In an update to this, seems it may be accidental. And by accidental, I mean caused by policy:

The insane procedures required by the TSA demands that our pilots to lock and then un-lock their .40 side arms was and is a solid recipe for disaster. Did the TSA deliberately create this bizarre and unconventional Rube Goldberg firearm retention system hoping for this result? The sordid history of the FAA and TSA’s total resistance to the concept of arming pilots to protect Americans is in itself a scandal.

Putting a gun into a holster and then threading a padlock through the trigger and trigger-guard is required every time the pilots enter or leave the cockpit. This kind of silliness has never been forced on any law enforcement or security officers anywhere in the world until now. Before this holster padlock procedure pilots with guns were forced to carry them around in a cumbersome 22 pound vault. The vault caused problems in the confined space of most cockpits.

FFDO pilots need to carry their side arms in conventional concealed holsters and there is no reason for the unnecessary handling of their firearms in the cockpits.

Trigger locks? No kidding? And Flight Deck Officers carry HKs. So, how do I collect?

WBIR is looking for bloggers!

An added bonus to gun ownership is that it may keep the Europeans out:

“Mr Le Mière said that the US had fallen down the scale, although it still scored an average of 93 out of 100, partly because of the proliferation of small arms owned by Americans and the threat to the population posed by the flow of drugs from across the Mexican border.”

Via Michael Silence, we learn of Knoxville’s Gentlemen’s Top Cuts. Seems someone thought that it would be a good idea to have a salon with scantily clad women cut men’s hair (duh!). They have a lot of pics there and they have a blog with pics and video.

Hell, I might start going. And it’s not for the scantily clad women. See, read their services. They offer something I’ve not seen done in years: the pre-haircut and post-haircut shampoo! And, you know, the neck massage. But, seriously, I get a cut and get hair all over and am itchy all day because at some point recently, stylists stopped doing the shampoo thing. That is why they’ll succeed. Well, that and the scantily-clad women.

I’d never though of it that way before but a good way to look at things: Confusing Action and Achievement.

Buried quietly at the bottom of this article on warrantless searches, I saw this:

In the second case, the court will consider Randy Edward Hayes’ argument that the government was wrong to charge him with violating a federal law barring people convicted in domestic violence cases from possessing firearms.

In 1994, Hayes pleaded guilty in Marion County, W.Va., to the minor crime of battery following an incident in which his wife was the victim.

In 2004, police responded to a domestic violence call from Hayes’s home and found a Winchester rifle. They later discovered that he had possessed at least four other rifles following his 1994 guilty plea.

Hayes was indicted on federal charges of possessing firearms following conviction of misdemeanor domestic violence, a reference to the 1994 case.

Last year, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., agreed with Hayes’s argument that the language of the West Virginia law on battery in the 1994 case needed to contain specific wording about a domestic relationship between the offender and the victim.

In the Justice Department brief asking the Supreme Court to hear the case, the solicitor general said nine other appeals courts have rejected the interpretation adopted by the appeals court in Richmond.

So, after Heller, there’s an opportunity to decide the scope of reasonable restrictions on domestic violence? I thought I was on to something but realized others beat me to it.

My thoughts? If Hayes can’t be trusted with a gun, then he can’t be trusted with a car, some gas, a golf club, or a pointy stick.

I saw via GLN that there are two new anti-gun blogs: Mondays With Mike and Bullet Counter Points, both affiliated with the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence (they originally formed to ban handguns). When I saw them, I thought to myself: Self, Reasoned Discourse^tm is about to break out.

Well, it already has.

A look at stopping power.

A look at penetration.

And a while back my dad (who I recently found is reading this site – say hi if you want) told me that his group was testing bullet proof windows on cars. Guess what could penetrate those? (hint: it’s something readily available to a police force)

Update: Answer in comments. So, if you want to guess, you have been warned.

Good thing it wasn’t a 50 caliber or it would have killed everyone on the plane!

Apparently, a pilot had a negligent discharge on a plane (the press uses words like accidental and the gun went off, both phrases that have roughly a 99.1%* chance of being utter bullshit). PGP has more. I think initial reports were that this was an Air Marshal’s weapon. Now, most places say it was the pilot.

* note: when making up statistics, I’ve found adding one decimal place makes them more believable. Adding 2 decimal points just makes you look all preachy up your own ass. But, seriously, it’s very uncommon for a weapon to just go off. To just go off requires mechanical failure that simply isn’t seen often enough in modern handguns. Well, unless the discharged involved someone in a uniform and then it happens all the time! Amazing. Hmmm, I wonder if one could, since we’re making up stats, run an R² on discharges near uniforms. It’s official: the note is now longer than the post. That was fun. Made you look. But seriously, accident my ass.

Update: R. Neal: how much you want to bet it was a Glock? Well, we’ve all heard of Glock Leg. I guess this could be Glock Plane. But Glock Leg is 100% caused by failure to keep your booger-hook off the bang-switch.

Update 2: In commments, Tam says:

If it was an FDO it was an HK, not a Glock.

You don’t get to tote whatever you want on the flight deck. You get to carry an HK with the LEM trigger. (In other words, a light double action with no manual safety.)

Once again, ColtCCO has his last and final rifle. Only this time, he means it. Just like last time. And the time before that. Well, until something else shiny comes along.

So, guy breaks the law. It must be a loophole or skirting or something. It can’t just be that he broke the law, illegally while committing a crime. I mean, that’s just too easy:

They also seized a laptop believed to have been used by Bowens to make the illicit purchases dating to March, when he obtained a federal firearms license. Bowens’ license, however, entitled him only to buy collectible firearms and historic relics, which are usually not capable of firing bullets. Apparently he found a way to skirt those rules and purchase deadly weapons, turning them into profit.

