.

The Sun-Sentinel has a piece on The Pink Pistols, a gay and lesbian gun advocacy group.

Bob Barr says Bloomberg has misfired:

In a broad sense, it ought to concern us because if a government can illegally and forcibly disarm law-abiding citizens in one city simply because it proclaims a “crisis,” we are all subject to having our constitutional liberties trampled. Even if civil liberties organizations such as the NRA are successful in having those rights restored, much damage already will have ensued.

In another, very real, practical sense, all this is hitting home to Atlantans because New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who apparently has never met a firearm he likes — except those possessed by his own bodyguards — is bringing his anti-gun paranoia to our city’s suburbs.

Ayup. It’s publicity.

Side note: I’d also like to take this time to ask those who write about the gun issue (both pro-gun and anti-gun – and you folks in the press, but I repeat myself) to stop using the hideous firearm related puns, like misfired, up in arms, gun battle, missing the mark, shooting down, etc. It’s kinda lame.

Les tells us that ABC has a former Handgun Control, Inc. (now the Brady Campaign – changed their name because handgun bans aren’t cool with the kids) employee covering the NRA.

TriggerFinger notes that Amy Fisher (you remember her?) is now a columnist who favors gun control.

KnoxViews night out is tonight.

Brittney rightfully calls someone a tool for taking off their wedding band. The dude’s definitely a tool but I’ve found wedding rings make da women pay more attention to men. This guy has his game all wrong. In fact, I’ve found four specific things that happened to me that made women more attracted to me. Unfortunately, only the first one happened before I got hitched so I didn’t get the full benefit. They are:

1 – First job after grad school: Almost overnight, I went from some poor-as-Hell student renting a room in a friend’s basement who drove a 1989 Nissan Sentra (this was 1999) to a guy with a nice condo in a good part of town who drove a snazzy new convertible. I got rid of the old couch I found on the side of the road somewhere and got some hip furniture and a solid oak dining room set, which apparently the women like – seriously, more women commented on the dining room than the leather recliner, loveseat and couch. I was single and had some bling to buy drinks. The women liked that.

I also upgraded the wardrobe from jeans and T-shirts that were as old as the Nissan to attire more attuned to the business professional/casual world. Bought Rockports instead of no-name brands. The women seemed to like that style as opposed to the dude who bought his threads at K-Mart.

Had that not happened, I probably wouldn’t be married to Mrs. Uncle.

2 – Got married: Not sure why, but more women talk to me now that I’m hitched. I’m not sure if it’s because the ring makes me less threatening or if it indicates that I’ve been domesticated but it happened.

3 – Got a dog: Me and the Mrs. used to take the dog to the local park for a stroll. One week, the Mrs. went out of town and one day I loaded up Politically Incorrect Dog and went to the park. In the mild spring, all the jogging hotties with their jiggly bits barely covered by sports bras would stop to pet the dog. Why not? He’s cute and darn sociable. And they’d strike up a conversation (with me, not the dog). Seriously, that one walk, I chatted it up with about 7 different women who ordinarily wouldn’t have stopped to talk to me. Alas, I was a married man. This never happened when the Mrs. and I went. I should have got the dog when I was single.

4 – Had a baby: Take an adorable little girl to the mall and baby talk with her, hold her hand, and be the caring father you are, then the women line up to talk to you so long as mom isn’t around.

It’s all true. Your mileage may vary.

Via the geek, comes The myth of the easy machine gun:

The spokesman added that the conversion kits are illegal in Illinois. Well, then, where do you get one? They are probably available at gun dealers in states with looser gun laws, he suggested.

I thanked the good fellow and went on a search for a “machine gun conversion kit.” I looked all through Shotgun News, the bible for gun buyers and sellers. Didn’t see a single conversion kit. If you can’t find a gun item in Shotgun News, you can’t find it anywhere.

