For the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership. Like I said, no one is buying what they’re selling.

First Deadwood, now The Sopranos. Seriously, did you see that shit? So, Meadow walks in, Tony looks up, screen black? I thought my TeeVee went out. Feh. I am totally not watching another HBO series.

Update: In other news, I decided to check the news to be sure. Nothing there. But there are already hundreds of angry bloggers noting the same thing. Blogs: like news but faster. But they’re right, that sucked and just served to leave the door open for other crap.

Update 2: hbo.com is down. I’m guessing everyone is pissed. My prediction: a movie.

Fast: wikipedia.

You’ve probably heard by now that the NRA and Democrats reached a compromise on the band aid after Virginia Tech err NICS improvement act. Overall, not a bad deal, really. It looks to have a means of getting firearms rights back if convicted of minor infractions. Of course, currently this was the case but Congress never funded it nor did Congress fund appeals to have rights reinstated. Looks like the feds will be picking up the tab for the checks and offer incentives to states to keep the database up to date (which it rarely is because there were not standards and each state was on their own). I wonder how this will affect states that have their own system, like Tennessee.

Bitter thinks it’s good, so does Sebastian. Joe’s not happy. Jeff has more.

What do I think? I think it’s the same as it always was. It’s just funded now.

Oh, and I think highlighting the political impotence of Carolyn McCarthy is beautiful.

Anti-gun Congressmen forced to give up guns.

HR 1022, the expansion of the old ban on weapons that look like assault weapons, has gained some co-sponsors.

Alphecca has the play by play. And someone at The Tennessean must be retarded to note:

The law may result in more criminals getting their hands on guns. That’s especially true if more citizens seek permits to carry guns in their vehicles and those vehicles are broken into.

Well, simple solution is to repeal restrictions where guns can be carried (like bars, .gov property, etc.) so folks don’t have to leave them in their cars. I mean, if it will get guns off the street and save just one life, it’s worth it. For the children.

And we don’t have permits to carry in our vehicle. We have permits to carry handguns.

Guide to building an operational M41-A Pulse rifle from Aliens.

He’s strapped. Is he the only pres candidate to say that publicly?

I noticed since the NYT ran their piece on black rifles, that I’m getting quite a few google hits for the term. Be careful though as black rifle disease is a serious disorder that eats up time and money:

They have a no CCW policy. Robb sent them a letter. And gets a response.

Mixed breed genocide in Cali:

“Unbelievable” was the reaction from PetPAC today after Members of the California State Assembly voted 41-38 to outlaw the existence of mixed-breed dogs and cats in the Golden State.

Assembly Bill 1634, authored by Los Angeles Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, will allow only select purebred dogs and cats to breed. Pet owners who don’t sterilize their mixed breed pets by four months of age will face a $500 fine and possible criminal penalties.

“This crazy measure will end up costing families heartache and taxpayers billions,” said Bill Hemby, Chairman of PetPAC, an organization dedicated to the rights of pets and owners. “California will be the poster child for an invasive and overreaching government mandate that is impossible to fund, administer or enforce.”

AB 1634 will blanket all 58 counties in California with an expensive forced spay/neuter law that not all shelters want – or need. According to the State of California, dog impounds have fallen 86% over last 30 years. Puppies and kittens are already being transferred between counties to alleviate a shortage of adoptable pets: San Francisco and Marin Counties need to bring pets in from other areas to be adopted locally. In San Diego County – which has no mandatory spay/neuter law – only one adoptable animal was euthanized in 2004-05.

All dogs share about 99% of their genes:

a few distinct differences account for the different breeds. However, some supposedly different breeds have been found to be genetically identical. And some dogs are genetically closer to wolves than other dogs.

And the wolf kept locked in its genome everything that was necessary to make a Pekingese to a Great Dane.

But then given how politicians typically deal with dog issues, I don’t find this sort of stupidity surprising.

Update: And who exactly determines pure breds? There’s only about two dozen registering entities.

The Knoxville News Sentinel breaks a story today about extravagant spending from the humble public servants of Knox County.

Do any of you spend over $300 for dinner at a restaurant? Sounds like John Edwards “Two Americas”. Like John Stossel says, “It’s your money”.

From the News Sentinel:

County Commission Finance Committee Chairman Paul Pinkston blasted the county mayor’s staff Thursday night over credit card expenses for meals in Knox County, travel and one trip that included a charge of $917 for a hotel stay in Beverly Hills, Calif.

The credit card expenses dominated the commission’s agenda during a public hearing on the budget – expenses that totaled $715,537.51 over a period of less than three weeks.

