From Kevin, I learned of terrible news. Reader, commentor and all around good guy Steve Herod (known on blogs as Airboss) passed away.

I never met Steve in person. I’ve spoken with him on the phone a few times and can’t count the number of email exchanges we’ve had. If he needed gun parts, he’d call. When I was looking for hard to find 7.62X39 AR magazines, he had them. And he sold them to me at a price that was more than fair. He was a friend to freedom and stood for what was right. He’d get involved in things that bloggers were writing about. He, though not ever blogging himself, stood by bloggers over freedom of speech. He wrote:

Most of you know each other, all of you know me.
I don’t have a blog, couldn’t write one if I had it.
I do have guns/ammunition and a willingness to stand with you all.
Can’t write, can shoot
Stephen E. Herod
AKA”Airboss”

Jim says good bye. As does Kevin. And the Geek.

Connie du Toit has the details on services and notes that Steve’s wife said to donate to a charity of your choice in lieu of flowers.

You’ll be missed, Airboss.

The Carnival of Cordite is up. Lots of good stuff, including chicks with guns.

I present The Zonkey.

Ron Paul has sponsored a bill to restore the second amendment rights of all Americans. It’s sad that we need a bill but it does one thing that is important: it gets rid of the particularly suited for sporting purposes language from a lot of bills.

Rep. Campfield blogged about Speaker Naifeh subverting the rules of the House to get what he wanted. Now, the Rep notes that Naifeh blinked and blogs played a part:

Steve Gill and Bill Hobbs are really on their game. They have really put heat on Speaker Naifeh for his actions yesterday. The House was abuzz with the news of the NRA hustle that went down yesterday.

Many blogs like Nashville Files are reporting on the situation (and probably many more that I haven’t had time to see). Bloggers have really drawn attention to the incident by sending e-mails, posting comments, and calling legislators.

He also notes Naifeh getting caught with his pants down and being forced to abide by the law. Good.

Bill Hobbs has more

Blake has an updated video of the incident.

Update: Bill Hobbs notes that some local papers, The Sentinel and The Nashville City Paper, are covering the incident. He also notes that neither paper did a very good job. I concur. Neither paper focused on Naifeh subverting the rules of the house.

Update 2: Bill Hobbs is all over this. Just scroll away.

Update 3 (and bump): WATE reports on it as well and gets it wrong.

David Hardy notes that the Arizona Supreme Court links to an anti-gun page as a resource. And the administrative person doesn’t realize that the Assault Weapons Ban is not the Brady Bill.

Seems a lot of property rights issues come out of that state:

The Long Branch City Council took the first steps toward condemnation of properties in the Beachfront North Phase II redevelopment zone at Tuesday’s meeting.

The council approved two resolutions authorizing the city to retain two law firms to “perform services of redevelopment counsel for the Beachfront North Phase II project of the city of Long Branch.”

“[The resolutions] are obviously for acquisition of the property,” city Financial Director Ronald Mehlhorn Sr. said in an interview prior to Tuesday’s meeting.

Another case of taking private property and giving it to a private developer. The SCOTUS needs to get off its ass and rule on Kelo soon, though I don’t have much faith that the SCOTUS will make the right decision.

Matt catches up on RKBA blogging.

Old problem, the Knoxville News Sentinel has a brand new look. Unfortunately, they still have the same problem with the speed their page loads.

And can these guys get an RSS feed? Who do I talk to about that?

They were wrong when they said that Florida enacting CCW in the late 1980s would lead to blood in the street. They were wrong when they said that the assault weapons ban would lead to blood in the street. Now, they are wrong stating the Florida’s law that gets rid of duty to retreat will lead to blood in the streets:

People have a right to defend themselves. But under this law, unless gun owners - there are many in Florida, where carrying a concealed weapon is legal - exercise clear judgment and remarkable restraint, innocent bystanders could become victims. So could people whom an armed citizen wrongly assumes to be a threat. And in the latter case, who will be held liable for the possibly fatal consequences of a faulty judgment?

Now that Florida has given citizens the right to use lethal force in public, the National Rifle Association, not surprisingly, says it will carry this battle to every state. If it succeeds, sooner or later those who argue that an armed society is a safer society are likely to have their dubious theory put to the test.

Actually, this law brings Florida in lines with most other states.

Bridget O’Neill, who was essentially suspended for talking to press, got to tell her side of the story to school officials. Good. The principal needs to be disciplined for this.

