Tsunamis, mudslides, 80 inches of snow in Nevada, it’s been freakishly warm here in East Tennessee for January (high 60s), sea level rising, and the occasional earthquake. What is up with Mother Nature lately?

Adam Groves emails about this commentary (scroll down):

The city of Knoxville is hard up for money, but does that justify auctioning off more than 100 guns? Check the Web site powellauction.com. You’ll find KPD-confiscated handguns and rifles set to be sold Jan. 15. What’s the background check on bidders? And how many citizens will be injured by these weapons back in circulation?

Victor Ashe and Phil Keith bought back guns. Bill Haslam and Sterling Owen IV are selling them.

Sandra Clark seems a bit upset about it. I don’t know why. Selling guns lawfully to law abiding citizens shouldn’t be an issue. I’m not sure about the background check issue because I don’t know how auctions work but it sounds like a good place to get a good deal.

Here’s (with pics) the auction page and here’s a list of guns for sale. It’s a pity I’ll be out of town this weekend or I’d be there Saturday.

Update: Any Floridians can buy guns from police too!

Update 2: HL notes in comments that auctioneers of firearms must have a Federal Firearms License. The North Carolina Auctioneer Licensing Board guidelines confirm that in a consignment auction (where the auctioneer takes possession of items prior to sale) an FFL is needed and, therefore, background checks would be done. In an estate auction where the auctioneer does not take possession, no FFL is required.

Note to Sandra Clark: that took about one minute of Googling.

Update 3: Michael Silence does some actual reporting and notes:

KPD spokesman Darrell DeBusk notes that the police department is not selling any firearms at the auction, and has not changed its policy on that.

Then I suppose the guns listed at auction (they’re listed as gun collection) may not be from the city but some other collection.

Security is tight for the inauguration. People are trying to guess the gun. I think it’s an H&K G36 chambered for a different caliber (like 308 or maybe 6.8MM). Can’t tell though. By the way, you can convert your SL-8 into a G36 configuration (same operating system). See here.

Oregon is still pushing for a ban.

More myths debunked about supposed assault weapons:

The Justice Department’s interviews also gave lie to the notion that so-called assault weapons in private hands decrease the safety of police officers and citizens. Only about 8 percent of the inmates used one of the models covered in the now-expired assault weapons ban, passed under Bill Clinton in 1994. If the supposed increased firepower of these firearms truly made them attractive to lawbreakers, the percentage would have been much higher.

More on the San Fran Gun Ban:

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors is up to its old tricks again, trying to control violent crime by penalizing law-abiding citizens. In their infinite wisdom, the supervisors want to ban private citizens from owning handguns, while the very criminals they seek to undermine are free to purchase them on the black market.

Led by Chris Daly and supported by outgoing board president Matt Gonzalez and fellow supervisors Tom Ammiano, Bevan Dufty and Michela Alioto-Pier, the proposal is a disaster in the making. Nevertheless, they plan to put the misguided measure on the ballot in November, and, considering San Franciscans’ propensity for supporting feel-good laws with little thought for the long-term consequences, it could very well pass.

But should this passage occur, the supervisors might find themselves in for a bit of a challenge. Little thought seems to have gone into the practical elements of this drastic ban, such as enforcement and possible ramifications. These are minor considerations for the Board of Supervisors, perhaps, but some of us have more than a few questions.

For instance, because there’s no public gun registry for the City, let alone for California, how will San Francisco start its collection efforts? The ban claims not to “create or require any local license or registration for any firearm,” but how else does the City plan on keeping track of the process? Snooping in federal files? The ban applies “exclusively to residents of the City and County of San Francisco,” but what if a person claims to keep a gun at a friend’s house in the East Bay?

I commented on not knowing various knife laws yesterday. Via Jed who left a comment, there are quite a few.

