The latest potential victim of eminent domain abuse:

The City of Mansfield wants to build a 100-acre project that will include retail shops, upscale apartments and a baseball complex.

To complete the project, the city wants two acres of Wanda Allen’s property.

Again, we have a city taking from one private individual to give to another. The article contains this snippet:

Eminent domain allows a government entity to convert private land to public land with reasonable compensation to the landowner.

There is also the important criteria of public use.

Indeed it was:

Although a few weeks isn’t much time to spot trends, we’re unaware of any shootings with previously banned guns, much less the mass killings gun-control advocates predicted. It’s a sure bet partisan political activists would be all over the story if there was one. In an age in which the words, “The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight,” were barely out of Dick Cheney’s mouth before Internet sleuths and others produced proof refuting the claim, if there were any evidence of shootings, we’d all know about it.

The reality is that the firearms covered by the ban accounted for very few deaths before and during the ban. There’s no reason to think that will change.

Politicians have a lot of control over our everyday lives. They must exercise their authority carefully to avoid restricting our liberties for a quick-fix that amounts to meaningless legislation. We deserve better.

As soon as there is a shooting with one, we will see hysteria. In fact, even if there is a high profile shooting with a post-ban weapon, the usual suspects will still claim the ban needs to be in effect.

I noticed (and noted in comments) that the NYT (and AP) hit piece (that’s what I’m calling it now) on the missing explosives was lacking in the timing department. Turns out, there’s a reason for that:

The mystery surrounding the disappearance of 380 tons of powerful explosives from a storage depot in Iraq has taken a new twist, after a network embedded with the U.S. military during the invasion of Iraq reported that the material had already vanished by the time American troops arrived.

NBC News reported that on April 10, 2003, its crew was embedded with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division when troops arrived at the Al Qaqaa storage facility south of Baghdad.

They were gone over a year and a half ago.

Update: Jeff has much more. As does TTLB. More like an October Surmise!

Like SUVs, apparently, guns can kill people all by themselves. I guess they just walk around and shoot at people. It’s a good thing this guy has a webcam for his gun.

Kudos to WATE for offering RSS feeds of their content! Hell, the KNS doesn’t do that.

A new porn store called *giggle* Inserection is causing grief to people who are apparently upset that someone may want to, you know, visit there:

A shop selling pornography and other taboo toys is causing a stir in north Knoxville.

The store called Inserection is on Broadway across the street from the old 5th Avenue Motel. Developer Phillip Welker has applied for tax credits from the state historical commission. He wants to use the tax breaks to build apartments in the building. The city condemned the motel in October 2002 after a fatal stabbing and numerous code violations.

“Unfortunately, one bad business could keep away other good businesses that are wanting to spend lots of money towards revitalization,” said city Councilman Rob Frost.

The councilman said he’s called upon the Knoxville Police Department to investigate Inserection. It sells DVDs, lingerie, toys, novelties and smoking paraphernalia.

But store clerk Summer Cavender said more than half of the stock is non-adult oriented. If that’s true, the business will be allowed to stay.

By definition, the word “insurrection” means “an act, revolting against an established government.”

However, Cavender says her workplace isn’t revolting in the least. Rather, it’s in compliance with the law. “We’re not here to cause any problems, or offend anybody. We’re just here to run a business.”

But some of their neighbors are taking offense. St. John’s Lutheran Church is one of five ministries in the same neighborhood. You can even see the business from the front lawn of the church.

Though I’m all for peoples’ right to sell dirty magazines and stuff, I am amazed that people still go to porn stores. Haven’t these people heard of the internet?

As soon as I took my monk oath, the hotties would most definitely move in and start selling beer right across the street. And the temptation would just be too much. Since I already know what would happen, I won’t bother becoming a monk.

Justin Wilkins writes:

Americans Need To Do Their Own Investigating

In this time of election craziness it’s easy for us all to become brainwashed into believing complex issues are simple and easily explained in 20 second news bites.

