Next time someone tells you Heck, I’d get in the ring with Tyson for $15M, point them to this. It’s about neck muscles, folks!

Why the World’s Largest Athletic Shoe Store has no less than twelve handicapped parking spaces at its Knoxville store?

Head on over to The Daily Rant to submit for the Carnival of the Vanities. Decisions, decisions.

In September 2004, the Federal Violent Crime Control Act of 1994 will sunset unless it is passed again (actually, I’m thinking now that maybe all laws should sunset unless renewed). This act banned manufacture and import of Assault Weapons and high-capacity magazines. Unfortunately, its ban on assault weapons doesn’t really ban those weapons. Per this act, an assault weapon is defined as:

A rifle that can accept a detachable magazine and possesses two or more of the following features: folding or telescopic stock, pistol grip, bayonet mount, flash suppressor, threaded barrel, or grenade launcher.

A folding or telescopic stock makes a weapon look mean. One would think that the ban aimed to make the assault weapons less concealable. It doesn’t. Only folding or telescopic stocks are an evil feature. Mind you, it is perfectly acceptable to just put a shorter stock on the assault weapons, which makes its concealment easier, but it can’t possess the magical power of changing sizes on its own. A pistol grip is, of course, easily bypassed by use of thumbhole stocks. Why a pistol grip makes a weapon more dangerous is beyond me. Of course, grenade launchers were already classified as destructive devices before this act and regulated accordingly. It is good to see that we’re all now safe from all those drive-by bayonetings. I can almost see a need for the threaded barrel listed as a criteria but anything questionable that would be threaded onto a barrel is already regulated (like silencers and flash suppressors). And flash suppressors do not make the flash invisible at night, they just disperse the flash to the sides instead of out the front.

The first result of this ban is that guns manufactured and imported now have detachable magazines and one of the above features. They function the same but don’t look as threatening. Mind you, these arms still accept thirty round magazines (these are readily available since the ban on them because of the sheer numbers that were produced prior to 1994) and their functionality is not at all impaired. What we have is a ban on aesthetics. You’re gun can’t look mean.

The second result of this ban is that the guns manufactured prior to 1994 (which you can still buy and there are still tons of them out there) are more expensive, only because they are cosmetically different.

The third result is that high capacity magazines are expensive. There are still tons out there and they are readily available. They just cost a lot more.

Assault weapons were never very popular in crimes anyway. Assault weapons were not used in crimes that much prior to the ban. In addition, the ban has had no effect on these statistics. And the reason is that most of these guns are expensive. A criminal will buy a cheap gun or steal an expensive one to maximize their return on investment.

Why assault weapons are constitutionally protected:

Because the purpose of the second amendment is to keep the citizenry armed to keep the government in check. The second amendment exists to give the people (as a last resort) the opportunity to overthrow a tyrannical government, so that what happened in Uganda doesn’t happen here. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that weapons of a military nature would be necessary for such an endeavor. In fact, from US v. Miller:

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of “a shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length” at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.

A sawn-off shotgun is not protected because it isn’t military in nature. It seems our assault weapons are more protected than our hunting rifles. But most people only seem to get upset when hunting rifles are at stake. And how do we ban hunting rifles? By labeling them sniper rifles. The only difference between the two is the target.

Nipping it in the bud:

And the best retorts of those who disagree with me will be:

Crime statistics manipulated by some anti-gun group (which will be wrong).

Why do you need one of those? (Because I’m free and I can).

You obviously have this assault weapon because your penis is small. (No, I built it to protest the Bushmaster lawsuit. Thanks to the Brady Campaign, there is now one more assault weapon running loose in America).

You’re not a lawyer: (well, duh, but I can read)

You’re a whacko, gun nut: Yeah, real intelligent argument you got there, Sparky.

Closing:

There is a website dedicated to allowing the ban to sunset. Check out AWBanSunset.com for info on getting this pointless ban out of the way.

Some ado has been made about this Calpundit post, in which he explains why he now opposes invading Iraq. To wit:

I just can’t align myself any longer with the folks who think the rest of the world are “midgets” who should be shoved unceremoniously out of the way whenever we feel like it.

I’m not inherently pessimistic nor do I believe absolutely that all humans are evil, nor the masses cattle, and all that state of nature stuff. But basically the statement above illustrates that the doctrine of Might Makes Right is wrong.