At first, the gun control bogey man was handguns. In fact, the Brady Campaign used to be Handgun Control, Inc. and they advocated handgun bans. They were unsuccessful. The next bogeyman was invented in the late 1980s and early 1990s, so called assault weapons. Assault weapons are merely regular guns that look like military guns. These guns function like any other semi-automatic but look mean. Both bogeymen were made to be that way through misleading statistics and, in some cases, outright lies. The latest bogeyman is the dreaded 50 caliber.

Jeff’s weekly check on the bias focuses on 50 calibers.

I’ve never really wanted one of these things but now I kind of half way want to buy one just to annoy gun controllers.

Four folks at CBS were fired for the forged memos story. None of them were Dan Rather. CBS says it’s sloppy journalism. I say it’s bias.

I’d bet that, in the future, media outlets will be less likely to put their source documents on the web.

The Supreme Court will not hear an appeal by the gun industry regarding frivolous lawsuits:

The Supreme Court declined Monday to consider dismissing a lawsuit seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the 1999 shooting of a letter carrier by a white supremacist.

Without comment, justices let stand a ruling of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that reinstated a lawsuit against gun manufacturers and distributors. The companies’ weapons were used by Buford Furrow to kill Filipino-American Joseph Ileto and wound five people at a Jewish day care center in a Los Angeles-area rampage.

The high court’s move, which allows the lawsuit to proceed toward trial, is good news for gun-control groups who say increased liability will stop industry sales tactics that put weapons into the hands of criminals. Several cities nationwide have sought to sue gun manufacturers, but with little success.

Seems to be the norm for the SCOTUS and any gun issue.

Abbas elected president of a non-country.

Say Uncle does a fantastic job keeping us apprised of the anti-gun nonsense out there. One thing I’ve noticed is that the gun-grabbers keep re-using the same old tired bromides, so I propose a little game to go along with the articles: Gun Control Poker.

Spades (The Bad Guys)
A – Terrorists are Enemy Number One. Of course, terrorism is the modern-day general purpose trump card; gun-grabbers aren’t the only ones playing it.
K – “K” is for “Koncealed Karry,” bringing Wild West Mayhem and Blood in the Streets to your State!
Q – It was a tough race, but the NRA and the Evil Gun Lobby only came in 3rd place on the enemies list. Keep your eye on them, though!
J – “J” is for “New Jack,” those ’90s criminals. Criminals are well known for being law-abiding, so let’s pass laws that say they can’t have guns.
10 – 10% of police officers killed in the line of duty probably had something in common, so let’s gin up some bogus statistics.

Hearts (Tug at Your Emotions)
A – I believe the children are our future, so let’s teach them well and let them lead the way. Away from guns.
K – “K” is for “Knowledge,” which comes from Reason, which gives us reasonable gun laws.
Q – Here’s a Quiz: what are the 4 rules of gun safety? 1. Ban guns 2. Ban guns 3. Ban guns 4. Ban guns.
J – If somebody “jacks” your gun, you’d want it to be a smart gun and not work for them, right?
10 – If it “saves just one life,” why not 10?

Diamonds (The Crown Jewels of the Gun-Grabbers)
A – The Ace in the Hole of all gun control proponents: “well regulated militia.”
K – Live like a King: get rich suing gun dealers and manufacturers.
Q – The subjects of Her Majesty Elizabeth Regina II can tell you about gun registration. It works! Sorta.
J – Any man Jack can buy guns at a guns show without a background check. Let’s close thoseloopholes.
10 – The X-ring is the goal of sport shooting, and that’s the only legitimate use for guns!

Clubs (Weapons)
A – “A” is for Assault Weapon, and naturally they are at the top of the list of Evil Firearms.
K – As Field Artillery is the King of Battle, so is the .50 caliber rifle the King of Clubs.
Q – Like the Queen on the chess board, a sniper rifle can kill from long range.
J – For all those gang-bangin’ New Jacks, we have the Saturday Night Special.
10 – More than 10 rounds? That’s a high-capacity magazine!

