Bloomberg looking to get you to cut down on salt.

Firearm Blog has more on the left side charging handle of for the AK, with pics and video.

In Pigeon Forge with th family to take advantage of the fact that no one is supposed to be shopping this year. Everyone else had the same idea. It’s packed.

Slate’s Jack Shafer on gun sales:

If all 8.6 million background checks in 2008 were for first-time buyers, one could make the potentially chilling case that growing numbers of citizens are bearing arms. But that’s not very likely based on established survey data. Ownership of most of the nation’s estimated 200 million guns is concentrated in relatively few hands—according to a recent article in the journal Injury Prevention, 48 percent of gun owners reported owning more than four firearms. A similar data point collected by the National Institute of Justice (PDF, Page 2) states that of “gun owners in 1994, 10 million individuals owned 105 million guns, while the remaining 87 million guns were dispersed among 34 million other owners.”

This year’s uptick in buyers must reflect some new gun owners, but if past surveys are a good guide, surely most of these buyers are repeat buyers. This means that the well-armed are probably getting better-armed—a point none of the recent news stories makes.

I do not, however, think firearms scare almost everybody. They do, however, seem to spook the press.

Other posts on Gun Sales here.

Seems to me that both parties are demagoguing the holy shit out of GM’s woes and what, if anything, to do about them. Speaking for myself, I’m open to being convinced in any direction. On the one hand, I’m not in love with the idea of bailing out a company that has made mistake after mistake after mistake and whose business model is almost certainly unsustainable; on the other hand, I’m not eager to screw a bunch of workers and pensioners out of their retirements or do away with the country’s 8th largest employer, either. So what to do?

Blindly partisan crap from either side need not apply. I’m looking for even-handed, well-reasoned arguments about what to do, not demagoguery. Anyone aware of some good essays?

UPDATE: The consensus here, unsurprisingly, has been to let GM fail. Kevin at Lean Left argues in favor of a GM bailout. Check it out.

Guns scare journalists.

Or is it time to buy now? Stocks and markets have dropped, so if you have retirement account, should you buy now or wait? Just curious.

Meanwhile, here’s a tale of how incompetence saved me an assload of money. My employer uses a processing company to handle all things payroll, to include retirement. These folks are completely incompetent. They will, without fail, screw up anything they are asked to do. They’ll either over do it or not do it at all or form a committee to do it that will then forget why they formed the committee anyway and that will result in them doing something else completely unrelated to the current task. Anyhoo, a bit back I rolled over an account and specified which fund I wanted the roll over to go into. After the market hit the shitter, I was scared to look. One day, I finally manned up and looked at the damage to discover that I had not only not lost any money but had actually received a fairly health rate of return. I checked the particular fund’s webpage and noted that it had lost a ton of money. I was confused as to how that happened. Turns out, they put my rollover in the wrong fund even though I specified. They’d put it in a municipal bond fund. So, I made some modest gains. Their incompetence saved me a chunk of change.

We must ban marshmallow guns.

Jay:

The greatest compliment I can imagine – and I get it frequently – is when one of my kids comes up, completely unbidden, and tells me that they love me. I eat that up for breakfast. It makes everything worthwhile, and I hope they do it until the day I die. No matter how fast they grow, or how big they get, I’ll never stop worrying about them, and I’ll never stop loving them with every fiber of my being.

I will, however, stop doing their laundry before they hit high school…

You apparently can polish a turd. The actually made a couple of high-gloss and highly unsanitary spheres from poo.

Can’t find video, though. Probably be here soon.

Marko notes that since he no longer has a TeeVee, he’s suffering a near-complete pop culture disconnect. Tam is in the same boat.

I have recently became disconnected from pop culture for a very different reason. I got TiVo. See, now I only watch what I want, when I want to watch it, and without commercials. I’m not exposed to what’s hot. Generally, I have no idea what movies are out (this week is the exception in that I know Madagascar 2 is out because the kids at Junior’s school are into that). I generally have no idea who any of the people are that are mentioned in the Yahoo! entertainment blurb that pops up on the home page. I have no idea who the people on the cover of any magazine at the supermarket are. Marko suffered a disconnect from getting disconnected. I suffered the disconnect by upgrading technology.

I don’t miss it. Most TeeVee sucks. I watch very few shows. A list would include Mythbusters, Battlestar Galactica, Family Guy, The Daily Show (occasionally), My Name Is Earl, Mail Call, Southpark and The Simpsons. That’s really it, except the occasional sporting/poker event. Southpark and The Simpsons are probably coming off the list because lately they suck. Now, I also manage to watch a whole lot of Blues Clues, Spongebob, Dora, Diego, Back at the Barnyard, and Fairly Odd Parents as a function of having kids. But they’re not exactly piping pop culture into the house. Of course, I’ve mentioned before Junior’s utter shock at the discovery of commercials.