There’s more. One nitpick is he writes:

I’ve been following the [assault weaposn ban] debate. One point always seems to go unexplained. Once some concerned police chief declares that semi-automatic rifles are dangerously easy to convert, the discussion leaps elsewhere. No details of the conversion task are forthcoming.

Actually, the anti-gun folks spend a great deal of time obfuscating the terms machine guns and assault weapons. In fact, the VPC (and anti-gun group) once said:

Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.

This is inexcusable:

An unusual FBI raid of a Democratic congressman’s office over the weekend prompted complaints yesterday from leaders in both parties, who said the tactic was unduly aggressive and may have breached the constitutional separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government.

[...]

The Saturday raid of Jefferson’s quarters in the Rayburn House Office Building posed a new political dilemma for the leaders of both parties, who felt compelled to protest his treatment while condemning any wrongdoing by the lawmaker. The dilemma was complicated by new details contained in an 83-page affidavit unsealed on Sunday, including allegations that the FBI had videotaped Jefferson taking $100,000 in bribe money and then found $90,000 of that cash stuffed inside his apartment freezer.

If the average Joe breaks the law, there’s a decent chance the police will bust his door down, hold the residents at gun point, and someone might even get shot. Give me a break. And remember that Kennedy that got pulled over for drunk driving? Yeah, he was chauffeured home. If anything, those who are trusted to such office should be held to higher standards and should face more severe treatment when they break that trust.

To those congressmonkies protesting his treatment, I say on behalf of the American people: go fuck yourselves.

Mr. Completely has more details on The Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno.

Jeff has the latest in anti-gun bias in the press.

DeFens is making AK building jigs.

Tam with the other quote of the day:

Blood-borne pathogens and 419 Scams, however, are decidedly un-sexy, and seem to be Africa’s two leading exports at the moment.

Yeah, we seem to be all Bloomberg all the time here today but this is important. David Hardy:

ATF has said they will be investigating every aspect of these “sting” sales (and there were ATF people present who repeated that). This may be bad news for the city, since IF the sales were illegal straw sales, their investigators committed felonies.

One gun was traced TWICE in NYC. The first time was for a crime, so it would have to have been confiscated. Only explanation for how it would later be on the street is that someone in NYC PD is selling seized guns on the street.

Via Jed, who says:

Of course, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t wish the ATF on anyone, but for these sorts of anti-freedom operatives, I think it only right they get a dose of their own medicine, and in spades.

David Codrea notes a Georgia gun owner is asking the Georgia Attorney General to investigate Bloomberg’s very likely illegal investigation:

Office of the Attorney General of Georgia
Mr. Thurbert E. Baker
40 Capitol Square, SW
Atlanta, GA 30334

Dear Mr. Baker:

As a resident and law-abiding gun owner of Georgia, I am outraged at the recent illegal straw gun purchases made by an “investigative team” assembled at the behest of Mayor Bloomberg of New York City.

[...]

I ask: What is the authority of private individuals from New York to conspire to break, and then actually violate, federal gun purchase laws and the laws of other states?

Heh. Read it all. Then write your own.

alandp tells us that one of the gun dealers targeted in Bloomberg’s very likely illegal investigation is speaking out:

Holman, who had not been served with the lawsuit as of Friday afternoon, said his shop is regulated and audited quarterly by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives because of the high volume of gun sales at the store.

“We have to send a quarterly report on firearms acquired and sold,” he said. “If I was doing anything illegal, I would not still be open for business.”

[...]

“I can’t control what people do with them when they leave this store,” Holman said. “I sell between 50 and 100 handguns a month, and I would never jeopardize my business with anything illegal, with selling firearms.

[...]

Woody’s Pawn and Jewelry’s long-time attorney, Charles Williams, said he believes the case against the 15 pawnshops is illegitimate.

He said making it the pawnshop owner’s responsibility for what happens after the purchase of a gun is tantamount to suing a private citizen for selling his or her gun to someone, who in turn sold it to someone else who ultimately committed a crime.