She has been been allowed by administrators to return to classes:

The decision to allow her return came Thursday in a disciplinary hearing. The suspension lasted for nine days. O’Neill says she’s extremely behind in her school work but she’ll be allowed to make it up.

O’Neill and her parents say school administrators told them that faculty and staff members had to deal with several concerned parents after her interview aired on 6 News. They were told the time spent talking with those parents disrupted classes.

Faculty and staff are full of crap.

I posted a link the WSJ piece on killing the investigation of Cisneros. Today, I received the following email from a Senate staffer in Coburn’s office urging the quite expensive investigation to continue. It came from a senate.gov email address. Click more for the email.

Read the rest of this entry »

Stacey Campfield, addressing the concealed carry in bars issue, notes some foul play by Naifeh:

Today a bill slipped through that Naifeh didn’t want out of committee. Some legislators did not show up for the vote and a pro-NRA bill (conceal carry) slipped through the sub-committee system.

Speaker Naifeh flipped out! His people did not want to have to vote on this bill. Some might risk losing their perfect NRA voting record (0 for 0).

Speaker Naifeh went to the chairman of the committee to let him know that if he did not ask to move the bill back to the sub-committee where it had passed, it would NOT BE GOOD!

The chairman agreed to make the motion, but not vote for it. These votes are made on the house floor and require a majority of 66 votes to move it back to the subcommittee. The dilemma? How to ram this vote through the legislature without having the legislators on record as a “yes” vote. Answer: Speaker Naifeh held a voice vote.

This is why politicos should have blogs. Kudos to the Rep for exposing this sort of foul play and corruption.

Blake has more as does Bill, who notes:

He (Naifeh) violated House rules in order to kill popular legislation he personally opposed. Some people think Naifeh is the epitome of corrupt good-ol-boy lobbyist-larded politics. I don’t know about that. But I do know that what he did yesterday was pure political corruption of the most dangerous kind.

Update: Commentors to the Rep’s site post a link to the video (it’s at the 21 minute mark). I haven’t watched it yet.

On Rosie O’Donnell:

“And the last thing I want to do is get into a fight with a powerful celebrity who has a blog read by tens of people.”

Gotta love it:

“I punched Saddam in the mouth.”

Why Won’t Hilleary Sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge?

Mostly due to incompetence. David Hardy links to the NFA Owners Association webpage. The page details the incompetence the ATF (who has admitted to perjury with regard to the registry on video) in handling the nation’s only gun registry. It includes:

A case, US v. LeaSure, where the judge dismissed a case, based on evidence that BATFE clerks may have thrown away the registration papers.

Publicola has the scoop on bypassing the .50 caliber ban by getting a .51 caliber. Heh.

They stole my idea.

A pending law in Indiana:

House Bill 1776, which received final legislative approval Monday night, spells out a process to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people and gives judges more authority to order searches of the homes of those believed to pose a threat.

[snip]

Authorities would be able to retain, for up to 14 days, guns seized from someone believed to be dangerous. A prosecutor could petition to extend the time the weapons are held; a court would have to rule on that request.

What about probable cause (which I assume would imply that there is a crime currently going on or has already occurred)? Another slap in the face of the fourth amendment.

Unlikely:

A passenger in a car traveling in Osceola County, Fla., was killed and another woman was seriously injured when a gun in the vehicle accidentally discharged twice, according to Local 6 News.

Guns don’t accidentally discharge twice.

The Minutemen are planning on expanding to the Canadian border:

A controversial civilian patrol group that has been monitoring the Mexican border for illegal immigrants is looking to expand its mission to the Canadian border, organizers said Tuesday.

Minuteman Project leaders said their volunteers this month alerted federal authorities to more than 330 cases of illegal immigrants crossing into the United States over a 23-mile stretch of Arizona’s southern border. Now they plan to extend their patrol along the rest of the border with Mexico and are helping to organize similar efforts in four states that neighbor Canada.

“In the absence of the federal government doing its mandated duty to secure our borders, we will pick up the slack. Reluctantly,” said Chris Simcox, a Minuteman co-organizer who also operates Civil Homeland Defense, another Arizona group that monitors illegal immigrants.

Sure, there have been problems but hats off to the Minutemen who are achieving their goal of drawing attention to our porous borders.

