James notes that, due the slow development of the XM-8, US Special Forces have paid to have their own rifle (the FN SCAR) and are deploying it to the field for testing.

Joe Huffman notes The world’s first global gun treaty enters into force.

Jeff has the latest on gun bias in the media.

From David: Freedom bags, my ass.

I read about this first from Ravenwood. At first, I found it hard to believe but the story seems to be popping up all over. CNS news picked up on it:

The federal agency that regulates U.S. gun dealers stands accused, along with at least three Virginia law enforcement agencies, of trying to shut down legal gun shows through alleged intimidation of gun buyers and sellers. The law enforcement organizations also allegedly broke the law by sharing gun buyers’ information with members of the public.

The details:

“They did something else, which is highly illegal,” Gelles charged. “They did something called a residency check.”

Gelles explained that, when gun dealers took the paperwork to the Virginia State Police on-site office to complete the background checks on prospective buyers, ATF agents copied the names, home addresses and telephone numbers of the applicants.

Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, told Cybercast News Service that he has received numerous complaints alleging that as handgun buyers were waiting for their National Instant Check System (NICS) background investigations to be completed, ATF was secretly conducting the so-called “residency checks.”

According to the complaints he received, Van Cleave said officers were dispatched to the homes of the prospective gun buyers to speak with family members, asking for example: “Gee, did you know your husband was going to a gun show today? Do you have his cell phone number? Did you know he was buying a gun?

Other accounts say they were also asking people’s neighbors. If there’s truth to this story, someone needs to be tarred and feathered err fired.

Number eight is up, rounding up the Life, Liberty and Property community.

Anthony Diotaiuto’s family has lawyered up. Anthony took ten rounds when the police raided his home. He had less than two ounces of marijuana. Police state they announced they were police before entering. The accounts of the neighbors refute that claim.

Jeff Moder is running for Senate in Tennessee. Unlike other senatorial candidates in the state with blogs who are not run by the campaign, he has his own blog.

I’ve often said that dogs are the product of their owners. Irresponsible owners are usually the cause of dog attacks. Case in point:

“These are not normal dogs,” says Tyler Eison, gazing reverently at a litter of seven-week-old pit bull puppies. “I like having very vicious, angry dogs. I’m going to teach them not to like other dogs. I’m going to agitate them, make them aggressive. That way when it’s about business, they are going to be serious.”

As a real estate investor and auto dealer, Eison, 41, values aggression in his dogs for protecting both himself and his property. “My dogs are my pistols,” he says, cracking a gold-tooth smile. “I have my dogs on my property, and I have faith in them. If they’re coming at you, you have to shoot them to kill them.”

Tough people want tough dogs, but if you want a truly vicious dog you have to create it yourself. With his latest litter of three girls and a boy, Eison is trying to re-create a bloodline of fighting dogs he owned 20 years ago (though he insists his fighting days are long over). He’s making a stud dog out of his prized companion Rock, an eerily silent pit bull with a golden brown coat and pink nose. Rock’s first litter was born in early May, and Eison watched its progress daily to see which of the puppies would develop more of their father’s traits.

[snip]

Hoping to turn Rock’s offspring into deadly weapons, Eison started antagonizing them when they were around nine weeks old. One afternoon he held an all-brown puppy by its midsection and for several minutes forced it to lie across the neck of one its sisters, who Eison believes might be the pick of the litter. Eison didn’t think the brown pup was willing enough to play rough, so he decided to force it into a scrum. After a minute or so, its sister became angry and began to growl and bite the brown one’s ears. After the incident the brown puppy cowered under a metallic-blue racing motorcycle Eison keeps in the backyard and peed.

An accident (or worse) waiting to happen. Some people shouldn’t own dogs and this guy is one of them.

WBIR notes:

A Blount County man is being held without bond in northern Ohio, accused of traveling there to have sex with a 14-year-old girl.

Prosecutors say 47-year-old Douglas Hawxhurst of Friendsville was expecting to find a woman named Lorie and her daughter named Laci and planned to have sex with both of them.

But the females didn’t exist. Hawxhurst had been Internet chatting with a police officer, masquerading as a mother willing to involve her child in sex.

I am not defending the guy at all but here’s what I find odd:

After his August third arrest, he was held on state charges, but those have been replaced by a federal charge of traveling across state lines with the intent of having sex with a child.

You mean that the intent to have sex with a child isn’t an appropriate enough crime so we have to add the traveling across state lines bit? I guess the purpose of that is to make it a federal crime?

