Stern’s collection to be auctioned off.

Update: and for the record: Holy Shit! Lots of goodies, including an original Maxim silencer (you know, the guy that invented silencers).

Ya know, when it comes to cooking, I’m a firm believer that bacon makes things better. But I may have found an exception: Bacon Mints.

Uhm, Ok.

I mentioned Romney stated he’d veto any gun control (including a ban on weapons that look like assault weapons). Jeff isn’t convinced:

I don’t believe him. A year ago he clearly said that he supports an AWB. This is just another flip-flop for him.

Now, when I pointed it out, I wasn’t saying I believed him. But it is important to note that he’s saying something to pander to us. We gun nuts tend to point out politicos always saying the wrong things. Then, when they say the right thing, we don’t believe them. And, usually, that disbelief is well-founded based on past actions. But, you know, we should reward good behavior. It’s rather like 9iu11iani speaking at the NRA convention. No, we probably didn’t buy what he was selling. It is, however, worth noting he realized he needed us. Or, at least, that no one was clamoring to snatch up the anti-gun vote.

It’s a small victory.

A while back, some senators (ahem, McCain) wanted to investigate steroids in baseball. Now, Arlen Specter wants to have hearings on the supposed cheating in pro football. Congress should mind its own business and stick with doing things that it’s, you know, authorized by law to do. Say, how’s that approval rating again?

Via PGP, it looks like Wikipedia has a bit on gun culture. And a discussion of the term gun nut.

Seen at TP’s:

The Brady’s crow “Virginia (01/21/2008): Record Numbers Attend Advocacy Day in Richmond”

To bad for them that twice as many of our side showed up. Nowhere near “record numbers” for us.

I’m such a bad gun blogger. I should have tried to make it to the SHOT show. But the good news is that many other bloggers did and they took cameras. The cool thing about the blogs is that we don’t have to wait until March to see the goodies.

Ahab has tons of pics and commentary. New FN rifle looks sweet and EAA is making a 50! He also has video.

Gun Pundit is also there and has lots of pics. Nice AKs! And hopefully, we’ll see a civilian SCAR soon!

Over at GunBloggers, there is an RSS feed of the gun bloggers. A good first step in getting the word out.

Am I the only one thinking that Ruger just made a Kel-Tec?

Update: One difference I see is it appears to have a slide lock.

Hamilton County sheriff was arrested for bribery and money laundering.

Amanda Nalley:

But what I don’t like is the assumption that owning a gun means you are either a. setting yourself up for getting shot or b. a dangerous idiot.

I know owning a gun is dangerous, but so is getting in a car, or sharpening kitchen knives.

What bothers me the most about my choice is talking to non-gun owners.

I keep hearing the same things over and over and over again. They don’t want to sound prudish by saying guns are bad but they want to know why you are doing it and have dozens of reasons as to why you shouldn’t.

And most of those reasons are, uhm, factually deficient.

Really:

Last January the state’s Supreme Court ruled that term limits approved by the county’s voters more than a dozen years ago — and essentially ignored — were valid. The court also clarified that the county has a charter form of government; this means that if its structure no longer suits you, dear people, you have the right to change it.

So empowered, the people began to wonder. Is it time this county of 400,000 adjust to being more suburban than rural? Does it need 19, count ’em, 19 county commissioners? Could various political fiefdoms — the county clerk, the property assessor, the register of deeds — be broken up by having those elected positions appointed by the county mayor instead?

This is good to:

At curtain’s close, the 12 appointments included the son of one outgoing commissioner, the wife of another outgoing commissioner, the father of a sitting commissioner, a top aide to the politically muscular sheriff, and a businessman who years earlier had come out on the wrong end of a sexual harassment suit. It seems a catfish could have been appointed if properly connected.

Red Alert:

Hillary Clinton, on the morning shows (George Stephanopoulos), says garnishing (seizing) a portion of people’s wages is one option on the table for enforcing the individual mandate to buy health insurance that is part of her universal coverage.

First two were pretty lame. What’s up with that?

Update: The Dorito’s commercial was funny. And so were Carville and Frist in the Coke ad.

And the Giant’s offense woke up. Note to Eli Manning: you’re on TeeVee and all so let me help you out, don’t sit there with your mouth open. You look like you’re catching flies.

Glenn and Helen have a podcast with him: he says he’ll veto any gun control bills that cross his desk as President, including a renewal of the “assault weapon” ban.

That is, as Glenn notes, more than Bush ever promised.

Gun Pundit is at SHOT.

Five dead in a shooting in Chicago.

From the NRA:

More Gun Laws, More Violent Crime

In January, the Brady Campaign released its annual “State Report Cards,” scoring the states according to their gun laws.

Once again, the Brady rankings clearly demonstrate that states that have the most gun control tend to have the most violent crime.

And some numbers:

* California, the state that has the most gun control and received Brady’s highest score (79), has violent crime and murder rates that are 14% and 23% higher, respectively, compared to the rest of the country.

* Brady didn’t bother giving a score to Washington, D.C., which has more gun control than California and even higher crime rates.

* Most of the 38 states that Brady gave 20 or fewer points to, have total violent crime, murder, and robbery rates that are below the national rates.

