Blackfork reminds us:

This Friday we load up the trucks and convoy the Texas State Rifle Team up to Port Clinton and Camp Perry for the 2006 Civilian Marksmanship Program state team matches.

I’m on the Texas team.

CMP week is all service rifle competition. That means everyone is shooting an 03, a Garand, a M1A, an AR15 or, for the first time this year, an M1 Carbine in the new Carbine Match.

TN Tax Revolt emails:

STOP the Internet Access TAX

Senator Alexander is THE KEY vote in the Senate and needs to hear from us NOW or he will very likely vote against extending the Internet Tax Freedom Act. Every state will then be free to tax our internet access. We rarely have the opportunity to have this kind of leverage but we can actually stop internet access taxes if we call Senator Alexander TODAY. PLEASE HELP.

The Internet Tax Freedom Act is keeping our Internet Access Tax Free but it will EXPIRE next year. The Senate is considering a permanent extension THIS WEEK and Senator Alexander will vote to increase these taxes if he doesn’t hear from us.

PLEASE take just a moment to call Senator Alexander’s office:

Just tell the Senator’s staff, “My name is _name_ and I live in _city_ and I want my Internet access to be tax free. Please tell the Senator to vote YES on permanently extending the Internet Tax Freedom Act.”

You can reach him at:

Washington Office
302 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4944
Fax: (202) 228-3398

Defenseless Bear Killed by Vicious Pitbull and Crazed Knife-Wielding Owner

The Denver Channel:

Marshals: Innocent People Placed On ‘Watch List’ To Meet Quota

Marshals Say They Must File One Surveillance Detection Report, Or SDR, Per Month

You could be on a secret government database or watch list for simply taking a picture on an airplane. Some federal air marshals say they’re reporting your actions to meet a quota, even though some top officials deny it.

The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, told 7NEWS that they’re required to submit at least one report a month. If they don’t, there’s no raise, no bonus, no awards and no special assignments

Kinda like speeding ticket quotas, only it will fuck you for life.

Yes, I have a 9mm AR-15. It would never have occured to me to make a 9mm AK though. But it did occur to Lichtenberg Research, whose slogan is:

Because you can…and…it drives them crazy!!!

Check them out:

Sweet!

Update: Here’s a forum thread on the builds.

Or you could, you know, learn how to fucking drive.

No, I kid bitter.

In comments, I learned that there is a blog about koi.

Nylarthotep notes the house voted Tuesday to prevent law enforcement officers from confiscating legally owned guns during a national disaster or emergency. The senate approved a similar measure a while back. It seems to me to be similar to the senate version in that it bans funding for confiscations. I’m still searching for the vote record. It’s apparently not as quickly updated as the Senate website.

From Reader H, Beretta’s Xtrema 2 Recoil-less Shotgun is impressive:

In other news, that may also be the only pro-gun statement I’ve heard from Chuckles Schumer.

update: Stormy in comments at leanleft:

Yes, thankfully such people–Al Sharpton–are only found on the right. No one on the left–Jesse Jackson–would ever stoop to such depths. I mean, could you ever believe that a liberal–Cynthia McKinney–would try to appeal to anti-semitism for political gain?

tee-hee.

Seriously? I have an editor, it’s called Word. But, all kidding aside, it’s scary that the media makes such stupid mistakes with editors.

In an update to the mysterious, time-traveling gun, KDT asked the press about their failure to factcheck and gets a response:

You are right. The statistics are wrong and we are removing the story from our website. For what it’s worth, the number were cited by Queens D.A. Richard Brown at his press conference. The other information in the story also came from the D.A. While we tend to give credit to law enforcement sources for knowing what they are talking about, we should have realized that the statistics didn’t make any sense.

Seen at Radley’s:

Armed game wardens seized 10 exotic fish from the tank of a popular Chinese restaurant, leaving its owner shaken and outraged.

“They treated me like a criminal,” said Cuong Ly, who escaped from Vietnam 25 years ago. “I lived under communism and I felt like I’m back there again.”

Ly, 45, said his pet koi were like family members and their confiscation in what he described as a heavy-handed raid made him “want to explode inside.”

