Keep your booger-hook off the bang switch:

A man found dead on an Oakland street early Saturday morning from a gunshot wound may have accidentally shot himself a short time earlier while robbing a Pinole liquor store, according to investigators.

[…]

During the hold-up of Appian Liquors, Williams initially placed the handgun on the counter so he could grab cash from the register, Oakland police detective Sgt. Phil Green said.

But as Williams placed the gun back into his waistband, he squeezed the trigger and shot himself, Green said.

Richard W. Hatzenbuhler in a Boston Herald letter to the editor:

gun control is something that politicians do instead of doing something

But maybe it should have. Eeew.

Via fish or man.

An AK with a bolt release? Nice.

Colt Python. Woohoo.

The Carnival of Cordite is up.

Since Say Uncle likes to rebuild firearms, I thought of him when I saw this. All he needs is $32,000 and he may redefine the modern neighborhood watch.

Well, you can use our copy when we’re done:

I mentioned here that Harold Ford, Jr. was a slacker. So is Bob Corker:

Pierce says that by the last year of Corker’s term, the mayor was hardly ever around, having abandoned his post for a run at the Senate. “The mayor was elected to serve four years, but he only served three,” Pierce says, adding that Todd Womack, Corker’s mayoral spokesman who is now communications director for the Corker campaign, ran the show in Corker’s absence. “Most of the council referred to Todd Womack as ‘mayor.’ ”

6,000,000 people in this state and these are the best two we got?

Joe Huffman:

I used a statement from security researcher Christopher Soghoian for the quote of the day a couple days ago. He said airport security was really “security theater”. Even before I had made that post the FBI had raided his home

And why:

It’s not that he’s trying to compromise airport security. It’s that he’s pointing out that airport security already is compromised, or, as his site used to read, “The TSA Emperor Has No Clothes.”

The NYTimes reports that the big-tent Democrats now have room for righty candidates, most notably some people who take gun rights seriously.

Democratic officials said they did not set out with the intention of finding moderates to run. Instead, as they searched for candidates with the greatest possibility of winning against Republicans, they said, they wound up with a number who reflected more moderate views.

I have a friend who believes this country is going to hell. He sees the left-right schism getting wider and says it will eventually break out into civil war. I tell him there can’t be a civil war between right and left for one simple reason: the left has no guns. Bless his heart, his response is always “I’m trying to change that.”

Caught the latest Corker ad. Or should I say the latest anti-Ford ad. It said something to the effect of:

Ford has missed 365 votes.

But has managed to take 59 private junkets.

Now, all the other negative ads that were tacky, but this one could be hammered home. And I wonder why they didn’t start it sooner:

Ford: He doesn’t go to work. Just like John Kerry.

It could work. Because it’s verifiable and it doesn’t involve porn money. But it could be racist. I don’t see how but I’m sure somone is looking into it.

Yeah, it’s slow. The deal is that the server’s primary drive appears to be failing, so all accounts will be migrated from there to other servers. Propagation time after the move is typically very fast, so you should not notice anything at all. Well, that’s what they tell me.

Pro-Gun Progressive notes:

In this post, Kevin Drum (who’s never actually responded to my requests for a position statement on gun control) mentions gun control as an example of a failed social policy that liberals actually had the brains to back away from.

Shorter Kevin Drum:

Well, we can still think guns are bad.

But we need votes.

So, stop acting anti-gun.

Over at The Gun Blogs, XD45 writes:

The first step to taking your legally owned guns passed in the U.N. yesterday (Oct 26th). This is truly disturbing as you can imagine; not only was the U.S. the only nation that voted no, but that this is a solid foundation for the anti-gun lobby to go forward with their agenda.

From the article:

United Nations member states voted Thursday to create an international treaty to curb the illicit trade in guns and other light weapons, despite strong opposition from the United States and other big powers.

On Thursday, a vast majority of delegates to the U.N. General Assembly’s first committee endorsed the resolution calling for the establishment of a treaty to stop weapons transfers that fuel conflict, poverty and serious human rights violations.

As many as 139 countries voted in favour of the resolution while 24 abstained. The United States, the world’s largest supplier of small arms, was the only country that opposed the resolution.

Other major arms-manufacturing nations that oppose the treaty but did not participate in the voting include Russia, China, India and Pakistan.

Err, so the US was not the only country that opposed the resolution. More:

“No weapons should ever be transferred if they will be used for serious violations of human rights,” they said in a letter to the delegates who are currently attending the General Assembly session.

