Blogcritics takes a look.

Pete notes Citizen Against Government Waste isn’t a fan of the drug czar:

As the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), established in 1988 by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, approaches its eighteenth year of existence, it continues to demonstrate its inability to either achieve its core objectives or function efficiently.

…

The government also exhibits its obsession with containing marijuana use by continuing to throw unnecessary funding and unavailable resources towards tracking down and persecuting patients using medicinal marijuana in states that have legalized the substance for medical use only. Not only does this undermine federalism, it also proves that the government is incapable of exercising any kind of fiscal restraint.

Ayup.

Head is really calling it quits. Bummer. Your blog will be missed.

Including Dick Cheney.

Michael abandons his ordinarily calm demeanor and yells at the left.

Jeff has the latest on anti-gun bias in the press.

You Tube has a business plan?

The next step past New Jersey’s demand for smart guns is “smart ammo“.

Well someone has come forward and patented it.

Meyerle is patenting a design for a modified cartridge that would be fired by a burst of high-frequency radio energy. But the energy would only ignite the charge if a solid-state switch within the cartridge had been activated. This would only happen if a password entered into the gun using a tiny keypad matched one stored in the cartridge.

When they are sold, cartridges could be programmed with a password that matches the purchaser’s gun. An owner could set the gun to request the password when it is reloaded, or to perform a biometric check before firing. The gun could also automatically lock itself after a pre-set period of time has passed since the password was entered.

The system would undoubtedly cost more than a conventional gun, but many firearm enthusiasts would surely pay a premium for such added security.

We likely would pay a premium, because some danmed politician will force us to.

From the UN Gun Summit:

We believe that no armed group outside of the State should be allowed to bear weapons. We also believe that regulating civilian possession of Small Arms/Light Weapons will enhance our efforts to prevent its misuse. In our view, the issue of ammunition should also be addressed in the context of the Program of Action because in the absence of ammunition, small arms and light weapons pose no danger.

So you know what we’re up against.

Police tasered a 61 year-old, disabled vet at a protest.

Guy Montag went on a date set up via a conservative dating service. Turns out, it was a reporter who wrote an article on such a service. Go read and he has sooper seekrit links to the article to bypass registration.

Tam gave hers a paint job!

GLN has some info and links to coverage of the event.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics:

Large state and local law enforcement agencies with 59 percent of the nation’s sworn officers received 26,556 citizen complaints about the police use of force during 2002, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. The rate was 6.6 complaints per 100 full-time sworn officers. Eighty-four percent were made against large municipal departments, BJS said.

About eight percent of the complaints were officially sustained, that is, there was sufficient evidence to justify disciplinary action against the officer or officers; 34 percent were not sustained; 25 percent were unfounded, meaning the complaint was not supported by facts or the alleged incident did not occur; 23 percent ended in exonerations because the police actions were lawful and proper and nine percent ended in other dispositions, such as complaint withdrawal, etc.

Seems bigger cities have more complaints.

At least not this session:

Legislation to make it easier to get a permit to carry a concealed handgun is dead for this legislative session, the bill’s chief sponsor said Friday.

Rep. Deborah Hudson, R-Fairthorne, said she wanted more time for the Attorney General’s Office, the Delaware Police Chiefs Council and the National Rifle Association to produce a compromise bill.

Glen McAdoo:

It has taken me about 30 years, and what’s happened lately, to come to the conclusion that it is not liberals, but conservatives that ultimately may become the real threat to the Second Amendment and the Constitution in general. That’s argumentative, I’ll admit.

I don’t disagree. Seems a great deal of gun control lately is passed into law by supposed conservatives. Mr. McAdoo also says:

I can remember a time, not so long ago, when I adamantly supported a ban on assault weapons. But given the fact that many rapid fire automatic weapons can be converted into, or considered assault weapons, such a ban is not effective and only inflames those who believe that gun laws are being adopted that only serve to restrict the rights of law abiding citizens, diminish Second Amendment protections, and do nothing to protect the public. So, I’ve changed my mind.

I like his sentiment and am glad to see a liberal oppose the ban on weapons that look like assault weapons. However, I have no idea what the bolded part is supposed to mean.

Marc Folco:

The global gun control talks get underway in New York City tomorrow when the United Nations opens a two-week conference where world leaders intend to curb the international arms trade through a binding arms trade treaty. On the surface, it appears to be a treaty among nations to reduce the illegal trafficking of small military arms and light weapons in order to curb civil strife in some countries by establishing general guidelines for the manufacture and import and export and possession of those firearms.

But to Americans, who are too smart to swallow this façade, it’s no doubt a worldwide assault on the private ownership of firearms by peaceful, law-abiding U.S. citizens by super ceding our national and state laws and our Constitution, and those of other nations. Recommendations being reviewed at the conference will reduce the availability of guns to civilians in all societies, including banning the advertisement and promotion of small arms to civilians.

Josh Sugarmann:

Before the ban, the publicly available tracing data was used by city officials and law enforcement agencies to determine the sources of illegally trafficked firearms and identify the top guns traced to crime. When the info ban was first put in place for fiscal year 2004, it even banned the release of the number of guns manufactured in America. This was quickly reversed–because the gun industry wanted the information. The bill now goes to the House floor and then on to the Senate.

The non-disclosure language prohibits ATF from releasing information related to crime gun traces performed by the agency except in connection with a bona fide criminal investigation.

Actually, the data was mostly used to launch the bogus anti-gun maker lawsuits.

Bloomberg on government efforts to influence what we eat and how much exercise we get:

some people may call that too intrusive

You think?

Out of town on travel and at a hotel. This means tonight will be the first full night’s sleep I’ve had in over 6 weeks.

Zzzzzz.

Lefty gun huggers are crawling out of the woodwork, and what’s even better is that lots of them are women.

