The ban is gone! Yet the AP still spreads misinformation about it. A bet: Every murder covered in the press going forward will be the result of an assault weapon. Check out the Yahoo slideshow.

Just stepped out for a bit, fully expecting to see blood in the streets and hear machine gun fire since the Assault Weapons Ban just expired (a day earlier than I thought, it’s like an early Christmas present). I was disappointed, there wasn’t any.

Don’t listen to these guys (or the AP), the ban hasn’t expired yet. It will tonight at midnight. Don’t put those bayonet lugs on just yet.

Update: Even these guys say so with word from the ATF. I guess it is effective today. I thought it would be through the 13th. Cool.

We’re winning.

The Banned Played On.

With the ban all but defeated, the NRA is looking forward to elections. I figure we’re three days away from them endorsing Bush.

The ban is isn’t a ban:

But the absolutely galling thing about this whole experience is that the “assault-weapons ban” wasn’t a ban at all. I could have saved my money.

That same AK is still available and has been all along and is even cheaper now than when I bought mine.

The ban was the cause and the victim of Democrats’ loss of power. Yup.

And, though Spoons was more eloquent, that liberal media:

An editorial in the Sept. 7 editions about the need to extend the assault weapons ban included a reference to machineguns. The assault weapons ban covers semiautomatic weapons.

You have to scroll all the way to the bottom but it is a correction.

Do they come in digital brown?

I wish Chris the best and hope all is well.

There’s just too much going on to bother posting as it happens. Just go read here and here. CBS got duped. Went in to ass covering mode. Then The Boston Globe outright lies.

As XRLQ says:

In a perfect world…

Professional journalists would routinely debunk the naive musings of amateur bloggers, not the other way around.

And, yet, some still hang on. Now, I’ve never been one to sing the holy praises of the Blogosphere surpassing the mainstream media, but, God damn, did they nail one.

When Tim Lambert agrees with John Lott on the assault weapons ban, that should be a sign the bill is useless.

Lawmen expect little change on the street:

Police chiefs In Kenai, Wasilla, Fairbanks and North Pole expressed no concern about the likely lifting of the nationwide ban on certain military-style firearms, while the Anchorage police chief predicted deadlier weapons will now find their way into more criminals’ hands.

XRLQ has a map of states that have bans. Only seven states? And I thought the ban was popular.

Publicola tells us that Rhodes doesn’t get it.

Did you know you can mail a gun to yourself?

Oliver Willis proves, once again, he has no original thoughts and parrots some one else’s talking points.

While John Cole shows us real assault weapons used by terrorists.

Yglesias on the ban:

Back in my pre-shrill days, and especially when I was surrounded by very bright but typically underinformed leftwing college students I spent a lot of time trying to clear the brush of liberal argumentation, so in that spirit I’m going to risk the wrath of the Almighty Atrios and say that I find Pie’s worry that terrorists will acquire assault weapons by the boatload (literally) and kill us all to be uncommonly silly. The differences between banned assault weapons and many non-banned cognate guns are quite small. We could argue ’till the cows come home as to whether these differences mean anything at all, but they certainly aren’t major enough that the make-or-break decision for al-Qaeda as to whether or not to unleash a hail of bullets on the American people is going to hinge on the renewal or non-renewal of the assault weapons ban.

I have nothing particularly prophetic or poetic to say about the third anniversary other than don’t forget it. If you are a words person, go here. If you are a picture person, go here. And if you want to read the cynical, read my tribute from last year.

Apparently, during the Instalanche I just got, my site was unavailable to people. Jason A. Nunnelley (who also has a blog) kindly emailed me to let me know that I may have some sort of SQL issue. He said it was potentially a max_user_connections system variable problem, which to me is Greek.

He also said:

Sessions timed out, released database access node and your Word Press script was able to do a database connection. There may be other problems as well. But, that’s definitely one of them.

Anyone familiar with Hosting Matters know what I need to do?

Update: Nevermind. Wonder who the other guy was?