Election rhetoric only perpetuates this ignorance such as “Kerry is flip-flopping” on guns. There is more to it than that: He’s FOR guns to hunt deer and ducks and our right to bear arms. He’s AGAINST folks having assault weapons like Ak-47s. (You know, the stuff armies and terrorist use?)

I cannot fathom why President Bush allowed the assault weapons ban to expire. Is it because hunters need AK-47s? Do you really need to take out a deer with a semi-automatic machine gun?

The irony is that he is a victim of not doing his own research. I sent him the following email:

A semi-automatic rifle is not a machine gun. Period. A machine gun fires multiple rounds per trigger pull. A semi-automatic (which is what many hunting rifles are) fires one shot per one pull of the trigger.

The assault weapons ban only banned guns that looked like military guns. Practice what you preach and do some investigating instead of taking at face value the talking points the media is shoving down your throat regarding the assault weapons ban.

Regards,

You can send him one to, his email address is posted with the article.

Update: KABA picked up on it, I’m sure Mr. Wilkins email doth runneth over.

Update2: He has responded with:

What I wrote was based on everything I know so far. Of course, you know as well as I do that anyone can distort anything to suit their argument. You are right I need to do more investigating. I do not know much about guns and you helped me understand a difference and an argument.

What I will do now is go look more closely at the AWB law and see if it makes sense.

Thanks Uncle!

One at a time, my friends, one at a time.

Took Mr. Blasty to the smith, who made some mods described here. Then, we fired off about 30 rounds. Not a single malfunction and the mags fed fine. I was a bit worried since I’d heard the 7.62 mags had feeding issues some times.

The smith also taught me how to tinker with the magazines to make them fit better. This is necessary because the 7.62 mags are slightly wider than standard 5.56 mags.

SayUncle is happy. Very happy. One word: awesome.

Murders were up last year in the US to 16,500 and overall crime is down. I thought the asshats that would somehow tie this to the assault weapons ban would be The Brady Campaign or the Violence Policy Center. I was wrong. Today’s asshat is John Edwards. Edwards, who apparently forgot he and Kerry were running for the White House and seems to think Clinton is, says:

Homicides With Firearms Account for Nearly 100 percent of Murder Increase, But Bush Let The Assault Weapons Ban Expire. There were nearly 1,000 more homicides using guns in 2003 than in 2000, while homicides using other weapons were did not have dramatic movement. The increase in firearm homicides accounts for nearly 100 percent of the total increase in homicides. Yet, faced with these facts, the Bush administration refused to take action to keep the deadliest weapons off our streets. (FBI Uniform Crime Report, 2003)

Wasn’t there a ban last year, Johnny Boy? If the rate had increased this year, you may have had correlation. As it is, you’re just full of it. Also amusing is the idea Edwards is portraying that Clinton apparently made crime go away while Bush brought it back. Anything to get elected.

Update: error corrected.

In this pictorial of tactical shotguns over at Mr. Jones, Mike Spenis of Feces Flinging Monkey quips:

Whenever I see the word ‘tactical’ I mentally replace it with the phrase ‘tricked-out’. (Similarly, the word ‘match’ should be replaced by the word ‘expensive’, and the term ‘mil-spec’ should be replaced by the word ‘black’).

Yup.

Reginald Shareef on the pending SCOTUS case regarding eminent domain:

I’ve watched with interest this fall as the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of Kelo v. City of New London. The legal question here is whether a municipality, using the power of eminent domain, can take private property for economic purposes. The case is interesting because it will determine whether cities can seize a person’s property and transfer it to private developers to boost an ailing economy. At the same time, the case is redundant because economic development has been the catalyst behind urban renewal “takings” for the past 50 years.

As the French like to say, “the more things change, the more they remain the same.”

What is different about the Kelo case is the “fig leaf” covering the economic development component of government takings is stripped away as New London openly condemned property that will be used in a private development plan. Heretofore, governments have used their eminent domain powers to condemn property in “blighted” areas, ostensibly to improve them. What a hoax! What really has happened is that these properties were turned over to private developers for economic development.

