Is violence linked to recession? Looks at mass shootings and such.

But I wonder: Overall, crime went down in the boom years of the 1990s and early 00s. I wonder if overall crime is up now?

A round up of cheery news. Or The I wish it was April Fools post.

Chrysler is toast.

Corker, so far, is the only Senator I’ve seen who gets it:

“I think for all of us who believe in free enterprise, this is the crossing of a major threshold, and it actually should send a chill to people all across the country,” Corker said.

“You know, we have become numb to all the bailouts that are taking place,” he added. “And yet yesterday this administration decided that they know best as it relates to this industry – they’re going to be making decisions about which plants close, which plants stay open.”

Odds the closures go to red states? Well, yeah. Create a dependency class that will vote for you.

The Government to back GM and Chrysler warranties.

Government in your wallet:

The new legislation, the “Pay for Performance Act of 2009,” would impose government controls on the pay of all employees — not just top executives — of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government.

Senate raising FDIC borrowing.

Cheery, eh?

That’s how many have been introduced in TN this year, per Chas Sisk.

One of them is a bill to allow those with handgun carry permits to carry on college campuses, to which insty says:

I’m for it, though I’d extend permission to licensed students. As I’ve noted before, I have a number of students with carry permits and I’d feel safer, not less safe, if they were carrying on campus.

Corker is not too happy:

This is a marked departure from the past, truly breathtaking, and should send a chill through all Americans who believe in free enterprise. I worry that in one fell swoop we’ve lost our moral high ground throughout the global community as it relates to chastising other countries that use strong-arm tactics to invade on private property rights.

Meanwhile, staghounds notes the method to the madness:

The only thing that makes GM valuable at this price is that it is a ready made conduit, all set up. What for?

Delivering loyalty payments from “the government” to reliable voters. Buying new loyalty from stockholders. Buying gratitude from the workers kept on who aren’t paying their way. Patronage, from contracts and positions.

That, and an unrealistic pension/medical benefits scheme which, when it fails, can be “rescued”. Think of how thankful all those sick old people will be!

I missed it in the post below but it should be noted that the press is now reporting that the unnamed assault weapon used in the Oakland shooting was an SKS. Which was a weapon not covered by the Assault Weapons Ban. And in California, the SKS is banned unless the grenade launcher attachment is filed off and the muzzle brake is permanently attached.

Still, we must ban assault weapons because they were not used in this crime.

Clenched fist salute: Rustoleum.

Claim: It is estimated that at least 90% of the guns used by the Mexican drug trafficking organisations have come from the US.

But, of course, the truth is a bit different.

A source of the guns used by the cartels in Mexico is the US. But not gun shows:

The deadliest of the weapons now in the hands of criminal groups in Mexico, particularly along the U.S. border, by any reasonable standard of an analysis of the facts, appear to be getting into that nation through perfectly legal private-sector arms exports, measured in the billions of dollars, and sanctioned by our own State Department. These deadly trade commodities — grenade launchers, explosives and “assault” weapons –are then, in quantities that can fill warehouses, being corruptly transferred to drug trafficking organizations via their reach into the Mexican military and law enforcement agencies, the evidence indicates.

PETA kills 95% of adoptable pets in its care.

Gun myths – The “easy” conversion to full auto. Yeah, that’s the canard that people spread around: that those darn assault weapons are easy to convert. It’s not true. Also, if a gun is readily convertible the law considers it a machine gun and it is illegal. And there are modifications made to semi-automatics intentionally to make them difficult to convert, such as what is done to AK and AR receivers.

However, some semi-auto rifles that were not classified as assault weapons can be converted with a shoestring.

Pics from Robert

RF: The San Jose Mercury is calling for a national assault weapon ban because a criminal did not use an assault weapon during the commission of a crime.

Sometimes, they cause you to rethink things.

Amanda Ruggeri of US News and World Report notes 10 winning industries in the recession. Guess what’s not there.

What media bias against guns?

Anti-gunner now wants to ban bottled water. I guess I don’t get it. My first reaction to something is not to ban it. Probably why I’m not a politician.

Interesting case:

SAF is joined by two natural-born citizens, Maxwell Hodgkins and Stephen Dearth, who have been denied the opportunity to buy firearms because they do not currently reside in the United States. Hodgkins currently lives in the United Kingdom, and Dearth is a resident of Canada.

The lawsuit alleges that Holder, as attorney general, is enforcing unconstitutional laws that prevent citizens like Hodgkins and Dearth from exercising their Second Amendment rights. The complaint also asserts that enforcement of the federal gun laws that prevent such citizens from purchasing firearms when they visit the U.S. violates their right of equal protection under the Fifth Amendment. The plaintiffs are represented by Virginia attorney Alan Gura, who successfully argued the Heller case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

David Young has a challenge to those who think Heller was decided incorrectly: Verify for yourself whether statements in the professional historians’ amicus brief, which the dissenting justices based their history upon, are supported by historical facts.

