The NRA has a site about the violent gun confiscations that occured in New Orleans. The site is called Give Them Back. They have video.

And I think it sums up the 2006 election year:

I want the Republicans to lose but I don’t want the Democrats to win.

Looks like Bruce has decided to live free and not in Massachusetts. Congrats.

Ammo prices up and will keep rising:

In case you haven’t noticed, the price of ammunition has been rising slowly, and it is not about to stop. Not by a durn sight. The reason is that the prices of the metals that go into almost all ammo—lead, copper, and zinc—have risen exponentially.

I’m confused. What would Washington DC need gun detecting sensors for? I mean, guns are banned there. So, there shouldn’t be any gun shots.

More:

The crack of gunshots can be heard nearly every night in some of the District’s deadliest neighborhoods — and no longer just by the people within shooting range.

The sounds are being picked up by the police department’s newest tool: ShotSpotter, a network of noise sensors that identifies and pinpoints gunfire. Over the past few weeks, the technology has guided police to three homicides in Southeast Washington, and in one case officers got there rapidly enough to make an arrest.

[snip]

Scott D’Angelo, who lives half a block away, said he heard the gunshots that morning but did not call police. He said that the sound is frequent in his Anacostia community and that he does not call 911 every time he hears the familiar pop.

You must be hearing things. Maybe it was a car backfiring?

It strikes:

Sen. Sam Brownback has put a hold on one of Presient (sic) Bush’s federal judicial nominees because she once attended a commitment ceremony for a gay couple.

Not officiating, mind you. She was merely in attendance.

I don’t think it’s contagious.

The WaPo:

GAO Calls Radiation Monitors Unreliable

The Department of Homeland Security’s plan to spend $1.2 billion deploying next-generation nuclear-detection equipment at U.S. ports and border crossings cannot be justified, given test results that showed the devices are unreliable, congressional investigators warned yesterday.

I did some work for DOE many years ago. They had these little green plastic squares that supposedly measured exposure to radiation. You wore it when you were there and, quarterly, it was sent off to tell you how much you’d been exposed to. At one facility, they (being some sort of inspector) opened some of the detection devices up to check them out. They were empty inside. They were nothing, just little plastic squares.

A Gallup Poll:

Since 2000, the percentage of people who view having a gun as making a house more dangerous has fallen from 51 to 43 percent, while at the same time the percentage that view a gun as making a home safer has gone up from 35 to 47 percent.

Progress.

Chris has some with pics. He also, in reference to said SKS mods, notes How not to have your life ruined by the ATF. Good advice but it begs the question:

Has anyone ever been charged under USC 922(r)? I personally know of no one. It seems to me that proving parts were made in America or were not would be difficult.

Over at the Media Blog they note that Reuters asserts:

More than 30,000 people die from gunshot wounds every year, through murder, suicide and accidents.

They note that Reuter’s number hasn’t changed for 6 years (from an article in 2000). Quips Nathan Goulding:

This means that one of two things is true. Either, the rate of people killed by guns has not increased over six years — very good news. Or, Reuters is relying on six year-old data. Whichever is the case, Reuters is simply opining on gun control, and is using the recent school shootings as an opportunity to do so.

Well, this got me to thinking it was time for a trip to the CDC website. Some numbers (they only had data for 2000 to 2002 on the site).

Deaths weren’t more than 30,000 people are shot to death in murders, suicides, and accidents in 2000 or 2001 per the CDC. And Reuters doesn’t mention that well over half of gun deaths each year are suicides. And they don’t mention the 700K to 2M times per year that guns prevent violence.

And Reuters used the number provided to them by anti-gun “researcher” David Hemenway. You remember him? He said guns cause road rage.

Over at ProgressiveU (a liberal blog), Redneck Hunter is talking pro-gun:

FABLE I: A gun in the home makes the home less safe

FABLE II: The Second Amendment to the Constitution does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms.

FABLE IV: “Gun control” laws prevent crime.

You know what, there’s a lot. Go here and scroll.

All guns are always loaded:

Two men were injured Saturday morning at the Wanenmacher’s Tulsa Arms Show at Expo Square when a vendor accidentally discharged a shotgun.

…

Joe Wanenmacher, the gun show’s manager, said the vendor was examining a double-barreled .410-gauge shotgun that he thought was loaded with a snap cap. A snap cap is a nonlive round that allows the handler to dry-fire the weapon without damaging the firing pin or the firing pin holes.

From the LA Times, we can see one more cost of the drug war: a creeping culture of corruption among the agents charged with policing the line between US and Mexico. Illegal drugs provide the funds to bribe border control agents, but it’s not just drugs that get in– it’s also illegal immigrants and anything else the bad guys want to sneak into America.