He then addresses some redevelopment programs in Roanoke.

So far this week, the only surprise has been the questionably motivated release of information pointing to missing explosives that now apparently went missing before American troops arrived on the scene in early 2003.

So what else can we expect this week? Finding Osama? Reports of drunk driving? Should be fun. I just hope I get my car back today so I can relax and enjoy the election coverage.

I thought the South Park guys did the little animated piece in Bowling for Columbine. Turns out that, like everything else Michael Moore does, it was misleading:

Conan: “Michael Moore is depicted in this film [Team America] along with a lot of other celebrities. And I talked about it with one of our producers after we saw the movie because you guys sort of go after Michael Moore. And it thought, that’s surprising, because Michael Moore was in Bowling for Columbine, it’s his movie, he interviewed you (points to Matt) on Bowling for Columbine and I remember thinking I thought those guys were friends with Michael Moore. Did you have a falling out?”

Matt: “It wasn’t so much a falling out. He asked me to do the interview for Bowling for Columbine because I grew up in Littleton, Colorado. So I thought, okay, I’ll talk about growing up in Littleton, Colorado. What he did that made us a little angry is he put an animation in right after my piece in Bowling in Columbine that is very South Park-esque in its look. And I think 99% of the people who saw Bowling for Columbine think Trey and I did that animation.”

Conan: “I thought it was yours until my producer told me that he talked to you guys. I thought that you had done that animation.”

Trey: “No no. He asked us if we would do an animated thing for him, and we’re like, You know, we grew up in Colorado, our parents have guns, it’s you know, whatever.”

Conan: “I’m wearing a gun right now. It’s just accepted.” (Audience laughs)

Trey: “Yeah exactly. We strongly believe in guns. So then he kind of did it anyway. So then later when he did Fahrenheit 911, people were like, well, Michael Moore kind of lies and manipulates to make people think certain things. We’re, like, personal victims of that. So we basically decided to make him into a puppet and blow him up.” (Referring to Team America movie)

Matt: “I mean, he didn’t explicitly say, Matt and Trey did this animation. But he made it look like it. And that’s what he does in his movies. He uses two images together and creates meaning where there isn’t none.”

Trey: “And he’s fat.”

So, the SP guys are pro-gun. Cool.

If you thought that maintaining a registry of handguns would be similar to maintaining a registry firearms ownership (since handguns are, you know, firearms), you’d be wrong. The PA Supreme Court thinks that although the database may be a registry, it is not a registry of firearm ownership because it doesn’t maintain a record of all firearms owned by Pennsylvanians.

That may be the stupidest thing I’ve heard today.

Via TriggerFinger.

* Ed note: been trying to work that quote into a post title for a while now to no avail. It doesn’t seem to fit anything so I threw it in this one. I thought it was funny and it has nothing to do with the post. Bonus points for the reference. Besides, does anyone read the titles any way?

2004 election cost estimate is $4B. Presidential race to cost to cost $1.2B:

“The 2004 presidential and congressional elections will shatter previous records for spending, and the biggest reason is the increase in giving by individuals to candidates and parties,” said Larry Noble, the Center’s executive director.

The article also details where the bling bling is coming from. Looks like the incumbent protection act err campaign finance reform didn’t really have it’s desired effect. Must be a loophole, or something.

You know, $4B would buy a lot of healthcare err insurance, military equipment, employment benefits, and other pie in the sky things the candidates are promising us.

This is scary:

Several hundred tons of conventional explosives are missing from a former Iraqi military facility that once played a key role in Saddam Hussein’s efforts to build a nuclear bomb, the U.N. nuclear agency confirmed Monday.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei will report the materials’ disappearance to the U.N. Security Council later Monday, spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told The Associated Press.

“On Oct. 10, the IAEA received a declaration from the Iraqi Ministry of Science and Technology informing us that approximately 350 (metric) tons of high explosive material had gone missing,” Fleming said.

“The most immediate concern here is that these explosives could have fallen into the wrong hands.”

Do you think?

Jeff has the latest.

