MacGyver has nothing on the inventiveness of American troops dealing with the problem of invisible trip wires on hidden bombs. As inventive is one Mom in New Jersey who is sending “Silly String” to troops in Iraq.

Now, 1,000 cans of the neon-colored plastic goop are packed into Shriver’s one-car garage in this town outside Philadelphia, ready to be shipped to the Middle East thanks to two churches and a pilot who heard about the drive.

“If I turn on the TV and see a soldier with a can of this on his vest, that would make this all worth it,” said Shriver, 57, an office manager.

The maker of the Silly String brand, Just for Kicks Inc. of Watertown, N.Y., has contacted the Shrivers about donating some. Other manufacturers make the stuff, too, and call their products “party string” or “crazy string.”

Via David, comes US v. Some Guns (I’m not making that up). Looks to me like the issues are that:

Per Celata (the owner of KTO), his firearm frames are legal because they are not substantially complete. The ATF contends that they are substantially complete and, therefore, firearms.

The ATF alleges that Celata told customers that he had a letter stating the frames were not firearms and therefore did not require serial numbers or paperwork. The ATF said they never issued him a letter.

To my knowledge, no charges have yet been filed against Mr. Celata, which is odd.

Overall points: Looks like there’s evidence that Celata was misleading his customers. The determination of what is a firearm v. what is a firearm frame is random and arbitrary any way (I mean, really, what is 80% complete?). So, it may be a court fight to determine what is and is not a firearm and that may make the guns of a bunch of folks who build their own guns illegal, if they purchased the receiver.

It’s the opening salvo in the crackdown on do it yourself gunsmiths.

The whole survival/emergency kick hits the blogosphere (usually the gun blogs) about once every few months. This time, there’s a new twist in that it’s from Knoxviews and it’s about a vehicle emergency kit. Well, I’m prepared for stuff generally so here’s what I keep in the ride:

2 flashlights (I could just carry extra batteries but if it’s an emergency, I don’t want to bother changing them)
jumper cables
gloves
toboggan
Firearm
3 to 4 magazines for the firearm, depending on which one it is
Thermal blanket (the kind that wraps up in a small pack)
A Gerber multi-tool
Jacket/coat
An easily accessible knife that has serrated edges (it’s only purpose is to cut seat-belts in the event I am stuck)
Bungee chords
Flares
First aid kit
A towel
Tire gauge
Tape
Scraper
Pen and paper

I don’t keep any food in there but it’s probably not a bad idea. Well, other than the no less than 400 Cheerios, Goldfish, and other assorted snacks Junior has dropped on the seats. Could probably live off that for a day or two.

Also, read this at Edmund’s. It gave me some ideas, such as Fix-a-flat, a bag to put this stuff in since it’s all in my console/glove box, water, food, help sign, and I need to update my first aid kit.

Update: And my new phone has a GPS in it.

Update 2: And make sure you read the comments over at Knoxviews.

The cops found drugs in Kathryn Johnston’s home. You remember her? The 92 (or 88 depending on the source) year-old lady who the cops shot in self-defense as they were minding their own business and raiding her home for drugs based on on the (likely paid for) testimony of a drug-dealing informant who later said the cops asked him to lie. Yeah, her. She had 1.93 grams of weed. In case you can’t wrap your head around how little that is, Pete has a pic.

Looks like the state of Tennessee used its ill-gotten gains in an ill-conceived manner:

The report says that since 2002 Tennessee, as have Michigan and Missouri, has never spent any of its $1.3 billion tobacco-settlement payout on stop-smoking programs.

Poof.

Looks like gun rights blogger Triggerfinger is back with some WordPress digs. I wondered where he went.

The UN has non-agreed to non-ban assault rifles, machine guns and other small arms. Jeff calls it a first step towards universal gun control.

Ben received one to review and has pics. It’s made by Ko-tonics. It will be mine soon! Well, for a little while.

Here’s some links to security camera pics thanks to Google. Via Ben.