After obtaining a search warrant, two uniformed wardens and a biologist, accompanied by Freeport police, visited China Rose on Wednesday, taking away the 10 fish that ranged in size from 12 to 14 inches.

The koi had been on display since Ly opened the restaurant nearly 15 years ago and he credited them for bringing good luck to the business in a way akin to the arrangement of articles in the ancient Chinese practice of feng shui.

A few years ago, however, Maine outlawed the importation and possession of koi, and Ly was charged with importing freshwater fish without a permit.

[…]

“It looked like they were raiding the place for illegal drugs,” he said. “They made it seem like a crime scene.”

I’m sorry but that’s retarded.

9mm v. Samurai sword:

Another press follie. Do they even try to research gun stuff?

Colt CCO has the final part in his series on his last AR-15. And there’s pics of girls shooting guns.

Seem at Chuck’s:

If the Arabs quit fighting, there would be peace. If the Israelis quit fighting, there would be a bloodbath.

BREAKING NEWS: Hobo spill in Knox County.

Jay G. got his C&R license.

Turns out Schnucks Markets, the place where employees were getting stabbed until a man armed with a gun stopped the assailant, is anti-gun:

Schnucks is also vehemently anti-gun. “No carry” prohibition signs are posted all over their stores, and gun control organizations see large donations both from the corporation itself, and from the Schnuck brothers who own the chain. They also support anti-gun politicians, and anti-gun legislation.

So, it’s kind of ironic that a knife-wielding maniac had his reign of terror ended on Schnucks property, by a man with a gun.

Who knows, if a customer had been carrying his gun in the store, perhaps Knife Boy might have been stopped before he had a chance to wound eight people. Or perhaps he might have been deterred from attacking anyone altogether, knowing that there could be some public-spirited citizen in the store with a gun.

this song kinda rules:

And I’m testing youtube.

Be sure of your target and what is behind it:

Three police officers were accidentally shot Sunday as one or more officers took aim at a pit bull attacking a member of their crew, police said. All were in stable condition.

Who exactly is at fault here:

Snelgrove, an Emerson College student from East Bridgewater, was killed when she was struck in the eye by a pepper spray pellet fired by a police officer outside Fenway Park in October 2004, after Boston beat the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series.

If you said the police, you’d be wrong:

The city of Boston received $438,500 in a settlement between a pellet gun maker and the family of a college student killed after a Boston policeman fired pepper spray pellets into an unruly crowd celebrating a Red Sox win.

The city was entitled to a portion of the settlement as part of its agreement last year to pay the family of Victoria Snelgrove $5 million, the largest wrongful death settlement in Boston history.

The agreement included a stipulation that the city receive half of any proceeds, up to $2 million, from the family’s $10 million suit against the gun manufacturer, FN Herstal. The city also agreed to cooperate with the family in the suit.

So, the city paid. And the gun maker paid.

In an update to Politically Correct Dog’s tumor, he went to the emergency vet last night after throwing up several times. That was bad. But the good news is that the ER vet basically said he’d seen this before and the sickness was usually indicative of a benign tumor. He also took additional X-rays and noted that no cancer seemed to have metastasized throughout his chest, which again may be indicative that his tumor is benign. He gave Politically Correct Dog much better odds than the original 25% and that’s a good thing. He has surgery today for removal.

Thanks to those for their well-wishes.

Colt CCO has his last AR-15, for at least the second time. He tells you why he picked the accessories he did. Very cool pic.

Amendment 1: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Yet, GLN reports:

Now, if you are a Lautenberg victim, how do you get your gun rights reinstated? By having your record expunged.

For those in Wyoming, a law passed in 2004 allows for expungement of misdemeanor offenses. The purpose of the law was expressly to restore firearm rights taken away by the Lautenberg Amendment.

The BATFE responded by saying that Wyoming had an incorrect definition of ‘expunge’ and that the BATFE would prosecute any Lautenberg victim who possessed a firearm after having their record expunged by Wyoming.

This put Wyoming in the interesting position of issuing concealed carry permits to people that the feds considers prohibited persons.

Obviously this has caused a certain amount of controversy. Christopher Kegler sued the BATFE. Unfortunately for Chris, the judge decided that there was no threat of prosecution for desiring his gun rights back.

