In Illinois, a ban on 50 caliber rifles and weapons that look like assault weapons was rejected by the house. Good.

Jeff has the latest check on anti-gun bias in the media. He has correspondence with Ronnie Barrett of Barrett Firearms, who notes that anti-gun groups have misrepresented an advertisement for the rifles.

I called it before but it looks like the wheels are in motion for CCW in Nebraska. The editorial board at the Lincoln Journal Star is (unsurprisingly) condemning it. Gunscribe has more.

Funny.

Via Michael.

I’ll be guest blogging over at Michael Silence’s place part of this week while he’s on vacation. So will Bubba and Les. Michael is the local newspaper’s resident blogger. I’ll still post here but you may want to head over there to see what exactly yours truly will say now that he’s part of the Republican Controlled Media Conglomerate. Or maybe Liberal Media, I get those confused. And here’s my first post.

Been on WordPress for a while and I will say this: I forgot how slow Movable Type is.

Apparently, the senate reached some sort of deal on judicial nominees and there won’t be any nuclear option or revision of senate rules. Good. Anything the limits their ability to do stuff makes me feel better.

Alan Korwin of gunlaws.com writes of Arizona’s measure to allow concealed weapon permit holders to carry into a bar:

Why on Earth would the National Rifle Association promote laws so “gun-toting” people could “pack heat” in bars and not drink?

Say what? That doesn’t even make sense. It’s beyond stupid. And in fact, the NRA promoted no such thing.

But you wouldn’t know it from reading the papers or following newscasts.

The inaccurately characterized “guns-in-bars” bill received twisted coverage, using derision and phony Wild West mythology, from reporters and editors who earned rebuke for such unethical spin.

It’s not surprising as the anti-gunners must lie to win. They lied about CCW and the ban on weapons that look like assault weapons. They lie about gun shows. They lie about 50 calibers.

Eugene Volokh notes that in Tennessee it’s illegal to have a boner in public. He notes:

So if you’re in a public place and find yourself with an erection, you are legally obligated to sit down until it goes away.

This week, the Supreme Court said the .gov can force people to pay for government advertising that they may not endorse:

A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the federal government can have cattle ranchers pay for an industry marketing program, known for its “Beef, It’s What’s for Dinner” advertisements.

By a 6-3 vote, the high court handed a victory to the government. It said the generic advertising at issue is the government’s own speech and therefore exempt from the First Amendment free-speech challenge that had been brought.

The government, essentially, can force you to fund their message. Compelled speech doesn’t sound very first amendmenty.

Rich has the latest on Knoxville’s attempt to ban anyone paying to see boobies. No matter what, someone, somewhere is upset that someone, somewhere else is having a good time. It cannot stand.

By the way, the title of this post is pretty damn funny, if I do say so myself.

Odds are the single greatest threat to you and yours isn’t guns or disease or household accidents. Rather, you and yours are more likely to be harmed in auto accidents. Particularly, I think you’re more likely to kick the bucket due to old people driving. I’m not sure how many times some idiot has pulled out in front of me, pulled over into my lane while I’m currently in it or brought traffic to a stop by doing 20 MPH in a 70. Then when I manage to get around them, I manage to catch a glimpse of some gray hair barely clearing the top of the steering wheel.

Yes, old people can be problematic on the road as their senses and reaction times aren’t what they used to be. Fortunately, nature has given us a warning system. A sign to indicate that they are dangerous and that you should stay clear. Like nature’s decision to indicate that a snake is poisonous by giving them brightly, multi-colored skin, old drivers are identified by being in Buicks.

If you see a Buick on the road, steer clear. Do not attempt to pass. Do not approach. Keep away. Even if you have to pull over and get off the road, keep away.

The Comedian has been engaged in a little back and forth with the whackjob who cut off his trigger-finger to protest gun violence and is now selling the guillotine he did it with on ebay.

The guy is obviously not too bright.

Mike has the latest on another embarrassment for Harold Ford. Do they ever end?

Citizens Against Government Waste crunches some numbers on the drug war. In addition to trampling liberties, it costs a bunch. Pete at Drug War Rant has more.

Defense Review has the skinny on the Off-Axis View Device, which is a fancy term for a scope that can see around corners.

The Christian Science Monitor, always a good source for anti-gun babble, writes of the pending legislation to repeal the DC gun ban:

There are more than a few questions about the good senator’s beneficence. There’s the fact that the courts have decided that laws like the District’s, which prohibits handguns, aren’t any sort of violation of the Constitution, so we aren’t really being denied anything – that’s probably why the senator and her friends aren’t going to court to have the D.C. rules thrown out.