Their … tactics were so well developed that smugglers could have moved “nuclear weapons” over the border, said Asst. U.S. Atty. Marina Marmolejo.

A while back, I bought the Mrs. some, err, underthingies online from Victoria’s Secret. It was win-win, she gets new stuff and I get stuff like this emailed to me.

Bob Corker’s campaign has been awful. He’s not engaging, not charismatic, not showing up, and generally not been around much. I guess his plan was to sit back, keep his mouth shut, and wait for Harold Ford, Jr. to do something stupid. It took a while, I bet Corkie’s folks were sweating.

From news you can’t make up, comes Shaq may have been involved in one of those police raids where they raid the wrong house. If true, maybe a bit of celebrity will draw some attention to this nonsense. Seems it’s not been mentioned in the press but it will be interesting to see if it’s true.

Komo News:

Kwan legally owns more than 100 pristine and historical machine guns. But during a search of Kwan’s home in January 2005, agents found one – an M-14 – that they said was illegal.

Kwan’s attorneys argue that the M-14 in question required substantial modification by federal agents – including use of a rotary tool with a cutting wheel and the installation of new parts – before it could be fired automatically. Therefore it didn’t meet the legal definition of a machine gun, they argued.

A: Whenever they say it is.

Rebecca Ferrar And Matt Lakin of the News Sentinel have a column Saturday in the KNS that corroborates charges made by Tyler Harber in the three part Betty Bean column in the Halls Shopper News.

While there is a deep well of both comedy and drama in the 33 pages of emails that explores the soap opera like atmosphere of the KNOX GOP these emails ask the larger question, how can there not be an investigation of Tyler Harber?

Monday at 2:00 PM Knox County Commission will vote on whether the Commission should investigate Tyler Harber’s employment with Knox County. 13 votes are required and Friday Knox County Commissioner Lumpy Lambert said on AM 1180 that 9 votes are available and the remaining 4 votes may come in over the weekend.

People years from now will ask how this whole thing blew up so badly. It appears that the desire for the KNOX GOP mailing list was a powerful lure and when this prize collided with Mayor Mike Ragsdale’s temper there was an explosion. If Mayor Ragsdale had not called Chad Tindell and lost his temper, as Tyler Harber alleges, perhaps this whole affair would have not ignited.

Many people will be upset no matter has this is resolved. Now Knox County awaits the decision of County Commission. What will they decide?

Updates:

In today’s News Sentinel an article by Matt Lakin quotes Knox County Sheriff Tim Hutchison as saying that a law was broken in the theft of emails from former Knox GOP Chairman Chad Tindell.

Terry Frank informs readers of her blog that two local radio hosts who were subjected to Team Ragsdale dirty tricks have written a letter to Knox County Commission. Lloyd Daugherty and Kelvin Moxley tell of how Tyler Harber went to the Knox County Health Department and attempted to obtain their medical records.

Betty Bean spoke this morning on the Lloyd Daugherty radio program on AM 1180 that, “former GOP head Chad Tindell was “threatened” by Mike Arms, Chief of Staff to County Mayor Mike Ragsdale, regarding the possible investigation of the County Mayor’s office stemming from allegations made by former Ragsdale employee, Tyler Harber.”

This story did not run this morning in the News Sentinel but may run on Tuesday.

Bacon.

The Geek says of Saul Cornell’s book on the second amendment:

Despite my reservations concerning Prof. Cornell’s work, given his Joyce Foundation funding, I’d always extended Prof. Cornell a certain grudging benefit of the doubt concerning the presumption of good will and academic integrity, but after reading Holbrook, I can no longer do that.

When it comes to history and the foundation of law, it seems that the Forces of Organized Gun Bigotry simply cannot find a leg to stand on without resorting to flagrant distortion.

Indeed. The one thing that the antis simply cannot get around is that there is absolutely nothing from the time of the founding indicating the collective rights model. Collective rights meaning no rights at all, really. In fact, you likely won’t find anything supporting the collective rights model until about the 1940s, would be my guess. They keep tilting at that windmill though. Guess they just make it up.

Kevin has run down reminds us that they never stop.

Tam discusses Harold Ford’s trip to the range:

After a perfunctory session on the range with a stainless Smith revolver, they came out and settled up.

A stainless Smith revolver? Well, had Mr. Ford snagged the full-auto, short-barreled 9mm AR-15 off the wall and sent several hundred rounds down range with a grin on his face, he’d have gotten my vote.

