You may recall that Tennessee and Georgia are having a bit of a border dispute. You see, Georgia thinks some surveyor screwed up about 190 years ago. So, they passed some legislation to lay claim to parts of Tennessee. In typical political stupidity fashion, Tennessee’s legislature is actually wasting the time to draft a response that consists of more than the words fuck off. I’m honestly amazed. Such stupidity doesn’t even deserve a response.

Update: Chuck says not to take Georgia lightly. Well, we’d share water with them but they’re not getting our property.

Keep your, uh, coat hook off the trigger until you’re ready to fire:

Authorities said he had hung the gun by its trigger guard, and the gun caught on the hook and discharged into the ceiling when he went to retrieve it.

Note: It’s like all Robb all the time around here.

Look at the signs!

Seriously though, the dogs had a history of attacking people and it’s owners like that who give the owners of other politically incorrect dogs a bad name.

Irony can be a bitch

Seems McCain is having a bit of a time with the Campaign Finance Reform that is named after, uh, McCain:

The nation’s top federal election official told Sen. John McCain yesterday that he cannot immediately withdraw from the presidential public financing system as he had requested, a decision that threatens to dramatically restrict his spending until the general election campaign begins in the fall.

The prospect of being financially hamstrung by the very fundraising system he helped create is the latest in a series of bitter challenges for the presumed GOP nominee, who still faces a fractured conservative coalition as he assumes the mantle of party leadership.

Pardon me, while I laugh hysterically at you.

So, Paul, why do these shootings keep happening in areas that score well on your gun control rankings?

Gun control: what you do instead of something.

Via Robb, seems the benefits of gun ownership has dawned on someone:

In light of the problems in our neighborhood, my husband brought up the subject of gun ownership. Guns make me nervous petrified, when I think about them being in our residence. When it comes to owning, operating and storage protocol, I will readily admit that I’m in the dark. I’ve never had to ponder the idea of having a gun in our house. We’ve never felt threatened enough to make it an issue.

Sign up for a local beginners class on self-defense. If not, find one of your gun owning friends and head to the range with them. Educate yourself.

Head on over and offer your own words of encouragement.

Talk to Sailorcurt.

A university goes under lockdown* when a student is seen carrying his ROTC parade rifle.

* We really do treat schools like prisons.

Another one to knock down.

Via Robb, comes a this blog. It asserts that the NIU Massacre could have been prevented:

Shouldn’t taking anti-depressants like Prozac be enough to send a red flag in the system? If the state keeps track of everyone who owns a gun, don’t they also keep a database which keeps track of what medications someone is taking?

Yowza. He’s a journalism student, which is good since he has the anti-gun hysteria and lack of privacy thing down.

I weep for the future.

CNN:

Utah students hide guns, head to class

The senior at the University of Utah gets dressed and then decides which gun is easiest to conceal under his clothes.

If he’s wearing a T-shirt, he’ll take a smaller, low-profile gun to class. If he’s wearing a coat, he may carry a different weapon, he said.

He started carrying a gun to class after the massacre at Virginia Tech, but the student says he’s not part of the problem of campus shootings and could instead be part of a solution.

Nick, who asked not to be fully identified so his fellow students wouldn’t know he carried a gun, says he has had a concealed weapons permit for more than three years. But it was Seung-Hui Cho’s murderous campus rampage that made him take a gun to class.

“Last year, after Virginia Tech, I thought ‘I’m not going to be a victim,’ ” Nick said.

It’s a decent piece, for CNN.

Making a revolver.

And making a 1911.

Like I said yesterday, we must be shills else their worldview collapses. They, a bought and paid for group of people, cannot fathom that someone advocating against them does so gratis. The latest:

But Peter Hamm, communication director for the Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence, is concerned that the group is the latest tool of the powerful gun lobby.

“We know very clearly that they were organised and they are funded by the gun industry, by the companies that are selling the guns,” he said.

“This is not some spontaneous, grassroots organisation.

“There are more members than there were before Virginia Tech because the gun industry is spending more money to enlist more young people to help them spread the word, that if only we had more guns in America, we’d have less of a gun violence problem.”

Any evidence of that? I doubt it.

So, Petey, how many members you got?

Dog control and gun control. Note, they’re going after assault dogs first!

A would-be robber busts a car window and starts stabbing a shop owner. Shop-owner gets the robbers knife and kills the robber. So far, so good. Except this is England so the shop owner may be charged with murder.