“If he sold it legally and didn’t violate the law, I don’t see a case,” Williams said. “I just think it’s political. I think Bloomberg’s trying to get publicity.”

He said the guns have merely been traced back to Woody’s and other pawnshops, but there’s no telling how many hands those guns passed through along the way and, for all anyone knows, those initial sales were legal.

Nylarthotep notes:

A lawsuit in the District against gunmakers was dismissed yesterday by a D.C. Superior Court judge who ruled that the suit was precisely the sort of claim that a new federal law was intended to block.

I thought this was ironic:

The D.C. Council, she wrote, had determined that assault weapons have “little or no social benefit but at the same time pernicious consequences for the health and safety of District residents and visitors.” Congress, however, “has trumped local law by passing legislation to protect the profits of such manufacturers,” she wrote.

But guns are illegal in DC. How can they have pernicious consequences for the health and safety of District residents and visitors?

Good for Bryant:

While Mr. Hilleary and Mr. Corker both stated their willingness to support the eventual Republican nominee, a spokesman for Mr. Bryant said the former congressman declined to say whether he would endorse whoever wins the Aug. 3 GOP primary election.

Good for Bryant not de facto toeing the party line.

Not that I agree with it wholeheartedly but longtime reader blackfork writes at The Gun Blogs:

“Tactical” on a firearm, means that it’s used to shoot civilians, as far as I can tell.

Harold Ford Jr. said something I agree with:

It seems that all of the old (political) labels have become irrelevant or meaningless in some ways

Don’t regulate the internet.

Doesn’t hurt she’s easy on the eyes either.

Bitter tells us that the press things being in possession of NRA literature equates to criminal activity. As she notes:

… NRA materials have no connection to the mentally disturbed kid who unfortunately managed to escape treatment and be released by the justice system to go on to kill two cops.

I’m not a tech guy, so good thing metulj broke it down:

Holy smokes. AT&T sold out its peering links, so any data transmitted over the backbone for THE ENTIRE USA, no matter the ISP, was owned by NSA using Narus Technologies’ STA surveillance platform. So, it didn’t matter that Qwest or some others didn’t assent to the NSA spying, it was just a matter of falling back to the wide open door that AT&T had provided on the whole backbone.

I’m lukewarm on the candidates for Frist’s soon to be vacant seat. But if the signage is an indication (and it usually is), it’s looking like Corker has the backing of the local good ol’ boy network here in East Tennessee.

I decided a while back that you can pretty much determine who will win by the number of signs you see that are placed in front of businesses and houses in affluent neighborhoods. In Knoxville, I’ve only seen Corker signs.

And what’s the deal with that commercial where is mom his painfully reading cue cards and he’s feigning interest in some prop photo album? Painful to watch. But it’s better than Ford’s commercial where he’s filling up his big ass SUV at an Exxon and bitching about gas prices and the former CEO of Exxon’s golden parachute. Is he really advocating congressional price controls?

I haven’t seen a Bryant or Hilleary commercial.

Update: AC tells us that Corker and Hilleary almost threw down.

I said before that:

I’m going to go ahead and call Bloomberg’s latest (you can past coverage here) antics of sending private investigators to investigate gun shops in other states for the purpose of suing them a victory for gun rights. Why, you may ask? Simple. It essentially shows that NY’s stringent and draconian gun laws are not having the desired affect.

Then there is the issue of this incident jeapordizing valid investigations. Now, it gets even better with David noting that Bloomberg’s fraud continues to unravel. Indeed but his fraud will not get near the media play as the alleged investigation.

From his NYDN column:

The flyer for the 135th annual gathering of the National Rifle Association said to “bring your whole family” to see “acres of the latest guns.”

And a man behind the registration desk at the exhibition hall on Friday guaranteed this was no exaggeration.

“You won’t believe it!” he said.

He was right, for to enter the cavernous Midwest Airlines Center was to behold thousands of weapons, many of them handguns that have no real purpose other than to kill people and are produced in far greater numbers than the legitimate demand.

