Kevin is getting an M14.

It’s coming. Sweet.

The Saga of the Nigerian Shotgun.

Howard Dean:

So I think the debate for the new generation is instead of capitalism OR socialism is we’re going to have both, and which proportion of each should we have in order to make this all work. It’s a much more sensible debate.

Yet, people think you’re nuts when you bring up the S word.

WizardPC has a look and some concerns.

That’s all I know about bullet speed. But some folks may be curious and want a chronograph. So, Chris has written a buyer’s guide.

Frank wonders why taxpayers foot the bill for primaries. Well, we know the answer: parties run the show and those parties pass laws making life easy on the parties.

Awesome:

Congressmen John Carter (R-TX) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) yesterday introduced the Geithner Penalty Waiver Act, requiring that the IRS assess the same penalty against U.S. taxpayers that came forward in the UBS tax fraud investigation as paid by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for failing to pay taxes on his IMF income — zero.

Like you and me, only better.

The Gun Geek in comments at SIH:

If you live in a “may issue” state, there MUST be some way for those have been denied a permit to see who did get approved. Without at least that minimum level of accountability, the potential for abuse is just too great.

Interesting. What say you?

For the USMC Infantry Automatic Rifle.

In Memphis, some numbers and how to avoid getting your guns stolen.

For Mike Vanderboegh’s speedy and complete recovery. Get well.

A reader emails regarding Kelsey’s blowout:

This was a one issue race for State Senate in Germantown, Cordova and Bartlett last night.

The Republican (for the open seat) was Brian Kelsey, a conservative Republican who voted for all of our desired gun bills last session, and the Democrat was a soccer-mom who made the guns in parks and restaurants the sole focus of her campaign.

Kelsey won 75 – 25%.

Gun control is not so good at winning elections.

Update: Also pointed out to me was how the Commercial Appeal seemingly made it a pet project to torpedo Kelsey. Funny how that didn’t quite work out.

A bill has been introduced to keep NICS records for 10 years if you’re on a terror watchlist and six months for regular folks. You, of course, have no way to know if you’re on the list and, if you found out, probably couldn’t appeal it. And the info would be wrong anyway. Looks more like a backdoor registry attempt to me with very little benefit.

Gun control: what we do instead of something.

Jay G. has one.

This past weekend, I noticed the Mrs. had TiVoed a few episodes of the new Family Feud with that guy from Home Improvement (show was better with Dawson). One of the questions was, roughly: Name a profession people don’t trust. Got your answer? Ok. Now, I disclose to you that one of the families was white and one was black. What do you suppose each family’s answer was? Leave PC at the door and answer.

The black family said police. White family said lawyer.

Obviously, it’s anecdotal but I can’t figure out why it is we’re not allowed to talk about stuff like this.

A database of where journalists live. Tit for tat, I guess.

You know, some enterprising person with time and access to lexis legal resources could start looking up staff members at newspapers who publish this stuff (like the Herald Times Online or the Commercial Appeal) and see if those staffers current on taxes; have any fines, liens, traffic violations; how much they paid for their house; are on any registries; post addresses; vehicle types; and all sorts of other stuff that they may want private. You know, the public’s right to know and all.

Some idiot: Guns Didn’t Save Their Lives and Guns Won’t Save Your Life

That statement makes sense, if you’re a moron. Because, if you’re a moron, you think we gun rights people walk around saying that guns make us ten feet tall and bulletproof, which we don’t. We say that a gun is the most effective tool for active resistance of violent crime, an assertion that has been supported many times in varying studies. If you have a gun and someone walks up and shoots you, you’re dead. With a gun. But most criminals don’t walk up and shoot you. They don’t want to kill you. They want your car, your wallet, to rape your wife or child, or some other various shenanigans. These kinds of things are clear to folks who aren’t delusional. But being reality-based isn’t generally in the repertoire of the anti-gunner.

They then decide to compare crime in Phoenix to NYC (complete with wild west reference) to prove how dangerous guns are. Except that if you pick any two cities at whim, you can draw any conclusion you want. Looking at other cities, I can get any conclusion I want. I think I’ll get a job doing climate research.

They also note that the American Rifleman doesn’t feature armed citizen stories anymore, which is a fabrication. They do. And there’s other sources that round up self defense stories.

And the blogger uses the Violence Policy Center method of research by asking you to google up some phrase.

One of the things a lot of pro-gun sorts assert is that we’re winning because our opponents are stupid. They’re right.

Here.

Looks a lot like my Kalashnikov shooters diagnostic chart.

Sprint has 50 million customers. In 2009, Sprint Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with its customers’ (GPS) location information over 8 million times.

A state by state CCW guide for the iPhone. Via Dustin, who also has this handy online guide for planning to travel with weapons.

Some open carry sorts decided to, well, open carry. This time, the catch was that some women were also going topless to protest topless equality. You know, because men can go shirtless without going to jail but people are afraid of boobies on women in public. Well, charges were dropped because it wasn’t a crime:

Last week, police prosecutors D. Chris McLaughlin and Eliezer Rivera decided to drop the charge of indecent exposure and lewdness against Nicosia. The charge was dropped because walking down the street topless does not qualify as a crime under state law, Keene police Lt. Jay U. Duguay said.

The law states that a person commits indecent exposure and lewdness if he or she fornicates, exposes genitals or performs any other “act of gross lewdness … likely to cause affront or alarm” in public.

Not against the law? Then she should not have been arrested.

Related: I wonder if this would get someone arrested? Is there a rule on how much is enough?

Or two. They’re really pushing their two guns in one deal.

Steve is still around and here’s his site on World War Two, aviation history, and related topics.

Finger rest extensions for subcompact Glocks. Doesn’t add much to the mag either.

President Obama: Like Bush, only slower.

Democrats taking credit for shit they didn’t do:

The Civil Rights Act? Are you fucking retarded? Which one? 1866? Radical Republicans. 1871? Radical Republicans, to reign in the Democrat Ku Klux Klan. 1875? Republicans. 1957? Passed over an attempted filibuster by the Democrats. 1960? Passed over an attempted filibuster by the Democrats, the longest one in history, in fact. 1964? Opposed by Democrats, not Republicans. 1968? The Dems finally come around and stop trying to filibuster the acts. 1991? Five nays, way to beat down that vicious Republican racism, guys. Civil Rights Act? From the Dixiecrats? Fuck you.

The Corner: [MSNBC] reached a new shameful low tonight when Chris Matthews referred to West Point as an “enemy camp.”

And if he thinks West Point is an enemy camp, what does he think of its graduates. What an asshat.

The Checkmate QD from Hearing Protection LLC (which is a cool name for a suppressor company). Looks to be multicaliber rated for various .17 and .22s. Quick detach mount. And can be disassembled for cleaning.

I think disassembly for cleaning is pretty big. It’s my only complaint with my Gemtech Outback 2.

And odd measure of success from Paul Helmke.