People (ahem, Manish) ask why folks refer to Obama supporters as a cult. And I have referred to Obama as the Messiah (apparently, others have too). Well, it started out small. The groups getting ecstatic and holding up signs or chanting things about hope and change and other warm-fuzzies that sound less like policy and more like religion. At first, it was just fan stuff rather like the videos showing when The Beatles got to the US. Then you got some bozos saying things like:

“He walks into a room and you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere,” George Clooney told talk show host Charlie Rose.

“I’ll do whatever he says to do,” actress Halle Berry said to the Philadelphia Daily News. “I’ll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.”

People fainting.

Not healthy. Ok, beyond not healthy. It’s frightening. And now people cheer at his mucous.

And I thought Ron Paul (say, he’s out I can spell it out now, right) supporters were a bit kooky.

I asked once before how one joins the Brady Campaign. No one could answer the question. So, I was a bit surprised to learn that they reported almost $2M in membership dues in 2005.

Via Dr. Helen, comes more. A lot more. Read it all.

The primaries are all but over before I got to use the word Phuckabee.

At WBIR:

A statewide Amber Alert has been issued for a missing preschooler who is believed to have been taken by a man wanted on child molestation charges.

Four-year-old Madison Kerr was last seen Thursday morning in Franklin, TN. Suspected in her disappearance is 51-year-old Jerry John Jones, who is wanted on four counts of child molestation.

Jones is driving a white 1996 Ford Taurus with stolen TN Registration 599PFJ. He may be headed to Georgia.

Madison has light brown, shoulder length hair.

Jones has gray hair and brown eyes. He is 5′8″ and weighs approximately 155 pounds.

Pictures at link. Via KAG.

Update: The guy was found and taken into custody after a high speed chase. Someone spotted him trying to paint his white car black…at a carwash. The little girl is okay.

Good.

Poor man’s arsenal.

In a school, a bunch of eight year olds build a town of Lego’s. The town, as is the natural order of things, becomes capitalist with the kids trading Lego pieces and various kids owning various property and Lego’s and such. The teachers then freak out what with all this free market idealism and stuff. The teachers, as it always happens in these cases use the threat of authority to turn the kids into communists. I shit you not. The whole thing can be read here. Some themes they re-educated the kids about:

Collectivity is a good thing

Shared power is a valued goal

Moderation and equal access to resources are things to strive for

And that is how we create kids that will grow up and vote for Obama.

A push for a ban on weapons that look like assault weapons in Nebraska.

I did not see the eclipse. It was cloudy.

Whether you think it’s real or not and whether we can stop it or not, can we agree on one thing: Global warming has jumped the shark! First, it killed the Lochness monster and now it’s putting snakes on a plane:

As climate change warms the nation, giant Burmese pythons could colonize one-third of the USA, from San Francisco across the Southwest, Texas and the South and up north along the Virginia coast, according to U.S. Geological Survey maps released Wednesday.

Montana has a history of telling the feds to bugger off. Their legislature condemned the Patriot Act; they asked politicos for federal office why they think they’re exempt from campaign finance laws; and introduced a bill a while back telling the feds to get out of their gun permit and drivers’ license process. And they kicked around a law that said firearms made in Montana weren’t subject to federal law.

Well, now they’ve gone and impressed me again with their Heller brief:

A collective rights decision by the court would violate the contract by which Montana entered into statehood, called the Compact With the United States and archived at Article I of the Montana Constitution. When Montana and the United States entered into this bilateral contract in 1889, the U.S. approved the right to bear arms in the Montana Constitution, guaranteeing the right of “any person” to bear arms, clearly an individual right.

There was no assertion in 1889 that the Second Amendment was susceptible to a collective rights interpretation, and the parties to the contract understood the Second Amendment to be consistent with the declared Montana constitutional right of “any person” to bear arms.

As a bedrock principle of law, a contract must be honored so as to give effect to the intent of the contracting parties. A collective rights decision by the court in Heller would invoke an era of unilaterally revisable contracts by violating the statehood contract between the United States and Montana, and many other states.

I’m with Robb with two Bs, I need to find work there.

It’s amusing watching the Democrats come undone during the primary. It will only get more amusing. Heck, they’re even rehashing some of the old school Republican criticisms of one another.

Did you know that Hillary is really the one winning? I mean, if you have stupid colored glasses. I, personally, would love to see the super-delegates override the will of the people so I can mock the hypocrisy forever.

