More pics

Tam on pants-wetting press:

The guy was just standing there minding his own beeswax, which is, granted, a foreign concept to you, but trust me, that’s all he was doing.

Billy Beck on trying to get rid of him:

Here’s your answer, you ignorant cow: it’s for the same reason that we can’t get rid of you, now.

Of course, the SPLC needs money err is capitalizing on the tea party protests to get everyone all scared of right wing militias.

Here. Strangely, dying not one of them.

Tam looks at a kaboom.

I got sidetracked but I wanted to talk about the man open carrying at the Obama protest thing in New Hampshire from the point made in this post. Insty sums up the press reaction nicely:

EEK! A GUN!

And it’s having an effect. However, you couple the gun with the whole blood of tyrants sign and I think the guy made a poor marketing decision. Of course, he was also a half a mile away and there two hours before Obama’s arrival.

One of the more interesting dynamics I’ve found in this debate is the reaction from folks. Some folks are none too happy here. Take Aunt B. for example:

Because the whole “gun nuts” thing aside, the biggest progress gun lovers have made is in convincing the rest of us that y’all are normal people we have no reason to be afraid of.

Unlike the press, Aunt B. is not all EEK! A GUN!. She takes issue with the sign. I really doubt Aunt B. would be concerned if the guy was protesting and did not have that particular sign. It is New Hampshire. You know, live free or die. And NH has had handgun carry for probably longer than anyone. So, if you’re going to open carry at a protest, probably ought to leave the signs that advocate violence at home. In fact, leaving those signs at home when not carrying is probably a good idea too.

Meanwhile, PDB is utterly outraged.

Obama embraces free market – for once: ‘It’s the Post Office That’s Always Having Problems’

Well, the USPS is losing money. So, sell it to Netflix. Lysander Spooner would be proud.

A man and his family are in his sister’s funeral procession. A police officer pulls them over and writes them tickets for not wearing seat belts. They missed the burial.

National Park Service classifies traditional ammunition as a health threat? NSSF says:

In response to an announcement today regarding a National Parks Service program encouraging hunters to voluntarily switch to alternative ammunition, the National Shooting Sports Foundation rejected NPS’s categorization of traditional ammunition as a health threat. NSSF is offering to work with the National Park Service to develop measures to educate hunters about steps they can take to prevent scavengers from ingesting lead fragments of spent traditional ammunition. The park service is proposing to ban, at a minimum, the use of lead bullets, shot and sinkers in the park system by NPS personnel.

While no scientific evidence supports restricting the use of traditional ammunition containing lead components, the firearms industry believes that establishing voluntary measures is a more reasoned step than banning traditional ammunition, a drastic policy decision unsupported by science. NPS has raised concerns that lead bullet fragments found in game meat could cause lead poisoning in humans, a charge not borne out in scientific studies, including a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

Insty links to this. When I click on it, I get this message:

You have been Banned from viewing this Blog.
There are most likely two reasons for this.
1. You were abusive or a troll in the comments section
2. You are from a Forum that I do not want viewing my Blog
3. You are in the countries of Russia, Iran or People’s Republic of China

If you feel this was a mistake contact me at tpblogeditor at gmail dot com.
If you are from the Country of Russia, People’s Republic of China Tell your leaders to embrace true freedom and not political oppression and I might let you back in.
-Pat
Owner
Political Byline dot com

I’ve never been to that site before, I’m in the USofA, and I didn’t get there from a forum. I guess they don’t like traffic from Insty. Seems redirecting traffic from one of the higher traffic blogs is not beneficial for building a readership. And note that I wasn’t actually banned since I managed to get around it in about 0.5 seconds.

Update: Seems to be fixed now.

ACK notes the militia movement is back. It never went away. But the press coverage has kicked up on it a bit in the last few months. Why, it’s like there was some event that triggered this coverage. I wonder what it was?

People say to me Hey, Uncle, I am a law-abiding handgun carry permit holder. Can I carry in a park in the great state of Tennessee? And I say:

That depends.

First, is it a national park? If so, no you cannot. At least now. In February, you will be able to carry in a national park.

Is it a state park? If so, then you can carry your handgun there.

Is it a county/city/other municipality park? Well, then it depends on your location and what day it is. You cannot carry there until September 1. And on September 1, you may or may not be able to carry there depending on if said county/city/other municipality banned the law-abiding carrying of weapons. I’m not sure how you’d know this other than by perusing your local ordinances. Municipalities are supposed to post signs but, frankly, parks tend to have lots of entrances so I’m not sure that you can be certain that the absence of a sign where you happened to enter indicates it’s OK to carry there.

