We report, you decide.

Via Jeffy Weffy, comes this:

A day after a federal ban on assault weapons expired, an unknown gunman sprayed 10 rounds from a rifle into the second-floor windows of the Sheriff’s Department Headquarters.

I wonder how many times unrelated shootings will be tied to the ban? California has a ban that was more strict than the federal ban and, gasp!, it still happened.

Quick blood in the street check: Ain’t seen nary a drop.

Perry de Havilland has issued a call to arms:

And so I urge all the redoubtable gun owning men and women of the USA to run, not walk, to their nearest gun shop and purchase nice Kalashnikov or AR-15 or Ruger Mini-14 or FAL or M-14 or whatever, plus a goodly selection of flash suppressors and high capacity magazines, thus ensuring that there are soooooo many of the damn things in circulation that any future ban will simply have no effect.

Use the power of the Buycott, have fun at the range, arm yourself to the teeth and, best of all, absolutely enrage advocates of gun control in the process.

The ban going into effect caused a huge supply of semi-automatics. The sunset of it will do the same. And there’s a gun show next weekend. I’ll be there.

Well, sort of solid. Last night, Junior got her first taste of solid food. By solid, I mean one part rice cereal to five parts formula. As I said, sort of solid. More like liquid with the occasional chunk in it. The Mrs. was feeding her while I was videotaping the momentous occasion. The first bite, Junior looked quite confused. She moved her mouth a bit, realized it was OK and swallowed. Then, she grinned from ear to ear. She was obviously happy to discover that there is more than one type of food on the planet (she had only had formula for the last 13 weeks).

Me and the wife then switched (I got to feed while she taped it). Whereas she ordinarily eats between four and six ounces of formula, she only had about eight bites of cereal then washed it down with a sip or two of formula. Not much in terms of volume but I guess the different consistency filled her up.

A good time was had by all. Now, we’re counting down two more weeks until the introduction of baby food. We’ll be changing the consistency of the formula/cereal mixture between now and then to increase the food’s solidity.

Someone figured out that it is more important for legislators to appear to be doing something than actually doing something:

Did the assault ban stop Columbine?

Think again.

Of course, the madness at Columbine spurred new rounds of legislation at the state and national level, and that, truly, is why the assault ban is such a good example of legislation gone wrong. After Columbine, the Colorado legislature passed four gun-control measures. None of them, even supporters agreed, would have stopped the horrendous school killings, but they would have added to consequences for those who did the deed.

You can’t get much more consequential than death, but hey, at least the legislature did something.

And that, I suppose, is the lesson of the assault weapon ban.

It made us feel better.

You don’t say?

WATE writes:

The Knox County Sheriff’s Office says Wednesday that Deputy Melissa Bush, 28, won’t be cited for running a red light when she crashed her cruiser into a car Tuesday morning.

She wasn’t responding to a call. She just ran the red light, which she would have ticketed someone else for doing.

My little tussle with the charming Ms. Smith (seriously, she really is nice), that I mentioned here, about her misrepresenting the assault weapons ban is taking place over on the WATE message board. She is upset because I published what she calls our private emails.

She still hasn’t retracted the statement. Go figure.

Murdoch has the latest. I just want to know if there will be a civilian model.

Jason spots the differences between the anti-Bush and anti-Kerry books at Amazon.

SayUncle, master of cryptography, uncovered a secret message in the CBS statement:

^We estab^lish^ed to ^our s^ati^sfaction that the memo^s were accurate ^or we would not have put them on television. There was a great deal o^f coroborating [sic] evidence ^from people in a position to know.

I’m guessing the announcement of their statement was to draw some ratings?

Regarding the gun bias I mentioned here, I am currently involved in an Email exchange with Tearsa Smith, the reporter. As of now, she is seriously looking at it. I’ll let you know how it ends.

She referred to me as Uncle Sam and not SayUncle. Not looking good in the attention to detail department.

Kevin, after finally conceding to the windmills by stating the memos could be fake, writes:

Every single accusation that was originally brought up by the bloggers has been thoroughly discredited.

Horseshit. You may want to reconsider that statement. Or at least start thoroughly discrediting all the claims. Go on, I’ll wait.

Looks like the city council is at it again, having failed once.

