Well, Paul, my state did very well.

Bitter disagrees with me. And notes the NRA convention is for that. And don’t forget, we’re having the Second Amendment Blog Bash there this year!

And you better go!

Today’s odd and disturbing story: A man and his son walking their dog saw the animal decapitated when it put its head in a trap baited with bacon.

Until they’ve convinced everyone it’s a sniper rifle.

Online poker is a threat to national security. Actually, the agreement that the US signed in which (and I am not making this up) they agree to pay billions of your tax dollars to countries that allow online gambling for violating WTO agreements is classified in the name of national security. So, you can’t get a copy under the freedom of information act. Seriously.

300 yd head shots!

Man buys Swiss K31. Finds name tag under butt plate. Googling ensues. Tracks down the original recruit who was issued the weapon. 45 years ago. Too cool.

Over at Ahab’s. Looks like we’ll get a semi-auto Steyr! And this pistol has an odd design.

In this post, I poked fun at NRA for giving me exclusive access to SHOT a bit late. Turns out, I misread the email that they sent to me which clearly says: Coming up Monday, February 4 and Tuesday, February 5, you’ll get VIP access to the latest firearms, accessories, outdoor products and more when NRANews.com broadcasts live from the 2008 SHOT Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

I completely misread that. And my apologies to the folks at NRA. And thanks to Glen at NRA for emailing me about that.

I’ve thought about it and here’s my beer bet that I do every election. I’m 100% on these (and this could change it, of course). I bet one beer John McCain will be the Republican nominee. Huckabee will drop out. His voters will not go to Romney because Huckabee’s supporters think their invisible man in the sky can beat up Romney’s invisible man in the sky. Or Huckabee’s supporters won’t vote. McCain is the default.

Obama will win the Democrat primary. Seems running on vague notions of change and hope while offering no specifics is a kick ass marketing gimmick.

Between those two, I’ll have to use William Burton’s rule of thumb for wagering on Presidential elections:

See who looks most like a funeral director, and bet against him.

I dunno. That’s tough. McCain and Obama both have that look.

Update: Heh: As Jerry Seinfeld pioneered the concept of a sitcom about nothing, Barack Obama is pioneering the candidacy about nothing.

Via MKS.

Update: Hmmm, looks like Huckabee’s pulling some wins. Still predicting McCain though.

Last week, the Mrs. points out to me that my tags had been expired since September. I never got the notice in the mail. Renewed them without issue. I thought it odd I didn’t get a notice in the mail. Today, me and the Mrs. are making plans to vote. And we talk about some things. I look through my wallet and have no voter registration card. When we moved just over a year ago, we filled out forms to notify various state agencies that we moved, including voter registration and the Department of Safety. We never noticed who we didn’t hear back from.

We can’t vote today. Clearly, this is some sort of conspiracy by the Democrats in this state too keep affluent white people from exercising their franchise. Or, you know, my own damn fault for not keeping up with it. Or some bureaucrat’s fault since it happened twice.

Update: Probably for the best since I was either gonna waste my vote on Fred Thompson or /20~ p@\/1.

Update: Woohoo. Not disenfranchised after all. R. Neal tells me how in comments.

Aunt B. supports the patriarchy.

Frank emails me a link to this piece on the psychopath who decided to kill his family. Obviously, a discussion of gun laws ensues:

Greg Shipley, a state police spokesman, said Maryland law requires handguns to be secured and stored out of the reach of a child under the age of 16. Failure to keep firearms away from children is a misdemeanor and subject to a fine up to $1,000, he said.

Didn’t work, did it?

Daniel Webster, an associate professor and co-director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy, said Maryland has one of the better-crafted gun laws.

He said about 20 states have laws that require owners of firearms to lock up their guns.

Webster said these type of laws for firearms owners have reduced unintentional shootings throughout the country by about 23 percent. Little data exists, however, on whether locking up guns reduces deliberate shootings, Webster said.

Both of those statistics sound made up. I make it a habit of knowing the source of most gun stats and have never heard either of those. I even perused the Brady’s score card and can’t find 20 states that require weapons to be locked up.

And the Baltimore Sun’s bias is showing. Compare:

Gun rights advocates such as Erich Pratt of Gun Owners of America said yesterday that the lobby group opposes most restrictions on handguns inside the home. He added that keeping a gun locked away and secured by a trigger lock would hobble a law-abiding homeowner with only seconds to respond to an intruder.

To:

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, the nation’s largest nonpartisan grass-roots organization against gun violence, said that a gun is 22 times more likely to be used against a family member than to ward off an outsider.

We’re the gun lobby. They’re grass roots. And that statistic sounds made up too. I think the debunked Kellermann study but the number at 43 times. Are there new Joyce Foundation funded studies I don’t know about?