Hillsy is even making a push to change the rules. Everywhere, trial lawyers are licking their chops. And I thought McCain was a blow to Republican cohesion but they seem to be coming around.

And guav says that Hillsy is getting ready to swift boat Obama, which is amusing because the only retractions that came from the swift boat story came from Kerry. How can you swift boat a man with no significant legislative accomplishments? Particularly, when you’re a woman with no significant legislative accomplishments?

The Democrats are fielding candidates, who, like Seinfeld, are about nothing.

I’m not a fan of McCain. But at least the man has done something. I mean, not anything particularly great. And come the general, he’ll be bringing that up.

Update: Tom, no doubt furiously googling, notes that I am incorrect in asserting that the only retraction from the Swift Boats came from Kerry. Seems one guy retracted a statement. There you go.

In Memphis, some psychopath walked right through a restraining order and murdered some poor woman.

Via Richard Thompson, who notes: If there is any good that comes from Charlene Gaither’s heinous murder, then it’s the increased awareness that restraining orders are basically useless.

Castle doctrine passes in West Virginia Senate. Unanimously.

Apparently, dividing up argument time is a contentious issue in the case.

Shorter version: we can’t put our work online or people will realize what we’re up to.

Else, it shatters their worldview. You seen, any grassroots pro-gun activists must get wheelbarrows full of cash from the gun lobby. They have to believe it. Even though the exact opposite true and the cash flows from the Joyce Foundation to astroturf anti-gun groups. Here’s a list of money flowing. Another case of anti-gun projection.

Rustmeister has the latest.

Heh.

Dr. Helen has a look.

But the ASW338LMis a pretty neat looking rifle.

And editorial says he wants to use California as a model for the rest of the nation. You know, California where they went door to door confiscating firearms. And where some firearms will soon be non-existent because you can’t transfer them even upon death.

I think I would sell that to Dyson to be used in a commercial.

Over at Bitter’s.

One shot, one satellite blown to bits. They must have used a 50 caliber sniper rifle assault weapon Saturday night machine pistol.

No, it was a missile.

David E. Young has a piece on the case at History News Network.

Hoplophobia? Imagine What Your Life Would Be Like Without It…

Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot.

We loves us some McCain. Kinda cool how keeps being all maverick and stuff. Giving his own party hell. Hehehe. Oh, shit, he might win! Get on it, stat.

There’s enough stuff there to criticize McCain about that the sensationalized bit of hooey in that bit seems, well, petty. I mean, seriously, that’s it? It’s like something I’d see written at World Net Daily about Obama.

Headline screaming at Yahoo.com: Is Obama unstoppable?

Well, an object at rest cannot be stopped.

Update: Ya know, with no legislative accomplishments, he could be pandering to the Libertarian vote?

Another update: say, can anyone name a Hillary legislative accomplishment? I mean, other than pork.

Sebastian has more:

Transparent as in we hire a lobbying firm to anonymously set up a web site to push for model legislation, and to lobby key legislators that have been quietly bought off, in order to be able to skim off the top of every one of the eight billion rounds of ammunition produced each year.

Recall that in Tennessee, Reginald Tate & Larry Miller pushed for a bill like this recently.

It’s for a good cause. John has the skinny!

One of the biggest lies often told. In fact, the whole bit is one lie after another. I think it’s safe to assume that the American Hunters and Shooters Association is giving up any possibility of having credibility with gun owners.

Self,

With all this talk about how it’s difficult to tell toy guns from real ones, if you see a gun-shaped object then it is in your best interest to assume it is a gun and act accordingly.

Sincerely,

Self

Update: Confederate Yankee has more.

Bureaucracy may have killed a baby.

A while back, a couple of bozos in TN were pushing legislation to serialize ammunition. Then, the lame idea started showing up in other states. Turns out, the push to do this is likely coming from the lobbying firm of Ammunition Coding Systems, who ultimately pays for the site, and who conveniently produces the system that does this type of encoding.

In Brighton:

A Brighton man shot and killed a 44-year-old registered sex offender who attacked two women in their home early this morning, officials said.

According to Dist. Atty. Gen. Mike Dunavant, David Fleming charged into the home of two women at about 3 a.m.

Fleming bound the women but one escaped and ran to a nearby home. Dunavant said Fleming, who lived in Munford, intended to rape the women.

The woman who escaped went to the nearby home of Keith Ingram for help, Dunavant said.

