The Sun-Sentinel has a piece on The Pink Pistols, a gay and lesbian gun advocacy group.

Bob Barr says Bloomberg has misfired:

In a broad sense, it ought to concern us because if a government can illegally and forcibly disarm law-abiding citizens in one city simply because it proclaims a “crisis,” we are all subject to having our constitutional liberties trampled. Even if civil liberties organizations such as the NRA are successful in having those rights restored, much damage already will have ensued.

In another, very real, practical sense, all this is hitting home to Atlantans because New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who apparently has never met a firearm he likes — except those possessed by his own bodyguards — is bringing his anti-gun paranoia to our city’s suburbs.

Ayup. It’s publicity.

Side note: I’d also like to take this time to ask those who write about the gun issue (both pro-gun and anti-gun – and you folks in the press, but I repeat myself) to stop using the hideous firearm related puns, like misfired, up in arms, gun battle, missing the mark, shooting down, etc. It’s kinda lame.

Les tells us that ABC has a former Handgun Control, Inc. (now the Brady Campaign – changed their name because handgun bans aren’t cool with the kids) employee covering the NRA.

TriggerFinger notes that Amy Fisher (you remember her?) is now a columnist who favors gun control.

KnoxViews night out is tonight.

Brittney rightfully calls someone a tool for taking off their wedding band. The dude’s definitely a tool but I’ve found wedding rings make da women pay more attention to men. This guy has his game all wrong. In fact, I’ve found four specific things that happened to me that made women more attracted to me. Unfortunately, only the first one happened before I got hitched so I didn’t get the full benefit. They are:

1 – First job after grad school: Almost overnight, I went from some poor-as-Hell student renting a room in a friend’s basement who drove a 1989 Nissan Sentra (this was 1999) to a guy with a nice condo in a good part of town who drove a snazzy new convertible. I got rid of the old couch I found on the side of the road somewhere and got some hip furniture and a solid oak dining room set, which apparently the women like – seriously, more women commented on the dining room than the leather recliner, loveseat and couch. I was single and had some bling to buy drinks. The women liked that.

I also upgraded the wardrobe from jeans and T-shirts that were as old as the Nissan to attire more attuned to the business professional/casual world. Bought Rockports instead of no-name brands. The women seemed to like that style as opposed to the dude who bought his threads at K-Mart.

Had that not happened, I probably wouldn’t be married to Mrs. Uncle.

2 – Got married: Not sure why, but more women talk to me now that I’m hitched. I’m not sure if it’s because the ring makes me less threatening or if it indicates that I’ve been domesticated but it happened.

3 – Got a dog: Me and the Mrs. used to take the dog to the local park for a stroll. One week, the Mrs. went out of town and one day I loaded up Politically Incorrect Dog and went to the park. In the mild spring, all the jogging hotties with their jiggly bits barely covered by sports bras would stop to pet the dog. Why not? He’s cute and darn sociable. And they’d strike up a conversation (with me, not the dog). Seriously, that one walk, I chatted it up with about 7 different women who ordinarily wouldn’t have stopped to talk to me. Alas, I was a married man. This never happened when the Mrs. and I went. I should have got the dog when I was single.

4 – Had a baby: Take an adorable little girl to the mall and baby talk with her, hold her hand, and be the caring father you are, then the women line up to talk to you so long as mom isn’t around.

It’s all true. Your mileage may vary.

Via the geek, comes The myth of the easy machine gun:

The spokesman added that the conversion kits are illegal in Illinois. Well, then, where do you get one? They are probably available at gun dealers in states with looser gun laws, he suggested.

I thanked the good fellow and went on a search for a “machine gun conversion kit.” I looked all through Shotgun News, the bible for gun buyers and sellers. Didn’t see a single conversion kit. If you can’t find a gun item in Shotgun News, you can’t find it anywhere.

There’s more. One nitpick is he writes:

I’ve been following the [assault weaposn ban] debate. One point always seems to go unexplained. Once some concerned police chief declares that semi-automatic rifles are dangerously easy to convert, the discussion leaps elsewhere. No details of the conversion task are forthcoming.

Actually, the anti-gun folks spend a great deal of time obfuscating the terms machine guns and assault weapons. In fact, the VPC (and anti-gun group) once said:

Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.

This is inexcusable:

An unusual FBI raid of a Democratic congressman’s office over the weekend prompted complaints yesterday from leaders in both parties, who said the tactic was unduly aggressive and may have breached the constitutional separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government.

[…]

The Saturday raid of Jefferson’s quarters in the Rayburn House Office Building posed a new political dilemma for the leaders of both parties, who felt compelled to protest his treatment while condemning any wrongdoing by the lawmaker. The dilemma was complicated by new details contained in an 83-page affidavit unsealed on Sunday, including allegations that the FBI had videotaped Jefferson taking $100,000 in bribe money and then found $90,000 of that cash stuffed inside his apartment freezer.