Another interesting trend is that, once again because of technology, I can’t name a Top 40 song. No idea. But, then, I’ve never been a big Top 40 guy either. I download my music and pick only what I want to listen to.

I guess you can disconnect or plug in more heavily and become disconnected from pop culture.

Pocket Hamerless.

A look at an old multi-tool. Pretty cool.

I’ll stick with my Skeletool. It’s a multi-tool I actually carry instead of leaving in the truck.

I guess they’re expecting us dumb, cousin-humping rednecks who are buying assault weapons for the coming race war to be busy on the biggest shopping day of the year:

On Friday, November 28, the hours of operation for the FBI’s National Instant Check System will be extended to begin at 6:00am EST and run through to 1:00am EST on Saturday, November 29.

Six months until the Second Amendment Blog Bash at the NRA Convention in Phoenix. They’ve announced a contest.

You are going, aren’t you?

Picture and ad here. Steve thinks it could be fake.

Joe is stopping his blog to run for Mayor of Chattanooga.

Jay shows some carry pieces.

What a douchebag.

A few pixels spent on the lengthy job application in Obama’s administration. NRA points out that the application also asks about firearm ownership:

One of their first official acts is to make a list of gun owners among their own employees.

Update: Sebastian points out they don’t seem to have a grasp on gun laws.

Via Jay, it looks like the lefty blogs are saying we’re buying guns because we’re racists. Shocking. They note our fears of a race war, which is odd because all the blathering about race and civil wars came didn’t come from us. That came from gun nuts like Fatimah Ali and washed up feminists. You see, we must be a certain way or else their world view doesn’t jive. That and the fact they really don’t seem to believe in markets.

In another bit of funny, all-around rube Oliver Willis puts his DoubleStuf stained fingers to work to refer to an entire geographical region as rubes. Which is funny because he’s the first to cry bigotry over, well, anything.

So, if everybody knows it, is it really a codename?

Paul looks at the media’s hatred of gun owners. I concur and have written before that it’s mostly ignorance (though some is willful). After all, do you think your average AP reporter even knows a gun owner?

Fuck that. I got shit to do.

Steyr AUG for civilians coming soon.

I guess they realized they could sell them after Microtech already started selling them.

Why are white people buying assault weapons?

Because Obama has made it a platform issue to ban them. And they will, therefore, go up in value?

Anyway, it’s anecdotal but the other day I was at Coal Creek Armory and it was packed. More interesting was there were, in lily white west Knoxville, three black men in there buying handguns and assault rifles. And they were not together.

US Citizen says business is booming.

Win a sig! Proceeds benefit Project Valour IT.

The new sheriff there is not a fan of CCW, mostly because the prior sheriff doled out permits as political favors under the may issue system. That’s why I support shall issue.

Want to do something about CCW there? ExistingThing has a plan.

You may have heard that Peter Eastgate won the 2008 World Series Of Poker. Actually, it looks like the real winner was Denmark:

Denmark’s tax agency is called SKAT. Denmark, like the United States, does tax gambling winnings. For casino gambling (which is where I believe this will be classified) the tax rate is 45% on the first 4 million Danish Kroners; it’s 75% on income above that. Today $1 is worth 5.88907 DKK; Mr. Eastgate won 53,899,250.70 DKK before taxes. Mr. Eastgate will owe about 39,224,438 DKK in tax ($6,660,545). Put another way Mr. Eastgate will keep 14,674,813 DKK ($2,491,871) of his winnings—just 27.23% of his prize. Yes, he faces an effective tax rate of 72.77%. Ouch.

Wow.

Meanwhile, former commies have a flat tax:

Russia has a 13% flat tax rate, so Mr. Demidov will owe about $755,247 to the State Taxation Service of Russia.

From reader BWM.

Ben Cunningham has a Op/Ed in The Tennessean on the bailout.

Say you make shoes out of cheap plastic. And they’re popular. I honestly can’t see them costing more than $10 to make (probably less with cheap Chinese labor). And they sell for $40. How do you lose $148M in one quarter?

Note: I love my Crocs Mammoth, and the kids like them too.

He’s back home!

They’re calling for a ban on lead ammo after the North Dakota Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the results of a lead study last week.

The issue, however, is that the CDC actually concluded just the opposite.

From the Daily Show on California’s gay marriage ban getting passed because a lot of black people showed up at the polls (paraphrased):

The oppressed have become the oppressors.

