This piece, asking if America needs more gun control, makes some pretty stupid (if not outright inaccurate) claims:

The number of people killed by firearms has unfortunately risen after seven consecutive years of decline, and there are critical loopholes and ambiguities in the United States’ federal gun laws.

Got a cite for that? I’m fairly certain that is untrue. However, mark it because someone will come along and try to assert that this is because the assault weapons ban expired.

While the Second Amendment clearly gives citizens the right to bear arms, Americans have continued to radically abuse this right. Elaborate mass shootings frequently haunt the nation’s front pages, and smaller incidents casually go unnoticed.

You get the first part right. However, shooting someone is not a radical abuse of that right. It is committing a crime.

Congress’ failure to renew the familiar assault weapons ban has immunized gun manufacturers from civil liability for letting weapons fall in the hands of gun traffickers, snipers and terrorists – a critical factor in the dramatic nationwide killing spree.

Wow! The expiration of the AWB somehow immunized gun manufacturers?

The rest of the piece reads like a Brady Campaign press release, featuring such bogeymen as the non-existent gun show loopholes, terror and the assault weapons ban.

Update: I should read blogs before I start blogging. Joe points out she basically plagiarized a Brady Campaign special report.

Can some one identify this:

лещен

It’s my number two search phrase suddenly. No clue what it means. Any ideas?

Times Dispatch:

Three men wearing ski masks burst through the back door and into the kitchen. The first man drew a gun and ordered Travis Rappold, 21, his girlfriend Amanda Searle, 18, and their three friends to lie down.

Enter Rock, Rappold’s 75-pound pit bull. The dog jumped up from his seat at his master’s feet and ran out from under the table toward the armed assailant.

“They yelled ‘get that pit’ and I yelled ‘get him, Rock,'” said Rappold, recalling last Sunday’s incident at his apartment on Rossmore Road in South Richmond.

Backpedaling, the gunman fired once, striking the dog in the chest. Rock kept going.

The intruders fled through the back door and scattered.

Rappold shut the door before Rock could keep chasing the three men.

Sadly, Rock died from his wounds.

The NYT:

Shootings Fuel a Drive to Ease Gun Laws

Paul Bucher, the district attorney for the Wisconsin county where a man opened fire in a church service last month, killing seven people and himself, has one answer to the deadly mass shootings around the country in recent weeks: more guns.

“The problems aren’t the guns, it’s the guns in the wrong hands,” said Mr. Bucher, a Republican who recently announced his candidacy for Wisconsin attorney general. “We need to put more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens. Whether having that would have changed what happened is all speculation, but it would level the playing field. If the person you’re fighting has a gun and all you have is your fists, you lose.”

And no cries of blood in the streets and trumped up statistics? More:

Across the country, efforts to expand or establish laws allowing concealed handguns have been fueled by the horrifying shootings in the last month – of the family of a federal judge in Chicago, at the church service in Wisconsin, at courthouses in Atlanta and Tyler, Tex., and the nation’s second-deadliest school shooting, on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota.

In Texas and Illinois, the shootings prompted new legislation to allow judges and prosecutors to be armed. Legislators in Nebraska and Wisconsin, which were already considering allowing concealed weapons, say they think the shootings will help their cause.

Again, I think my eyes are deceiving me. Or, as Kevin says, OK, Who Are You, and What Did You Do with the Real New York Times? Kudos to the times for not being hysterical ninnies.

Though the hard part remains, it looks like CCW is moving forward in Nebraska:

With a vote of 5-2 the Nebraska Unicameral Judiciary Committee sent the Concealed Carry legislation LB454 to the full floor of the Senate today.

And, of course, the governor has said he’d sign it. We’re winning. Can Kansas be far behind?

Not here but here. The Carnival of Cordite is up with lots of gun blogging.

The Pope is not doing well. It makes me wonder if he’s going to stand up and say Ha ha, I got all of you. You should see the looks on your faces. April fools.

All kidding aside and despite not being Catholic (I don’t even know who Cathol is), best wishes for the pontiff.

Update: Per the Yahoo! front page, the pope is reportedly dead.

