True story: the making of the Terminator’s laser-sighted .45 pistol. Amazing what it took to get the gun to work. Even more amazing is how far laser sights have come since then.

Via.

At Snowflakes in Hell.

Knoxville Police Department spokesman Darrell DeBusk:

We do not respond to blog postings. If we were to respond to blogs we would need to create a new position just to keep up with all of the comments. Legitimate questions posed to the department by our citizens will be answered. Responding to opinions and computer chatter will not change perceptions or opinions.

Seems they don’t like being asked about their status as tax collectors. After all, we know they’ve responded to blog postings in the past involving their police officer body-slamming a guy because the officer thought he was in Ohio.

I’d like 500 AK-47s please.

Seems a Blackwater employee signed for a bunch of automatic weapons using the name “Eric Cartman”.

Haven’t watched the show in years. Might have to catch this one.

Taurus 709 Slim vs Walther PPS vs Ruger SR9c

Brush guns

Phil and the belt fed.

You can just set up a sham humane society. Seems animal protection officers get police powers there.

Security Info Watch:

For the corporate security manager, this movement has direct implications. First, the business is going to have to face questions as to whether it has policies about guns on its premises and what those rules are. For Starbucks, there is currently no rule forbidding legally carried weapons on the premises. Other businesses do have such rules; the New York Times article specifically notes that California Pizza Kitchen (a West Coast pizza chain) and Peet’s Coffee and Tea (a Starbucks competitor) do disallow weapons, even those that are legally carried.

In Montana:

A Montana superintendent of schools said his replica black powder muzzleloader accidentally fired off a round while he was showing the weapon to a class.

The SIRT Training pistol:

Designed to complement, not replace, live fire training the SIRT Training Pistol brings together a host of patented technologies critical to improving shooting accuracy while addressing issues of cost and liability.

Safe, effective, and innovative, the SIRT Training Pistol was developed by shooters for shooters. We understand the unique training demands and restrictions faced by today’s law enforcement professionals.

Being discussed today. WizardPC has a list.

A bit of a brouhaha over Barrett Rifles. Seems Barrett wants an easement to allow better access to its facilities. TDOT got snippy. So, the legislature is looking to pass a bill granting the easement. This has some folks upset because CEO Ronnie Barrett is a big time political donor and is reportedly legislator Donna Rowland’s boyfriend.

In NY, a bill to charge restaurants $1,000 for salting food.

DAN K. THOMASSON classifies gun nuts, trots out unsourced and unnamed statistics, and misrepresents the NRA as an industry lobby.

In Maine, a bill to allow police to seize guns if someone is charged with domestic violence.

Since we’re having fun identifying racism, let’s play a game. A game I, apparently, suck at but others are pretty good at. Spot the racism:

Based on recent events, all of them are racist. You see it doesn’t matter if Mattel was coming out with a new black Barbie next year or if it came from a different Chinese sweatshop and was priced differently. It hurts someone’s feelings. So, it’s racist because a bunch of people agree it is.

Dan Rather, clearly a racist. He used a term our culture has been conditioned to think of as racist in the same series of words in which he mentioned a prominent black person. It doesn’t matter that his incomprehensible Ratherism may have meant something else (what that meaning is, no one knows exactly). If Dan Rather had a job, he should be fired from it.

And the MO students are also racist. I mean, not only did they use a symbol that we’ve been culturally conditioned to think of as racist, they actually did something racist with it. That’s not just plain vanilla racism. That’s double-plus racism! And double-plus racism is the worst kind because, in addition to not being made up, it requires intent.

My recent fascination with the Infiniti G37 (this one, specifically) has caught google’s attention. Every where I go, there’s a google ad for a G37. Or, in some cases, an ad for another comparable car. Then I saw this one. $40K for a Hyundai. Seriously. Now, like Hondas before, I’ve always thought of Hyundais as cheap cars. But, apparently, the Hyundai Genesis kicks all kinds of ass, as Hyundai is getting into the the luxury car market. Emunds notes it is a solid car but a con is that it lacks brand recognition for a luxury car. It looks sharp too.

Hyundai, who knew?

Police were police. Now, it seems they’re mostly tax collectors.

In VA, advising students to run away and call the police if they see someone open carrying.

No doubt playing to their recent newsworthiness, the Discovery Channel had a special on killer whales that I watched this weekend. One scene shows a group of whales trying to get a seal. The seal was on an chunk of ice floating. So, the whales lined up in a row and swam rapidly toward the ice. This created a wave which knocked the seal in the water. You can see it here at about 1:58. And I’m thinking Wow, you guys filming this are on a boat. They tell me that the killer whales haven’t ever attacked and eaten people. At least in the wild. Later, one of the women in another scene got in the water with the whales. And they just seemed curious about her and weren’t aggressive. And they’re kinda like cats in that they play with their food.

Odd creatures.

Or do gun nuts just have impossible standards? Could be. But the key thing about the rules of firearm safety: you have to break at least two of them to really ruin someone’s day.

And comparing food poisoning to gun deaths.

Tragic: Toddler mistakes gun for wii remote.

More on ATF’s stupid airsoft are machine guns ruling.

Richard Daley, in light of the Supreme Court’s pending McDonald decision, has decided that he should push the state to pass a lot more gun control while the getting is good:

“The aggressiveness of the gun advocates is just one reason it’s more important than ever that we work for common-sense gun laws focused on stopping the flow of illegal guns into our communities and keeping the guns out of the hands of the criminals,” Daley said, standing next to tables loaded with weapons confiscated by Chicago police.

Common sense measures like Chicago’s total prohibition, no doubt. Meanwhile, I think I see the problem:

A Chicago man who has racked more than 100 arrests went at it again when he allegedly went on a fist-flying spree over the weekend, police said.

You see, passing gun laws that do no nothing costs nothing. Effective crime control, like putting and keeping violent people in jail, costs money and resources. Gun control: what you do instead of something.

We have facts, statistics, and public opinion. They have dick jokes. And now, we have an icon.

As I said before, we’re all racist now. Our culture has been conditioned to think that things are racist. Just because enough people reach such a consensus. It’s easier than thinking.

Some otherwise smart people buy into this too. MKS says: I’ve always felt the “they did it too” defense should be left in elementary school. But that’s not the defense of the point. The point is that humans and chimpanzees make similar facial expressions. Pointing out that resemblance is not inherently racist. Roger gets it but buys the BS (note: not sure if serious):

George W. Bush Is Not Black

It’s true. He really isn’t. He’s a white guy. That’s why comparing him to a chimpanzee is not the same as comparing First Lady Michelle Obama to a chimpanzee.

Depends on the context. In this case, both people are making unflattering facial expressions that are similar to facial expressions made by a monkey. The difference is one person is black. So, it’s racist.

Without deferring to the bogus cultural conditioning argument or saying that it’s because someone said so or saying it’s offensive to someone else, no one can otherwise say why it’s racist. It’s only racist because the target of the lame joke was black.

Any way, the guy at the center of the controversy got paid err fired.

In Wisconsin, an OC activists wins $10K settlement.

In Utah, campus police confront student open carrying.

Jacob Sullum on open carry.

Does not create a threat to an officer nor justify a search.

In Nigeria, some members of the religion of peace decided to hack to death 500 Christians.

ETA: Last month, it was Christians hacking people to death. Looks like your typical land war.

Because having a toy gun that looks real in NYC is illegal.