Regarding the mystery gun, Dr. Strangegun bet his job he knows the answer:

I got the “new” BMP and blew it up. That is 100% for certain I’ll stake my job at the gun shop on it a Tokarev TT variant. (/stake) The barrel’s not big enough to be a .45 so it’s either a 54 or a 213, likely just a type 54…

It’s pixellated, but you can see the trigger guard shape, a bare hint of the shape of the grip frame by where his fingers are pushed out to, the shape of the back of the slide, somewhat distinctive undercut at the nose of the slide, no guide rod, round hammer profile, relationship of the rear sight location on the slide and it’s distinctive narrowness and height, the vertical serrations and location on the slide, and finally the barest hint of the retaining clip or the extended end of the slide lock/link pin sticking out of the slide… that’s a TT. I’m 100% sure.

I think I have one of these:

GAMO USA Corp., of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said Wednesday it is recalling about 14,000 air rifles.

The scope mount on the rifles can be installed incorrectly, causing the rifle to unexpectedly fire. This poses a serious injury hazard to consumers.

GAMO has received one report of an air rifle firing unexpectedly. No injuries have been reported.

The recalled air rifles are the following GAMO models: Hunter Pro, Hunter Sport, Shadow Sport, and F1200. These models bear the serial numbers 04-IC-415577-06 through 04-IC-579918-06. The model and serial numbers can be found on the left side of the barrel just above the front left side of the stock. Models Shadow Sport and F1200 look identical.

Bleg: I just got my first MP3 player. Ok, actually, I got a phone (this one) that happens to play MP3s. I converted a few CDs to MP3 a while back. Now, when I convert them in Windows Media Player (which is what works with my phone), they’re WMAs. So, what are those? And what do I need to know about this MP3 player business?

Speaking of blog issues and comments and whatnot, if you trackback the site, try a link. In fact, it annoyed me so much it’s now a setting. If you ping, it will look for a link. No linky, no trackbacky.

Also, anyone notice that the big dick/erectile dysfunction spam that floods our inboxes now comes with a religious theme and bible quotes?

Rikki has a good post on racism on KnoxViews. Gene Patterson just posted a different look at racism on his blog. Between reading the two different posts I found myself asking a question.

Is there an industry that uses racism as a product? Are there race merchants? I am not talking about anything as obvious as Jesse Jackson, is there a hidden industry of race merchants disguised under the cloak of academia or human resources management?

In Gene Patterson’s post he quotes a column in the Knoxville News Sentinel by Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, who points to a Harvard test as proof that we all have latent racist attitudes. Gene took one of the tests and he writes, “I took the test and it showed that I – on a scale of slight, moderate and strong – have a slight preference for European Americans. That, according to the test, makes me a racist.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Ninth Stage says the MP9 will soon come in a civilian flavor.

Looks like NY is an even bigger brother. I guess folks in NY have solved all the city’s other problems if they can devote time to this crap.

Nannyism, what governments do instead of something.

Alphie looks at advertising in a DVR world:

This is how the free market operates, adjusting to changes in technology. While Hollywood works with our legislators to stifle technology (like forbidding fast-forwarding through commercials), creative minds are working to come up with ways to deal with the new reality.

There are coupons hidden in the frames that folks with DVRs and TiVos can find. Interesting. I haven’t watched commercials in about three years. The only downside, as far as I can tell, is I never know what movies are playing and I had no idea what a Nintendo Wii was until I saw my friends.

BTW, I must get a Nintendo Wii. For the kids, of course.

A bit back I asked for help identifying a gun. Well, Terry has posted a non-answer:

The answer is that the gun is a working replica of a Chinese .45 automatic — or at least that’s what I was told via my translator.

This is what happens when you give guns to non-gun-nuts. I still don’t know what it is. But, and I’m guessing here, it’s probably one of the Norinco 1911 clones that were real popular until Bush 1 said we can’t import semi-autos anymore.

I don’t recommend doing it. But I’ll gladly watch video of someone else doing it:

Via Standard Mischief who opines on the relative safety of it.

Heh.

Via Kevin, seems the state department has an essay on every amendment to the bill of rights. Except one. Can you guess which one? It’s apparently because one of the Volokh’s beat up on it a while back for adopting the collective rights mythology.

I’m calling my congress monkeys.

Another town asking everyone to arm themselves. No one is being forced to (which I’d oppose) but it’s being recommended.

A piece on why it needs to go:

The divine right of kings carried with it the notion that whatever the king did was OK, because the king was the law. Another way of saying the same thing is the king was considered to be above the law.