So, police carry handguns because the purpose is only to kill people? Well, folks in the sport of pin shooting, hunting, and a variety of other sports that involve a handgun would probably disagree. And what does he mean by legitimate demand? I figure if I want one and someone makes one, that is legitimate demand.

It’s kinda funny, but alandp posting at The Gun Blogs tells us that Bloomberg’s little publicity stunt may have affected real investigations:

Mayor Bloomberg’s decision to hire private investigators to conduct undercover stings at Southern gun shops has potentially jeopardized several criminal cases, law enforcement sources charged.

Four cases were compromised and an additional 14 were put at risk by the six-week sting aimed at gun stores in Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia, the sources said.

The sources argued that several suspects being watched by authorities had frequented some of the 15 gun shops–but are now cleaning up their acts or lying low because of the publicity. None of the ongoing cases was linked to New York, the sources said.

“A bunch of private eyes straight out of ‘Barnaby Jones’ run their own sting operation and all the real enforcement agencies find out about it on the day they are having a press conference? Not good,” said a law enforcement source in Washington.

The Justice Department held a meeting last week to review potential problems, another source said. “The goal is to lock up gun criminals, not file civil lawsuits with publicity stunts,” the source said.

And Barnaby Jones very likely broke the law in this sting.

Update: David notes that Bloomberg’s fraud continues to unravel. Indeed but his fraud will not get near the media play as the alleged investigation.

This bribery of elected officials nonsense is getting out of hand:

A congressman under investigation for bribery was caught on videotape accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an FBI informant whose conversations with the lawmaker also were recorded, according to a court document released Sunday. Agents later found the cash hidden in his freezer.

A few more like this, and maybe people will start waking up and voting the bums out.

The blogger formerly known as SKB has an op-ed in the local newspaper.

Personally, I think raising minimum wage is a largely pointless excercise. But kudos to R. Neal for doing the op-ed thing.

But leave it to B-Ho to be a dick about it. Bringing someone’s family and professional life (update due to email: and house size) into politics to score a few cheap points is pretty lame.

Business week has a piece on how gun makers are trying to appeal to womenfolk:

Manufacturers are tweaking their products and changing how they approach the burgeoning female market, which is estimated to be worth at least $285 million this year in firearm sales alone. Gunmakers will display their new wares Friday through Sunday in Milwaukee, where at least 50,000 people are expected to attend the National Rifle Association’s annual convention.

[...]

Women make up 15 percent of the marketplace when it comes to shooting sports and hunting, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the shooting, hunting and firearms industry. Participation in hunting and target shooting has risen 50 percent to 6.3 million women from 1999 to 2004, the group said.

Women will spend at least $285 million on firearms this year, the group said, plus at least $135 million on ammunition, accessories and hunting equipment. It’s a small drop in the entire market, which was worth $2.8 billion in 2004, but manufacturers believe it’s worth pursuing, said group spokesman Steve Wagner.

I’m not making this up but Nagin was re-elected. Yes, that Nagin. I am absolutely dumfounded.

On last night’s The Simpsons, Marge used the word blogosphere.

Reuters on gun ownership in Yemen:

“I have cannons, missiles, Kalashnikovs, anti-aircraft guns and hand grenades,” said community leader Mohammed Naji, sitting cross-legged in his house in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a. “This is a part of our culture, and a tribesman can give up everything except his gun.”

Though not everyone in Yemen has an arms cache the size of Naji’s, almost every household has at least one gun. Arms possession is particularly common in the north and northwest of the country.

With stuff like that, it’s time to blame the weapons:

Ethnic vendettas are a common problem in Yemen, resulting in the deaths of more than 2,000 people annually, according to government figures. In one example, revenge killings between the Hajerah and Annis tribes in Ibb and Thamar provinces, south of Sana, claimed the lives of more than 30 people and wounded 100 more in early July 2005. That particular vendetta, centred on a land dispute, has flared up intermittently for the last five years.