Whoever invented the Smart Spin Storage System should get a Nobel Prize. We now have a ton of extra cabinet space and all the lids fit all the bowls. None of that digging for a lid stuff.

The steady climb of gas prices hadn’t been a shock to me until recently. Used to take $30 to fill up the truck. It crept up to $40 and I wasn’t surprised when it hit right at the $50 mark. Gradually into the pool, and you don’t notice the chilly water so much (actually, I’m more inclined to dive into the pool). However, my true realization that gas prices were up came when I went to the store to fill up the gas can I use for my lawn mower. It cost $5.76.

Don’t tell Egalia. Do you think this woman would have objected to the North Carolina ordinance that gives information on concealed carry permits?

Form 4473: the only paper protection worth a damn.

I get a lot of news alerts related to gun issues. Lately, there have been fewer and fewer alerts received, which makes me nervous. When the enemies of gun freedom are loud (and lying), I know they have nothing. When they’re quiet, I wonder what they’re up to.

David Hardy has some good stuff, such as international comparisons regarding gun crime that tend to show that guns don’t cause crime.

He also notes that the Joyce Foundation is bankrolling other supposed grassroots groups operated by the same people, to the tune of several hundred thousand more. It appears that these “grassroots” groups have, at best, a tiny handful of members, but they generate press coverage as if they were bona-fide local organizations.

They have to cheat to win.

The Feds want to make 401(k) contributions mandatory:

The Labor Department says the proposed regulation should give employers who automatically enroll workers in a 401(k) plan some protection from lawsuits if the investment options chosen are “reasonable.” Some companies are reluctant to use automatic enrollment for fear that employees whose investments lost money would sue.

Don’t we already have a compulsory retirement system?

Update: Yeah, the slavery bit in the title was bit much. Uncle sort of pulls a Godwin. Consider it rescinded. However, I think this could be a precursor to requirements for mandating retirement.

In response to this post, a couple of people have added a few more bits of good news. For example, one commentator says Alabama passed legislation that specifically prohibited the new and expanded “public purposes” they created in Kelo.

And Knox County Law Director Mike Moyers writes (say, Knox County government types are reading? – spooky):

Just thought you would like to know that in Knox County, Tennessee we have passed an ordinance that would require a supermajority (2/3) of the County Commission to approve the use of eminent domain where the intent and effect is to deprive any private person, corporation or entity of real property and transfer that property to any other private person, corporation or entity.

That may not sound like much, but the Commission recently (but before the Kelo controversy) was unable to agree to condemn a small strip of land from a cattle stockyard to serve as an access for a local county-owned refuse and recycling center. Requiring a two-thirds majority for a Kelo-style condemnation effectively removes such a condemnation from the realm of possibility, unless the need and public desire for such is absolutely overwhelming.

It doesn’t go far enough in that such takings should be outright banned but it is a start. So, hats off to Knox County.

Update: Mr. Moyers emailed me a copy of the ordinance, which states:

SECTION 1: No exercise of the power of eminent domain by Knox County which has the intent and effect of transferring ownership of any interest in real property from any private individual, entity or corporation to any other private individual, entity or corporation shall be undertaken unless such exercise of the eminent domain power is first approved by a minimum two thirds majority vote of the membership of the Knox County Commission.

SECTION 2: Exercise of the eminent domain power for acquisition of property which does not meet the conditions set forth in Section 1 of this Ordinance may be authorized by vote of a simple majority of the membership of the County Commission, provided that if any property so acquired is proposed to be sold to any private individual, entity or corporation other than the original owner within three years of said property’s acquisition, authorization of such sale shall require approval by a two-thirds majority of the County Commission.

SECTION 3: Exercise of the eminent domain power of Knox County solely for the purpose of building, expanding or improving Knox County public roads shall be deemed to have been approved and authorized by the Knox County Commission when the Commission appropriates such funds as are necessary for such road construction, expansion or improvement or takes such other action as evidences the Commission’s approval of such road construction, expansion or improvement.

SECTION 4: Use of the county’s eminent domain powers for the purpose of development of industrial parks pursuant to the Tennessee Industrial Park Act, TCA §13-16-201, et seq., shall require the approval of a simple majority of the membership of the Knox County Commission

For what it’s worth, these Eddie Bauer diaper bags make excellent range bags.

Bainbridge:

We control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and (more-or-less) the judiciary for one of the few times in my nearly 5 decades, but what have we really accomplished? Is government smaller? Have we hacked away at the nanny state? Are the unborn any more protected? Have we really set the stage for a durable conservative majority?

Via Der Commissar.