Supporters of the resolution said they hoped that it would help close loopholes in laws that allow the flow of small arms to conflict zones across the world, and thus give rise to violations of human rights and undermine development.

Seems everyone is up in arms (heh) over a potential victory for the Democrats sometime soon. So, they’re talking about their The DiFi/Schumer/Pelosi/McCarthy Contingency Fund (the guns they buy if the Democrats take control because they fear a ban of, well, everything).

Well, knock it off. It’s like you’re admitting you’ll be defeated. The Dems aren’t gonna go gun-grabbing right of the bat. They learned not to do that back in 1996 when they lost after the Assault Weapons Ban passed. Even Bill Clinton acknowledged such. They likely won’t go gun-banning due to political expediency. So, if they do, keep the pressure on politically.

The NRA notes that the anti-gun American Hunters and Shooters Association is up to no good:

You may have recently received a postcard from an organization purporting to represent the interests of hunters and sportsmen. This postcard is nothing more than a blatant deception intended to mislead Missouri’s hunters and sportsmen. The organization that sent it, the American Hunters and Shooters Association Foundation (AHSA), is simply a front for a number of anti-gun groups. In fact, AHSA’s leadership is so extreme that it supports banning guns, gun rationing, registration, and licensing. The postcard, which claims NRA opposes protecting public hunting lands from developers, is as absurd as AHSA’s claims that it is a pro-gun organization.

If America gave a rat’s ass what the world thought, we’d use the metric system.

The online poker ban is stupid. It had the effect of devastating a few British companies and the Brits aren’t taking it lying down. There will be a summit:

Britain’s culture secretary on Friday compared the U.S. crackdown on online gambling to the failed alcohol ban of the Prohibition as she prepared to host an international summit on Internet gambling next week.

Tessa Jowell warned that the U.S. ban on Internet gambling would make unregulated offshore sites the “modern equivalent of speakeasies,” illegal bars that opened in 1920s America when alcohol was banned.

U.S. Congress caught the gambling industry by surprise earlier this month when it added to an unrelated bill a provision that would make it illegal for banks and credit-card companies to settle payments for online gambling sites. President Bush signed the law Oct. 14.

The decision closed off the most lucrative region in a market worth $15.5 billion this year in “spend” value – the amount gambling companies win from their clients, or the amount gamblers lose.

First of all, Britain has a culture secretary? Well, it’s broken. Hope you kept a receipt.

As I said, it’s a stupid law and I agree with (shiver) British culture secretary. But I don’t really see the US government giving much of a damn about an international gambling summit.

For a while, the 9MM AR-15 was all the rage. Soon, it may be the 45ACP. Here’s a guide to how it’s done.

Seen at publicola’s:

“Police in the western Michigan community of Wyoming entered two classrooms at Lee Middle and High School on Thursday and announced there was a threat to the school, The Grand Rapids Press reported.

Students, who were unaware police were conducting a drill, were taken from the classroom into the halls, patted down by officers and asked what they had in their pockets, the newspaper said.”

“Some of these kids were so scared, they just about wet their pants,’ said Marge Bradshaw, a parent with four children in Godfrey-Lee Schools. ‘I think it’s pure wrong that the students and parents were not informed of this.’

Officers wore protective gear, including vests and helmets, and carried rifles that were unloaded and marked with colored tape to indicate they were not live weapons, the newspaper said.”

Gotta acclimate the kids somehow.

35. Officially, middle-aged.

Here it is. A conservative? Moi? I can’t be. I know a French word.

I guess libertarian or South Park Republican or Neo-libertarian would confuse, err, everyone who doesn’t read blogs, which is most folks.

No really. Not me, actually, but my words. Tonight, tune and tell me how it goes.

Update: Hmmm, wonder if they show text from the site? Maybe I’ll add some dirty words to the post I think they’ll show to see if they notice? Nah, I kid.

David Hardy:

Enactment or failure to enact Brady’s legislative priorities had no correlation to murder rates. If a state were to go from F to A, from virtually no gun control to everything on Brady’s agenda, the only result would be a joyful press release from Brady.

Teehee.

By the way, I feel the need to point out the following:

I don’t think the manner in which New Jersey’s court OK’d gay schmarriage is acceptable. Just like I didn’t think Gavin Newsom was right when he allowed gay couples in San Fran to get hitched. Newsom broke the law. NJ made it up.

However, I’m not dissatisfied with the result of either.

The system is broken. But even a broken system yields a good result occasionally.