Ingram, carrying a .40-caliber handgun, ran to the house and found Fleming attacking the other woman, officials said.

When Fleming tried to attack Ingram, Dunavant said Ingram shot Fleming once.

Tipton County Sheriff’s deputies and Brighton Police officers found Fleming dead on the front porch of the home.

Three cheers!

And this guy will be included in all the gun violence statistics parroted by anti-gun groups.

Update: In comments, Bruce notes the recidivism rate is now 0.

The annual gun control push in Illinois is even boring the Sun Times: Daley unveils annual gun control legislation (note: they’ve since changed the title but here’s the original headline). It’s the same wishlist Daley tosses out every year with the same failed policies in place elsewhere. Of course no mention in the article that Illinois ranks ninth out of 50 in the Brady Campaign’s gun control rankings. But good to see the press note that:

After joining the mayor for his annual gun control news conference at police headquarters, State Sen. John Cullerton (D-Chicago) acknowledged that none of the bills would have prevented Steve Kazmierczak from opening fire on Valentine’s Day afternoon in a crowded NIU lecture hall.

Yeah, we know.

In Illinois, there’s a bill to make ethical and moral considerations a requirement for handgun ownership. How does one decide that?

County workers accidentally burned down a woman’s home. However, the county will only reimburse her for $100K despite her property being assessed at $230K. She volunteered to let two county trucks dump brush on her property. They knocked over a power line that caused the fire. And this is beautiful:

Don Stallions, who heads the Risk Management Department for Blount County, said the Tennessee Governmental Tort Liability Act protects the government from being sued out of existence.

Well, after displaying such incompetence, is that necessarily a bad thing?

“The government used to be immune from law suits,” Stallions said. “People need to realize that the government isn’t like a business. When you sue a business, you get money that was generated as profit by an income-producing company. When you sue the government, it’s the people’s money you’re dealing with.

Really? There was a time when we couldn’t petition the government for a redress of grievances? You know, first amendment and all that?

“The Tort Liability Act allows counties in Tennessee to do business. Without it, our counties wouldn’t be able to function.”

Do your employees really screw up so much that that is an issue?

Stallions said Blount County has had numerous property damage claims in the past, but none that he can recall involving a claim on an entire home.

I guess so.

Via Ben.

Seems to be the question. Over at CrimeFileNews, they think so:

The NIU gunman was well known by government authorities. He was confined to a Chicago mental institution for a year after refusing to take anti-psychotic medicine was unruly and engaged in strange behavior such as cutting himself. He later joined the Army but was tossed out after basic training for psychiatric reasons. The gunman was off his required medication and his rocker for two years prior to the shooting.

In order to buy the four firearms in Illinois, Steven Kazmierczak had to lie on four separate #4473 Firearm Transaction Forms, and his Illinois Firearms Owners Identification Application. That FOID process takes months to complete. Once the FIOD was received Kazmierczak could not take delivery until he had endured the mandated waiting periods for the guns he had already purchased.

I’m not certain but it seems plausible. After all, he could have been voluntarily committed for a year (though that is unlikely). If it was involuntary, then he was a prohibited person. And his discharge from the army could have prohibited him, if it was dishonorable.

In other news, stupid headline: Police finding dark side of man who killed 5 on Illinois campus.

It’s looking like I will end up owing Sean a beer after the primary but I’ll get it back in the General.

If people, like recent Obama shill Sean Braisted, keep pointing out that Obama does actually have substance, then people will start realizing the messiah err Obama is basically a socialist.

A history of the case!

No, it is not a Mister Winky, it is a hoohoodilly.

Buckmark

Shots from FN’s writer’s shoot, via GunPundit.

I’m hearing rumors that Boxer and Schumer are fixing to introduce some gun control bills. I haven’t seen any press coverage. Anyone else?

Much like inventing assault weapons, the anti-gunners continue to invent new issues. The latest seems to be guns that are not black, which is funny since the ban on weapons that look like assault weapons mostly affected the black guns. And the media parrot the line. CNN discovers guns and paint; PSH ensues.

David Hardy has an interesting study up of the Violence Policy Center and its funding done by Nemerov. It is here. The VPC is not people.

Sportsmen for Obama looks at Obama’s gun record while a state senator.

Hillary Clinton wants to have one.

Well, we here at SayUncle had a lively discussion about compromise. And more here, here, here, here and:

Ahab

Rob Allen

Sebastian

Dixit Insipiens

Good starts for your summit.