A while back, the Mrs. went out and bought a bunch of those toilet locks to keep Junior from playing or having an accident in our restrooms. One night, she says to me: Why don’t you go childproof the toilets? I say OK. I get up and go to each of our three bathrooms and close all the doors. I come back and proudly announce that I am done.

She didn’t like this and gave me a bit of grief over it. She insisted that I install the toilet locks. Groan. I did it and it was a pain in the butt.

After a couple of days, I hated them. When they’re on, the seat won’t stay up. As a guy, your choices are to either awkwardly lean forward to hold the seat up while taking a leak (no easy task) or peeing like a girl.

Also, these toilet locks, and I am not making this up, are held in place by double-sided tape. What this really means is that they are not held in place at all. Thankfully, they didn’t last more than a few days.

We now just shut the bathroom doors.

The latest is up, with what secular conservatives have to say.

Ain’t it pretty:

That’s the DPMS 16” AP4 Carbine (scroll down). This weapon is chambered 7.62X51 Nato (or .308 Winchester for you non-metric types). It specs out like most DPMS 308 rifles. I like it. A lot. Did I mention it was a .308?

I signed this petition. Via TriggerFinger, we learn that the .gov has decided to destroy their stock of M14 rifles. This petition is to get them to instead sell them. It will cost the .gov about half a million bucks to destroy them when they could easily make money selling them. It be no problem to convert them to semi-automatic and sell them to the public. In fact, I’d take two. TriggerFinger seems to think that if they were left full-auto, they would be transferable.

Update: In comments, Publicola says it’s not legit:

That’s not legit.The petition is so old it was floating around before Al Gore did his thing with cables & PC’s. I recall seeing it in the late 80’s/early 90’s (it was a fuzzy time back then).

Orest Michaels of the CMP has repeatedly said that the petition is nothing more than wishful thinking for several reasons & to simply ignore it as it’s a waste of energy.

The M14’s aren’t in danger of being destroyed as they’re still being used by the military. Even our .gov isn’t that stupid. Least not today.

Oh well, wishful thinking.

I have to say that I am increasingly impressed with Bob Krumm’s blog. Seriously, he’s good. His coverage of politics (Tennessee and national) is excellent. Keep an eye on this one, it will be huge soon.

Gas stations can be sued for selling gas to drunk drivers.

Selling gas to a drunk could make store owners legally responsible for injuries suffered if the intoxicated motorist causes a crash, the state Supreme Court has ruled.

The groundbreaking ruling comes in a Knoxville lawsuit that sought to extend the state’s negligence laws, long applied to those who hawk alcohol to drunks, to those who provide them gas.

Of course, anyone can be sued for anything. The details:

Attorneys Gregory F. Coleman and Michael A. Myers later filed a lawsuit in Knox County Circuit Court, alleging that Tarver’s car never would have made it to its tragic collision with West and Richardson but for the $3 worth of gas he bought at an Exxon station on Rutledge Pike just before the crash.

More importantly, the attorneys alleged, employees at the Exxon, owned by East Tennessee Pioneer Oil Co., knew Tarver was drunk – so drunk that a cashier refused to sell him beer.

That actually sounds sort of reasonable in this particular case. However, as a hard and fast rule, it seems silly since we have a lot of self serve, pay at the pump establishments.

It seems to me that the two sides of the political spectrum interpret the Constitution thus:

The left side sees some things in it that aren’t there (right to abortion, right to education) and doesn’t see things in it that are there (second and tenth amendments).

The right side pays attention to what is there but figures that anything the government isn’t forbidden to do by the Constitution is OK (such as ban sexual things they’re not fond of).

Discuss.

Like every other time concealed carry laws went into effect, Michigan didn’t experience blood in the streets when it went to shall issue either.

Scored a Walther P22 today. Sweet. I took it apart (because that’s what I always do) and, when I removed the slide, the guide rod and spring shot out at lightning speed. Couldn’t get the damn thing back together. Tried for like 20 minutes. So, I called Rich, who has one too. Turns out, unlike every other gun I own, the guide rod goes in first and then the spring. I didn’t see them in their original configuration since they shot out when I disassembled the thing. All’s better. Now, I just need to shoot it.

The Beeb:

The government has been urged to relax gun laws which make it illegal for Britain’s top pistol shooters to train in England, Scotland and Wales.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke has given special permission for pistol events to be staged at the London 2012 Olympics.

But British team members face having to do all their 2012 preparations abroad.

The British are so spooked by guns, their Olympic team can’t practice there. Lame.

Pretty cool, check it out. Via Michael.