And major thanks to Kathy for the assist

Just saw Dan Rather’s defense of the faked memos on the news. He employed a tactic many bloggers use. He found two allegations that may be disproven (superscript and the font) and addressed only those. He got an expert (Marcel Matley) to say the signatures matched. I looked at them and could tell they didn’t. He did not address the many other allegations about the documents.

They had Robert Strong on there who said the documents were compatible with the way business was done at the time. He didn’t say, on camera, that the documents were without a doubt real, even though he was asked.

I TiVoed the bit and watched the superscript segment again. They showed two different types of superscript and did not note they were different, only that superscript was possible. And some guy (Jim Moore) blamed the blogosphere for doing the dirty work of the administration. Blogs on the evening news? Who’d have thunk it?

And Rather hammered the message which is that the real story is Bush’s guard service record. And that blogs were on the attack to discredit the message.

Update: Reader Inge says:

Matley is a Librarian in San Francisco, and also studied Handwriting. He is NOT an expert on documents. I can’t see how Rather can justifiy him as an ‘Expert’.

Here’s some info on him. Here’s a place he works. I can’t say if he would qualify as an expert or not.

Rich has some good stuff on what CBS isn’t doing.

Rather funny.

Senate adjourned for Friday and no renewal of the ban was passed. The Geek and Blake are calling the ban done and just waiting for the clock to tick away. I’ll hold off celebrating until Monday at midnight.

There are several reports of at least eight Governors receiving mail rigged with explosives. Tomorrow is the third anniversary of 9/11. Could this be part of an attack that postal couriers just happened to deliver early? Are more coming? Are bigger things coming?

The calm before the storm?

Regardless, I’d say caution is in order.

The AP:

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news – web sites) said Friday that President Bush failed to protect Americans from criminals and terrorists by letting a ban on assault weapons expire next week.

“In the al-Qaida manual on terror, they were telling people to go out and buy assault weapons, to come to America and buy assault weapons,” Kerry said. “Every law enforcement officer in America doesn’t want us selling assault weapons in the streets of America, but George Bush, he says, ‘Well, I’m for that.'”

As he frequently tells voters on the campaign trail, Kerry said he’s a hunter and fisherman who respects the right of Americans to own guns. He has pledged to protect Second Amendment rights and said the ban can be reinstated without trampling those rights.

“I mean, heavens to Betsy, folks, we’ve had that law on the books for the last 10 years, and there’s not a gun owner in America who can stand up and say, ‘They tried to take my guns away,'” Kerry said.

Well, they tried to keep me from getting guns made after 1994. Of course, it’s obvious that he doesn’t understand the bill. Hell, he doesn’t understand bills he cosponsors. Sportsman, my ass.

. . . eat a ham sandwich (part two). This one is extra icky. First one is here.

John Brown reports that the University of Tennessee 9/11 Memorial has been vandalized.

There’s a good discussion about the reaction from the left and the right portion of the blogosphere to the fake CBS memo over at Pennywit. You should read the whole thing. The sentiment is that if you limit yourself to reading only left wing or right wing blogs, you will walk away from a particular story with a certain impression. Pennywit summarizes a few samples of this. Good read.

However, I have a problem with that. There are only a few left wing bloggers worth reading. For me personally, I don’t just pick a side and stick with it on all issues.

For example: I would be considered left wing or right wing depending on the issue. I am right wing on guns, taxes, the war on terror, and the role of government. I’m left wing on abortion, capital punishment, non-gun related civil liberties, and gay marriage.

Yet, there are only a few left wing political blogs I read. Heck, look at the Moonbattery section of my blogroll. There are only four blogs there. I also read quite a few left leaning Rocky Top Brigade blogs. Here are some of the left leaning political blogs that I read regularly (if I leave anyone out, it’s not on purpose – and if you don’t consider yourself leftist, I do and there’s nothing wrong with that):

The Rant
Brutal Hugs
Tim Lambert
Druq War Rant
SouthKnoxBubba
Damn Foreigner
Lean Left – Props to Leanleft for actually trying to debunk the fake memos with facts and not rhetoric. Kevin was still wrong but he gave it an honest shot.
Chris Wage
Resonance
Barry (though he’s not real political)
Smijer

Why do I read so few? Because the others are often filled with hatred, rhetoric, they are outright moonbats, or partisan hacks. (note: there are some right wing blogs that fit that description but I don’t read them either). For example, here are some prominent liberal blogs that I run across because blogs I do read link to them (it’s not based on TTLB or traffic or Technorati, just my exposure):

Atrios: Full of hatred, repeats tired old lies, and pointless partisan rhetoric. And if I could overlook that, the nausea from the vitriol called a comments section is enough to make me vomit.