Ravenwood notes that the new version of Windows (or as we say in Tennessee Winders) may have some unwanted features:

The next version of Windows will contain a virtual flight data recorder or “black box” that records everything a user does. The intent is that if programs or the computer crashes, IT professionals will be able to see what the user was doing at the time of the error.

No thanks.

NY Republicans are arguing with each other over eminent domain:

“I would never support the taking of private property by government, for purposes other than obvious public good,” said Blew. “A highway, or a life-saving facility,
perhaps but never for a public park.”

Blew said he believes landowners in the township are the ones who are best able to plan for the future.

In Nevada, a developer-backed bill that limits eminent domain has the approval of the senate:

A developer-backed bill that would limit use of eminent domain powers by government entities to preserve open space won approval on a 16-to-four vote in the state Senate.

[snip]

The bill would help a developer tied up in a lawsuit over plans to build upscale homes on the old Ballardini ranch just south of Reno, but Care says he doesn’t want to interfere with that litigation.

Or maybe not. CNN may have spammed blogs and used search engine manipulation.

Update: Michael Silence, who got some of the spam, was on this back in February.

More consumer blogging.

The other day as I was driving home, the Mrs. rings me on the cell phone to inform me that we need a new washer and dryer as our washer just kicked the bucket. She’s been wanting a new set for a while now but I’ve always figured that the set we had (over ten years old) was good enough until it completely died. It did. I think the Mrs. was happy.

The Mrs. is quite detailed and always has the inside scoop on good deals on stuff. She knew that Home Depot was running a special. If you opened up a charge account there, you get 10% off your initial purchase with six months same as cash. This is more than enough to cover sales tax so we were sold. Now, we just applied for the card to get the 10% discount and will pay this thing off soon. We’re not credit card balance people.

We got one of those Maytag sets that holds 3.5 cubic feet and doesn’t use an agitator but rather sucks water through clothes. It also boasts that, since it is a high efficiency model, it could save us up to $165 per year in water and energy costs. The dryer also claims to dry clothes six times faster. Boy, all this energy efficiency should save the Uncle household some bucks!

As Insty noted, the customer service at Home Depot largely sucks. It took us quite a while to check out, they charged us for a service plan we didn’t agree to and was not discussed with us, and it was a complex transaction. Here’s how it broke down (rounded to dollars):

$999 washer
$699 dryer
$50 charge for delivery of new unit and disposal of old unit
$90 service plan that we don’t want (service plans are for suckers!)
$1,838 subtotal

$170 @ 9.25% sales tax
$2,008 grand total

($184) less 10% for new charge account
$1,824 new grand total

In addition, Home Depot was running free delivery with all appliances. Now, it’s not real free delivery. It’s a mail in rebate for free delivery. I guess they figure that folks will forget to mail it in on time or something. So, I’ll get $50 back (or maybe $45 since delivery was also 10% off). I guess at this point the total is $1,774 but at a future date. I’m not calculating interest. I’m also guessing the rebate won’t include sales tax paid on delivery.

But wait, there’s more: The other special they were running was free gift cards based on the amount you spend (you know, spend more and get more). We, having spent $2,000 (or rather we guessed we spent $2,000, we’re not real sure) qualified for a $150 gift card. So, now the ‘cost’ to us $1,624. Actually, it’s still $1,774 for the set plus other merchandise to be chosen later. I looked at Home Depot’s financials and their average gross margin percent is a respectable 33%. So, on a $150 purchase (the gift card) their cost is about $100. And the set probably cost them about $1,138 (based on their gross margin).

And they’re going to refund the service plan that we never consented to purchasing (with tax) at $98. New total: $1,525 with merchandise; or $1,625 if they’d given us cash instead of product that cost them $100.

Is it just me, or does that seem like an awful lot of excess to complete a simple transaction? An awful lot of special offers to get me to buy stuff. Couldn’t they just sell me the damn things for $1,525 (or $1,625) cash? It wasn’t like I was buying a house or anything. Seriously, I’ve closed on property faster than that.

Can anyone tell me what this washer and dryer really cost me? I mean, other than an hour and a half of time.

Marc, whose office is located between a studio that shoots the show 24 and a porn studio, comments on gun wimps in Kali:

Long before “24″ this building had been used for filming and they’ve shot all sorts of crappie movies there. They have blocked off the streets to traffic, towed cars, disrupted lives and discharged blanks all without notice in the past.

I’m not sure what has changed to make them give notice this time so I’m just guessing that it’s more evidence of the continuing gun-wussification of the Peoples Republic of California.