Those charges are for the use of all 350 credit cards issued to employees across the county, including school workers and those in other departments.

A $187 charge to Club LeConte by Cynthia Finch, the senior director of community services.

A $351.15 charge to Morton’s of Chicago in Nashville by Ragsdale.

A $322.61 charge to the Palm Restaurant in Nashville by Ragsdale.

A $290.96 charge to Morton’s of Chicago in Nashville by Finance Director John Werner.

A $322.61 charge to the Palm Restaurant of Nashville by Werner.

Kim reminds me of something I’ve said before: Keep your mouth shut.

And be polite.

M1 Carbine.

Update: all the cool kids are getting M1s!

The new NFA handbook that I linked in the past is creating quite a stir in the NFA weapons community. Apparently, the handbook has some new rulings and those seem to be designed entirely to make the life of those who work with guns hard. Some examples from subguns.com:

1.) The outfit doing the parkerizing is also a “manufacturer”, and must therefore be an 07/C2.
2.) Since this is a transfer of a post-sample, and not at the request of a LEA, this process must first be granted a variance from ATF to allow the refinisher, who is a “contractor” in this scenanio, to receive the post-sample without a demo letter.
3.) The contractor, in this instance the shop applying the finish, is required to mark the firearm with their manufacturing information, unless they request a receive a variance from the requirements.

Yes, someone basically applying a coat to a firearms is now a manufacturer.

whoever cuts down your barrel had better be a 07/C2 as well or they are committing a felony

Whoever cuts your barrel on your lawfully registered short barreled rifle must be a licensed manufacturer.

No more 80%?

They say it’s also designed to apply the 11% federal firearms excise tax more liberally.

Seems that any work on an NFA items is now manufacturing. So, if you have multiple customizations done, each manufacturer must stamp the firearm receiver. Wow. It seems the ATF is trying to get the little guy out of the game as only the big players can succeed in this environment.

Any SOTs out there that can clarify?

Become policy:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday won an early round in his high-profile campaign for greater access to federal gun-tracing data.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said she would remove language from a massive spending bill that restricts how much information the government can share about the dealers and purchasers of guns used in crimes.

The language, known as the Tiahrt amendment, has been part of appropriations bills every year since 2003, when Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., first offered it.

While the bill remains in the early stages of review in a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, Mikulski’s action as chairwoman of the panel makes it more difficult for the Tiahrt amendment to survive this year.

“It is time to remove this provision to help bring corrupt gun dealers to justice,” Mikulski said.

A House subcommittee is taking up its version of the bill next week.

Bloomberg and the anti-gunners are full of it. But don’t take my word for it, take the word of the Fraternal Order Of Police or the word of The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms.

Update: Hello Babs. I see from my referral logs that someone from your office spent about a minute reading this post. Hopefully, it did some good.

By Sandy Froman:

This honored tradition went completely unchallenged until the 1900s. Then New York passed the Sullivan Act in 1911, one of the first gun control laws. This law required that firearms small enough to be concealed on a person be registered. This state law became a test measure for future gun control laws.

IIRC (and there is no guarantee I do) the first gun control law in this country was passed in Tennessee to disarm blacks and poor. The law basically said the only handgun allowed was some expensive Colt and, of course, poor folks couldn’t afford that one handgun.

Ooh, pretty. Sigarms P250.

I guess I’ve arrived as a blogger since people are sending me free books. I received John Lott’s (website here) Freedomnomics yesterday. Made it through two chapters. One of the interesting things the book says it will discuss (and a theory I’ve heard before) is that the increased size of our federal government is tied to women’s suffrage. Don’t know yet what Lott says about it but the theory I’ve heard is that women tend to be a bit more, err, protectionist.

Lott’s book is also a counter to Freakonomics, which I’ve been meaning to read.

Here:

Annapolis narcotics officers hit the wrong apartment last night while serving a search and seizure warrant, terrorizing the four tenants and damaging their home.

Flashbangs and rifles, even.

All those reports that said violent crime in DC was declining were horse shit:

Violent crime in the District jumped nearly 9 percent last year, the latest police statistics show — a big turnabout from earlier claims that the numbers had dropped from the previous year.

Police revised the yearly crime tally after turning up major discrepancies in their crime databases, officials revealed yesterday. An internal review uncovered crimes that were misclassified or not counted, officials said.