Update: I suspected a Joyce Foundation link with Webster. PGP says there is one.

Just asking.

Must have:

Made by Magpul.

Update: Downgraded from must have to pretty cool once I realized mounting a red dot on it or, heck, regular sights would be difficult.

Update 2: Well, unless that thing has a built in laser.

Hey, magpul, put the thing on your website. Inquiring minds who have money want to know.

Update 3: Via D2K in comments, here’s another vid with a nifty handle:

Pro-gunner Sebastian finds himself in agreement with anti-gun hack Bryan Miller that Hillary and Obama’s sudden turn around on the gun issue is laughable.

Me too. But, as with Romney before them, they are at least smart enough to realize that most people are not hostile to (and even support) gun rights. And that pro-gunnies represent a substantial voting bloc in national elections and anti-gunnies do not.

Thirdpower concurs:

If the “gun culture” in the US is declining, as the Joyce Foundation claims, and the majority of the population supports gun control, then why are all of the candidates (not just the R’s) falling all over eachother for even a miniscule (sic) percentage of the gunnie vote?

A map of murders in Baltimore.

David Young’s The Origin of the Second Amendment: A Documentary History of the Bill of Rights.

Hey man, nice shot.

Seems Ben Fordney (a board member for an anti-gun group though neither he nor the paper he wrote mentioned that) is peddling some half-truths about how pro-gun folks disrupted some sort of hippie, tree-hugging anti-gun protest. He leads one to believe that armed men were having their way with these peaceful hippies who were just trying to lie down and sing. Of course, some pro-gunners were there and I’ve seen video from the event and Ben is full of the shit that’s in his pants. I, like Ben, wasn’t in attendance.

Sailorcurt:

I would also point out that they misrepresent the spirit and intent of their demonstration. This was not a vigil “in memory” of the victims of Virginia Tech, this was a political rally for the purpose of supporting and advancing a political agenda…the banners they proudly held high didn’t say “remember the victims”, they said “close the gunshow loophole”.

There’s a lot more.

Ahab reminds us that an anti-gunner physically assaulted a pro-gunner. Why are anti-gunners so violent?

Good discussions here, here and here.

Bitter has the skinny on a new website called SHOT Business.

I’d like to thank Wayne LaPierre and the NRA for sending me an exclusive invitation to attend SHOT. Only trouble is I received it about, oh, ten minutes ago.

Ahab continues with tons of pics and reports. I’m digging the GSG!

More pics and reports at GunPundit.

The dumbest product introduced at SHOT: Not only for the stupidest thing revealed at this show, but possibly the stupidest product ever. Because not just does it suck, it sucks to the point, that it WILL be killing people on accident. I can pretty much guarantee that this product is going to fatally injure someone once it is in wide circulation, it’s just a matter of time.

Update: I misread the email that I got from NRA to my non blog email this morning. I took it to mean access to SHOT Show for NRA members (which, btw, is a good idea!) but the email said exclusive coverage via NRANews.com.

Heh.

Yeah, I don’t get the 1911 fascination either but, hey, shoot what you want.

I’d ordinarily call them regular capacity magazines except Ruger never makes mags that hold more than 10. Anyhoo, special addition Mini-14.

Today, for the first time since I can remember, there is absolutely nothing in the Outlook inbox. That’s a good thing.

Reader Jesse emails this post:

Today, attorneys challenging Washington, D.C’s 31-year-old gun prohibition laws filed their written arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court. Washington, D.C. bans the possession of handguns outright, and further forbids rifles and shotguns from ever being operable in private homes for use in self-defense. The case, District of Columbia v. Heller, is named for Dick Anthony Heller, a private security guard who carries a gun at work, but cannot keep one at home to defend himself and his wife. “I’m fighting for the constitutional right of law-abiding individuals who live in dangerous communities to have a firearm to protect themselves and their families from rampant violent crime,” said Heller.

Here’s the arguments.

Calvin Godfrey:

Well, the numbers are in. We got… um, 8 points out of a possible hundred from the Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence.

Which is probably making a lot of you out there really happy because you fucking hate them and would like nothing more than to unload all of your various weapons into the belly of the already-paralyzed Jim Brady.

And from there, comes some lies I would address if Rustmeister hadn’t already.

Pretty much says he doesn’t want to take our guns. Cramer calls him a liar. I did not know Obama was a board member for the Joyce Foundation.

New Glock, the G30 SF. Other than a rail, not sure how it differs from my G30.

So says Chester Allen:

Every now and then, the people who work for us in Washington, D.C., propose a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

That’s what happened two weeks ago when 47 senators proposed ending regulations that forbid carrying firearms in national parks. It’s a foolish idea.

Yeah, I mean, it’s not like there’s been any recent high profile murders in national parks. And, in a national park, you’re far less likely to come across a large animal capable of harming you.