If the average Joe breaks the law, there’s a decent chance the police will bust his door down, hold the residents at gun point, and someone might even get shot. Give me a break. And remember that Kennedy that got pulled over for drunk driving? Yeah, he was chauffeured home. If anything, those who are trusted to such office should be held to higher standards and should face more severe treatment when they break that trust.

To those congressmonkies protesting his treatment, I say on behalf of the American people: go fuck yourselves.

Mr. Completely has more details on The Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno.

Jeff has the latest in anti-gun bias in the press.

DeFens is making AK building jigs.

Tam with the other quote of the day:

Blood-borne pathogens and 419 Scams, however, are decidedly un-sexy, and seem to be Africa’s two leading exports at the moment.

Yeah, we seem to be all Bloomberg all the time here today but this is important. David Hardy:

ATF has said they will be investigating every aspect of these “sting” sales (and there were ATF people present who repeated that). This may be bad news for the city, since IF the sales were illegal straw sales, their investigators committed felonies.

One gun was traced TWICE in NYC. The first time was for a crime, so it would have to have been confiscated. Only explanation for how it would later be on the street is that someone in NYC PD is selling seized guns on the street.

Via Jed, who says:

Of course, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t wish the ATF on anyone, but for these sorts of anti-freedom operatives, I think it only right they get a dose of their own medicine, and in spades.

David Codrea notes a Georgia gun owner is asking the Georgia Attorney General to investigate Bloomberg’s very likely illegal investigation:

Office of the Attorney General of Georgia
Mr. Thurbert E. Baker
40 Capitol Square, SW
Atlanta, GA 30334

Dear Mr. Baker:

As a resident and law-abiding gun owner of Georgia, I am outraged at the recent illegal straw gun purchases made by an “investigative team” assembled at the behest of Mayor Bloomberg of New York City.

[…]

I ask: What is the authority of private individuals from New York to conspire to break, and then actually violate, federal gun purchase laws and the laws of other states?

Heh. Read it all. Then write your own.

alandp tells us that one of the gun dealers targeted in Bloomberg’s very likely illegal investigation is speaking out:

Holman, who had not been served with the lawsuit as of Friday afternoon, said his shop is regulated and audited quarterly by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives because of the high volume of gun sales at the store.

“We have to send a quarterly report on firearms acquired and sold,” he said. “If I was doing anything illegal, I would not still be open for business.”

[…]

“I can’t control what people do with them when they leave this store,” Holman said. “I sell between 50 and 100 handguns a month, and I would never jeopardize my business with anything illegal, with selling firearms.

[…]

Woody’s Pawn and Jewelry’s long-time attorney, Charles Williams, said he believes the case against the 15 pawnshops is illegitimate.

He said making it the pawnshop owner’s responsibility for what happens after the purchase of a gun is tantamount to suing a private citizen for selling his or her gun to someone, who in turn sold it to someone else who ultimately committed a crime.

“If he sold it legally and didn’t violate the law, I don’t see a case,” Williams said. “I just think it’s political. I think Bloomberg’s trying to get publicity.”

He said the guns have merely been traced back to Woody’s and other pawnshops, but there’s no telling how many hands those guns passed through along the way and, for all anyone knows, those initial sales were legal.

Nylarthotep notes:

A lawsuit in the District against gunmakers was dismissed yesterday by a D.C. Superior Court judge who ruled that the suit was precisely the sort of claim that a new federal law was intended to block.

I thought this was ironic:

The D.C. Council, she wrote, had determined that assault weapons have “little or no social benefit but at the same time pernicious consequences for the health and safety of District residents and visitors.” Congress, however, “has trumped local law by passing legislation to protect the profits of such manufacturers,” she wrote.

But guns are illegal in DC. How can they have pernicious consequences for the health and safety of District residents and visitors?

Good for Bryant:

While Mr. Hilleary and Mr. Corker both stated their willingness to support the eventual Republican nominee, a spokesman for Mr. Bryant said the former congressman declined to say whether he would endorse whoever wins the Aug. 3 GOP primary election.

Good for Bryant not de facto toeing the party line.

Not that I agree with it wholeheartedly but longtime reader blackfork writes at The Gun Blogs:

“Tactical” on a firearm, means that it’s used to shoot civilians, as far as I can tell.

Harold Ford Jr. said something I agree with:

It seems that all of the old (political) labels have become irrelevant or meaningless in some ways

Don’t regulate the internet.

Doesn’t hurt she’s easy on the eyes either.

Bitter tells us that the press things being in possession of NRA literature equates to criminal activity. As she notes:

… NRA materials have no connection to the mentally disturbed kid who unfortunately managed to escape treatment and be released by the justice system to go on to kill two cops.

I’m not a tech guy, so good thing metulj broke it down:

Holy smokes. AT&T sold out its peering links, so any data transmitted over the backbone for THE ENTIRE USA, no matter the ISP, was owned by NSA using Narus Technologies’ STA surveillance platform. So, it didn’t matter that Qwest or some others didn’t assent to the NSA spying, it was just a matter of falling back to the wide open door that AT&T had provided on the whole backbone.