Via Manish, comes this article:

Legislation that would require handgun ammunition to carry identifying markings that could be used to trace spent rounds at crime scenes back to the person who purchased the bullets passed out of a state Senate committee Tuesday.

This won’t work. As for details of the bill:

It would require handgun manufacturers to mark bullets with unique identifiers, such as serial numbers. Those numbers would be used to track whom the bullets are sold to, including the name and address of the purchaser. The information would be maintained in an electronic database run by the attorney general’s office.

A bullet that travels at, say, 1,200 feet per second and hits the soft tissue of a person will mushroom. I tend to doubt that under those circumstances the tiny serial numbers would be readable since the bullet tends to become misshapen. I think this is really an effort to impose an undue burden on bullet manufacturers who will bear the costs.

I found this interesting too:

Noting that California homicides increased to 2,400 last year from 2,000 the year before — with 45 percent unsolved — law enforcement officials urged senators on the committee to vote for the bill. Nearly three-quarters of the state’s homicides in 2003 were committed with a firearm.

Meanwhile, crime is down in most of the country. Good thing they banned .50 calibers.

Florida Today:

Chances are, a woman you saw today was carrying a gun.

An article on the rise of CCW among women in Florida and a good read.

Jeff has the latest on gun bias in the news.

Blake reports it still has a chance.

Radley Balko has an article in Forbes about the nanny state. Good read:

Lawmakers are also prone to banning trends they don’t understand, or just find icky. Wyoming is debating a regulation that would prohibit facial jewelry in the food service industry, an apparent attempt to keep the alternative girl’s eyebrow ring from dropping into your macchiato, even though its backers couldn’t cite a single such incident. A Texas lawmaker has introduced a bill that would outlaw “sexually suggestive” dance moves in cheerleading routines. California bans tanning beds for kids under 14, citing studies linking tanning beds to skin cancer. No word on whether they’ll bar kids from lying in the sun, too. And the U.S. Supreme Court recently let stand an Alabama ban on sex toys.

What’s wrong with this phrase:

A man fired a semi-automatic machine gun into the air during a fight in the parking lot at the Caribbean Gardens bar in Burlingame early Saturday, according to Burlingame police.

Semi-automatic machine gun? They don’t exist. It is either a semi-automatic (one shot per trigger pull) or fully-automatic (i.e., a machine gun) and keeps firing bullets as long as you hold down the trigger.

Update: It has been changed but the old URL still has the error. The new article is here and does not acknowledge the error.

Its unhealthy fear of sex. Sex sells and it’s the parents’ responsibility to address sex in the media or to restrict its access to children.

A student used profanity on his blog and was disciplined for it:

A New Britain High School drum major has enlisted the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut after he was disciplined for posting a profanity-laced entry in an online journal.

Daniel Gostin, 18, a senior, was stripped of his drum major position, given an in-school suspension and barred from participating in music-related extracurricular activities and performances for the remainder of the year.

Lori Rifkin, an ACLU lawyer who represents Gostin, says the school’s actions violate his free-speech rights. In a letter to schools Superintendent Doris Kurtz on Wednesday, she asked that Gostin be reinstated as drum major, his disciplinary record be expunged and that he resume participating in musical activities.

The posting “contained no threats nor did it contain any other statements which would interfere with the ability of school administrators to maintain order and discipline at the school,” Rifkin wrote.

A girl at William Blount High School was suspended for telling local TeeVee that the race issues at the high school have continued:

On April 18th, Bridget O’Neill, a junior, told 6 News one of her classmates made a racial sign.

Her parents say the next morning, the principal pulled Bridget into the office demanding to know why she talked to the media and who made the sign.

“She was screaming at her she was stupid,” says Bridget’s mother, Diane O’Neill. “They threatened to expel her for the rest of the year because she wouldn’t give the name. Then she threatened to call the police. And she was like, ‘why?’ She said, ‘Well, I’m going to have you arrested for standing in the way of justice.’”

The school sent home a letter about Bridget’s suspension. It never mentioned her interview with 6 News but said she was suspended for disrupting the classroom and providing false information about the sign.

I am as gun-geek as they get. And damn proud of it. If you don’t believe me, I’ll shoot you. But even I don’t buy tactical clothes. Up next, tactical jammies and tactical underoos.