In this spare time, Noah Seligman should try reading the Constitution:

The Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms. We have a “well regulated militia .” It’s called the National Guard. No one will take away the right to own a gun, but we will enforce responsibility. The assault weapons ban contributed to eight years of declining crime rates. Letting it expire was a failure of leadership.

Apparently, the second amendment established the National Guard 130 years after the second amendment was ratified.

Took Mr. Blasty to the range this weekend and had a problem. The problem was not with Mr. Blasty, but rather the ammo. Some Wolf ammo has recessed primers. With the Russian ammo, it’s hit or miss. Some of the primers are flush and most are not. The firing pin of an AR15 only pushes through a little bit (we’re talking thousandths of an inch, according to my gun smith). Hence, the firing pin should have no problem striking the primer of non-recessed primers. The solution is to buy ammo without recessed primers, and that may be difficult in 7.62X39. It’s nearly impossible to do if you want to buy Russian milsurp, like I do.

The trouble with buying good ammo is that you limit yourself to a few brands and they are pricey. Additionally, I already bought 1,000 rounds of 7.62. This brings us to plan B. Plan B initially involved getting my hands on a longer firing pin (you know, so it could poke through farther and strike the primer). However, due to mass production, the assembly line and other evils of capitalism, firing pins only seem to come in one size. Now, we have Plan C. Plan C involves shaving a little metal off the rear of the bolt carrier which will cause the firing pin to come forward a bit further. This will allow the pin to strike the recessed and non-recessed types of ammo. Should solve the problem, I’ll let you know how it goes.

The six rounds I managed to get off today did quite well. The magazines fed fine and no real problems. However, due to the primer issue, I had to go through about 60 rounds to get six to go off. This was annoying. Bang, click, rack, click, rack, click, rack, click. etc., etc. Oh well. Live and learn. Additionally, the Yankee Hill rear sight I got was dead center without any adjustment.

This problem, it would seem to me, would be common in most 7.62X39 builds. People have asked me to keep them updated as to how this little project goes and whether or not I would recommend it. Given this problem and the potential magazine problem (there are a lot of junk 7.62 mags out there that don’t feed right, though production of new ones will start soon and this will remedy that. The feed problem can usually be fixed by taking vice grips to the feed lips), my recommendation on this project is as follows:

1) If you want to buy a stock gun and shoot it out of the box with no tinkering, do not take on this project.

2) If you, like me, like to piddle with stuff, tinker with gizmos, tweak things, generally poke things with a stick, and have the time and energy to do it, then go ahead and give it a shot.

Canadians are standing up for their pets:

“I hit the wall at the end of the speech,” Bird later said. “(The dogs) become your babies and when somebody says your baby has to wear a cage on his face, that’s tough.”

Heh! Via Xrlq.

Sure, I’ve been Instalanched a few times but this marks the first time my site got a comment from Glenn Reynolds. And it’s two months late.

Went Saturday to do the civic duty thing. I left blank the School Board because two people were running and the choice was to vote for two. The Mrs. was disappointed she couldn’t vote in the City of Alcoa election because they had an initiative on the ballot to allow the sale of liquor by the drink in restaurants. We eat in Alcoa often and feel we have a right to mixed drinks but weren’t allowed to vote on it.

I also voted for Duncan. Duncan is a principled man and I support him even if I disagree with him about a few issues.

Oh and for president, I voted for Michael Badnarik. I proudly wasted my vote on a man who has no chance of winning. I voted for someone who XRLQ referred to as a criminal for not paying taxes, not having a driver’s license and a few other things. Of course, doing cocaine, driving drunk, engaging in unauthorized meetings with the enemy, and lying under oath make you a criminal too. As do importing lobster tails that are less than five and a half inches, lassoing a catfish in Tennessee, and speeding.

I do wish the Libertarians would nominate someone who, you know, isn’t crazy. They need to distance themselves from the lunatic fringe. But that won’t happen for a while.

I could have voted against Kerry but the fact is Tennessee is safely in the red column. I voted my conscience.