A couple of good reads on guns and gun control in South Africa. The first:

Seven South African Police Service provincial commissioners were criticised sharply yesterday by members of Parliament’s safety and security committee for not knowing what was happening on the ground in their areas.

The seven had been called before the committee to report on the progress made in implementing the Firearms Control Act and its regulations.

From next year about 2-million legal firearm owners will have to begin reapplying for their licences. The project has already cost the state more than R63m.

Police have come under fire for the regulations relating to the act, and have been besieged by accusations that they will disarm the private security industry and do irreparable harm to the R2bn- a-year hunting industry.

Committee chairwoman Maggie Sotyu told the assembled commissioners from North West, Limpopo, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Northern Cape and Mpumalanga that the information they supplied to members of the committee was different to that which the committee had been given on the ground while on oversight visits.

Sounds like they’re taking a cue from Canada and implementing a registration scheme that will fail. The next article says the numbers don’t add up (sound familiar?):

The reality in SA is that 60% of all robberies involve the use of guns. About half of all murders in the country are committed with guns. There are 30 murders for every 100000 of the population each year, making us the secondhighest in the world.

And SA does not have huge numbers of legal guns because the majority of the population historically were denied the right to own guns what we have is racially skewed gun ownership.

The safety and security committee was told that only about 2million South Africans own about 4- million guns. That is less than 5%. Legal guns that is.

MPs were also told that in the past five years 176559 guns were destroyed. But there was another statistic that was pretty scary. In 1998 guns reported lost or stolen totalled 19507. This number has steadily decreased over the past six years, with 12216 guns reported lost or stolen this year so far. The scary part is that in 1998 the number found (either confiscated or recovered) came to 9384. This figure has steadily increased over the same six years, with 20234 guns found between January and August this year.

That means there were about 8000 more weapons found than were lost. Where on earth did they come from? If they were lost or stolen and not reported, why do the South African Police Service figures for prosecutions of those who have been negligent not reflect all these guns?

MPs were also told that this year, for instance, 48994 firearms were destroyed, but only 12000 were reported lost or stolen. Are we honestly being asked to believe more than 34000 legal gun owners failed to report that they had lost their weapons or had them stolen? So where did they come from?

You mean that a gun ban results in criminals obtaining guns illegally? Odd how that works. Additionally, roughly half of US households have guns and the murder rate is about 5.5 per 100,000. Why is that?

With the goal of a shopping center in mind, city officials in Millville drafted an ordinance to take land from existing businesses. Tentatively, the ordinance has been tabled:

Over the last few months, city officials had prepared an ordinance authorizing condemnation proceedings in accordance with local redevelopment and housing laws and eminent domain.

Ah, the shotgun approach: throw many different condemnation plans and hope one sticks.

On abuses:

Those who follow eminent domain abuses were cheered by the Michigan Supreme Court’s ruling this summer that it is illegal for the government to seize private land and transfer it to another private owner for public “benefit.”

But that’s one state. The abuses will not end until the U.S. Supreme Court stops the land-grabbers.

The predicate for these abusive eminent domain cases is that a private entity — the government’s good buddy, naturally — will make better use of the land by providing more jobs or greater tax revenue.

Hypocrisy, thy name is the Lancaster County Commission:

Three months after exercising eminent domain to take land for public use, the Lancaster County Commissioners this morning condemned their colleagues in York County for doing the same thing. Lancaster County Commissioner Chairman Pete Shaub today spoke in opposition to the York County Commissioners’ vote in May to take a 79-acre parcel near Wrightsville.

The land, formally a part of Lauxmont Farms, a 766-acre horse farm, was slated to be an upscale housing development called “Highpoint.”

More taking from one private person to give to another.

This concept that Yeah, sure those memos are fake but that’s not the real story is rather lame. Sure, Bush was a half-assed guardsman. But who cares? These are two separate issues. The second, and I think more important issue, is that CBS ran a story based on weak information. They even knew it was weak beforehand or they wouldn’t have interviewed the document expert before the forgery allegations surfaced. Then, in spite of the evidence, they cling to their weak story.

That’s what’s important.

Check out this pic. Via Jed.

QOTD:

We got up this morning and, lo and behold, the streets were not filled with criminals carrying menacing looking “assault weapons” raping and pillaging the nation despite the expiration of the ineffectual, so-called federal “assault weapons” ban.

