Gun Talk is giving away an XD.

They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.

Here’s a schedule of events!

I’ve been having a bit of fun with congress’ little dog and pony show about how those evil oil companies make all that evil money while the little guy has to shell out $3 for gas. Oops:

Oil company profits — 643 billion

Tax revenue collected by the Government on gasoline — 1.34 trillion.

The oil companies making that much is supposedly bad, says congress. But the .gov making more than twice that is fine and dandy. But the oil companies are evil! say the hippies.

Let’s do some more math! And we’ll use simple numbers and some estimates. The federal tax on gas is 18.4 cents. And that’s pure profit. Based on that, I figure a good SWAG puts big oil’s margin at about 8.8 cents per gallon of gas or (assuming $3 per gallon) a profit margin at about 2.6%. Those evil bastards making pennies per gallon! (and you might want to check my math. I’ve only had one cup of coffee and was pretty loose with my assumptions).

Bear in mind that big oil probably makes more money selling you chips, beer, smokes, and ice cold Coca Cola than it does on gas.

Sailor Curt wonders who an accident suddenly becomes gun violence. Well, the same way that this guy will count as a child killed by gun violence.

K2 Porcupine light with video. PSH ensues over flashlight.

More pics here.

Couple of teens with BB gun shoot man with real gun. Detention until police arrive ensues. And no one killed the kids with their toy guns.

Yesterday, me and The Mrs. took the kids to Dollywood. On the way from the car to the entrance, it looked a bit cloudy as though it might rain. I said to the Mrs.: Maybe we should get the umbrella?

The Mrs.: What for?

Me (perplexed that she’s really asking what an umbrella would be used for): To fend off the lions.

Some paper from where Great Britain used to be:

Charlton Heston: From civil rights supporter to gun lover

From my view, those are the same thing. This paper treats these two as though they are not.

ATF has spent $3M to shut down Red’s.

Les Jones takes the Commercial Appeal to task for their assertion that privacy concerns of carry permit holders are not important.

Kinda funny to me that the NYT says that bloggers work too hard and on the exact same day do a story on something bloggers have been covering for a while: Mainstreaming survivalism. I’ve noted before that survivalism is even being taught to our kids.

Glenn says of me: Here’s a big bugout bag roundup, including firearms, from Say Uncle, though he unaccountably neglects the zombie angle, somewhat diminishing his credibility.

Well, firearms, other than double barrel shotguns at close range, are generally not effective against zombies. But, if you’re engaging zombies at close range, a chain saw is a much better weapon assuming you can somehow get into a position where the zombies are channeled in to you one at a time. A decapitated zombie is a friendly zombie.

An issue is that weapons that are effective against zombies tend to be heavily regulated. For instance, a zombie trap could work if you had some bait and an explosive. Getting your hand on the bait (tasty brains) is probably easier than getting your hands on a lawful explosive. After all, you could simply place the tasty brains with a trigger on them and the zombies, drawn by the brains, will blow themselves up.

But that’s dangerous, illegal, and a lot of work. An effective and legal way to deal with zombies: Flame throwers. Flame throwers are not regulated federally (after all, they’re just big squirt guns). You can even make them out of super soakers. As an added bonus, flame throwers make shoveling snow out of your driveway easy and fun.

Update: From comments, I see that some other experts say that setting zombies on fire is bad.

I went to Gentlemen’s Top Cuts Saturday for a haircut. They’re not open yet and had a little pre-opening for some local bloggers. It was a blast. The set up is quite nice. I got a tour of all the facilities first. Basically, when you enter there is a bar area. As a customer, you get a beverage of your choice from the bar. When I went, it was 10:30 in the morning which is, on Saturday, an hour and a half shy of beer:30 so it was a soda for me. The have pedicure stations, manicure stations, massage stations, and hair cutting. First, I got a haircut. Ok, I really got just a neck shave and a trim since I’d cut my shoulder length hair down to about a three guard a week ago. Then I got the manicure. It was awesome. I had never had one before (though a while back my wife got me a spa pedicure for Christmas one year). After they trim your nails, you have your hands dipped in paraffin for a bit. They then peel that off and give you a hand massage. I almost fell asleep. Also there were flat screen TeeVees every where and it was obvious that they spared no expense on construction.

The owner told me that since they started taking appointments, they’d scheduled about 20 for next Saturday.

Others were in attendance:

Doug was there and posted his one word review. I was there and, one of these days, his video will be famous on the internet.

Frank Murphy was also there and files a report.

CL from Modern Redneck has two reports here and here.

Also, Lissa Kay tells the prudes to calm down.

Greg has an interview with Evin Daly.

And they’re giving away a Beretta.

I did not know this but a handgun that is purchased in Michigan must be taken to the local PD for a safety inspection. This results in a registry and some departments charge a fee. There’s a push to get rid of that onerous requirement. Mike has information on contacting your reps.

Over at Jed’s place. Seems CavArms is the victim of ATF just arbitrarily changing its mind one day. That seems to be a pattern with the agency and that pattern has ruined too many lives.

Heh.

Wait, people get paid to blog?

What he said.

Update: Nomen disagrees here and here.

Sorry, I don’t see it. This is not a pregnant man. This is a pregnant woman who has been surgically and medically altered to appear masculine. You can put whatever bow and wrapping on that you want but it doesn’t change the fact that underneath the hood, the parts are female. Men can not have babies. Note: I think that Nomen is addressing the psychological/sociological aspect of the transgendered and I am talking about what physically is reality.

Charlton Heston has died. He was 84.

Indeed

LaPierre has a statement.