On a very fundamental philosophical level, I agree. And it would be nice if that were the case. But the realist in me can’t help but think that, to an extent, might does make right from a historical perspective. As for shoving the midgets aside, it depends upon what the midgets have done and not merely the fact that they are midgets. A point often overlooked is the view that we pick on the midgets, instead of the actions of the midgets that warrant a little might every now and again.

Today’s noun: UN Weapons Inspector

185 UN Weapons Inspectors walk into a bar [you know what to do]

BTW, if these are getting boring, let me know. And feel free to suggest nouns.

Beautiful weather this weekend and we cooked out Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, however, we ran some errands in Knoxville. While driving down Morrell, me and the Mrs. saw about 8 people out there with their little No Blood For Oil, Don’t Buy The Hype, Honk If You’re For Peace signs.

I saw them and started cackling a little bit. I then rolled the window down. At this point, the Mrs. says You’re not gonna say something are you? I said I hadn’t planned on it. She was, of course, referring to the fact I rolled my window down. Guess I needed the air. But I did not say any of the following:

Get a job and cut your hair
Free Iraq
Hippies Smell
I’m with the majority

I was proud of myself. A little restraint.

What he said!

Update: Link should work now

Today’s noun: Libertarian

185 Libertarians walk into a bar [insert punchline]

After this, I’ll dump the political party theme.

To all those people landing at my site while doing a web search for Dixie Chicks Tickets Knoxville. Not what you expected, I bet.

I’m sticking with black, but these look kinda cool!

Some woman too stupid to realize she needs to watch her step is suing PetsMart because she stepped in dog poo and fell.

First, folks speculated that Bush would announce last night he caught UBL. Now, they claim to have captured two of his 14 or 18 sons. UBL gets around.

A proposed law in Tennessee waives sales taxes on the purchase of gun safes.

See the rules.

Since the last one should have clued you in, today’s noun is: Democrat.

185 Democrats walk in to a bar [add a punch line in comments]

The speech was very nationalist. I think it’s important to the American people that Bush spell out in no uncertain terms that they are more important than the UN. Of course, the accusations of arrogance in the rest of the world will run amok, amok, amok.

I hope it was one last attempt at diplomacy. It will be fun to see France try to explain why they feel Iraq is complying with 1441. The burden was placed clearly on Hussein.

And I’m not sure, but if you take every third letter from every fifth word, it spells out: The Security Counsel Can Go Fuck Itself And Its Little Dog Too.

He says Bush will lose to a mysterious and unnamed Democrat, or at least a poll says that. Oh wait, I covered that already.

The first one was fun.

Todays Noun: Republican

185 Republicans walk in to a bar. Comment on a punchline. Have fun.

I’m having issues with my comments. I’ll likely change to a different provider soon. Anyone have suggestions? Enetation is just down too much. You get what you pay for, I guess. Send me an email if you have suggestions since my comments seem to be on dysfunctional.

I said I was going to do my part to support Bushmaster. Then I went to the recent gun show and realized that the dealers jacked the prices up. So, I decided to build one.

I went out and bought one of these:

Then I bought these:

Notice that only that thing on the bottom (a lower receiver) is the only portion considered to be a firearm. It had to be registered.

Then I laid the parts on out my sophisticated workbench (the wife always calls it the dinner table, what does she know).

This is where I got scared. I’m not mechanically inclined at all. But I assembled those little parts into the lower receiver using only pliers, an allen wrench, a small phillips screwdriver, and a large flathead screwdriver. It’s a good thing I bought that duct tape, because here you can see me using it cover the lower receiver so that I don’t scratch it when I’m hammering in a pin:

Then I put it all together and it looks like this:

Now, I still need one of these:

And one of these:

So far, this has been a real fun project. I’ll finish it by the next gun show and take it out for a shoot. Hope it works!

The folks at J&T Distributing were real helpful about answering my questions. And I bought the upper receiver (the first picture) from them. So, I’m not supporting Bushmaster as much as I wanted to since the dealers are jacking the prices up, but I plan on buying their parts (just not a full gun).

Also, I learned about all this stuff from those wonderful people at AR15.com. They have a build your own forum and a manual for assembling the lower receiver.