By skirt they mean, of course, ignore. And by found a way, they mean did it anyway.

The two handguns he purchased this week for a total of $260 could easily fetch twice that much on the black market, said ATF Special Agent Joseph Green.

And by black market, they mean in New York.

Update: Oops. Link added.

Short version.

Long version.

* Inspired by Roger who has a transcript of Kmiec’s non-endorsement endorsement. Henceforth and forever, I will add some tin pot dictator’s middle name to his until Obama has lost or I run out of tin pot dictators.

Feds stifling open government in VA?

This past Friday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a Freedom of Information Act suit against the Virginia Department of State Police in an effort to uncover whether the federal government has been interfering in the state’s open government legislation. EPIC suspects that the feds are trying to use the state police to pressure the Virginia legislature into passing a bill that will put limits on the state’s open government laws and will encourage citizens to inform on one another by protecting anonymous tipsters from defamation and invasion of privacy lawsuits.

writing the second clause. Could have just stopped stopped at state. Then it would make absolute sense.

Let’s mix a gun control debate with a semantic debate, and see what happens. At issue here: Whether a pro-gun ruling in Heller would recognize a “new” Constitutional right. I’m still slogging through the comments, but so far this one is among the best (after the fold):
Read the rest of this entry »

By stating we make arguments that we never make and saying we believe things we don’t believe:

Dellinger is undoubtedly aware of these dangers. His two grandchildren likely spend more time in his home than armed criminals. It is mystifying that Chief Justice Roberts, who has two young children, is not equally aware of why kids and guns are a bad mix.

Really? Via Sebastian.

Fingerprint Technology speeds up gun permits:

A digital machine that quickly zips fingerprint images to the state crime lab is being added to Whitfield County Probate Court to expedite issuing gun permits.

“It speeds up the process by light years,” said Probate Judge Ray Broadrick. “I’m like a kid with a new toy.”

Fingerprints are part of the criminal background check required to get a gun permit.

The process of getting a gun permit in Whitfield County used to take up to six months when the ink-on-paper method was used. State law requires gun permits be issued within 60 days.

Catoosa and Walker counties also use digital fingerprint machines at the sheriff’s departments.

Catoosa Probate Judge Gene Lowery said the lag time when sending ink/paper prints to the state crime lab was up to eight months, which angered many gun permit applicants.

Actually, no on that last part. State was required to get them to you in 90 days whether they were done doing a check or not. Oops, turns out the article is about Georgia and not TN. And it’s kinda funny that, here in America, gun permit = to carry. In other areas, gun permit = to own.

Taylor Lee Olson, the accused killer of Johnia Berry, committed suicide early Monday morning.

The man charged in the murder of Johnia Berry has died, his attorney confirms.

Twenty-two-year-old Taylor Lee Olson was being held in the Knox County Detention Center. His attorney, Greg Isaacs says Olson committed suicide early Monday morning.

Isaacs says he will release a full statement later Monday.

In a bit of irony, it seems that a big government law and order liberal got busted by some big government law and ordering. So reports News Week:

The Patriot Act gave the FBI new powers to snoop on suspected terrorists. In the fine print were provisions that gave the Treasury Department authority to demand more information from banks about their customers’ financial transactions. Congress wanted to help the Feds identify terrorist money launderers. But Treasury went further. It issued stringent new regulations that required banks themselves to look for unusual transactions (such as odd patterns of cash withdrawals or wire transfers) and submit SARs—Suspicious Activity Reports—to the government. Facing potentially stiff penalties if they didn’t comply, banks and other financial institutions installed sophisticated software to detect anomalies among millions of daily transactions. They began ranking the risk levels of their customers—on a scale of zero to 100—based on complex formulas that included the credit rating, assets and profession of the account holder.

And it wasn’t just evidence that continued to mount.

So, Spitzer puns still funny?

Terry Frank has a round up of Eminent Domain issues in Tennessee.

Good thing they have those or someone might have gotten hurt.

against gun owners?

The pants shitting hysteria continues over painted guns.

Peter Hamm of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership: Police officers need to be able to defend themselves and the rest of us, and they need the weapons to do so.

Come on, Petey, you keep telling us these weapons serve no purpose other than killing as many people as quickly as possible.

Thirdpower notes the amazing powers that police have over these weapons.

USCitizen has more.

He might like the idea:

New Zealand Bans Forms of Political Satire

Apparently, Kiwi politicians were upset at the media for broadcasting images of government ministers appearing to sleep at their desks or making rude gestures. But it wasn’t just members of the governing party who were saying “no humor allowed” — only six members of the 121-seat parliament voted against the measure.

This seems like one of those things that politicians do because they can but often come to regret mightily later.

Not only is the move unpopular with the people of New Zealand (in a recent poll, 71 percent said they opposed the ban), but it probably won’t help the country’s image in the larger world. I can just imagine what the Australians (who make fun of Kiwis endlessly anyway) will do with it — or someone like Jon Stewart or those great British comedy shows.

Reasons you should attend the Second Amendment Blog Bash.

FNAR.

Saiga Conversions.

S&W.

The American Dream is Not Dead; It Just Speaks Spanish Now.

Why we win: You can watch some idiot engage Clayton Cramer in a debate on gun rights. She says there are cases that support her view and Cramer says name one. She can’t. Seems she doesn’t get too involved in what those pesky courts say.

Paul Helmke on is historic ass-kicking.

Bitter says it’s the first step and not the last.

Confederate Yankee notes that the press is still harping about the war leading to an ammo shortage for police even though that story is false.