Denise celebrates more guns in American hands.

Ya know, it’s like gun owners are sending a message to Obama and the Democrats or something.

All the GOPers who won Tennessee’s house have vowed to oppose Naifeh. Good.

Now that that’s concluded, I have a request to the TNGOP and its new found majorities: Don’t fuck it up.

If you guys get in there and start passing every socially conservative wish list item that causes turgid little nubbins among the god squad (who shouldn’t be getting turgid little nubbins anyway because that’s a sin, I hear), it’s going to be a short two years. Seriously. You won because of a few things. The Democrat party abandoned democrat principles and, frankly, the Kurita situation was bad for them. And the excess epitomized by the underground bunker. So, stick with the fiscally conservative part and leave the abortion and gay cooties stuff on the back burner.

BioDefense Corporation thinks the increase in gun sales could cause terrorism. Somehow, people buying guns will lead to an increase in potential for biochemical attacks. No, really.

Don’t tell Bryan Miller but:

According to FBI figures for the week of November 3 to 9, the bureau received more than 374,000 requests for background checks on gun purchasers — a nearly 49 percent increase over the same period in 2007. Conatser said his store, Virginia Arms Company, has run out of some models — such as the AR-15 rifle, the civilian version of the military’s M-16 — and is running low on others.

OMIGOSH. The evil gun lobby got to the FBI too!

Meanwhile, FoxNews has a bit on gun sales. Here’s video.

Gun sales & me.

I should probably buy something, I suppose. So far, all I got was a case of ammo.

JR reports a Texas legislator wants a license for Tasers.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Oh, wait.

Kewee has the details. Send happy thoughts their way.

After all the pre-election talk about Obama and various democrats supporting gun rights, the left says now is the time to spring their trap.

Colt’s new firearms.

JARD 50 Cal.

Johns Hopkins piece on treating illegal guns as pollution. Will Al Gore sell me carbon gun credits?

David reports a victory for Kwan:

We therefore conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in ordering a new trial to instruct the jury that the Government had to prove that Kwan had no other apparent legal purpose for the shoulder stock than to convert his unregistered pistol into an illegal short-barreled rifle.

AFFIRMED.

The burden of proof on the .gov? Novel concept.

Past coverage of the Kwan case here. Short version: ATF has a real hard-on for Kwan on petty gun law violations since another of their investigations of him turned up nothing.

In the past, people would ask me advice on how to become a reasonably popular blog and I’d tell them to 1) travel back in time to 2001; and 2) be a chick.

There’s another way: Negligently discharge a firearm and blog about it. Some good discussion and comments:

Xavier.

Tam.

JR.

Murdoc.

Rusty.

Robb.

Sebastian.

In Tennessee:

During the week beginning last Monday, Nov. 3, 2008, and ending yesterday, Nov. 9, 2008, 8,525 firearm transactions were handled by TICS. Saturday, Nov. 8th was a peak day, with 2,524 transactions. This was unprecedented for November. Only one other day since TICS opened on Nov. 1, 1998 has surpassed last Saturday in the number of transactions – December 21, 2006 saw 2,600 transactions. TICS statistics seem to support all other reports that this will be a peak year for gun sales.

Yes, I mean you. Right now.

I’d like to thank my dad for his service to the country.

In this bit on rising gun sales, Obama’s respect for the second amendment includes a desire to ban the most popular sporting rifles in the country and concealed carry:

Gun rights advocates interpret that as meaning he’ll at least enact curbs on ownership of assault and concealed weapons.

If by interpret you mean actually know, then sure. He’s said it himself.

Meanwhile, David Hardy notes a prediction:

Supporting it is an insider DC tip that his people are seriously considering a federal ban or restriction on “right to carry” laws. Exactly where the constitutional power to enact such a measure is to be found is less than clear to me.

Sebastian has a review up on his.

I dig mine.

Bitter has a warning:

Environmental groups are targeting pro-gun and pro-hunting legislators one at a time. They are flying under the radar by taking them out one-by-one. But by concentrating their wealth at one or two lawmakers at a time, they’ve successfully knocked off two so far.

A shot timer for your Iphone.

They need one for the crackberry.

Or not enough bullet:

Police say the contents in an oversized purse saved a 22-year-old Middle Tennessee State University student’s life, stopping a bullet during an attempted robbery.

Either way, I’m sure she’s thankful.

Rich is getting a new one.

Carnaby has a new one.

Navy Times on Lake City’s lead free 5.56Nato.