The Rant runs a game of name that movie. SKB responded by having a movie quotes game. Rex began a rock n’ roll quote game. Troy started a literary game. And, you guessed it, I’m not above stealing the idea.

At the blogger bash, we watched Einstein Simplified (an improv show) and they had a game that I thought was pretty neat called 185. The rules of the game (per their site) are:

Players step forward and deliver a joke about an audience provided noun in the form: 185 nouns walk in to a bar. The bartender says I can’t serve 185 nouns. And 185 nouns say .

An example from Tuesday was when the noun was bachelor. One of them stepped forward and said: 185 bachelors walk in to a bar and ABC called it a show. Another one was when the noun was American Idol Reject, one of them said: 185 American Idol Rejects walk in to a bar and go back to work.

So, I will play audience by stating the noun and periodically I’ll list a punch line or two. Leave your own in the comments. Should make for a good laugh.

Today’s noun is (and this should be obvious) blogger.

DailyPundit tells us that the assault weapons ban of 94 may not get renewed. The article is here.

Me and Mrs. Uncle went to the blogger bash over at Patrick Sullivan’s. Andrew was kind enough to send a sampler of single malt scotch for me to distribute. I called dibs on the Dalwhinnie. Me and Mrs. Uncle were concerned about getting the scotch into Sullivan’s. After all, they are in the business of selling what we were trying to sneak in. So, we used some fairly sophisticated terrorist technology to slip the bottles past security (and two police officers).

I finally got to meet Barry. He’s a super nice guy. Rich (the host) was as gracious as ever. He’s absolutely one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. He does want to know why all the debate occurs over at SKB’s and not at his site. To which we all responded: ‘Cause Bubba’s the Democrat.

Bubba and Mrs. Bubba were there. Two real class acts whom me and the mrs. enjoyed talking to! Troy and Rex are still two of the funniest guys I’ve ever met.

After dinner, we caught Einstein Simplified. It was an improv show and it was surprisingly good! Me and the Mrs. will go back some day when we can stay out later (had to let the pup pee).

We’ve decided to dispatch a search and rescue operation to obtain the whereabouts of Bjorn and Brehd, who were noticeably absent. By noticeably, I mean they said they were coming and didn’t.

It was a good time!

With North Korea doing flybys of our spy planes and having nukes, it’s no wonder we let some things slide. These folks may be able to retaliate. Obviously, we can’t let Iraq get to a point where they can openly defy us with retaliatory capabilities.

Of course, this is over simplistic. You handle a country like North Korea differently because of their more advanced military capabilities than you would Iraq. I suppose the administration is working out the details for Korea to be next. One at a time, my friends.

Well, here’s a handy pamphlet from the North American Guidelines for Children’s Agricultural Tasks. There is so much wrong with this pamphlet. Oh, where to begin?

Thanks to OMG for the link!

I have nothing to say. I’m speechless. And there was much rejoicing.

Nothing more to see here. Keep it moving. Move along quietly. Get outta my yard, ya damn kids!

Update: I just mean for today, in case I scared you.

My wife and I have differing tastes in music. She’s country and I’m metal. We have a rule in the car that the driver chooses the music (mostly). My wife likes the Dixie Chicks. I don’t. Actually, I refer to them as The Dixie Chicks and that fat girl (only two of them are chicks, really). Apparently, they’re playing in Knoxville in May and tickets went on sale yesterday at 10:00 a.m. The wife plans on going with a friend.

At 10, the wife starts calling the ticket people (and her friend did too). I ask my wife if she thought tickets would be on sale online. So, I hop online and begin searching, while she’s calling in and getting the busy signal. I find the site and click the Buy Tickets button. And my request can’t be processed due to high traffic volume (that’s the message I get). In this day and age, why are concert promoters so behind in technology? Why can’t they have a web page setup to deal with volume? Or a phone system to do the same?

After trying for 40 minutes, we gave up and went to run some errands. The wife has both cell phones in the car set to redial and is using them both while I drive (so, we’re not listening to the Dixie Chicks). And still no answer. Why don’t these people keep up with technology?

Thompson Boling Arena only holds 24,535. It’s not that much volume. My wife’s friend eventually got through and got some not real good seats for $65 each. My wife was disappointed they cost so much. And I tell her that’s the result of Morpheus, Napster, and Kazaa. Again, the music industry is way behind the times.