* For states that have total violent crime, murder, and robbery rates that are below the national rates, Brady gave average scores of 19, 19, and 14, respectively.

* For the 10 states with the lowest total violent crime, murder, and robbery rates, Brady gave average scores of 12, 12, and 9, respectively.

Via everyone, comes this. SayUncle is the same age as Kid Rock, Denise Richards, Sean Astin, Winona Ryder, Ricky Martin, Nasdaq, Disney World, and the Libertarian party.

Nope, none here.

Update: more here.

A primer.

Confederate Yankee:

Looking for Advice On a Carry Gun

This Sunday, while the vast majority of my fellow Americans will be preparing to watch the New York Giants get obliterated by the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl (and for the record, I’m pulling for the Giants…sorry Eli, it’s going to be a long day), I’ll be taking the concealed carry class required to obtain my concealed carry permit here in North Carolina.

I carry either a Kel-Tec P3AT or a Glock 30.

Rumor:

In other news, in an announcement to be made at SHOT ‘08, HK will very likely be purchased by Cerebus (sic), the holdings company that is notably the recent purchaser of Remington, DPMS, Cobb, Bushmaster, Marlin and your mom. Heard it here first.

So, maybe Cerberus will end HK’s trend of shitting on the civilian market?

You might suck less and we might hate you less.

MagPul’s Masada rifle to be made by Bushmaster.

Full auto shotgun. In other news, how can Blackwater buy NFA weapons that citizens can’t? I guess that like you and me only better law passed a bit back.

Back up at Dairy Queen. I repeat, officer needs assistance at Dairy Queen.

I noted the slippery smoking slope earlier, but this (also forewarned by us radical reactionaries) is fucking priceless:

We’re all aware that some jurisdictions have passed bans against trans-fat, in an effort to force people to eat healthier food, whether you want to or not (for your own good, you see). Well, it would seem the Mississippi Representative W.T. Mayhall wants to take it one step farther and just ban restaurants from serving fat people.

Remember, kids, I was just perpetuating my radical views what with my alarmist rhetoric and all.

No, I kid. But I was wondering who R. Neal would come out for. Now, I know.

Why, it seems like just yesterday the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership was telling me which states had less violent crime. And now, they’re doing it again. They just do it backwards:

Since 2001, RTC states, where more people carry guns in public, consistently average a “D”. Brady continues to be unhappy with the country’s direction regarding gun control: between 2001 and 2005, RTC states increased from 32 to 38 and Brady downgrade the U.S. average from “C-” to a “D+.” Their response is curious, since the national violent crime rate fell 7.0% during this time frame.

Even worse for Brady, violent crime trends are not spread equally across all states. RTC states (average Brady grade “D”) saw an aggregate 7.8% drop in violent crime, while non-RTC states (average Brady grade “B”) saw a 5.2% decrease. Even when Brady grades synchronize with violent crime trends, it fails to give an accurate picture: Brady dropped the national average grade from “C-” to “D+” in 2005, the same year that the violent crime rate increased 1.3%. This would seem to make sense, as a lower grade is supposed to reflect less safety for citizens. Unfortunately for Brady, most of that increase occurred in non-RTC states, which saw an aggregate increase of 2.8%, while RTC states increased 0.6%. Using Brady’s criteria of grading each state as an equivalent entity, non-RTC states averaged a 5.6% increase in violent crime, while RTC states averaged a 0.6% increase. Since 2001, the violent crime differential between RTC and non-RTC states increased from 26.0% to 27.5%, meaning that RTC states are becoming relatively more law-abiding compared to non-RTC states.

I notice the press is eating the Brady ranks up. But I bet no press outlet notes the correlation above.

Update: Ouch: I notice they are no longer using grades, but are instead scoring and ranking. I’m guessing probably because so many states scored so poorly, all those Ds and Fs were an embarrassment to their effectiveness.

So, Insty notes this really cool plan to get the US less dependent on foreign oil. It involves requiring (for about $100) new cars to be flex fuel vehicles. I’m torn because, well, it’s a good idea. But at the same time it makes my libertarianish side want to smack me about the head and neck area what with its free market idealism and all. The benefit of energy independence is huge. I mean, without a heavy need for oil, the world would treat the middle east like it does Africa. Which is to say that, generally, no one except Bono and Angelina Jolie would give a damn about it. Think that’s harsh? Not paying attention, then. Another benefit would be that the wealth of the region dries up and they have to find another means to sustain themselves, such as making our lead-coated toys for $0.05 an hour.

So, I’m really torn. I mean, if I buy this collective good nonsense this one time, when does it stop?

Full disclosure: I have a flex-fuel vehicle. And no one made me do it. The issue is, that, the only place in town that sells E85 is Pilot Oil. And I don’t shop there because Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam (whose family owns Pilot Oil) is a member of Mayors Against Guns. C’mon, Bill, quit the group. For the environment. And energy independence.

So, we’ve had police raiding wrong homes and killing people. We’ve had criminals raiding homes acting like police to make robbing them easy. Now, we have police raiding homes and robbing people:

Two former police officers were convicted in federal court Wednesday of participating in a robbery ring that disguised home invasions as drug raids.