We know Bryan Miller says that the reported increase in gun sales is a conspiracy propagated by the evil gun lobby. Looks like those evil Wall Street analysts are in on the conspiracy too. And I’m sure the FBI is also lying when it reports an increase in NICS activity. And based on Cabela’s numbers, it doesn’t look like it’s the hunters buying.

More here.

Despite the state AG saying it was illegal, mayor opts to try it anyway. Seems like a losing legal strategy.

Rich: Because I acknowledge that the Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin, I am intolerant, even though I support civil unions for gay couples as being fair and just under the law of man, and even though I drove an hour and a half to demonstrate my opposition to an anti gay hate group.

Hope everything is OK.

Twist arm behind his back, cuff him, and arrest him. For having the audacity of wearing a McCain/Palin shirt. Via SIH.

Notice anything odd about this pic? Answer below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ahab has snatched a pic of Para’s new pistol.

People say to me Hey, Uncle, how was your weekend?

And I say Mostly uneventful, except for that negligent discharge.

This weekend, I negligently discharged a firearm. Everyone is OK, so no worries. I followed the four rules of firearm safety so no one was hurt. But even following the rules, it can still happen.

A bit back, I wrote of my Walther P22 that I was not a fan of the magazine disconnect safety. I said:

Get rid of the magazine disconnect safety. I cannot decock the pistol without a magazine inserted into the magwell. Why is that considered safer?

Well, it’s not safer. And, no, I am not blaming my negligent discharge on the magazine disconnect safety, rather stating that the magazine disconnect safety led to my actions preceding the negligent discharge. For those not in the know, a magazine disconnect safety essentially renders the trigger non-functioning unless there is a magazine in the weapon. This also means in the case of the Walther P22 that you cannot decock the firearm unless a magazine is inserted into the magazine well. Here’s how it happened:

I get the Walther, and check to be sure that it is clear. It is. No magazine and no round in the chamber. I don’t like to keep the pistol cocked so I set out to decock it.

I insert the magazine and rack the slide. I know have a loaded and cocked weapon. To decock the weapon, I point it at the ground. And, as I’ve done thousands of times, I place my thumb on the hammer to hold it in place as I squeeze the trigger to release the hammer, which will then be eased down by my thumb. Unfortunately, my thumb did not have as sure a grip on the hammer as it should have and I neglected to engage the safety. And I fired the gun. There was a bit of silence and then I finally realized I should say something so I said loudly that everyone in here was OK.

This occurred in front of my gun safe, in my basement. The weapon was aimed at the hard concrete floor (i.e., a safe direction with a sure backstop, as should be the case when handling any weapon). No damage either, except to the padding that covers part of our basement floor. It had a small hole in it. The concrete was mostly unscathed. It looked as though it had been barely scratched. I’m guessing the bullet disintegrated as I could only find a few shavings and a shell casing.

So, even if you’re familiar with handling a gun and have performed a task thousands of times, it still happens. But if you are mindful of the four rules of firearms safety and it happens, nothing and no one will get damaged. Except your ego. That was an eye-opener for me. No longer batting 1,000 in gun safety. And the fact that I felt like a complete moron.

My wife is still pissed.

Be safe out there.

Squeaky got a Walther.

In Anderson county, an Andersonville Elementary School kindergarten student was suspended for having a toy gun.

Ridefast makes a good point. Remember how the press kept trying to tell us Obama wasn’t really anti-gun and we had nothing to worry about? Well, now that they’re reporting on gun sales increases (which, according to the deluded, is just propaganda from the gun lobby) they have to admit Obama may not be so good on gun right after all.

Mentioned Obama’s policy on guns earlier. It has since disappeared from the change.gov website. I wonder if the blue dogs had a say? Anyway, someone saved all the info because Google is forever.

Now, he says that all those articles in the press lately about how gun sales are going up since Obama won the election are just gun lobby propaganda. No, really.

I almost pity the man.

Justin says hold on to you Saigas.

Gun porn:

here

here

here

here

& here.

John Snow has a look.

Video of items retrieved from the largest gun bust in Mexico.

MP5 SD.

Fred Phelps and his merry band of retards came to protest. The audience just left. Rich was there.

After blaming Fulmer, folks today realized the team just sucks?

Countertop urges you to support Rep. John D. Dingell:

Remember, this fight started over primary challenges launched against John Dingell by Nancy Pelosi because of his ability to kill gun control bills.

Frankly, no matter wjat (sic) they did in the past or do in the future, I’m treating everyone on the Dingell Whip team as a friend of the 2nd Amendment.

I’d urge your support too.

Gun Sales up ten billion percent

So, with gun demand at an all time high; ammo prices up; people stocking up on regular capacity magazines; and all the other gun related news after this election; what are you going to buy?

