Mr. C. is back in the hospital. Here’s hoping for a speedy recovery.

Actual education and not pants shitting hysteria.

Speaking of, Ted Novin of the National Shooting Sports Foundation blogs on telling the truth about assault weapons.

Pittsburgh passes a law to punish only the law-abiding.

We’ve returned safe and sound. Blog resumes sometime.

Miss anything important?

One thing to notice about Sarah Palin in this video here.

Notice how she’s not a pussy?

Safely arrived. You can tell when you’ve hit yankee country. When the gas stations stop calling it “soda” or “soft drink” and start calling it “pop”.

Update: The offending state was West Virginia. PA is worse. And Pittsburgh drivers suck. That is all.

Publius does a nice job summing up what’s at the heart of the liberal/conservative divide on “social conservative” issues:

The social conservatives’ positions tend to empower government over individuals. If they got their way, the public would be forced to submit to the government’s decision-making. The more liberal position, by contrast, allocates power to individuals – no one is forced to do anything. (Admittedly, this is not really a constitutional argument – just an additional explanation for why the Christian Right tends to scare people).

Take, for instance, the granddaddy issue of them all – abortion. The Christian Right position would require every single person in a given jurisdiction to give birth. (Yes, some would argue that it’s simply about letting the states decide – but still, they prefer this position because many states, and virtually the entire South, would ban abortion). Thus, the decision-making power here would belong to the government. Individuals would no longer be free to decide.

The pro-choice position, by contrast, ensures that individuals – not the government – will ultimately make these private decisions. Individuals remain free to have, or not have, abortions as they and their God see fit. And everyone remains free to persuade their fellow citizens of the values of bringing all pregnancies to term. But in the end, the individual – and not the state – would make the final call.

This pattern repeats itself across a number of issues. For example, gay marriage doesn’t require anyone to do anything. It merely allows consenting gay adults to be married. Gay marriage bans, by contrast, grant that decision-making power to the state.

Similarly, rights to contraception don’t require anyone to do anything – the ultimate decision remains with the individual. Contraception bans, by contrast, allocate the decision-making power to the government.

Same deal with school prayer. Banning school prayer in public classes doesn’t prevent anyone from praying privately at the school. But allowing public prayer, by contrast, would force non-Christians to sit through prayer sessions in a publicly funded school. Again, the decision to participate in prayer would be made by the state, not the individual.

The larger point is that these examples illustrate why many people fear social conservatives – simply put, many of the latter’s preferred positions would use the state to intrude on people’s lives and dictate very private and personal decisions to them.

Now, I think this is largely true. But at the same time, if you expand beyond the so-called “social conservative” issues, there are plenty of places where it’s the liberals who would be doing the forcing. Environmental issues, for example, or gun control.

That said, I think the fact that compliance is somehow enforced is not, in and of itself, necessarily a bad thing. It depends upon your view of the thing being enforced.

Ridefast:

Some, a small minority, may have jokingly called you Fudds, or maybe mocked you. Your guy, Zumbo, called me a terrorist. Who’s the nasty bastard now?

Read the whole thing.

15 images you’ll think are photoshopped but aren’t.

More from David Kopel.

On travel. Out of state funeral. I may check in periodically. Talk amongst yourselves.

Two groups opposed to guns don’t get their talking points straight.

Bane has the skinny.

Gay cooties are coming to your town.

This is bad for gun rights. Dingell is a friend to gun owners.

Sebastian calls the attack.

Slate:

Barack Obama has revealed his first major policy initiative: college football reform. In Obama’s first televised interview since winning the presidency, he explained what’s wrong with the current system, in which computers help determine the two teams that play for the national championship. “I think any sensible person would say that if you’ve got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season, and many of them have one loss or two losses—there’s no clear decisive winner—that we should be creating a playoff system,” Obama said. “I don’t know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So, I’m gonna throw my weight around a little bit. I think it’s the right thing to do.”

No, I do not think this is a federal matter and no I do not want to see some asinine law passed for it. But I do agree with him.

We here at SayUncle would like to welcome our friends from the ATF to the 1990s:

Instead of filling out the required ATF paperwork by hand, gun buyers and dealers will now be able to complete what officials say is a fail-safe electronic version of the document, known as Form 4473.

Speaking at a gun shop in Upper Marlboro where he announced the change, acting ATF Director Michael J. Sullivan said the new option would cut down on illegible answers and incomplete answers — the most common causes of violations.

In other news, is this an admission that all those supposedly willful violations they used to shut down federal firearms license holders weren’t, err, actually willful?

Update: More from David who wonders if this is the same software that ATF was accused of stealing.

A report on Boomershoot was nominated for an emmy.

In an 2001 op-ed, Attorney General nominee Eric Holder said there were “numerous and chilling” examples of gun shows putting arms in the hands of terrorists, and specified two.

Via KAG, comes a tale from Nashville:

Federal law said many people served with orders of protection cannot possess a gun, and local judges routinely issue orders to these people saying they have to give up their guns.

But the orders don’t say where that gun is supposed to go or for how long anyone has to give it up.

There has never been a gun turned into Metro courts or to Metro police.

There’s no mechanism to give them up, and there is no one in Nashville’s justice system making sure the accused actually hand them over.

Another law passed without any enforcement provision? I can’t get too worked up about it. After all, the horrid Lautenberg amendment denies individuals their civil rights without due process of law. An order of protection is not a conviction of anything and is often a he said/she said scenario.

and string theory.

A couple of guys from London had firearms suppressors in the luggage. They get to the US and are arrested:

Hope and Latcham were arrested Friday when they returned to RDU to pick up the bag. They told investigators they had bought the silencers in England and planned to give them to a friend in Roxboro whom they were visiting, according to the affidavit.

Suppressors aren’t regulated as heavily outside the US.

Seems I recall hearing a little something about Barack Obama running on a platform of change. Increasingly, it seems his short list of political appointees have ties with the Clintons and one of them is a Clinton. That’s change you can . . . err, what?

Command Arms Accessories has an AR-15 magazine that has a counter on it so you know how many rounds are left.

Someone at Armalite has a quite the sense of humor.

Via SIH.

A look at the new Sig AK err 556 Classic.

Alan Keyes is suing to prevent Barack Obama from becoming president by claiming the Big O is not a citizen. Xrlq says to call it frivolous is an insult to frivolity.

Bitter has a message for you:

For you Georgia readers, I suggest you get involved with the Saxby Campaign campaign right now.

NRA concurs.

Les loads up on Glock and AR mags. I dunno that I’ve ever seen Les with a Glock or an AR.