Remember, wanting a weapon for self-defense in a national park is just crazy talk.

The ugliest feminist I’ve ever seen takes issue with KDT and substantially misses most points, including calling Dr. Helen a misogynist. Fun ensues.

I thought metrosexuals had better attention to detail than that? I mean look at their hair!

Unlike Al Gore, who is the cult of no personality

Ya know, I thought the same thing. And Vernon Reid is a total bad ass.

Another state is looking to make data on who has a handgun carry permit off limits to reporters.

Obligatory thanks to Christian Trejbal, the Sandusky Register, and the Tennessean

R. Neal:

Is it just me, or were the Daily Show and the Colbert Report better without writers?

I concur. Well, on The Daily Show. I don’t watch Colbert anymore.

The other day, I was listening to the old MP3 player. I noticed that a few songs sounded, well, different. Not a lot, just a bit. It was pretty neat. Then, I realized I had put the left headphone in the right ear and the right headphone in the left ear. So, when I wanted a bit of something different, I did that. Then the RIAA called me to tell me that I wasn’t enjoying their product in a manner their lawyers approved of and that I need to knock that off or they’ll sue me.

Or, you know, to proofread.

Just now, I was going back reading some posts. I found I quite often just forget to type words or type them too many times.

A reporter laments the loss of weeks of wall to wall coverage after a mass shooting.

How many must die before we ban the scourge of Counter-Strike?

Ya know, it’s interesting that government regulation (often said to inhibit or destroy the free market) often creates free markets.

Clark Garen, who was apparently not admitted to the bar for basically being a dick*, wants to take your guns:

1. Create a one year period for the United States of America to purchase at fair market value all guns and firearms, including hand guns, rifles, and even antique guns and rifles from domestic private ownership.

2. Prohibit and criminalize the domestic sale of guns and firearms, whether new or used.

3. Seize and destroy any gun or firearm found after the termination of the purchase period without compensation.

4. Prohibit and criminalize the domestic possession of a gun or firearm after the termination of the one year purchase period.

5. Provide exemptions for governmental law enforcement agencies, the armed services, and bona fide museums.

Come and get them.

* Note: Lest ye think that is just hyperbole. Check this out:

The committee’s written decision is remarkable in two respects: first, despite quite overwhelming and uncontested evidence, the committee declined to affirmatively find anything morally redeeming about Mr. Garen whatsoever; and, second, the committee failed to factually find in an explicit and objective fashion that Mr. Garen had ever committed an immoral act. Rather the committee’s adverse recommendation was ostensibly based on subjective “feelings” and “doubts” rather than objectively verifiable reasons and facts. So as not to deprive the reader of the flavor of the committee’s written decision I have attached it verbatim, as an exhibit

So, yeah, no lawyering for you because you’re a dick.

The lawyer who filed the class actions suits against gun makers, William S. Lerach, has been sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to forfeit pay in the amount of $7.75 million following his guilty plea of conspiracy to obstruct justice.

I forget where, but I think it was over at Aunt B.’s joint, I was engaged in a lively discussion with a bunch of people who said stuff about how an armed good guy couldn’t stop a mass shooter. I linked to instances where, you know, an armed good guy did stop a mass shooter. They just ignored that, of course. Then someone said that having a gun is useless because no matter how much training you have, if someone just decides to walk up and shoot you, you’re dead. Well, good thing for Robin Adams those people are wrong.

Update: here’s the post. Thanks to MadRocketSci.

Or they’ll tell you stop calling or they’ll arrest you:

A Central Florida woman whose 17-year-old daughter was killed in a murder-suicide apparently committed by her ex-boyfriend said the teen was told by police to stop calling for help or she’d be arrested.

Police said Clay Coffner shot his estranged girlfriend in the head outside her DeLand home Friday before turning the gun on himself.

Hall’s mother, Sherry, said her daughter was concerned about Coffner and informed police.

In fact, Hall said her daughter called police so much that on Jan. 15 they threatened her.

“The police officer said if you call us one more time on him, I’m going to arrest you both,” Sherry Hall said. “So, the day she died, she knew she couldn’t talk to police. So, she handled it herself.”

Video of the Boberg XR-9.

They communicate differently!

Thirdpower correlates instances of mass shootings with their Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership state rankings and gun free zones. Note that the Brady Bunch did not rank Washington DC, the murder capital of the country.