Each time you move from one domicile to another, your volume of stuff will double.

As evidence:

In 2000ish, the Mrs. moved with me into my condo. To get her stuff, we rented a U-haul (smallish) and got all her stuff there.

In 2002, the Mrs. and I decided bought a house and moved from our condo. We decided that moving yourself sucks so we hired movers. This move required two men and one truck and they made one trip.

In 2003, we bought a bigger house (babies will do that). We hired two men and one truck. It took two trips. We doubled our stuff.

This weekend, we moved to a bigger house (last time I’m moving for at least a decade). We hired four men and two trucks since we figured we’d want to avoid two trips. Well, it took four men and two trucks two trips. We doubled our stuff again.

Other stuff:

I was organizing the basement and realized how many boxes of Christmas decorations we had (Seriously, the boxes take up an entire wall of my basement and that’s just Christmas – not the other holidays). New rule: The Mrs. is free to buy any Christmas decorations she wants. But for everyone one she buys, she must throw two away.

Also, the new pad has a rec/bonus/playroom for the kids. It was the first time we had all of the kids’ toys in one spot. It was ridiculous. Same rule: For every new toy bought, throw two toys away.

Ammo is heavy.

Gun safes are heavier.

Watching these guys move my stuff, I was thankful to have a Master’s Degree. Remember kids, guys with Masters Degrees don’t move big screen TeeVees.

You may recall Paypal and their typing monkeys being, well, not helpful. Here’s their latest email:

Thank you for reporting this email to PayPal. You received a fraudulent email that was designed to mislead you into divulging your PayPal account password. Emails initiated by PayPal will always address you by your first and last name or the name of the business associated with your PayPal account.

If you clicked on any link contained in the email and then typed in your PayPal account password, your password may be compromised. Please change your PayPal account password and security questions. Also, please review your most recent transactions for any discrepancies.

Err, no it wasn’t. Stupid people.

Times Dispatch:

Airline officials told the two Richmond bounty hunters it was OK to bring their weapons aboard.

Then, they had the two arrested.

Now, an Arizona jury has told Southwest Airlines to pay Thomas Hudgins and Leroy DeVore a total of $9 million in damages.

More:

They checked with airline officials over the phone, at the ticket counter and at the jetway about their weapons, showing them papers that made clear they were not government officials, and were told they should bring the guns with them in their carry-on baggage, their lawyer, Richard Gerry, said.

But as the plane approached Phoenix, the captain radioed that he had two men with weapons on board, though adding that they had not threatened the flight, Gerry said.

I know from experience not to listen to customer service or the ticket people.

Marc went to the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot. He has video and pics.

The Carnival of Cordite is up!

So is the Second Amendent Carnival!

And RINO Sightings, for your non-gun-blogging needs.

In comments here, a reader posted his email exchange with the mayor Haslam’s office about his membership in Mayors Against Guns. It’s reprinted here (read from bottom up):

To: Mayor
Cc: cchesney@cityofknoxville.org
Subject: Still really disappointed
Date: Oct 11, 2006 2:57 PM
Nice try Cathy Chesney but you didn’t come close to touching on the issue which was about Haslam JOINING Mayor Bllomberg’s “Alliance of Mayors Against Guns.” Mayor Bloomberg is a very virulent anti gun person and supports all kinds of anti gun legislation. While the “Statement of Principle” leaves something to be desired, I am more concerned that Mayor Haslam has JOINED Bloomberg’s anti gun AMAG.

Michael Silence had these observations on his web blog and I have to agree with him:
Then the mayor has picked the wrong group to join. For example, they oppose H.R. 5092, the BATFE Modernization and Reform Act. The oppose just about every pro-gun bill coming down the pike.
They support microstamping. They support maintaining a registry of gun offenders. They support suing gun dealers.

HR 5092 was a bill to reform the BATFE, formerly known as BATF or “Burn All Toddlers First,” after their PR scheme at the Branch Davidian;s home in Waco Texas was burned to the ground, killing some 80 women and children. Micro stamping would drive the cost of ammunition out of sight as it calls for EACH individual bullet to be stamped with a unique number. President Bush has already signed the bill to prevent Bloomberg and his cronies from filing frivilous lawsuits against gun manufacturers and FFL dealers. Nobody sues General Motors when their cars are involved in a deadly accident, and suing gun manufacturers for misuse of their products by criminal doesn’t make any sense either’ however, Mayor Bloomberg supports these ideas.