The crime rate in Yemen is soaring, with shootings almost daily to resolve disputes – or even just when tempers rise. The Ministry of the Interior reported that 34,655 crimes were committed in 2005, and government studies have blamed this high crime rate on the proliferation of firearms in the country.

Then the piece expressess disappointment about the fact the .gov there did not pass weapons laws. And we find that folks aren’t obeying the existing gun laws.

Another gun blog carnival!

Apparently, you folks with blogspot in your url are still tripping the spam filter. Sorry but everytime I tell it not to do that, it resets it eventually. *sigh*

This month, this award is presented to Baltimore City Police Officer Natalie Preston for being a total ass.

Via Xrlq.

Rich has a must read with the Tale of Two Daughters. Good for Rich on being a helluva guy. Of course, I already knew he was.

Tam, in light of a new nanny law, proposes some of her own:

Not wearing a sweater when it’s really cold outside: Class A misdemeanor.

Running with scissors: Class C misdemeanor.

Putting something in your mouth when you don’t know where it’s been: Class B misdemeanor.

Not listening to your mother: Class E felony.

Heh.

Quick poll on your red dot sight preference for a rifle.

Tennessee Tax Revolt emails:

Please act TODAY and Click HERE to EMAIL Governor Bredesen, Speaker Naifeh, Speaker Wilder, Senator Ramsey and Representative McMillan to tell them this is a Golden opportunity to reduce the Sales Tax on Groceries.

Urgent: PLEASE Email Governor Bredesen with the link below. Governor Bredesen and the Tennessee General Assembly will decide next week how to spend an unexpected $266.5 million surplus (Tennessee Taxpayer Overpayment). A very small part of this surplus can be used to make a huge difference by reducing the sales tax on groceries.

Clearly, your head is up your ass or you don’t know how to use Google.

JS Online welcomes the NRA but details some differences of opinion:

What we do have a hard time buying is that military-style, semiautomatic weapons are essential to the right to hunt. Yet in backing a federal ban on such weapons, we find ourselves accused of trying to outlaw all guns. These rapid-fire weapons are a favorite of organized gangs and mass killers and a peril to law officers. So as we see it, the NRA’s successful lobbying to lift that ban aids the bad guys.

Sorry, sparky, but semi-automatic weapons banned by the assault weapons ban were not military-style. It was a ban on weapons that looked like military-style weapons. And, of course, it has nothing to do with hunting. And I’d like to see a stat on the statement that These rapid-fire weapons are a favorite of organized gangs and mass killers and a peril to law officers because the last I checked, these weapons were used in significantly less than 1% of crimes.

You may wish to take some time to learn about an issue instead of just repeating the anti-gun lobby’s talking points.

Ditto for NRA’s opposition to closing the gun-show loophole in the Brady Law, which requires licensed gun dealers to check with the FBI the background of buyers to ensure that they aren’t felons or otherwise ineligible to own firearms. The rule does not apply to unlicensed dealers, who proliferate at gun shows, which, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, thugs and gangsters do frequent. So do suspected suppliers of foreign terrorists, court documents suggest.

Say it with me: there is no gun show loophole. Sales at gun shows are subject to the same rules as sales elsewhere. Unlicensed dealers that exist are illegal. You are no doubt referring to the private transfer provisions, or as I like to call it, engaging in lawful commerce.

The NRA has campaigned – successfully, overall – to have each state enact a law permitting the carrying of concealed weapons. Wisconsin has been a holdout, however.

I don’t see the problem and Wisconsin will have it, mark my words.

We actually agree with the NRA that the law might do some good, by allowing license-holders to defend themselves. But we also note that such laws have done some ill elsewhere, leading to unjustified shootings or to harm to license-holders trying to thwart crime. In our judgment, the threat of the bad is greater than the promise of the good.

Then let’s see a cite for that because nothing I’ve read about CCW (and I’ve read a lot) indicates that trend. In fact, it tends to have little impact on crime either way.