And finally, The Joker – When I hear that Grandpa’s old .30-30 fires armor-piercing ammo, I just have to laugh.

Deal me in!

UPDATE: Changed the Jack of Diamonds to be just loopholes in general.

Two killed at 15-year-old girl’s birthday party.

We have here a party that went wrong. Some of the individuals got into an argument, words were said, bottles were thrown. And finally, guns were drawn. Amazingly, no gun control bias in it so far, but let’s wait and see if they do any follow-up stories.

Barry, my favorite hoplophobe (yes, I know you don’t think that’s funny – but I still do so neener neener) is celebrating his two year blogoversary by doing a year in review.

Also, Barry puts on his punditry/media critic hat and slams a local columnist for spreading info that isn’t sourced. Said columnist happens to think that most Bush voters are awaiting the apocalypse. You know, little stuff.

Cato’s Doug Bandow calls Eminent Domain abuse legal plunder:

Alas, this case was no anomaly. As Steven Greenhut, an editorial writer for the Orange County Register, observes in his timely new book, Abuse of Power: How the Government Misuses Eminent Domain (Seven Locks Press, 311 pages, $17.95), “governments increasingly use eminent domain to take property from one private owner in order to give it to another private owner.” A small home owner or businessman then “must surrender his home or business because a wealthy developer — perhaps a big campaign contributor and mover and shaker in the community, or an out-of-town corporation promising an expanded tax base for the city — has bigger and better plans for it.”

James has an article at the Carnival on the pros and cons of packing in your pocket. By the way, I’m in the market for a pocket gun. I’ve been perusing the articles at Mouseguns. I’m thinking about the Kel-Tec 9MM. Any thoughts, dear reader, on a good mouse gun?

A local man, returning with cash given to him by his dying father, was pulled over. He had $19K in the trunk that he told them about. The police told the man he’d donate that money to the drug task force. He sued to get his money back and won. Read the account of it here. He was carrying a gun without a permit and had a switch blade [I didn’t realize those were illegal to carry – Ed.] Said the victim of extortion:

“I don’t want to see them in jail, but they don’t deserve to be left in positions of service and trust,” he said. “Police are supposed to protect and serve. Well, if you can’t trust the police on the road, who can you trust?”

Actually, I think they should go to jail. The officers’ lawyer:

“They’ve done nothing wrong, so there should be no effect on their careers,” said Garrett, who in other cases has represented clients whose property has been seized by police. “And they should not get a criminal conviction out of this.”

They did too. They allegedly lied and tried to extort a man and a jury agreed. They should go to jail. Witt’s account of the incident:

“He had $10,000 laid out on the table,” Witt said. “He told me that I was going to ‘donate’ the rest of the money to their drug fund, and he would give me a receipt for that. He said that a drug dog had hit on the car, and he told me that they could take all of the money and the car, if they was so minded, on grounds of suspicion of drugs.”

Witt said Aikens also told him, falsely, that in Tennessee, it is illegal to carry more than $10,000 in cash.

The officers’ lawyer:

“You need to consider the source of those statements,” said Aikens’ attorney, Scott Jones. “I don’t think your ordinary citizen is going to have a .25 caliber pistol in his back waistband, a switchblade knife in his pocket and $19,000 for which he can offer no plausible explanation as to where it came from. With multiple charges still pending against him, he is likely to say whatever is in his best interest to get a favorable resolution to those charges.”

Carrying a gun while carrying a large amount of cash is perfectly rational (though the man should get a permit) and he had an explanation for the cash (even though he is not required to justify why he’s carrying cash). I would take Mr. Witt’s word over the word of two extortionists, whether they wear a uniform or not. But maybe I’m a little weird.

Here’s a hysterical piece on the 50 caliber rifles:

A .50-caliber sniper rifle can hit a target at 4,500 feet, shatter bulletproof limousines, penetrate sandbags, earth berms, armored vehicles, commercial planes, and drill through the walls (and living rooms) of 10 suburban houses lined up one after another. The Geneva Conventions don’t prohibit .50-caliber weapons’ use against military personnel, and army manuals describe its usefulness in battle. But the weapon’s use on civilians and in civilian areas is prohibited.