And the courts were wrong, it happens.

There’s the argument that putting more unregistered guns, including semiautomatic weapons, in people’s hands is probably not a sound way to increase safety in a densely populated, high-crime municipality.

I’m pretty sure this legislation would not increase unregistered guns as most guns in DC now (and there are a lot, if you watch the news) aren’t registered.

But perhaps the most confounding part of this proposal is this: why is the Republican Party, the party of states’ rights, deciding that in this case the federal government should supersede the will of the people living in the District? When did the GOP suddenly become the party that believes the federal government knows best?

Because the Constitution says shall not be infringed as opposed to, say, Congress shall make no law. And, last I checked, DC isn’t a state.

JLD Enterprises has started selling 922 compliant HK 91s. I particularly dig the Para Trooper model, with a heavy 16 inch target barrel and folding stock. All parts are HK except the Receiver, Barrel, Trunion, Hammer, Pistol grip, Cocking handle, and Sear. These parts are US made so as to comply with arbitrary federal regulations. Here’s a pic:

Say, shouldn’t our pro-gun president and pro-gun congress do something about those arbitrary federal regulations that specify how many US made parts a gun should have?

The evil gun lobby is filled with extremists, we’re told. But then I’ve never known a gun rights person to do this:

Gonzalez, who cut off the tip of his finger outside the state Capitol in 1994 to protest efforts by the gun lobby to scuttle tougher firearms laws, is selling the homemade guillotine and hammer used in the severance on eBay. The bidding begins at $50,000.

“When I did it, people said I was crazy,” said Gonzalez, a former Bridgeport city councilman. “I wonder what they are saying now.”

Uhm, we’re still saying that you’re crazy. You’re just crazy with a smaller finger. (Update: people keep asking for a link to the auction. OK, here it is). As of this morning, he received no bids. And there’s also this bit of hysteria:

Nawar thinks Pete could use some more muscle. And though the live mascot carries no weapons, fake or real, Debby De Angelis, director of athletics, doesn’t like the shotgun in the logo.

“I’ve been here for four years, and for four years, I’ve been saying, ‘We’ve got to at least get the gun out of Pioneer Pete’s hands,'” De Angelis said.

And there’s more. Turns out the anti-gunnies are sending threatening emails and forging the names of gun rights people.

And it gets better:

“They’re (in reference to the gun lobby) trying to see to it that more children get killed,” said D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat.

Remember this next time we pro-gunnies are called extremists.

Update: Last one for today:

The anti-gun-control side made a decent presentation, with data and charts. His opponent then strode to the front of the stage and pulled a gun, aiming it at the audience of what quickly became ducking, screaming women. Having seen a gun before, I wasn’t one of them, though it crossed my mind that if I were armed I’d be justified in defending myself against someone who was violating the law against “brandishing.”

I guess if I’d been in attendance and capped his ass, I’d still be the extremist, right? Stupid people.

Update: Welcome Ravenwood readers. Heh.

Michael Silence has a piece in the News Sentinel on blogs and local bloggers. Check it out.

That’s odd. So, of the 1500+ deaths, only 88 were from firearms?

Charles Stone rips the Republicans a new one over guns.

A hysterical person blames the death of a bouncer on Concealed Carry Laws:

Harry Kaiser: Big Billy would still be here, if not for conceal-and-carry

I write this on May 17, the day of Billy Walsh’s funeral. “Big Billy” was the bouncer at Nye’s Polonaise Room who was shot and killed last Thursday by a customer he had to kick out. At the funeral, Billy’s family and friends celebrated the life of one of the kindest men that any of them probably ever knew.

I am just so angry that he is dead.

Every state legislator probably already knows that a conceal-and-carry permit holder killed Billy Walsh. They know that Billy didn’t do anything wrong, that he’s dead because the guy didn’t like getting kicked out of Nye’s.

It’s tragic that this happened but Harry Kaiser is full of shit. As reported here, the murderer left the bar and returned 30 to 45 minutes later and shot the bouncer. Since the guy left and apparently went to obtain a gun somewhere, I tend to doubt CCW is to blame.

But he can’t get a driver’s license. No, really:

Jesus Christ is hoping to move to West Virginia, but he’s having trouble getting a driver’s license.

The man is described as a white-haired businessman who’s been using that name for 15 years without a problem. He has a U.S. passport, Social Security card and Washington driver’s license — all bearing the name Jesus Christ.

No word on whether Dammit can get one.

This movie (warning: graphic and potentially disturbing – and some people tell me it’s fake) of a gun fight caught on tape is odd (actually, it’s a video of a robbery attempt that doesn’t go well for the robber). Why do both these people think that racks of clothes and a flimsy wooden door provide good cover?