Bitter notes that The Shooting Wire is taking on the anti-gun mayors:

Without belaboring a point, their organization is, indeed, one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Neither, however, does it represent the end of the firearms industry or the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

It represents another obvious sign that the profession once described as the Fourth Estate, journalism, has now decided that it is no longer proper to simply report the news. It is incumbent upon serious journalists to steer the poor sheep of the electorate in the correct direction. As I heard it said earlier this week, the Fourth Estate seems to be looking suspiciously like a Fifth Column movement, naysaying and downplaying anything that might look even remotely like the United States is anything other than the global bully.

Well, the fourth estate here in Knoxville is silent. In their defense, they’re also generally silent on the mayor’s alliance much less that the Knoxville mayor is a member. And all that liberal stuff isn’t applicable has Mr. Haslam is allegedly a conservative.

Uncle often posts on this blog about drug raids gone wrong– cops kicking in the wrong door and horribly abusing a whole bunch of innocent people. Sometimes, though, raids go off without a hitch. They find the right house, the right people are home and there are even drugs present. And looking at the times things go right tells us a lot about why these raids are so bad.

Cops in Texas kicked in the door to a woman’s home, shot her dog, and set her house on fire. All for… two joints. The police are bragging that they followed protocol after finding traces of marijuana and coke in her garbage, but as the Agitator says:

if “protocol” means forced entry, flash grenades, and killing someone’s pet all over traces of marijuana and cocaine in the garbage, I’d say it’s probably time to rethink “protocol.”

Thanks to Drug War Rant for the link.

I noticed this morning a Coming Soon sign for Starbuck’s. In Alcoa, Tennessee. Jebus, the invasion is almost complete.

Terry Frank says:

It’s pretty simple. If you believe marriage is between one man and one woman, then you need to vote “Yes” on Amendment #1. And if you believe the marriage vote isn’t really that important, then just look at this week’s New Jersey Supreme Court ruling. For the second time, black robes have ignored the will of the people and forced a legislative body to act on same sex unions.

I like Terry and we generally agree. But this is one issue in which we do not. My thinking is this:

It’s pretty simple. If you believe the state constitution should not be used for such stupid reasons, Vote “No”. In other words, keep your grubby mits off my constitution.

The reason the constitutional amendment is there is because those that oppose gay marriage know they are losing and will lose eventually unless the constitution is amended. This can be done legislatively but it’s doomed as society is trending toward supporting gay marriage.

As co-blogger Brutal Hugger said here:

Every poll shows that opposition to marriage equality correlates strongly with age. The future is clear, and nobody rationally doubts that America will eventually have marriage equality. The question is can we get there now or do we have to wait a couple decades for the bigots to die of old age. I’m guessing the latter, but as the slim majority becomes an overwhelming minority in state after state after state, momentum on this issue is going to shift pretty fast.

I wonder how those 49 Senators feel about being on the wrong side of history.

The Constitutional amendment is merely a stall.

And, Terry, the very core of marriage is not necessarily children. I know plenty of married people who are quite happy and do not have nor want children. And you are correct that marriage is a religious institution. That is why I think the state just needs to mind it’s own business (church & state and all of that).

It wasn’t me but whoever edited Bill Haslam’s wikipedia entry, I salute you.

Update: Gone now. That was fast. But here’s the old one.

Another botched raid:

Outrage as cop shoots teen, says it’s accidental

…

In a crowded three-bedroom apartment in central Harlem, partygoers drank, chatted and danced until their jovial moods were interrupted by members of the NYPD claiming to be responding to a report of a dispute with a firearm. According to eyewitnesses who attended the party at 419 E. 93rd Street last weekend, the police arrived at the wrong residence and were overly aggressive with the partying teenagers who they assumed to be in a possession of a handgun.

Cops + wrong house + poor gun safety = bad combination.

An anti-gun group had a day of remembrance in Utah. They noted that:

According to The Gun Violence Protection Center, in 2005 Utah received a grade of D- for its laws shielding families from gun violence, from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Utah has no child access prevention laws, no gun safety lock or safety design standard laws, no limitation on assault weapons and magazines or “junk” handguns, no requirement for a license to purchase a gun, no requirement to maintain gun sales records or to register the ownership of a gun, no requirement for background checks on “private” gun sales, and no required safety training for handgun buyers.

But here’s the thing about Utah: in that year it had a homicide rate of 2.3, the 42nd lowest in the country (the absolute lowest rate was Vermont, which allows concealed carry without a permit, and the highest rate, 35, was the District of Columbia). In total violence crime it was 47th — only Vermont, New Hampshire and South Dakota had less violence.