The “Statement of Principles” is nothing more than a piece of “feel good” legislation but the major problem is Haslam JOINING Bloomberg’s “Alliance.” It would also be intersting to know what Mayor Haslam’s definition of an “illegal gun” is. Guns are inantimate objects and cannot in and of themselves break any laws. It takes a criminal to misue a gun.

Your response did nothing to allay my concerns. I just can’t fathom why Mayor Haslam would join an anti gun alliance. This certainly won’t sit well with many of us in Knoxville or Tennessee.

Sincerely,

William Noll

—–Original Message—–
From: Mayor
Sent: Oct 11, 2006 10:12 AM
To: wsnoll@peoplepc.com
Subject: Fwd: really disappointed

The Mayor signed a Statement of Principles against illegal guns. This is an effort to protect our citizens and our neighborhoods from violence as a result of illegal activities including possession of illegal firearms. I have attached the Statement of Principles for your review. The U.S. Conference of Mayors is working to help Mayors across the country with problems in our cities and this is just one of those initiatives.

Thank you for your interest,
Cathy Chesney
Office of Policy Development
215-2029
cchesney@cityofknoxville.org

>>> Bill Noll 10/10/2006 12:54 AM >>>

Dear Mayor Haslam:

I realize that you and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York are both republicans but it seems a dumb stunt to join his “Alliance of Mayors against Guns.” We expect New Yorkers to be anti gun but not those in Tennessee. Bloomberg has waged war against legitimate gun dealers to include his infamous “sting” to entrap law abiding gun dealers. To support such a violation of our second amendment rights is a travesty. If Bloomberg would spend more time and money chasing down criminals as opposed to law abiding gun dealer, the crime rate in NYC would go down. To sum it up, it’s not the gun, it’s the criminals. Of course I suppose it is asking too much for you not to follow in the anti gun footsteps of Mayor Victor Ashe who sponsored a number of “gun buybacks” in Knoxville. You’re a smart guy but joining Bloomberg’s Alliance against Guns is not the smartest thing you have done recently. It’s still the criminals, not the guns. I’m quite disappointed to learn you have this anti gun bias.

William Noll

Moving. Busy. Not much blogging. I’m not saying I won’t. I mean, I might if I get the chance. But don’t bet on it.

Meanwhile, here’s some AR porn.

And it’s a good idea to brush up. So, go read Volokh’s testimony on the second amendment. You may be quizzed.

And, of course, for those times when that pesky constitutional stuff isn’t cutting it, check out gunfacts for all your hoplophobe-lie-dispelling needs.

Preparedness: Are you ready?

Blink and you’re dead:

Minutes ago, I talked about the divide between hunters and shooters. Maybe this will wake the hunters up:

Installing more metal detectors and locking school doors is all well and good, but it’s not enough. Unless our leaders also examine the hunting culture in rural America—where most mass school shootings take place—and its role in these disturbing incidents, little will change.

That’s right, guys, you’re one of us now.

Update: Kim has more. So does bitter.

Lest ye doubt this is an important issue, check out the anti-gun American Hunters and Shooters Association.

I criticized the local news for not covering the fact that the Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam belongs to an anti-gun group. Rich, who happened to be at the News Sentinel when I had my panties all bunched up, says:

On the day in question, both the A and B sections of the paper were running long, and stories were getting bumped and trimmed to fit. I sat in on the final budget meeting of the day, and while Uncle’s story never came up, it was clear that there simply wasn’t room for another story. Add that to the balancing issues I discussed earlier, and you can understand more about how the story about Knoxville’s top bachelor made the cut.

It’s not a perfect business; there’s always going to be compromise.

So, what about the next day? Or the day after that? Or, say, today? Or tomorrow? Remember, your average Knoxvillian still likely has no idea. Further, Rich says:

But here’s the thing that Uncle is forgetting; the KNS did publish a story about it. They published Uncle’s story via Michael’s blog. And assuming that the blogs are archived just like the rest of the online content, any searches on Haslam and Bloomberg will pull up Uncle’s post. Think about that for a second. A private citizen, writing anonymously, can publish a hard news story on a MSM website.

While I applaud Knoxnews for allowing anonymous folks to publish news, it is a matter of distribution. I don’t know what the Sentinel’s distribution is. Nor do I know how much traffic their website gets. But I’d say more Knoxvillians read the dead tree version and main website than read Michael’s blog. Their site has a Google rank of 7. Michael’s blog has a Google rank of 6. So does my site. Their main page is read much more and I know this because when their main page links to me, I get more traffic than when Michael’s blog links to me.

So, my original point remains: The average Knoxvillian has no idea that their mayor belongs to an anti-gun group funded by the Joyce Foundation.