Oddly enough — or maybe not so oddly in the twilight zone of Second Amendment zealotry — you can buy a .50-caliber weapon from your friendly mail-order gun dealer. The Barrett line of .50-caliber sniper rifles, patented in 1987, is the “One Shot One Kill” enthusiasts’ gun of choice. After its introduction and wide use in the first Gulf War, it made some famous cameos in the arsenals of infamous separatists in the 1990s (Timothy McVeigh owned one, the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, had some). The .50-caliber weapon is also used by civilian police forces, although not by the area’s largest forces — the Daytona Beach Police Department and Volusia’s and Flagler’s sheriff’s offices.

Disregarding the hysteria and some of the lies, if a Constitutionally enumerated right is comparable to the Twilight Zone, what about the other rights? But never fear, the unimpeachable 60 minutes is on the case:

With the expiration of the “assault” weapons ban, leftists are looking for other ways to whittle away at the Second Amendment. Liberal mouthpiece 60 Minutes will aid this effort on Sunday as they try to argue that .50 caliber rifles are terrorist weapons. As usual, they interview the highly discredited Violence Policy Center.

Alphie provides some good history on 50 cals. Give it a read. More on 50 caliber lies at KABA.

Update: Jed and Ravenwood have more.

A St. Paul Pioneer Press editorial says police should be allowed to carry guns. They are referring to the like you and me only better err Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act:

To her credit, Wisconsin Attorney General Peggy Lautenschlager has pointed out this statutory discrepancy to the governor and senior legislators and noted that they need to craft legislation giving the Standards Board, which she oversees, the authority to set up state firearms standards for law enforcement officers.

While we typically favor local government control, we think the Wisconsin Legislature would be wise to give the Standards Board the authority to do this. In supporting these legislative changes, we join the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, the state’s largest police organization, with more than 10,000 members in more than 375 agencies.

“Having a uniform standard is better than not having one and letting the court’s ferret out the case law,” WPPA lobbyist Jim Palmer told us in a recent telephone interview.

We agree.

Per Packing.org, Wisconsin is one of only four states that have no carry provisions for citizens. I wonder how the paper feels about private citizen CCW? The St. Paul Press apparently isn’t oppositional to the NRA:

We can save her some time by directing her to the National Rifle Association. While the powerful Washington lobbying group is often pilloried for its efforts to derail the assault-weapon ban and other gun-control legislation, it’s also the largest gun-safety education organization in the country.

“Over 2,000 public and private law enforcement and military instructors received NRA firearms training or attended NRA-organized armorer schools in 2004,” said Ron Kirkland, director of the NRA’s Law Enforcement Activities Division.

Since 1960, the NRA has trained more than 50,000 law enforcement firearm instructors in police departments and the military. Today, more than 12,000 NRA-certified instructors are training police officers nationwide.

In other words, this is the branch of the NRA that everyone should be able to support.

John Lott, whose research is questionable, addresses his somewhat critics of the NAS. Actually, I kid. He doesn’t address his critics but does make a good point about the study (which is the same point made here repeatedly):

The big news is that the academy’s panel couldn’t identify any benefits of the decades-long effort to reduce crime and injury by restricting gun ownership. The only conclusion it could draw was: Let’s study the question some more (presumably, until we find the results we want).

Lott noted some CCW studies (ahem, his) were ignored in the NAS conclusions.

Speaking of studies, apparently no amount of evidence or statistical data is relevant as long as you can find one extremely sad story:

Hunting statistics don’t do much to explain the bullet that smashed Casey Burns’ car window and struck her in the head near her home in North Whitehall Township a little over a month ago. Nor do the civil charges filed against a deer hunter begin to settle the score in a public debate about the safety of using high-powered rifles in populated areas.