Update 2: Yahoo! took it back and the headline is gone.

I thought Bubba was joking but the Mrs. just called and said that the mayor of Knoxville was on a local TeeVee press conference confirming his intent to resign later this year and run for governor.

Update: SKB reader gemini:

I heard Vice-Mayor Mark Brown has scheduled a press conference for this afternoon to talk about how he plans to handle the transition to the Mayor’s office.

Update 2: Yeah, yeah. April fools.

Police taser a deer.

Lawmakers in Georgia and Indiana walked out to protest a racist bill. This particular racist bill was one that would require someone show photo ID at the polls. This hysteria involved references to Jim Crow so I assume they’re saying it’s racist. They don’t say the law is racist, of course, but that it is not friendly to the homeless.

How is showing an ID racist? As Spoons says:

More Americans need to wake up to this. There are some lawmakers who believe it’s practically their constitutional right to rig elections, and are so terrified of anything that makes it harder for them to rack up phony votes, that they’ll go on strike to prevent it.

Honestly, I can think of no good reason not to require a photo ID to vote.

George Will:

[John Linder’s] bill would abolish the Internal Revenue Service and the many billions of tax forms it sends out and receives. He would erase the federal income tax system — personal and corporate income taxes, the regressive payroll tax and self-employment tax, capital gains, gift and estate taxes, the alternative minimum tax, and the earned-income tax credit — and replace all that with a 23 percent national sales tax on personal consumption. That would not only sensitize consumers to the cost of government with every purchase, it would destroy K Street.

He notes that K Street defends and complicates the tax code and the corruption of various tax bills by the powers that be. Tax compliance costs alone are several billions. I’m all for it.

However, it will never pass. Congress likes doling out favors using the tax code. The tax law and accounting lobby has a ton of money to fight it. And it would require repeal of the 16th amendment or, mark my words, a few years out we’d have both a sales tax and an income tax.

A scientist claims that black holes do not exist. Somebody might want to warn those guys who are making them in labs then.

Walter Williams:

Saying the Constitution is a living document is the same as saying we don’t have a Constitution.

Ayup.

Frank Cagle addresses the role of blogs in politics and news.

Manish is back. Give him a read.

Eminent Domain hurting businesses:

A local business that has served the Huntington community for 59 years is being forced out by Marshall University. Eminent domain, the law that allows government to seize private property for public use, has been a buzz word around the Tri-State recently.

Glaser Furniture, a business located on Third Avenue, is being forced to close so Marshall can expand. What message is this sending to other local businesses? How can one business, who has helped the Marshall community, simply be forced to close? Huntington was founded before Marshall was a university, and although Marshall makes Huntington the city it is today, there needs to be some limits to where Marshall can go.

And I really don’t think a university expansion qualifies as public use.

In Norwood, the powers that be want to demolish a math and reading center for some upscale offices and condos.

Another group in New Jersey is fighting for their homes that are slated to be bulldozed for redevelopment. Of note to me was this quote:

“I have been representing property owners all over New Jersey for 30 years in eminent domain cases,” Wegener said. “It is my entire practice.

Fighting for property rights is enough to keep a full time lawyer in New Jersey busy.

The sort of weekly gun links are up.

The FBI used a sneak and peek search (you know, that Patriot Act I shouldn’t be concerned with):

FBI agents used provisions of the USA Patriot Act during their investigation last year of a Portland attorney who was wrongly jailed for two weeks on suspicion of involvement in the Madrid train bombings, according to a Justice Department letter.

The Patriot Act allows for covert searches of homes, without conventional search warrants.

Brandon Mayfield (pictured) was jailed last May after his fingerprint was incorrectly matched to one found on a bag of detonators near the scene of the Madrid attack, which killed 191 people. He was released after the FBI admitted its mistake.

He’s suing them. Good.

NBC25:

A Maryland man faces numerous dangerous dog law violations, after police say his pit bull attacked several members of the community.

After several attacks, a judge declared 23- year- old Wayne Gray’s pit bulls dangerous, forbidding Gray from taking the dogs off his mother’s property.

Apparently, it takes several attacks before the authorities do something.