McCain has some stones:

Sen. John McCain travels the campaign trail without Secret Service protection although he is the Republican Party’s likely presidential nominee, the agency’s director told Congress on Thursday.

Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told a House Appropriations subcommittee that the Arizona senator has not requested his agency’s services.

First Montana was telling the feds to mind their own business, now in Wyoming:

The District Court ruled in favor of the sheriffs. In fact, they stated, Wyoming is a sovereign state and the duly elected sheriff of a county is the highest law enforcement official within a county and has law enforcement powers exceeding that of any other state or federal official.” Go back and re-read this quote.

The court confirms and asserts that “the duly elected sheriff of a county is the highest law enforcement official within a county and has law enforcement powers EXCEEDING that of any other state OR federal official.” And you thought the 10th Amendment was dead and buried — not in Wyoming, not yet.

But it gets even better. Since the judge stated that the sheriff “has law enforcement powers EXCEEDING that of any other state OR federal official,” the Wyoming sheriffs are flexing their muscles. They are demanding access to all BATF files. Why? So as to verify that the agency is not violating provisions of Wyoming law that prohibits the registration of firearms or the keeping of a registry of firearm owners. This would be wrong.

The sheriffs are also demanding that federal agencies immediately cease the seizure of private property and the impoundment of private bank accounts without regard to due process in Wyoming state courts.

says one of the sheriffs:

I am reacting in response to the actions of federal employees who have attempted to deprive citizens of my county of their privacy, their liberty, and their property without regard to constitutional safeguards. I hope that more sheriffs all across America will join us in protecting their citizens from the illegal activities of the IRS, EPA, BATF, FBI, or any other federal agency that is operating outside the confines of constitutional law. Employees of the IRS and the EPA are no longer welcome in Bighorn County unless they intend to operate in conformance to constitutional law.

More like this please.

* tgirsch will be along shortly to chastise my use of code words for racism.

Update: In comments, Cliff says the story may be bogus. Could be. We’ll see.

Update 2: More comments here indicate the story is not entirely true.

My sources say the April shoot has been canceled due to flooding.

Update: Confirmed

Ya know, Democrats get mad when you call their party the Democrat party instead of the Democratic party. I dunno why since this doesn’t seem very Democratic but does seem very Democrat:

B-Ho notes that Bob Krumm has been activated and will be deployed to Iraq. I wish you well, sir.

Update: AC has a story on it.

In regard to a prominent lefty’s bigotry toward gun owners, PGP says in comments:

bigoted lefties, making more libertarians every day since 1972.

Heh.

Naifeh, as he always does, killed some pro-gun bills. So, I got this nice little email from Bill Hobbs and TNGOP pointing me to a post that says I should pony up some dollars to the TN GOP to make Naifeh pay.

No way.

The TN GOP will not get a dime from me. After all, seven of your guys joined the Democrats to re-elect this Naifeh guy. So, get bent on the money thing. Until you get these losers in line.

However, this move is brilliant:

The state Republican Party spokesman has filed a request to obtain Tennessee’s entire handgun permit database on the same day his party publicly scolded House Democrats for efforts to keep those records open to the public.

A Safety Department spokesman tells The Associated Press that Republican Party Communications Director Bill Hobbs filed the request for the database on Thursday.

He’s being charged with hypocrisy, which I don’t think is the case. I think it’s brilliant. When he gets the data, he can go through it and find all the personal information it contains on all our politicos who have carry permits. Then, he can post that info on the internet, including where they live, etc. Well played, I think.

Update: Nope, not well played at all. Just political hackery:

Hobbs said the GOP plans to use the list to raise money and get out the vote, which he says were efforts already underway before Naifeh’s actions.

“We would have preferred that we would be unable to get these records, but because of what Speaker Naifeh did, these records are still exposed,” Hobbs said. “And so we believe the 190,000 law abiding gun owners on that list deserve the opportunity to respond through the political process.”

Hypocrisy, indeed.

Our token feminist Aunt B., on my ribbing of KAG’s prudishness regarding Gentlemen’s Top Cuts:

But we know, we know as feminists, that what makes a “real man” and what makes a “loser” are fucked up expectations of men and the pressures that men feel to be “real men” and to avoid being losers are toxic, not only to them, but to us.

And so, even if we don’t like what a man is doing, we can’t fall back into trying to make them ashamed of being seen as a loser. That’s just not right and only reinforces the notion that being a loser is the worst thing a man can be.

Meanwhile, KAG is discussing it again and, like me, is a bit freaked out over the whole twig and berry wax thing. But, hey, I guess women have their nether regions waxed too.

50% since 2000. In response, the dumbest police lieutenant on earth opines:

He said he was not in favor of people having handguns for protection because if the weapons were properly secured in a safe, unloaded and locked, it would take too long to get them during a break-in. He also said a burglar could turn the gun on a victim.

There plenty of ways to secure a weapon and make it accessible. And, again, the myth that they’ll just use your gun against you.

Via LaPierre, who notes that enforcing existing laws and sentencing guidelines would help too.

Via Billy Beck, comes this:

Yesterday, Manhattan federal prosecutors used a brand new law to charge McGuinn with posing as a war hero – making the Flushing, Queens, man one of the first in the New York region to face prosecution under the Stolen Valor Act.

The law, which took effect in January, makes it a felony to falsely claim to have received an award authorized for members of the U.S. armed forces.

Now, I’m with Billy and wouldn’t mind seeing this guy get his ass kicked. Or even seen him thrown in jail for fraud.

But that is a crime? I mean, that is such a pressing need that someone has to pass a law making it illegal? Fraud is fraud.