DailyKos: More hateful rhetoric including saying Fuck ’em regarding civilian contractors killed in Iraq.

Oliver Willis: Oliver was a moderate guy a while back. I guess he drank the Kool Aid or something. He has seriously become a parody of himself. You don’t even have to try to make fun of him or find inconsistencies in his posts. Oliver is the antithesis of the other two, who are filled with blinding, partisan hatred. He’s just filed with inconsistent and boring partisan hate wrapped up in mediocre prose.

What I find amazing is that these three sites are popular. I guess they’re popular with people looking for easy targets to refute and the party faithful. Any middle of the road person is not going to be swayed by their commentary. In fact, their verbiage would likely turn many middle of the road folks away.

Heh:

Jack Mehoffer, Springfield, Massachusetts says, “O’Reilly, I see the new Fox definition of fair and balanced means interviewing DNC chief Terry McAuliffe at both conventions.”

Bushmaster settled the DC sniper suit out of court. The Brady Campaign got on the media horn declaring it a victory. Bushmaster said no, they’re wrong. It was just cheaper for us to pay them off:

The Brady Group sent a second tier lawyer to the settlement conference with nine demands on Bushmaster regarding business practices and Bushmaster denied them all. We then gave the Brady Group our statement that we support the BATF licensing requirements to be a Federal Firearms Licensed (FFL) holder and our support for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) safety programs, and they accepted our statement. We did not agree and would not agree to change the way we do business or make any additional demands of our customers. We were emphatic that Bushmaster did not commit any wrong doings.

The attorney for our insurance company was at the settlement conference and informed us that about half of our policy limits had been spent on trial lawyers. It was the insurance company’s position that all of the limit would be spent on this case, and therefore turned the funds over to Bushmaster to use as we saw fit removing the insurance company from the case. Our choice was to continue spending it on trial lawyers or turn it over directly to the victims’ families with no funds going to the Brady Group for their legal fees.

We felt the compassionate thing to do was give it to the victims’ families, not because we had to but because we wanted to. The Washington DC Brady Group should learn what compassion is really all about!

WATE:

Cracker Barrel says it’s settled all lawsuits claiming racial discrimination.

Company president and CEO Donald Turner says the Lebanon-based restaurant company is “very pleased” with the settlement.

The Beeb calls them heavy assault weapons, as though the ban applies to anti-air guns or something.

John Lott calls the ban useless in the LA Times. Yes, the LA Times.

Somebody call the Waahmbulance.

MTV on the ban:

On the list of banned guns are civilian versions (i.e. slightly less powerful models) of the AK-47 assault rifle and Uzi. Fully automatic weapons are not covered and will remain illegal no matter what happens.

Slightly less powerful? In terms of power, they are the same. In terms of rate of fire, there is a huge difference. At least MTV says that machine guns aren’t covered by the ban, which is more than we can say for a lot of press coverage of the ban.

Chief Deputy of Rockford, Illinois:

“What are they for…you just pull the trigger…I don’t agree with it…I think (the ban) should be extended,” says Puckett.

Puckett says that during the 10-year ban he hasn’t noticed a great change in crime in Loves Park. But he says assault weapons have shown up in Loves Park from time to time.

No change in crime yet you support the ban?

Columbine parents on the ban:

I guess the assault (weapons) ban did nothing to protect my son,” said Brian Rohrbaugh, father of slain student Daniel Rohrbaugh. “As it was worded, I’m not sure it had any value other than a political agenda.