Not, it’s not causation but it does indicate that gun controls don’t exactly stop these things.

I guess that’s why so many of us pick guns. It’s the cause you can pick that’s still consistent with your ideology!

He was for it before he was only slightly less for it (he has an election to win, ya know).

Anti-gun New Hampshire State Representative Nickolas Levasseur has a Myspace page in which he advocates killing Republicans.

By the way, the whole Why are anti-gun activists so violent? meme is almost a daily feature!

The Second Amendment Carnival is up!

I’m guessing it’s the one mandated by law to have an orange tip painted on it?

Heh.

Indy’s gain. Glad she’s there OK. And, heck, she didn’t ask me to help move.

You know, the quote. Anyway, it seems that a popular website for buying Glock accessories is where both the VT killer and the NIU killer purchased some items. The press coverage is pretty abysmal. To wit:

The online gun dealer who sold a weapon to the Virginia Tech shooter said it was an unnerving coincidence that he also sold handgun accessories to the man who killed five students at Northern Illinois University.

Seems to me that a casual reader might conclude that one could visit a website and just order up a gun and have it shipped to their house. That, of course, is not the case. All firearms transfers must go through a dealer so as to conduct a background check.

Eric Thompson said his Web site, http://www.topglock.com, sold two empty 9 mm Glock magazines and a Glock holster to Steven Kazmierczak on Feb. 4, just 10 days before the 27-year-old opened fire in a classroom and killed five before committing suicide.

Another Web site run by Thompson’s company, http://www.thegunstore.com, also sold a Walther .22-caliber handgun to Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people in April on the Virginia Tech campus before killing himself.

Despite the headline, topglock sold the shooter some magazines and not guns. Topglock did transfer a Walther P22 that was used by the VT killer. So, basically, the guy runs a popular website for Glock accessories and someone found it. Shocking! I can’t find thegunstore.com by going to the address or through Google. Anyone else?

Also, I like this bit:

The Glock Web site is well-known among gun users on the Internet, so it is not surprising that someone looking for accessories for a Glock would find it, Thompson said.

What is a gun user? I don’t particularly care for that language as it’s similar to, say, drug user.

David: Same Car Dealer Sold to 2 DUI Killers!!!

Ahab on internet gun sales.

Actual headline: Miami Commissioner, Police Chief Rally To Ban AK-47s

That was done in 1986.

Hillary Clinton:

“You know you may not believe it, but I’ve actually gone hunting,” she said to some surprise and laughter. “I know, you may not believe it, but it’s true. My father taught me to shoot a hundred years ago.”

I actually do believe her. The reason I do believe her is that she didn’t come out as a supposed lifelong hunter like Kerry and Romney. Neither of which were and neither of which could be believed. However, I don’t believe this:

The New York senator was trying to reassure voters in a Wisconsin sausage joint, the Brat Stop, this afternoon that “no lawful gunowner has anything to worry about” from her with gun control, and let on that she’d chambered more than a rounds in her time

Unless those lawful gun owners happen to own weapons that look like assault weapons, since she wants to ban them. Continuing the Hillary theme, it seems Harry Reid is holding up some gun votes because, well, Hillsy and the messiah err Obama would have to vote on it:

Republicans counter that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trying to protect the two leading Democratic candidates for president by shielding them from a politically difficult vote on an issue that many rural voters consider crucial.

It’s the park carry bill. McCain co-sponsored it.

Update: Bruce circa 2005:

I’ll tell you this much. Hillary (or whoever the Dem nomination turns out to be) had better start getting in some serious practice at the skeet shooting range if she wants to be in true John Kerry-like form for the 2008 presidential. For my money, that would be the most entertaining part of the campaign – listening to Hillary explain how she’s on the side of the nation’s gun owners (and you thought Kerry looked ridiculous in those hunting photo-ops with his fresh-off-the-rack L.L. Bean barn jacket).

Kinda funny how nobody made an effort to pander to the anti-gun groups.

A while back, I noted that The City (My The City) may get an indoor firing range. Well, it looks like Gunny’s is set to open in mid-March. Their website says this month but I called them and they said it looks like March (speaking of their website, yes it is horrible and when I stop by, I might offer to help them with that).

They have a 25 yard range and it looks like, if you join now, they’ll knock $80 of the price of membership. Rumor I’ve heard is that if you join, they’ll sell you your first handgun at cost. So, don’t hold them to that. It’s just what some locals have told me. There’s also the added bonus that they’re seven miles from my house.