Here’s their latest press release:

California Leads Nation in War on Terror – Becomes First State in Nation to Ban 50 Caliber Anti-Armor Sniper Rifles

Law Comes Less Than Three Years After Violence Policy Center First Identified Threat Posed by These Readily Available Tools of Terror

Governor Schwarzenegger Signs Bill That Bans Rifles That Can Destroy Aircraft, Down Helicopters, and Penetrate Armor Plating

Of course, no 50 cal rifle has ever been used in a crime and they can’t destroy aircraft, etc. More coverage on the 50 cal lies can be found here.

Go have a good laugh. After all, the anti-gun side always engages in honest debate, right? Look, over there! Terrorists!

To prove to some people I do have other stuff to talk about, we learn from Jeff that The House is pushing to repeal the unconstitutional DC gun ban:

A majority of the U.S. House of Representatives is supporting legislation that would repeal virtually all of the District’s gun restrictions, targeting one of the nation’s most stringent handgun bans while the presidential candidates are battling over gun limits.

Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.) said House Republican leaders have promised him a vote before the Nov. 2 election on his proposed D.C. Personal Protection Act, which would end a ban on handguns in the nation’s capital; remove a prohibition against semiautomatic weapons; lift registration requirements for ammunition and other firearms; and cancel criminal penalties for possessing unregistered firearms and carrying a handgun in one’s home or workplace.

Souder’s bill also would deny the District’s elected officials “authority to enact laws or regulations that discourage or eliminate the private ownership or use of firearms.” The legislation has 228 co-sponsors, more than enough to clear the 435-member House.

The opposition says:

Norton said that repealing the District’s gun laws would worsen violence in the city, where 13 children have been killed by gunfire this year. She also cited the 2002 sniper attacks that killed 10 people in the region.

Given that DC has the highest murder rate in the nation and crime there is terrible, I think it’s safe to assume that the current plan isn’t exactly working.

The WaPo:

The lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from President Bush’s former squadron commander in the National Guard said yesterday that he examined only the late officer’s signature and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves.

“There’s no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate them,” Marcel Matley said in a telephone interview from San Francisco. The main reason, he said, is that they are “copies” that are “far removed” from the originals

As of now, they have no experts that they revealed who corroborate the story. A while back, I pondered who faked the memos. I decided it was either some really dumb Democrats or some smart Republicans. Turns out, Rich thinks it may be smart Democrats.

They have a list of firearms that were formerly banned. The list is, of course, wrong because the weapons listed would also have to have more than one of a folding stock, pistol grip, flash hider, threaded barrel, and bayonet lug. As such, those weapons without those features were not banned.

Meanwhile, the ban is already lowering prices in local gun stores:

Gun salesman Clarence Miracle said prices of certain firearms dropped Monday, hours after the expiration of the federal ban on assault weapons.

Miracle, a sales consultant at Craig’s Firearms Supply and Police Distributors, 8671 Chapman Highway, said guns like the Uzi that usually sold for $1,200 now cost $750, and ammunition-feeding devices that once cost $119 are now selling for $19.

“People are coming in and buying tokens. They’re like mementos,” he said. “They just want them now because they couldn’t have them before.”

So, for the second time, the assault weapons ban will put more guns in the hands of citizens. As it was being passed, manufacturers cranked them out and there was a huge supply. Now, it will be higher. I love the irony that the ban will be responsible for putting more guns on the street. Speaking of street, I still haven’t seen any blood on mine.

And a final quote:

Those who paid high prices for pre-banned guns will be disappointed because they’re cheaper

Yup.

Tearsa Smith writes:

Military-style weapons are now legal on the streets of East Tennessee after a 10-year federal ban on certain types of weapons expired at midnight.

No they are not. Military style weapons (AKA machine guns) have been regulated since 1934 and will continue to be regulated. The assault weapons ban does not affect them. She does get one bit right:

Despite that, local law enforcement says it won’t change the way they do their jobs. That’s because despite bans, criminals still get illegal guns.

And then there is this:

For example, take the L.A. bank robbery in 1997. “There are a huge number of those weapons that are out there to begin with that were grand fathered,” said Knox County Sheriff Tim Hutchison. “So, they’re out there for these people that want to break the law to get ahold of anyway. So it really doesn’t make that big of a difference.”