WKRN in Nashville needs to take a Civics Class:

Some semi-automatic guns, like those with collapsible stocks and other military-type features, have been banned since 1994, when President Clinton made it illegal to manufacture or import them.

The president makes laws? Nashville Police chief says:

“The type of weapons that were banned are made for one thing – killing a lot of things at one time,” said Metro police chief Ronal Serpas.

Chief Serpas said that assault weapons have no purpose in the hands of civilians, and he fears making them legal, will lead to more violence…and more danger for police.

Oh, that liberal media:

During that segment, video footage from the North Hollywood bank robbery shootout in March 1997 showed the robbers firing full-automatic weapons, suggesting that this type of firearm will be legal when the ban expires at midnight Sept. 13. These guns had been illegally modified, yet ABC News left the impression that such rifles will be available to the general public.

Find out the truth about assault rifles yourself.

Gunners and antis slug it out on PBS.

Paul Vitello is still an idiot (has been for a while):

For obvious reasons, federal law bans the sale of semi-automatic rifles with flash-suppressors. Snipers can put flash suppressors on their rifles to keep from being seen as they squeeze off rounds from their hideaways.

A flash suppressor hides the flash from the shooter so he can maintain sight picture. There’s a lot more hysteria in the horrendous piece.

The New York Times is absolutely bat shit hysterical.

Really stupid Democrats? Smart Republicans? Nader? Or CBS? Lee Harvey Oswald?

When the AP picks up the fake memo story (though cautiously), something is up. What I would give to be a fly on the wall at CBS tomorrow.

The mountain of evidence keeps growing. Check Powerline, which has several more posts, for details.

Update: The story will apparently be on ABC tonight.

Bubba reports that the Metropulse has closed the Metroblab, a Knoxville area discussion forum. It was closed, apparently, at the discretion of the publisher because of some heated discussion.

The blab was where I first ran into SouthKnoxBubba, who was the inspiration for starting my own blog. It was the beginning of this blog, as it were. It will be missed.

Update: Bubba set up BubbaBlab as a replacement for any wayward blabbers looking to argue with someone.

Heh!

Double Heh!

. . . eat a ham sandwich.

The buzz in the right half of the blogosphere is that the new National Guard documents regarding President Bush that were reported on 60 Minutes may be fakes. Powerline is on it. See also here and here for some comparisons to home cooked versions.

Update: Powerline seems to be down, I’m guessing due to traffic. They got Drudgelanched.

Update 2: Bill asked an expert who says they’re probably fake. And Kevin says they’re not fake because the White House hasn’t disputed their authenticity.

I am reserving judgment on this one until the White House responds.

Update 3: The reason I was suspicious was not due to superscript or proportional spacing (IBM had that in 1941). However, the fact MS Word’s default settings generate identical documents is odd.

XRLQ told me I should blog about why he should leave California. More to the point, he wanted to convince his wife of their need to leave California. I would recommend coming to Tennessee and here’s Exhibit A:

New Yorkers pay the highest state and local taxes in the nation, shelling out nearly $131 for every $1,000 of income in 2002, according to a new study.

Tennessee taxed its citizens the least — they paid just under $84 for every $1,000 of income.

Cali ranks 17 and pays $106 per $1,000 in income.

Sounds like justice to me:

A man who tried to shoot seven puppies was shot himself when one of the dogs put its paw on the revolver’s trigger.

Jerry Allen Bradford, 37, was charged with felony animal cruelty, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday. He was being treated at a hospital for a gunshot wound to his wrist.

Bradford said he decided to shoot the 3-month-old shepherd-mix dogs in the head because he couldn’t find them a home, according to the sheriff’s office.

On Monday, Bradford was holding two puppies — one in his arms and another in his left hand — when the dog in his hand wiggled and put its paw on the trigger of the .38-caliber revolver. The gun then discharged, the sheriff’s report said.

Deputies found three of the puppies in a shallow grave outside Bradford’s home, said sheriff’s Sgt. Ted Roy.

If you can’t care for pups, have your dog fixed.