The Daily Times:

Three local former Marine friends want to open an indoor firing range and retail gun store in Maryville.

David Perry, Johnny Anderson and David Stone want to purchase the old Waters Grocery building at 2208 Old Knoxville Highway, Maryville.

Currently the structure, owned by Dwight Price and Lyman and McDaniels Builders, is occupied by a consignment antique business.

Perry said that the firing range would be located in the basement of the building and would be surrounded by dirt on three sides.

He said handgun carrying and personal protection classes would be available.
The plan would be to have a retail business selling guns and accessories, such as holsters and belts, on the upper floor that fronts Old Knoxville Highway.

Before the business can become a reality, operators must get permission from Maryville City Council.

Just booked my flight to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno, NV. It’s organized by Mr. Completely and last year, a good time was had by all. It’s open to gun bloggers and commenters. So, head to the link to get info on the shindig and I hope to see you there.

Update: BTW, who plans on going?

By now most people in Knox County and the surrounding counties have learned of the incredible turnaround that happened in the Knox County Commission meeting on Monday. Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale gave his best Bill Clinton “I have a tear” speech complete with pained emotion and the carefully picked words, “Let’s pull it back together. Let’s get some things done. We’ll work with you. We’ll work with Mr. Cosby. We’ll do the best we can.”

Mayor Ragsdale then inexplicably took all of the good will he had just made and forever destroyed it with one word. As concerned taxpayer Lewis Cosby was speaking at the podium in the Public Forum Mayor Ragsdale turned his head to Cosby and softly said, “Showboat.” Cosby and the audience was stunned. Cosby turned to Ragsdale and asked, “A showboat, what did you just say?” Then Cosby shook his head in disgust and said “Incredible.”

You can see the entire episode on YouTube Channel Nine or on the WBIR website. Most people believe it is not possible for Mayor Ragsdale to run for Governor. Yet three years is a long time.

Does insincerity disqualify a politician from higher office? Some people think so.

Liar, pants-shitter and troll Jadegold:

I would count SayUncle as one of those sites which censors and threatens those who do not ‘toe’ the party line. I was banned there while another poster who advocated violence was not.

Really? News to me. I don’t recall threatening anyone. To date, per my software package, I have banned two IPs . One is 71.246.154.207, which is the server for that horrible University Update spam site. And the other IP was 64.88.86.3 because some students at Macomb Intermediate School District were banned from myspace and decided to turn my comments section into their own little chat page. Heck, I even invited Macca (a sock puppet for a Brady Campaign Director) to post here.

Jade has left the following comments here all from IP 68.34.69.162:

Kevin’s afraid of debate. – A lie.

You’re afraid, Kevin. It’s not against the law to live in fear of having your worldview sliced and diced. But it’s kind of hypocritical to pretend you aren’t. It explains your..eerr..fascinations. – Ad hominem.

Kevin’s afraid of debate. – same lie repeated (familiar theme, no?).

All in one post. No threats, no bans, nothing.

Lying to win is par for the course among the antis, though.

In Knoxville, the police shot a dog. Over at KnoxViews, CBT says:

This matter seems to warrant some discussion. It involves pit bulls, which have been the subject in a number of cities. I sometimes feel sorry for responsible pit bull breeders and owners who treat their dogs with proper care. These dogs are more aggressive by nature, but so are other breeds.

Sorta yes, mostly no. Dogs commonly referred to as pit bulls (pit bull is not a breed but a class of dogs) have it in their nature to more aggressive to other dogs. They are less inclined to be aggressive toward humans unless such aggression is encouraged in the animal. The dogs have a history in dog fighting (hence their aggression to dogs) and, in a fight, the humans had to maintain control so the dogs were bred to be tolerant of humans.

Also, and I hate to break it to folks, but bully type dogs often make horrible watchdogs. Their curiosity will probably get the better of them (assuming they awake from their slumber) and they’ll often sneak around to investigate things. That’s what my dog does. True story from a friend is that someone was trying to come through the window of his house. The dog, apparently, sat patiently and quietly by the window waiting for the intruder to enter. Once the intruder did enter, there wasn’t a sound other than the intruder trying to get out and cussing because a dog had clamped on his heiny. Said burglar was later caught at a hospital when he was getting his tail stitched up. The dog never barked. Watchdogs alert by barking more than defending their castle with force. A poodle makes a fine watch dog.

My politically incorrect dog is probably scary looking:

And he’s got big gnarly teeth. But watchdog, he is not. That’s what the alarm is for. However, if there was any escalation of violence in my home, rest-assured he’d be there doing his damnedest to put an end to it. I have no doubt he’d take a bullet for anyone in the family but, barring a physical altercation, he’d probably just watch. Anyway, enough of that. A few things of note about the incident:

Unsurprisingly, the dog was an unaltered male (which is the case in most dog bites, particularly fatal ones)

The dog was tethered, which, in addition to being bad pet ownership, also tends to make dogs more aggressive.