I can only conclude that the only way Chris can get his day in court is to violate and face prosecution under Lautenberg. Of course, the judge may then say that the BATFE matter will be resolved in criminal court and not address it. The risk to Chris is that he had a misdemeanor offense expunged and would face felony prosecution. Even victory would come at great, personal expense.

On standing, David Hardy writes:

Standing is a complex and chaotic doctrine. When I lectured a CLE seminar on bringing firearm law test cases, I always dealt with it first, with the warning it has a 75-80% kill rate, and you have to really do your preparation on it. Unless they really like your claim, courts are quick to say you have no standing because you aren’t being prosecuted and can only speculate that if you break the law, something would happen. You have to be very creative here.

I think citizens should be allowed to challenge laws without the risk of imprisonment or fines that come with breaking the law. It’s what a conscientious citizen should do. Our system prevents that which makes it more difficult for people to challenge things they view are unjust. They do so at the risk of losing their freedom. And the system is set up that way to prevent that from happening. It’s bullshit. David Hardy recommends in this case that:

I’d suggest here an argument along the following lines: to buy a gun from a dealer he has to get a background check. Now, he can’t really fill out the 4473 and put in NO. That’d make him guilty of a false record, a felony, and it’s pretty much strict liability for that. He must say yes or no, and is guilty if the answer is wrong, even if he thinks it is right.

But… if he did do that, the NICS system would stop the transaction.

So he has an immediate injury, even if ATFE sent him a letter saying that, because he is such a nice person, they will never prosecute him even if he does buy. He can’t buy from an FFL, period. It’s not just that he fears prosecution if he does, the system is so set up that he cannot.

I was going to comment extensively on the WaPo’s coverage of the incident but Bitter done beat me to it:

He’s correct, they do lose firearms all the time and they should be held accountable for it. However, he’s an NRA Board Member who is supposed to be helping recruit members and bring more people to the pro-gun side. Hiding behind the issue of losing so many guns is not the way to do that.

At this point, I’m willing to say that Abrams needs to resign from the Board of Directors.

The NRA often pushes the notion that we should enforce existing gun laws and that would entail their members abiding by them. I will note that many violations of Federal firearms law is stuff like writing a Y when the form mandates you write Yes. The WaPo also trots out stats on machine guns being sold without proper records in 2003. Well, I think that’s bullshit. Since 1986, machine guns are sold only to governments. Pre-86 machine guns that are transferred among civilians must go through a fairly extensive check with the ATF. Surely, the ATF didn’t allow botched paperwork through?

Ok, one last thing:

In 1997, he couldn’t account for 45. In 2001, it was 133. In 2003, there were 422 firearms missing — more than a quarter of his inventory — including semiautomatic assault rifles, 12-gauge shotguns and Glock 9mm pistols, according to federal investigators.

I doubt the guns are missing. More likely, the paperwork is missing. Which really ought to not be a problem since the only reason people fill out Form 4473 is for the background check. I mean, if they’re missing, that means there must be some registry to compare the weapons to. And a gun registry is illegal.

Now back to Bitter, who also posted it here.

Via Dr. Strangegun, comes this:

Senator Chuck Schumer is among those pushing to have the gun, called the Fabrique Nationale 5.7 outlawed.

It’s the first time that this particular gun has been recovered in New York.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said the “cop killer” gun has a 20-round magazine, is able to shoot 50 to 100 yards with great accuracy and its bullet can pierce 48 layers of Kevlar.

Brown said that of the 616 police officers killed in the line of duty nationwide between 1994 and 2003, 425 were killed with this handgun.

First, the armor piercing ammo is not available to the public. I’m uncertain if the civilian round can penetrate a vest. Also, the FN is only a few years old (two, I think). So, there is no way it killed police in 1994. Period. And even if it was, I doubt it would be responsible for 425 deaths since the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that from 1995 to 2004 there were 636 officers killed in the line of duty.

It’s seven years later, and I still can’t tell the story without shaking.

This just in (via R. Neal): News Sentinel endorses Ford and Corker. As R. Neal notes, no one saw it coming.

Why are papers in the business of endorsements anyway? Seems it could slant their coverage.