And, for the record, executing the man after he drops to the ground is bad form, uncalled for, and likely criminal.

The students involved in the school newspaper being shut down that I mentioned here have a blog.

Delaware might get a handgun-only deer season:

Under a bill passed last week, Delaware hunters will have a one-week deer hunting season in which only large-caliber handguns can be used. Hunting with handguns had not been allowed at any time previously.

Hunters will be allowed to use pistols ranging from .357 caliber to .50 caliber to hunt on private property south of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal.

According to the article, 47 other states already allow hunting with handguns, so it’s not like this is some kind of radical proposal that will turn Delaware into the Wild West and make the streets run red with blood. And isn’t hunting one of those “legitimate” uses that define what kinds of guns we can own? Still, no article about guns would be complete without a little balance:

But Hank Sundermeyer of Newark thinks [Gov.] Minner should take a second look at the issue. At a time when gun violence is on the rise and the nation is in the midst of a war on terrorism, Sundermeyer said he thinks handgun hunting sends the wrong message.

“To say that 47 other states allow this isn’t much of an excuse,” said Sundermeyer, a retired DuPont Co. engineer. “At a time when more handguns are being used in crimes, we shouldn’t be doing things that encourage the proliferation of handguns.”

Don’t forget The Children, Mr. Sundermeyer!

John Thompson [president of the Delaware Sportsman’s Association] said the type of guns covered under the bill aren’t favored by criminals because they’re hard to conceal. Under the proposal, pistols would have to have a minimum barrel length of 5.75 inches and could have barrels of up to 12.5 inches. The bill also would allow hunters to equip their pistols with telescopic sights.

They’re Evil Assault Sniper Handguns! I want a bayonet lug on mine.

No, not Thursday gun links, but The Carnival of Cordite, a round up of gun blogs.

Indeed. That is the question asked at the end of this piece of investigative journalism by SayUncle’s old friend Tearsa Smith. Tearsa and the WATE news team went to some local hotels on a search for bootie juice (a la an Oprah episode my wife made me watch once). They went to three hotels and, using a black light, identified stains on sheets, blankets and pillows. They then took swabs and sent them to a lab to check for semen, vaginal fluids, saliva, and urine (aka, bootie juice – and I guess no searching for, uhm, streaks).

Apparently, when the local media go out to do some hard-hitting investigative journalism, spend the money, hire a lab, pay reporters and get nothing of substance, they run the story anyway. The conclusion:

The good news is the stains we swabbed in all three hotel did not prove to be bodily fluids. Of course, that just raises other questions about what the mystery spots and smudges really were.

Even though our results proved inconclusive, the fact remains that the areas we swabbed were not wiped clean, disinfected or sanitized.

Maybe the stains you found were the residue left over from cleaning products used to clean up all the semen, vaginal fluids, saliva, and urine you were looking for. I mean, hotels have laundry facilities for a reason. Or maybe the stains were from someone spilling their complimentary coffee or $2 soft drinks from the lobby, which are notoriously hard to get out of fabric. Who’s going to throw away sheets just because someone spilled coffee on them? Or, since they used a black light, it could be the residue left over from an old Led Zeppelin poster I had back in the seventh grade.

The piece concludes with:

What is the point of an investigations like this? To make sure you are more aware when you take your next trip. Ask questions and be your own investigator for the safety of your family

Yes, citizen, take your own black light and mobile CSI lab kit when you travel. Your safety depends on it. Test your sheets for Led Zeppelin residue or coffee. Or better yet, ask your hotel clerk if they’re aware of any bootie juice on the bed. Or take your own bedding.

Update: Turns out that laundry detergent glows in black light:

Some of the whiteners in detergent work by making your clothing a bit fluorescent. Even though clothing is rinsed after washing, residues on white clothing cause it to glow bluish-white under a black light. Blueing agents and softening agents often contain fluorescent dyes, too. The presence of these molecules sometimes causes white clothing to appear blue in photographs.

(thanks to CounterTop and Google)

State Senator Roy Herron (D-Dresden) has started a blog. Welcome to blogging, Senator.

A principal in Georgia shut down the school’s paper:

A high school principal in Georgia is shutting down the school’s student newspaper for the remainder of the school year over a censorship dispute.

He’s also eliminating the journalism class for next school year.

The principal at Pebblebrook High School in suburban Atlanta has criticized the paper, saying it highlights negative stories over those that are more favorable to the school’s image.

Sounds like the school paper just took a lesson from the MSM. Negative stories sell.