Why did the police get so close to the restrained dog? Seems to me it could have been avoided by simply not going near the dog. Other than that, I tend to concur with Aunt B:

If your dog bites a police officer, chances are that your dog is going to get shot. That’s unfortunate, but that’s a fact of life. If you don’t want your dog to get shot by the police or you want to have a credible way to dispute the police officer’s account of what happened, keep your dogs in the house where you can control them and witness the police’s behavior.

And why such comparisons aren’t particularly meaningful at Bitter’s .

Apparently, Fred Thompson has gone from: speculating about continuing to think about considering the possibility of maybe trying to ponder chewing over the prospect of flirting with running for president. Maybe next weekish, if, you know, you’re not busy.

To: announcing that he’s announcing some time soon but after the YouTube debate. Fred, get in before the debate.

Tom King, President of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, has a blog at Timesunion.com that is pro-gun running counter to the PSH of Robyn Ringler. Now, Robyn has been deleting pro-gun comments faster than John Ford is stocking up on soap on a rope (see here and here). She claims she’s only deleting comments that lack civility. And that is bullshit. Just click the two previous links to see. The fact is lack of civility means eviscerates her point or makes her look stupid. So, we gun bloggers came down on her.

Anyway, Tom King, the pro-gun blogger, has banned a commenter and deleted some comments:

PLEASE!!! I don’t care that Ms. Ringler is too insecure to post opposing views, that will never happen on this site. However; Jadegold and Warvet if I find any more posts containing wishes that our children or anyone else is injured or killed I will edit it and ban your posts from this blog. Shame on Ringler for allowing posts like that.

And she does. Tom subsequently banned Jadegold. But, here’s the deal, let them say those things. And link to them to show what vile disgusting people they are. Let their vile flummery stand to show what their side is like. They’re losing and desperate. Highlight it, don’t hide it.

Sebastian notes:

Now, I will say that it’s Tom’s sandbox, and he can definitely set any rules he wants for his blog. But we don’t do things like this in the gun blogosphere. Let them post their hysterics, cliches, and faulty data, an let our people tear it apart. That’s how it works.

[…]

We’ve spent a lot of time, here in the pro-gun blogosphere, trying to build a reputation of being willing to debate the anti-gun people on the merits of their arguments, and they’ve lost every time.

Ayup.

Update: Tom responds. I concur that the VPC is not a reputable source for, err, anything. But I like pointing out their hysteria and lies. They are their own worst enemy.

Rustmeister notes a study that concludes with what we already know:

In their analysis, Kates and Mauser compared different countries, different population groups and different types of interpersonal violence, homicide and suicide throughout much of recorded history, and found that the old anti-gun axioms that you so often hear are false:

* More firearms do not equate to more homicide or more suicide.

* Fewer firearms do not equate to less homicide or less suicide.

In fact, more often than not, just the opposite is true.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership is touting its recent protests as a success. I don’t think it means what you think it means.

Ryan Horsely makes the case that Acting ATF Director Michael J. Sullivan should not be confirmed. I concur. Under his leadership, the ATF has continued it’s priority of shutting down lawful gun dealers over clerical violations.

Seems the WaPo’s headline doesn’t match it’s story. Well, that happens when you write headlines in advance and know what you want to say.

Well, I always preferred politically incorrect self-loading rifle.

Update: Heh: PSH Inducer

Eavesdropping and warrantless wiretapping made easy:

The FBI has quietly built a sophisticated, point-and-click surveillance system that performs instant wiretaps on almost any communications device, according to nearly a thousand pages of restricted documents newly released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Via email from Jon.

Excellent news.

With Senator Larry Craig ready to resign for smoking something in the boys room, seems there’s a push to replace him with Ryan Horsely of Red’s Trading Post.

I just joined. Not sure but I think it’s fitting that I did so on my blog’s fifth birthday.

Via Ninth Stage, Bushmaster has a cool flash page showing how an AR-15 works.

Here’s one for a Glock.

Here’s one for a 1911.

The NYT doesn’t care for rights actually enumerated in the Constitution. But rights not in the Constitution are peachy. And, apparently, they think they’re in the Constitution.

Layers of editorial oversight, indeed.

Today, this blog is five years old. Wow, that’s old for a blog. I usually run some numbers on the birthdays (here’s last year’s). I’m an accountant, it’s what I do.