They found a 19 year-old college student dead. She had been raped. They suspect a serial rapist/killer. They give female college students rape whistles. Yes, whistles. They don’t get it.

Via Insty, comes a round up of stuff at TalkLeft on the messiah err Obama on guns. The spin is consistently some variation of he supports the right to arms but also supports reasonable restrictions. No, I’m as gun-nutty as gun nuts get and that’s my position. Only difference is that I’m believable. Obama’s position is not, given his support for the DC gun ban, the fact he’s never seen a gun control law he didn’t like, and that he was a board member for the Joyce Foundation (who funds all of the anti-gun astroturf).

But this bit is particularly amusing:

Obama is actually straddling the issue somewhat like the Bush Administration did when it filed a brief in the [D.C. gun] case last month. He does support individual rights, but says—and this is the qualifier–the government can impose reasonable restrictions on gun ownership. And he then suggests that pretty much any existing laws are reasonable.

Heh.

I’m not feeling the male rage!

I mentioned this lame bit earlier, now Ahab has a say:

Peace and social justice? Would that be the same “peace and social justice” that the NIU shooter was interested in?

Ouchie!

Our old pal Jayne Lyn Stahl (remember her?) is back! She doesn’t seem to have learned her lesson and is once again blaming the gun lobby.

It’s a recurring theme here at SayUncle that gun rights advocates are winning. The latest is that the press has given serious coverage of the debate over whether or not to allow the carrying of arms on college campuses. That would never, ever, ever have happened ten years ago. David noticed it too. As did Sebastian:

Concealed carry reform was one of the greatest strokes of strategic brilliance the gun rights movement has ever had, and I’m not sure we’d be in the position we’re in today without.

Despite the fact that a relatively small number of people bother to get licenses to carry a concealed firearm, the impact has been substantial in terms of how public debate on gun control is framed. It has allowed us to shift the debate on this issue exlusively away from sporting uses and toward self-defense

Indeed. Now, the issue becomes one that our opposition continues to lie. For instance, they refer to said movement as arming college kids or arming everyone. Both of these arguments are strawmen. No one is arming anyone. No one is arming college kids. Our argument is that someone who is otherwise lawfully allowed to carry a firearm at other places should also be allowed to carry on a college campus. Someone who is otherwise lawfully allowed to carry a firearm is 21 (i.e., not a college kid), law-abiding, and already armed. No one is arming them. The other side has to reframe our argument in an attempt to make it look silly. They have to cheat to win.

Jay has a novel solution to gun violence on college campuses.

ABC notes that democrat presidential candidates do not have a solution. And by solution, ABC means gun control.

One state lawmaker in Illinois is pushing for concealed carry laws. Illinois is one of two states with no concealed carry provisions.

Chicago Tribune:

Angry Parents Push For Gun Control

You wouldn’t know the facts from the article because it spends the first eight paragraphs giving details designed to tug at the heart strings. Then two people mention that they’re angry.

So, let’s push for gun control!

Let’s institute licensing and registration for gun owners! Oh, they already did that in Illinois.

Let’s close the gun show loophole! Oh, they already did that in Illinois.

Let’s mandate locks be sold with handguns! Oh, they already did that in Illinois.

Let’s pass laws to keep guns out of the hands of underaged! Oh, they already did that in Illinois.

Pass laws preventing those adjudicated as mentally defective from possessing arms! Oh, they already did that in Illinois.

Let’s ban the carrying of arms! Oh, they already did that in Illinois.

Let’s push for a ban on on weapons that look like assault weapons! Wait, the killer didn’t use one.

Ok, I’m stumped.

Recall that Illinois ranked as the ninth best at gun control out of 50 by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership.

Jack Lail: Boss Hogg couldn’t survive bloggers buzz

A snippet:

A bit of background and I’ll be brief. In Knoxville, Tenn., politics is played the Good Ole’ Boy way. Think Boss Hogg from TV’s The Dukes of Hazzard and its fictional Hazzard County, Georgia.

County organization charts read like family trees. Paid county employees hold county elected offices. Meetings are mere formalities for decisions made in used car lots.

Controversies break out among fighting factions aligned with politicos who control dollars and patronage, but rarely ripple out as interests to the average citizen.

And the voters? Don’t raise taxes and keep the schools open and most couldn’t tell you who represents them and couldn’t care less.

Joe takes a detailed look at it with some pics.