Leave a comment. And if you happen to find a good deal, leave a link. Someone else might want one too.

As for me, I got some AR receivers to finish and a WunderNine to buy. And ATF cashed the check a couple of weeks ago so the NFA purchase should conclude soon.

Williams gets it together:

I want to state today, unequivocally, that I pledge to vote for a Republican for Speaker of the House. I have every reason to expect that the Republican nominee will be Leader Jason Mumpower

Ouch.

From Bitter:

They (sic) Brady Bunch has declared that the gun lobby is the biggest loser in the elections. That’s funny. If you look at not only the numbers, but also the choices, we won here in Pennsylvania.

And from those who claim the NRA is the National Republican Association:

The Brady Bunch is 100% Democratic – not at all bipartisan. Well over 1/3 of the NRA endorsements went to Democrats.

Brady not doing so well in Illinois either.

Countertop says to brace yourself for the HopeyChangey. And not so good for guns.

A letter to the editor in our local newspaper:

I’m not running for any office; maybe I should, but this is my plan.

Give every U.S. citizen $1 million each. I think that’s about 3 million people.

If my high school math serves me right that would come to $3 billion.

About 297M people short. So, KNS guys, how did this one actually get in the paper?

I mentioned needing more of the swabs to clean the Crimson Trace laser here. Yesterday, I received about 50 of them, their new DVD, and a nice thank you note. Now that’s service.

In Spokane.

And the paper of making up the record.

Hmm, maybe someone should go back and count the number of stories I and others have linked since Tuesday that contain that theme and email them to the blue dogs.

Despite various attempts at banning lead ammo, seems consuming game harvested with traditional ammunition poses absolutely no health risk to people, including children, . From the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Kinda makes these people look stupid: A North Dakota program that distributes venison to the needy will accept only deer killed with arrows, fearing that firearm-shot meat may contain lead fragments.

I said Naifeh was gone.

AC’s post seems to indicate that may not be the case.

In Texas:

Sullivan was among hundreds scrambling to buy a weapon Thursday at the gun store Cheaper Than Dirt! – which sold $101,000 in merchandise the day after the election, shattering its single-day sales record, said store owner DeWayne Irwin.

2Stories were similar across Texas, where residents are fiercely protective of their Second Amendment rights and now fear stricter gun-control laws under Democratic President-elect Barack Obama.

Well, I bought 500 rounds of 5.56 yesterday from Dan’s Ammo, based on recommendations from a couple of readers in comments here. They look to have good prices on 45ACP too.

The Duck is having trouble find stuff too.

Have you seen him look us in the eyes and lie:

Barack Obama’s hidden talent: He’s a top-notch poker player. Thank goodness—he’ll need it.

Among the countless blessings conferred by the election of Barack Obama is the energizing fact—until now little-known—that poker will be back in the White House for the first time in 35 years.

I think it’s illegal to gamble in DC. And probably illegal to gamble on .gov property.

Still, it’s pretty cool that he plays poker. Maybe we’ll see an end to Frist’s onerous online gambling bill.

Be sure of your target and what’s behind it:

Fort Worth police today confirmed that preliminary ballistics tests show a stray bullet that hit a woman at Texas Motor Speedway came from a rifle shot by a 49-year-old Benbrook man.

[...]

Mr. Jaramillo told police he was target shooting five miles away from Texas Motor Speedway between 10 and 11 a.m. Mr. Jaramillo fired five or six rounds at a berm, a mound of dirt, with his .50-caliber Vulcan single shot rifle.

Adequate backstops too.

Jeff notes that MSNBC is pondering whether gun control matters anymore. Well, it hasn’t lately because for the last eight years the pro-gun side has been winning. The first time the new administration and its congressional lackeys move on gun control, it will be 1994-1996 all over again.

Obama’s respect for the second amendment is so great it’s like it’s not even there. His transition plan states:

As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn’t have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.

Good way to pave the way for losses in 2010.

JR’s local paper asks him what gun owners should do now. He answers.

Iowa Hawk: So for now, let’s put politics aside and celebrate this historic milestone. In his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial 45 years ago, Dr. King said “I have a dream that one day my children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Let us now take pride that Tuesday we Americans proved that neither thing matters anymore.

Via Robb.

History News Network looks at the origins of the NRA.

Hello Kitty AR meets Kalashnikitty.

More pics of Turkey’s HK416.

Pre-Obama AWB edition.

Colt Extended Range Carbine.

Naifeh out. Mumpower in. Good for gun laws in Tennessee.

Don’t screw this up.

Superior Arms Lower Receivers for $80.

Update: Out of stock. that was fast.

Oops.