Via Fark: Grand jury refuses to indict killer of would-be thief:

The man who shot and killed a would-be thief in his yard will not face murder charges after a Gloucester County grand jury voted against indicting him…The grand jury did return one indictment in the case: The alleged accomplice of the victim was indicted on charges of burglary and theft.

And this is in New Jersey! Of course, being New Jersey, there’s a cloud behind the silver lining:

Prosecutors are not giving up.

After the shooting, prosecutor Sean F. Dalton defended the charges, saying that New Jersey state law does not allow the use of deadly force to protect property. That’s still his argument.

Spokesman Bernie Weisenfeld said prosecutors are considering all their options on where to continue, including presenting the case to a second grand jury.

Can’t have the citizens “taking the law into their own hands,” doncha know?

Listen to the audio. Hehe.

Bubba welcomes the following into the Rocky Top Brigade:

Holding down the fort

Sandcastles and cubicles, featuring reader Cube.

Somewhere near marker XIV

You’ll always find a fifth

Mocephus

Opinion times

Clark Stooksbury

Library Monk

Soulfish Stew

MooreThoughts

Land Surveying Weblog, who addresses property issues.

Dope on a Slope, featuring reader and all around SKB reader lobbygow

Meanderthal, a group blog consisting of SKB commentors.

Bob Stepno

Restore Knoxville

Welcome all!

Well, Alphie is close yet so far away, so this is a gratuitous link. However, he also points out Kerry inconsistencies on guns.

I got an email asking about this post where a paraplegic in a manual wheelchair is seeking advice on what sort of carry gun he should buy. I figured I’d post my advice and direct readers over there to offer their own advice as well. The criteria are relatively lightweight and easily concealable, of average reliablity (or better), with better-than-average stopping power, a caliber of .38 or larger, and shouldn’t be too hard to break down and clean. Magazine capacity, appearance and price tag are immaterial. So, here goes:

First of all, don’t bother with a .38. The army abandoned the caliber for a reason. Stick with any .4X caliber, preferably a 45 ACP. Of the other criteria, plenty of pistols meet all those criteria. One requirement stood out to me and that is ease to break down. For that, I’d go with the Glock. I would either go with the Glock 27, Glock 36, or the Glock 30. Glocks are tough, low maintenance, user friendly, and the easiest to breakdown. Some folks complain about the lack of a manual safety but if you don’t pull the trigger it won’t shoot. And the Glock is ultra-reliable even under extreme conditions (such as buried in sand or mud; and after being submerged in water; and after being run over with a truck). I recommend carrying it in a holster that covers the trigger (like any carry gun should be carried). Summary as follows:

Glock 27: 40 caliber, 12 round capacity, and the smallest of the three. Advantage: smallest and easiest to conceal. Disadvantage: it’s not a 45ACP.

Glock 36: 45 ACP compact, 7 round capacity, medium sized. Due to the single stack mag, it’s thinner than the Glock 30 which makes it easier to conceal. Advantage: 45 ACP. Disadvantage: Little more difficult to conceal and lower magazine capacity.

Glock 30: 45ACP compact, 11 round capacity, largest of the three (it’s 1/8 inch wider than the 36). This accepts double stacked mags and has a higher capacity. As a bonus, it accepts other 45ACP glock mags, which the 36 doesn’t. So, you could use Glock 21 mags. Advantage: 45ACP, higher capacity mag, and added weight makes it more controllable to shoot. Disadvantage: It’s the largest of the three.

So, I’d say it’s your preference. Of course, I also recommend any Sig or H&K but they are slightly more difficult to break down and they are more expensive.

Any readers in Columbus, OH may want to attend a public hearing to discuss a local assault weapons ban, as well as taser and stun guns.

National medical groups (somehow this report is coming out of India) are using the expiration of the ban as a tool to push to do something about gun violence. The solution they offer is, of course, a new assault weapons ban. Assault weapons have only been used in less than one or two percent of crimes (depending on which statistic you want to believe) and that rate was the same before and during the ban.

Heh! October disguise.