Then the people say to me Man, that’s a lot to keep up with. Sounds like it’s easy to accidentally break the law. I mean, if I’m walking through downtown lawfully carrying and take a step through the World’s Fair Park because it’s quicker, I’m a criminal.

And I say Yup. Local politicos have created a patchwork of inconsistent laws that you can’t possibly keep up with, making it very easy for handgun carry permit holders to break the law unintentionally. So, you should contact your state representative and senators and tell them to start working on the preemption bill.

Sebastian notes a gun control anniversary:

It’s been ten years, according to this Brady press release, since the Million Mom March popped onto the scene, spured by a mass shooting at a Jewish community center in 1999.

In that time, we went from seven states banning handgun carry to two. And from 30 shall issue states to 37 (source). The assault weapons ban was allowed to expire. And the Supreme Court ruled that the second amendment means what it says.

AAC Prodigy Video.

A year ago, a school district in Texas allowed some staff to carry weapons on campus. An amazing thing happened: nothing.

Apparently, what he meant was it applied to you:

The Obama administration is proposing to scale back a long-standing ban on tracking how people use government Internet sites with “cookies” and other technologies, raising alarms among privacy groups.

A two-week public comment period ended Monday on a proposal by the White House Office of Management and Budget to end a ban on federal Internet sites using such technologies and replace it with other privacy safeguards. The current prohibition, in place since 2000, can be waived if an agency head cites a “compelling need.”

Cowboy fast draw at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous.

TN is 7th Freest State, #8 Economic, #18 personal

NRA Blog has a slideshow of the event.

Lots of stuff

TN Gubernatorial Candidate Zach Wamp on the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act:

The 14-year congressman declared that a recent assertion by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act had no force of law was “overreach.” The Firearms Freedom Act stated that federal laws do not apply to firearms, accessories or ammunition that is manufactured in Tennessee and that do not pass its borders.

Wamp said that the ATF’s decision was another reason to “meet them at the state line” and assert state sovereignty. Gov. Perry in Texas and Gov. Wamp in Tennessee are going to stand and say ‘the hell you say,’” Wamp said.

The act has, simply, no chance of standing up to a court challenge. There are better second amendment policies to challenge.

Neighboring city of mine bans guns in parks. Word is Pigeon Forge did not.

I see preemption coming.

Update: Looks like Pigeon Forge went the other way.

Good idea: using social networking tools to build a relationship with your boss.

Bad idea: using the same social networking tools to call him a pervvy wanker and complaining about the fact he expects you to do your job.

When Josh Horwitz is not busy losing, he writes at the HuffPo. His latest is that some of those Fascist / Nazi / KKK grand wizards / insurrectionists / insurance company lobbyists / racists / insert code word to induce left wing indignation / tea baggers / mobs / and, say, Emmanuel Lewis (for laughs) are carrying concealed weapons to meetings and such. Why, it seems that there have been a few cases of law-abiding concealed carry permit holders doing just that. This, he says, could lead to violence. Strange that it hasn’t yet.

Only violence I’ve seen is when a black tea partier was beaten up by raging Obamabots who chanted racist slurs and business man assaulted then threatened with arrest.

Update: Sebastian says they’re probably carrying to prevent being beaten up by union thugs.

Dad calls me last night and relays the following tale. I may get some details wrong. His partner says there’s a raccoon outside. Dad goes out there with a broom and swats the porch area. The raccoon stands up and is acting like it wants a confrontation. Dad goes back to the office and calls animal control. Looks up, and sees the raccoon heading toward a wood pile where a mother cat just had kittens. Dad decides you don’t mess with the cats and gets his 9mm. He shoots the raccoon twice and it falls. He goes to wait for animal control when his partner tells him the raccoon is up again. He puts three more into the raccoon to finally kill it.

He tells me this and I ask what sort of ammo he’s using. After all, if he ever needs to use a weapon in self defense, a would be attacker is probably bigger than a raccoon. He says it was ball ammo. I tell him you’ve got to get some of these. Hollow points are much more effective.

ETA: Theory is that the raccoon had distemper or some such. It’s quite odd for a raccoon not to just run away at the first sight of someone.

Not a lot of faith in their own paper:

Small businesses that received $682 million in IOUs from the state say California expects them to pay taxes on the worthless scraps of paper, but refuses to accept its own IOUs to pay debts or taxes.

Now that’s funny.

A bill before congress would classify nearly everyone at a gun show as a gun dealer.

Microstamping law in California hits major snag. Turns out, it’s not reliable. No kidding. Who knew?

Ouch!

In July, in Chicago, two hundred twenty-five people were shot there. But guns are banned there. But it’s OK. The police are having marches. Demand more gun control, to make it even more illegaler to shoot someone with your already illegal gun.

Rob Pincus heads out with his AK.