Today we have renamed this very mistaken view as the doctrine of sovereign immunity. The sovereign is immune from suffering any consequences of his acts. Sometimes the sovereign (government) graciously allows himself to be sued in specific, limited cases. But for the most part, there is no accountability for government officials who lie, cheat and steal – even on occasion who commit murder (think Ruby Ridge where an FBI sniper shot in cold blood a woman holding a baby).

Bob Arwady runs the Ammo Dump, a gun store in Houston, Texas. His first exposure to the abuses of sovereign immunity came from a knock on the door from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. After operating his new shooting range for police and public shooters for four months, the Commission shut him down with the threat of fining shooters $5,000 for each bullet they put in the dirt berms used as bullet traps. They claimed that they had a water sample that proved that those bullets were leaching lead in dangerous quantities into the stream behind his range and polluting water downstream.

It turns out that the signed affidavit by the Environmental Quality officer stating that he had taken the water sample was a lie. Arwady never got to use his expert toxicology witness that metallic bullet never, ever leaches. It is not soluble. Only lead salts (such as found in lead paints) are dangerous.

I don’t think it needs to go. But it definitely needs to be reformed. I think it is still applicable when an agent of the state is acting in a manner that a reasonable person could conclude is in the best interest of society. Otherwise, every time someone was arrested, they’d sue. That said, any negligience, dishonesty, incompetence, or criminal behavior on the part of any agent of the state should lead to forfeiture of said immunity. Now, said agents can lie, cheat, or half-ass their way into making someone’s life hard with impunity. And they’re motivated to do that because performance is often measured by arrests, fines, community contacts, quotas, or other euphimism for increasing number of arrests/meddling to prove they’re actually doing something.

Short of reform of Sovereign Immunity, the only thing that will bring attention to this type of stuff is when people start shooting the bastards, unfortunately.

Update: In comments, beerslurpy says regarding the best interest rule:

No need for such a rule. A jury would decide cases that way whenever appropriate. Juries would be loath the support a verdict against a police officer that was being harassed by a criminal. Adding such a rule only allows judges (who were usually prosecutors before they became judges) to dispose of cases of abuse before they even get to juries.

Good point.

At some point, I figure the British government is going to mandate that all of its subjects (they are still subjects, right? I mean, they’re treated as such) be relegated to rubber rooms with all sharp items and heavy blunt objects either put away or wrapped in foam. See:

In the hands of Shane Warne, a cricket ball is an offensive weapon. A total of 650 fallen wickets prove it.

Police on a London Underground station thought it was an equally dangerous item in the hands of Chris Hurd, a 28-year-old City accountant who occasionally bowls leg spin for his local team in Belsize Park, North London.

This is a country that has effectively banned gun ownership and self defense. Now, the latest targets are airguns and knives. You even see the phrase knife culture repeatedly in the press there. It’s sad that a country once known as Great Britain doesn’t even trust its subjects with pointy things. Or hard things.

They say it like it’s a bad thing:

80 local gun laws imperiled by bill

Laws that hold adults responsible when children get guns.

Assault-weapon bans in Columbus and six other cities.

Prohibitions on “Saturday night specials.”

A Cincinnati measure barring firearms sales within 1,000 feet of schools.

All those and dozens of other ordinances would be swept away by a proposed state law that Gov. Bob Taft has pledged to veto.

Sound like good things to get rid of to me.

If you use blogspot.com and leave a blogspot url in comments, WordPress thinks you’re a spammer. So, leave it blank or use tinyurl.com. SK2 is on autopilot and even though I remove the entry from the spam file, it gets put back shortly thereafter because of the 100,000 idiots who use blogspot to set up spam sites and link farms. Sorry about that but it’s beyond my control.

Sweet. A Tromix Saiga 12 short-barreled shotgun. I have no use for one nor a desire to have one but they’re pretty damn neat.

What’s your Starbuck’s name? I don’t have one because I don’t get coffee at Starbucks because, well, only a crazy person pays $3 for a cup of coffee. And their coffee isn’t that good. Or as cafkia says:

Oddly enough, I like coffee so I have never been in a starbucks.

But it’s a funny read.

CATO is saying we libertarian sorts are the swing voters. Of course they are. But they may be right this time. After all, some one swings elections and it’s not the party faithful.

Meanwhile, there’s a call for a libertarian-liberal alliance. As I said before, if liberals would get guns right, they’d get more recruits. Libertarians just don’t trust people who don’t trust them.

Bulletproof wallboard? Not so bulletproof. Via Marc.