I’m lukewarm on the candidates for Frist’s soon to be vacant seat. But if the signage is an indication (and it usually is), it’s looking like Corker has the backing of the local good ol’ boy network here in East Tennessee.

I decided a while back that you can pretty much determine who will win by the number of signs you see that are placed in front of businesses and houses in affluent neighborhoods. In Knoxville, I’ve only seen Corker signs.

And what’s the deal with that commercial where is mom his painfully reading cue cards and he’s feigning interest in some prop photo album? Painful to watch. But it’s better than Ford’s commercial where he’s filling up his big ass SUV at an Exxon and bitching about gas prices and the former CEO of Exxon’s golden parachute. Is he really advocating congressional price controls?

I haven’t seen a Bryant or Hilleary commercial.

Update: AC tells us that Corker and Hilleary almost threw down.

I said before that:

I’m going to go ahead and call Bloomberg’s latest (you can past coverage here) antics of sending private investigators to investigate gun shops in other states for the purpose of suing them a victory for gun rights. Why, you may ask? Simple. It essentially shows that NY’s stringent and draconian gun laws are not having the desired affect.

Then there is the issue of this incident jeapordizing valid investigations. Now, it gets even better with David noting that Bloomberg’s fraud continues to unravel. Indeed but his fraud will not get near the media play as the alleged investigation.

From his NYDN column:

The flyer for the 135th annual gathering of the National Rifle Association said to “bring your whole family” to see “acres of the latest guns.”

And a man behind the registration desk at the exhibition hall on Friday guaranteed this was no exaggeration.

“You won’t believe it!” he said.

He was right, for to enter the cavernous Midwest Airlines Center was to behold thousands of weapons, many of them handguns that have no real purpose other than to kill people and are produced in far greater numbers than the legitimate demand.

So, police carry handguns because the purpose is only to kill people? Well, folks in the sport of pin shooting, hunting, and a variety of other sports that involve a handgun would probably disagree. And what does he mean by legitimate demand? I figure if I want one and someone makes one, that is legitimate demand.

It’s kinda funny, but alandp posting at The Gun Blogs tells us that Bloomberg’s little publicity stunt may have affected real investigations:

Mayor Bloomberg’s decision to hire private investigators to conduct undercover stings at Southern gun shops has potentially jeopardized several criminal cases, law enforcement sources charged.

Four cases were compromised and an additional 14 were put at risk by the six-week sting aimed at gun stores in Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia, the sources said.

The sources argued that several suspects being watched by authorities had frequented some of the 15 gun shops–but are now cleaning up their acts or lying low because of the publicity. None of the ongoing cases was linked to New York, the sources said.

“A bunch of private eyes straight out of ‘Barnaby Jones’ run their own sting operation and all the real enforcement agencies find out about it on the day they are having a press conference? Not good,” said a law enforcement source in Washington.

The Justice Department held a meeting last week to review potential problems, another source said. “The goal is to lock up gun criminals, not file civil lawsuits with publicity stunts,” the source said.

And Barnaby Jones very likely broke the law in this sting.

Update: David notes that Bloomberg’s fraud continues to unravel. Indeed but his fraud will not get near the media play as the alleged investigation.

This bribery of elected officials nonsense is getting out of hand:

A congressman under investigation for bribery was caught on videotape accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an FBI informant whose conversations with the lawmaker also were recorded, according to a court document released Sunday. Agents later found the cash hidden in his freezer.

A few more like this, and maybe people will start waking up and voting the bums out.

The blogger formerly known as SKB has an op-ed in the local newspaper.

Personally, I think raising minimum wage is a largely pointless excercise. But kudos to R. Neal for doing the op-ed thing.

But leave it to B-Ho to be a dick about it. Bringing someone’s family and professional life (update due to email: and house size) into politics to score a few cheap points is pretty lame.

Business week has a piece on how gun makers are trying to appeal to womenfolk:

Manufacturers are tweaking their products and changing how they approach the burgeoning female market, which is estimated to be worth at least $285 million this year in firearm sales alone. Gunmakers will display their new wares Friday through Sunday in Milwaukee, where at least 50,000 people are expected to attend the National Rifle Association’s annual convention.

[…]

Women make up 15 percent of the marketplace when it comes to shooting sports and hunting, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the shooting, hunting and firearms industry. Participation in hunting and target shooting has risen 50 percent to 6.3 million women from 1999 to 2004, the group said.

Women will spend at least $285 million on firearms this year, the group said, plus at least $135 million on ammunition, accessories and hunting equipment. It’s a small drop in the entire market, which was worth $2.8 billion in 2004, but manufacturers believe it’s worth pursuing, said group spokesman Steve Wagner.

I’m not making this up but Nagin was re-elected. Yes, that Nagin. I am absolutely dumfounded.