The new figures show significant increases in assaults and robberies, in marked contrast to the preliminary tallies released at year’s end. Police officials first flagged questions about the record-keeping last summer and have been working to reconcile the numbers. But they made no mention of these problems when they provided the rosier crime outlook in December.

Via PGP.

Advice on avoiding it, from rimfire who has it. Again.

Mayor Daley video going off on gun violence. Say, Mr. Mayor, how can their be 500 shootings a year in Chicago? Just asking since guns are banned there.

Al Sharpton has come forward to claim a double standard exist in the treatment of Paris Hilton who was released under house arrest and must wear an ankle bracelet for the remaining 40 days of her sentence for DUI.

So after the Steve Gilliard “Nashville is Talking” dustup of 2007 we now have Al Sharpton of all people claiming there is a double standard in America.

This weeks Pot and Kettle award goes to Al Sharpton. Runner up Jesus General, aka Patriot Boy, was unavailable for comment.

Al Sharpton said, “Though I have nothing but empathy for Ms. Hilton whom I have met and appeared with on Saturday Night Live the night I hosted in 2003, this early release gives all of the appearances of economic and racial favoritism that is constantly cited by poor people and people of color. There are any number of cases of people who handle being incarcerated badly and even have health conditions that are not released.

I have served several sentences for civil rights and civil disobedience actions and I even fasted which caused health concerns to prison authorities who paid for a doctor to come see me daily rather than release me. This act smacks of the double standards that many of us raise.”

Remember those open meetings the anti-gunners canceled because someone wanted to video them? Well, Texas Native sends the linkies:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZAsyrBTvN2g
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Lc8uXTfpdHM
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-CnDvnPFzL0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOg1pEnddwM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq1h8_Y0P7M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-cD-H3s7aQ

Pussies.

Rich has another planned for Saturday. I can’t make it due to prior obligations. Actually, I counted and from the end of March through June we have:

2 anniversaries
13 Birthdays
3 Holidays

So, most of my weekend time is taken up this time of year.

AC:

This parliamentary crap goes on all the time. Bills are brought up and bills are passed just to make a statement or prove a point or settle the score and it is all hid behind this pomp and circumstance.

I understand we have to have a legislature but do we need two separate bodies? It seems like if we were able to merge our two bodies into one unicameral legislature we would have somewhat less of this nonsense.

Au contraire, mon cracker. This is one case in which the Leviathan gets my support. I like when there’s a pissing match between them. It keeps them from doing really stupid stuff. When a large group of politicians agree on something, it’s probably bad for me and you. Hell, I think six houses would be good.

Remember that anti-gun activist that was arrested for illegal machine guns and suppressors? Turns out law-breaking runs in the anti-gun family:

Police arrested Charleeda in 2001 after she and fellow gang members admitted dumping the badly mutilated body of a young man — shot at close range in the head at No Guns’ offices — near her dad’s property in San Bernardino. The victim was found with his hands and genitals badly burned.

This was the treasurer of the anti-gun group No Guns, who received $1.5M in grants.

I’ve known (well, as much as you can know someone on Al Gore’s Internets) Andy Axel for a while. He and I have probably agreed on issues a sum total of two times in all that time and those agreements were with respect to the Brittney Gilbert dust up and brands of air rifles. Andy has always had a sharp wit and displayed intellectual honesty and integrity when we disagreed. And he’s not afraid to throw civility out the window when warranted. I know nothing about the guy other than through his opinions expressed at various blogs and forums. He can eviscerate those with whom he disagrees and he does so quite handily. Exhibit A:

It’s the daily death by a thousand cuts, and the guy almost always wielding the knife for the coup de grace in this godforsaken place always seems to have a donkey on his lapel. (And I do mean “his.”) And then we get to play laughingstock to the smug, self-righteous “fuck the South” types. Not saying that Tennessee doesn’t earn it at times, but Brittney Gilbert sure as hell didn’t. These people conveniently forget: If Al Gore had spent five minutes here, he’d probably be president today.

Exhibit B:

Great. Your scalp is claimed. Now take that flickering “conscience” you claim to possess, and feel free to wander back to your Tom Schaller books, continue to write off all the people of the South, continue blithely to claim that you were 100% in the right, smugly to assign blame to victims, and know that you didn’t make a damned bit of difference to help drain the swamp of pervasive racism in the South. You just pissed on the margin of it.

He can bring the righteous verbal smack down. He’s not a hack. We don’t agree on much but I respect the guy. And that’s the difference between him and some schlub like Oliver Willis.

Chicks and guns

2006 French Women’s IPSC champ, Laetitia Daguenel:

Via Tam.