You would think a website that is considered a news source for law enforcement would know something about guns. You’d be wrong. In their defense, it appears to be an AP feed:

The expiration of the nation’s ban on the sale of assault rifles and the appearance of more heavily armed criminals have pushed more than 100 St. Petersburg police officers to order assault rifles of their own for official duty.

Actually, while the ban was in effect, the same rifles were available to the public. Those rifles just didn’t have flash suppressors, folding stocks or bayonet lugs. Sadly, the officers must buy their own:

Police Chief Chuck Harmon approved use of the AR-15s last June with guidelines that took months to develop. Officers who want the weapons must buy them for $1,100.

And this denotes no effort to research the guns:

Critics say that the speed and 300-yard range of the bullets pose a threat to bystanders. Advocates say the assault rifles are vastly better than the standard Glock handguns assigned to officers and are more accurate than the pump-action shotguns that the department makes available.

The effective range of the 5.56 Nato is about 600 yards. And the 5.56 Nato has been shown to display less penetration than 40 S&W ammo that most officers use in their handguns.

Update: Ravenwood found another story on the incident. This is particularly interesting:

“Without a doubt, there are thousands and thousands of departments carrying patrol rifles at this point,” said Emanuel Kapelsohn, vice president of the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors.

Kapelsohn resists calling them “assault” rifles, saying the word gives a negative connotation. But whatever they are called, the rifles have drawn opposition, nationally and locally.

“Our cities are not combat zones, but when you arm the police with assault rifles, you run the risk of turning them into combat zones,” said Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C. “I doubt there very many communities outside Iraq where you need that kind of firepower.”

See, some police know their guns and recognize the assault weapons ban nonsense was, well, nonsense.

And this time, not from people with Rs after their names. Some background:

Perhaps you remember Henry Cisneros. He’s the former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who pleaded guilty in 1999 to lying to FBI investigators during his pre-appointment background check about hush payments to a former mistress, on which it also happens he hadn’t paid the requisite taxes.

Well, the special counsel report investigating all this still hasn’t been made public, thanks largely to procedural roadblocks by Mr. Cisneros’s attorneys. And now, all of a sudden, a rash of news stories and editorials are urging Independent Counsel David Barrett to wrap up his investigation forthwith, without releasing his findings.

Then there’s the amendment that North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan and co-sponsors John Kerry and Richard Durbin are trying to attach to the latest supplemental war appropriations bill that would de-fund Mr. Barrett immediately. This would have the practical effect of making sure that Mr. Barrett’s report never sees the light of day. After 10 long years and $21 million, don’t they think taxpayers deserve to see what the special counsel has learned?

And what are they hiding:

So what don’t Democrats want everyone to know? We’re told that early on the Barrett probe moved away from Mr. Cisneros and his mistress and focused on an attempted cover-up by the Clinton Administration, especially involving the IRS.

Back in the early ’90s Mr. Cisneros was considered the rising savior of the Democratic Party in Texas. “So there were people who wanted to save his political future,” a source tells us. To that end, when the IRS began investigating him for tax fraud an extraordinary thing happened: The investigation was taken from the IRS district office that would always handle such an audit and moved to Washington, where it was killed.

“Never in the history of the IRS has a case been pulled out of the regional office and taken directly to Washington,” our source continues. This information was originally provided to Mr. Barrett, some years into his investigation, by a whistleblower in the IRS regional office with 30 years of experience.

Government corruption at its finest.

The Star Tribune is covering the story of Koscielski’s guns:

Mark Koscielski, the owner of the only remaining gun shop in Minneapolis, is entering the final stages of a fight with the city that could shutter his business, at least at its current location.

Koscielski awaits a hearing next month before the Zoning Board of Adjustment. Earlier this month, the city sent Koscielski an order telling him to cease operating the gun shop on the 2900 block of Chicago Av. S. by April 18 because it is out of compliance with zoning laws.

It’s the latest chapter in a 10-year legal battle with the city for Koscielski. The gun store owner, who ran for mayor in 2001, has frequently needled City Hall leaders. He recently printed up new “Murderapolis” T-shirts to sell as a way to criticize what he considers to be the city’s understaffing of the Police Department. He coined the term a decade ago when homicides in the city hit a peak.

Koscielski initially opened a store in 1995, days before the City Council adopted a moratorium on gun shops. The city tried to close his shop down, but federal courts ordered that he be allowed to continue doing business.

As a result, he was given an exemption in the zoning code.

It’s good to see this story getting some press, seemingly favorable press even.