She is now wrong again. The LA robbery involved illegal machine guns, which the assault weapons ban didn’t address, unless they are illegal machine guns that also happen to have more than one of a pistol grip, folding stock, flash suppressor, etc.

Well, what did you expect from the Brady Bunch?

Washington, DC – The ban ends at midnight, but already there are signs of what may follow for America’s police officers. In Dade County Sunday, a police officer was attacked by an AK-47-wielding assailant. She was shot at least twice, and her police cruiser was left in flames. The gunman reportedly fired some two dozen times.

Sarah Brady, chair of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence united with the Million Mom March, called on President Bush to engage on the issue and urge Congress to renew the ban “before police are forced to deal with these extreme weapons of war on a regular basis.

Unbelievable.

I guess I should be super-happy because the AWB expired, but I’m not. Nope, I’m just angry.

I’m angry that the press still have the public convinced that there actually IS such a thing as an “assault weapon.”

I’m angry because ignorant people keep throwing around neologisms like “assault weapon” and prating about how “nobody needs an AK-47 to hunt deer” (as if that had anything to do with the 2nd Amendment), or flatly asserting that “these weapons have no place in our society,” with absolutely NO supporting facts or logic.

I’m angry because the gun banners kept bleating that the streets are going to be “flooded” with firearms when the ban goes away…even though the “ban” didn’t get rid of a single existing gun.

I’m angry that there are enough disgusting, treasonous politicians out there that this kind of obviously un-Constitutional legislation can be passed.

I’m angry that we spent 10 years chafing about what’s essentially a stupid, piddly, little law—I mean, banning guns because they have bayonet lugs fer crissake—if it weren’t so obvious that the real intent of this law were to ratchet us toward DiFi’s “turn ’em in” utopia.

I’m angry that this stupid, piddly, little law has distracted us from the REAL fight, which is reviving the idea of the armed citizen, which is itself only a milestone on the path restoring a semblance of Constitutional government at the national level.

I may be physically exhausted from lack of sleep, but I’m also mentally tired of reacting to the enemy (that’s what the VPC and their like are…the enemies of free men). I want to take the fight to THEM. I want to get inside THEIR decision cycle and make them react to us. There’s the rub: I’m not sure how to do that.

There is a bright side. We didn’t get here overnight, and so we’re not going to leave overnight. I know that I can’t convince the whole world, or even a significant portion thereof, of the righteousness of our cause. What I can do is raise my son to value this most fundamental right of all mankind, and teach him and his peers that guns aren’t to be feared by the innocent—that a gun in the hand of a free and honest man is a threat only to tyranny and evil.

Oh, and now that the so-called “assault weapons ban” has expired, I can buy him a nice rifle with a folding stock and a bayonet lug.

Mild profanity follows: Read the rest of this entry »

Posting has been light today largely due to emails about guns and what gun should someone buy since the ban expired and yada yada yada.

And another quick check of the streets reveals no blood. Here’s how some gun bloggers (and non gun bloggers) are celebrating its expiration:

AWBanSunset is all over it, like white on rice.

Justin thumps it like Tonya Harding.

Jeff is all over it, like how credibility isn’t on Oliver Willis.

John beats it like it owes him money.

Robert gets technical with it.

The Geek parties like it’s 1999 err 2004.

Publicola gets all jiggy with it.

Meanwhile, somewhere Diane Feinstein is crying like Nancy Kerrigan.

Now, I’ve never been what you might call a prolific blogger at best, but it’s possible you’ve noticed I haven’t posted anything in a while. Well…the good news is: We have a new baby!

Yep, little “Boudreaux” was born last week. He’s been keeping me and Evangeline awful busy and sleepy.

Anyway, back to your regular programming.

Just saw coverage of the assault weapons ban on NBC news. They kept referring to formerly banned guns as military assault weapons, which is a lie. However, every gun they showed on the video snippet was a post ban model. Lame.

In other news, on my way home today, I looked for more blood in the streets. Didn’t see any. However, there were some AK47s and Uzis just walking around asking to be picked up. Damnedest thing, really.

Meanwhile, since Spoons wants to know what to get, SayUncle is going shopping. Going to order one of these (with a flat top upper) this week.