Next weekend I’m hosting some hippy types in upstate New York. What typically happens on these weekends is that the men do a bunch of shooting. The women run away or watch (and cheer when the men hit the clay pigeons!) and maybe pop three or four rounds on the .22. Generally, the women won’t go near the 12-gauge or anything that looks scary.

After much discussion, we’ve decided to inaugurate a women’s-only shooting class. It will be taught by a female friend of ours who has been shooting since she was 7 and is a better shot than any of the men without professional shooting experience. It will be women only, although I’ve weasled an invite to “supervise”. I’ll actually just be listening and learning. It’s going to be a fun class.

In an effort to encourage more lefties to pick up guns, here’s a comic about peace crusaders and their love of guns.

Don’t tell some people but the army is happy with the 5.56 Nato:

The U.S. Army completed a study of current 5.56mm M855 round, in response to complaints from troops that this ammunition was in adequate in combat. Troops reported many instances where enemy fighters were hit with one or more M855 rounds and kept coming. The study confirmed that this happened, and discovered why. If the M855 bullet hits slender people at the right angle, and does not hit a bone, it goes right through. That will do some soft tissue damage, but nothing immediately incapacitating. The study examined other military and commercial 5.56mm rounds and found that none of them did the job any better. The study concluded that, if troops aimed higher, and fired two shots, they would have a better chance of dropping people right away. The report recommended more weapons training for the troops, so they will be better able to put two 5.56mm bullets where they will do enough damage to stop oncoming enemy troops.

The study did not address complaints about long range shots (over 100 meters), or the need for ammo that is better a blasting through doors and walls. The army had been considering a switch of a larger (6.8mm) round, and the Special Forces has been testing such a round in the field. But a switch is apparently off the table at the moment. The U.S. Marine Corps is doing its own study, but has not finished it yet.

Seems if you’re using two shots, you may as well use ammo that gets it right the first time. Now, you say, Uncle, I thought you dug the 5.56 Nato, being the AR nut that you are? I do in fact, if you use hollow point ammo. Ball ammo, which the military requires, tends to ice pick (which this report confirms by stating If the M855 bullet hits slender people at the right angle, and does not hit a bone, it goes right through) and is not effective unless you use big heavy ammo. Smaller rounds are effective if you use ammo that fragments or expands. It’s also why 9mm ammo is adequate in a civilian gun but the military version lacks oomph.

Via Granted.

I was once a heavy smoker. Then I became one of those drinker-smokers (who smokes when drinking) for a long time. Then, in the last couple of months, I kind of started doing it more and more again. That was mostly due to the lack of a job and more free time than in the past. The occasional smoke with a beer became one with morning coffee. Then one after lunch, etc. until I was smoking more. A lot more.

So, I’ve decided it’s time to just plain quit entirely. That means no more occasional smokes or I’m just one stressful situation from taking it up again. The issue is that, even though I can cut down, I can’t just plain stop completely, mostly because I fucking love to smoke. I basically want to quit because Junior is old enough to start figuring out what I’m doing on the back porch after dinner. And, let’s face it, it’s bad for you.

And, of course, as I type this I’m sitting on said screened in porch at 10:16 on Sunday (kids and wife in bed) enjoying a glass of Knob Creek bourbon and smoking. Said quitting should commence tomorrow.

I have a friend who quit for three months. I went by his house for poker one night and he had started again. I said Dude, you quit for months. Why’d you start again? I thought you had it beat. He said Because smoking was all I thought about. I can’t spend the rest of my life wanting something so bad I can’t stand it. That’s sort of what I fear. See, with the occasional smoking thing, I’d not worry about it because I knew when I got home, I’d pop open a frosty cold Sam Adams, sit on the screened-in porch and smoke. I would smoke eventually, just not all the time. And there are so many activities that are associated with smoking, such as morning coffee and this glass of Knob Creek. Maybe I’ll take up the occasional cigar. Or chew gum. Or, you now, crack.

I went to the doctor and asked about Zyban since others recommend it so highly for quitting smoking. My doctor (and this is why I love my doctor, who is a good ol’ country boy with an MD) said: You just need to cowboy up and quit. You can do anything for two weeks and after that, it’s gone. He’s not a fan of Zyban, I suppose. He also explained that cigarettes give you a fairly intense rush (you don’t notice it but your body does) and said a good way to quit is to level that rush. He said the patch was good for that and to avoid the gum because it mimics the rush. The patch gives a steady dose of nicotine throughout the day and, basically, you get over the habit part first and that is followed by getting over the nicotine addiction part. I think getting over the habit is more important than getting over the drug addiction part.

So, I bought the patch. One problem is I can’t get them to roll up tight enough to light. Any ideas?

It’s been six weeks since the second was born. Those of you with kids will know what this means. Those without will not. It’s also a time when women tend to be extra, err, fertile. So, and I shit you not, we have the pill, spermicide, condoms and plan on acting Catholic (you know, worshippers of Cathol?) for a while.

On travel. Blogging may be light or sporadic.

Eh, what’s the diff? You’re with us or against us, right.

David Hardy has more on our favorite anti-gun, pro-gun group:

Read somewhere they started with half a million in the bank. Pretty hard to find that, when you have no members at the outset.

Sticklers for paperwork:

A librarian is in administrative trouble for demanding that the police actually follow procedure and get (gasp!) a warrant before she released private information about a patron to the police.

On occasion when I send a letter to the editor or some such, I get a favorable response. Mostly, though, I get people either too invested or too stupid to realize their mistakes (mostly the former but enough of the latter to note). But David scored a couple of small victories with Bill Schneider Responds and Bob Confer Responds. Good job.

Kit has a suppressor mini-FAQ. I dig the evo-9. Anyone know if it will also work on fixed barreled pistols or rifles?