I’m not aware of many who hold that view. Even the Brady Campaign scrubbed the collective rights mythology from their website.

No soup for you, come back one week:

The sponsor of a measure to allow guns to be carried where alcohol is served has delayed a House vote for a week.

Rep. Curry Todd, of Collierville, requested the delay Monday night after a fellow Republican lawmaker sought to strip out a proposed 11 p.m. curfew for handgun carry permit holders to carry their weapons in bars and restaurants.

Rep. Brian Kelsey, of Germantown, argued the curfew would be too confusing. The House voted 61-32 to reject Todd’s motion to throw out Kelsey’s change.

Here.

I compared the two a while back.

AR-15

Suppressed, bolt action 44.

Bunch of pics at AR15.com

Cigar porn:

From Home Life

Tax Day Tea Party has the details for the 4/15 event.

Al Gore is his own parody:

I pulled up to Al’s house, located in the posh Belle Meade section of Nashville, at 8:48pm – right in the middle of Earth Hour. I found that the main spotlights that usually illuminate his 9,000 square foot mansion were dark, but several of the lights inside the house were on.

In fact, most of the windows were lit by the familiar blue-ish hue indicating that floor lamps and ceiling fixtures were off, but TV screens and computer monitors were hard at work. (In other words, his house looked the way most houses look about 1:45am when their inhabitants are distractedly watching “Cheaters” or “Chelsea Lately” reruns.)

The kicker, though, were the dozen or so floodlights grandly highlighting several trees and illuminating the driveway entrance of Gore’s mansion.

I [kid] you not, my friends, the savior of the environment couldn’t be bothered to turn off the gaudy lights that show off his goofy trees.

Wow. Just wow.

White House still not touching gun control despite claims from other administration officials:

I think the problem the Democrats are facing is that they’ve been used to being able to sing platitudes about banning assault weapons with little or no consequence. Now every time someone well placed in the Administration opens their yap about assault weapons, Bushmaster gets another couple of months of backorder, and NRA no doubt signs up a lot of new members. That has to scare the hell out of the White House.

It is absolutely outrageous that the US has 26M fewer guns than people. Some of you are obviously not doing your part.

In other news, I didn’t know Gonzo was still around.

In Michigan:

Brown said that as more people abandon homes, eating away at the city’s tax base and creating more blight, the city might need to examine “shutting down quadrants of the city where we (wouldn’t) provide services.”

From Tam, who notes:

How do you tell somebody “Sorry, civilization is retreating, and unless you want to be left outside the fence, you need to move.”

Gold plated Cobray M11.

Alberto Gonzales (you remember him?) advocates a Southern Strategy (RACIST!!!) to keep Mexico secure. Blames the nonexistent gun show loophole.

The other biased Washington paper says that Hezbollah is using the same routes as Mexican drug gangs. Scary, if true.

ATF testified that the case of assault weapons flowing into Mexico was overstated. Now, a few alerts issued by the ATF notes that it’s mostly handguns. Well, yeah, those tend to be preferred by criminals. Hard to store an AK in your shorts.

The administration doesn’t seem to be at all on the same page about the ban on weapons that look like assault weapons.

Not matter how often this canard is dispelled, it’s parroted over and over in the press and by politicians.

You know what would secure Mexico from US guns? Border control. But they’d still have weapons because a lot them (namely the military hardware) is coming from their south.

Les has one. It was a pretty small show but there were plenty of people there. I sold a few things I was no longer using. Prices were ridiculous on ammo and anything black and semi-automatic. A Bushmaster with a rail system was going for over $2K. Well, it wasn’t going. It was sitting on a table with that price on it. I spent $60 on 50 rounds of Golden Saber 230 grain 45 ACP. And that was a good deal given that regular price was $80. I used to buy that for about $36.

Handguns were still reasonably priced but magazines were spendy. It was $75 (IIRC) for those 31 round Glock magazines.

Still, it was The City (My The City)’s first gun show. And I’d call it a success.

ESPN has a look.

In San Francisco, there is a proposal to regulate assault weapon magazines (whatever those are):

Plans for necessary monitoring of assault weapon cartridges [♠,♦]

The details: Two Bay Area politicians announced plans to introduce legislation that would create a system for regulating and tracking assault weapon magazines in California. [♣] The announcement by state Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, and Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Oakland, comes four days after a wanted parolee gunned down four Oakland officers, two allegedly with an AK-47.

To my knowledge, no one has yet confirmed what the weapon used in the shootings was. The press says AK but they use that term for almost any rifle. And we know that the police have not (and perhaps will not) confirm what sort of weapon it was.

Quite possibly the best day at the range ever.

Miscellaneous Rugers.

AK err Sig 556 porn.