12,507 posts

42,416 comments

629,910 spam messages

1,676,578 words in posts

2,744,935 words in comments

1,520,729 visits per sitemeter

2,630,856 page views per sitemeter

3:28 Average Visit Length per sitemeter (note: i don’t even look at my internal stats package any more)

11,121 in bound links per technorati

One opinion piece published in a newspaper.

Five different blog software packages.

16 mentions in dead-tree media (that I know of)

$868.84 spent on blogging

$4,979 dollars made from blogging

1 number of times hacked

Update: For your reading pleasure, my first post in which I went undercover to attend the meeting of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

I used to go to Lowe’s and Home Depot about the same number of times. I recently switched completely and became a Home Depot only guy because, since I moved, they are closer to my house and they installed self check out, which absolutely rules at a home improvement store. But, despite convenience and proximity, my dollars will now go to Lowe’s only:

Dustin Chester is job hunting this week, after The Home Depot fired him and the general manager for thwarting a thief from running away with a pocket full of stolen cash.

Last week, the 24-year-old department manager confronted a man who was standing by a soda machine in front of the Murfreesboro store off Old Fort Parkway holding a crowbar and a wad of cash. When the suspect started running, Chester said his instincts took over.

He was fired Monday for violations of company policy in the incident.

“When he ran, I ran after him,” he said. Chester caught the thief and restrained him in the parking lot until police arrived.

Chester was shocked to find out that for managers and most employees, catching and detaining thieves is against company policy.

And:

The Home Depot said its policy, which directs workers to notify loss prevention specialists or police to handle criminal situations, is in place to protect its employees and customers.

“The associates involved were not following company policy, resulting in this disciplinary action,” said Don Harrison, spokesman for the Atlanta-based company. “Safety is a primary focus for our company.”

Doing the right thing should also be a primary focus.

Another of my County Commissioners has a blog. Welcome Commissioner Walker.

Gun Blogger The Trainer has suffered a stroke. Send happy thoughts his way.

Writes Wayne LaPierre on Why They’ll Lose:

At the end of the day, the Brady Campaign “wins” by taking away your rights. The NRA “wins” by protecting them. And ultimately, I believe that’s why we’ll win more battles than we lose.

I look at it this way: we are already winning. 48 states have CCW provisions, of which 37 are shall issue and 2 states don’t require a permit. The AWB expired. The gun maker immunity bill passed. The DOJ’s official position (bucking 40 years of precedent) is that the second amendment guarantees and individual right. Both major political party platforms say that as well. I predict Wisconsin will go shall issue in the next two years. 2/3rds of Americans oppose additional gun controls. A circuit court in DC struck down draconian gun laws based on second amendment grounds. States are passing castle doctrine laws so fast, my head is spinning. And they’ve expanded self-defense laws. The Democrats won’t touch gun control with a ten foot pole. And anti-gunners like Romney and Giuliani are recanting their old positions. We’re winning and we will continue to do so. The best that anti-gunners can do is spin the NRA supported NICS Improvement bill as a gun control measure, which it is not.

That scares the Brady Bunch, the Gonzos, the Ringlers and the Millers.

For when you’re lost in the woods.

Says Sebastian:

I hate being a cheerleader for the NRA. I would love to be able to sit down with pro-gun people, and have a reasonable discussion about things that I think the NRA could be doing better, things I wish they wouldn’t do, and things I wish they’d pay more attention to.

But all too often I get the sense that a lot of people are more interested in flinging poo at the NRA than they are at fighting gun control. There’s even an active contingent of pro-gun people out there who believe that flinging poo at the NRA amounts to fighting gun control!

Yes. He concludes with:

To the extent that the pro-gun movement is a bickering family, we’re healthy, and I don’t worry. But as soon as it turns into the Hatfields vs. McCoys, we’re in serious trouble. Too many people want to make this a feud, and it gets tiring. I can think of no better way to enable a resurgent anti-gun movement than to spend energy fighting each other.

To prove my sincerity, I will today (for the first time) join the NRA.

punk’d.

In light of the upcoming Republican YouTube debate, people are getting their questions on. Perhaps this time, CNN will pick questions that do not evoke PSH (unlike last time). So, here’s one I’d love to see asked of the Republicans:

Joe says:

Here’s the assignment/request/bleg… It will literally take ONE MINUTE of your time.

Go to CNN’s comment page LINK HERE and post the following message:

Please play Tom Gresham and Clint Smith’s question for the GOP candidates!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FI4LwjbEyg

Via Tam.

I haven’t read it yet. But Stan has.

In NY. Shocking! Speaking of John Lott, he has an opinion piece that runs a familiar theme about more guns and how they would prevent mass murder. I would also point out my very unscientific accounting of mass murderers stopped by armed citizens.