This shooting may have been an accident and the result of carelessness, but it demonstrated in graphic terms what can happen when people and development encroach on game lands, and when hunting regulations — specifically the use of shotguns vs. high-powered rifles — lag behind the times. It’s time for the Pennsylvania Game Commission to revisit these rules and see how they apply to Lehigh and Northampton counties, with an eye to make deer hunting safer.

Jess Bravin at the Wall Street Journal has a piece on the recent Justice Department memo that states the second amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. Note that the JD concludes this but also concluded that all current federal gun laws are constitutional. Some comments:

Although scholars long have noted the ambiguity of the 27-word amendment, courts generally have interpreted the right to “keep and bear arms” as applying not to individuals but rather to the “well-regulated militia” maintained by each state.

The ambiguity noted by scholars is a recent development. I challenge anyone to find evidence of the collective right interpretation prior to, say, the 1940s. Miller doesn’t count for reasons indicated later. Even if the collective right model was the case (it’s clearly not), then where are these state militias? The National Guard is not it as they are run by the federal government and there was a case where the court ruled that a governor could not overridden federal orders to the Guard.

The new Justice Department memorandum acknowledges that “the question of who possess the right secured by the Second Amendment remains open and unsettled in the courts and among scholars,” but goes on to declare that “extensive reasons” support seeing it as an individual right, while there is “no persuasive basis” for taking another view. The Supreme Court’s 1939 opinion [US v. Miller – ed.], upholding a federal law requiring registration of sawed-off shotguns, found that the amendment didn’t guarantee “the right to keep and bear such an instrument,” because it had no “reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.” The court didn’t go further to say what firearms rights the Constitution did guarantee, but federal courts subsequently have dismissed challenges to gun-control laws on Second Amendment grounds.

Miller doesn’t say that there is no individual right. And it doesn’t say there is only a state right. If it did, the justices would have asked Is Miller a state? They did not.

The article closes with:

Robert Post, a constitutional-law professor at Yale Law School, said the new memorandum disregarded legal scholarship that conflicted with the administration’s gun-rights views. “This is a Justice Department with a blatantly political agenda which sees its task as translating right-wing ideology into proposed constitutional law,” he said.

Actually, modern legal scholarship disregarded (until very recently) the meaning of the second amendment. This is a justice department reversing a blatantly political agenda that is unsupported in any serious fashion. More on the second amendment from constitutional scholars here and here.

The GAO says that the White House anti-drug videos violate the propaganda ban. DrugWarRant has the scoop.

If you want to see the impact of the tsunami, check out these before and after photos.

Via Catfish.

Tim Lambert links to a piece that asserts the following regarding why Lott still has a job and Bellesiles doesn’t:

The answer briefly is power—especially power wielded by groups outside the history profession. Historians targeted by powerful outside groups can face intense media scrutiny and severe sanctions for transgressions, while historians connected to powerful outside groups can be shielded from the media spotlight as well as from the consequences of malfeasance; in some cases, they have even been rewarded.

Actually, I think it’s a matter of exposure. Lott’s stuff was ineffectual really because the goal had mostly been achieved. It was more like an afterthought to already existing policies. People like to assert that Lott’s highly contested research was the reason for the rash of concealed carry laws. It was not. His book came about in 2000 (if I recall) and most states with CCW laws had those laws on the books prior to that (the trend started in the late 1980s and continued through the mid 1990s). I think a few did after 2000 (Ohio and Missouri come to mind). And Lott’s stuff didn’t get much exposure until recently after such laws were passed.

Bellesiles’ work, however, was discussed in the press rather extensively (and by rather extensively, I mean quite a bit for a supposed history piece). The NY Times and other media outlets praised the book and its fraudulent conclusions about gun ownership in early America. Bellesiles had more exposure and, when it crashed, it crashed harder.

911 Is a Joke in your town . . . or is it? Dave Kopel:

A major new report by National Academies of Science concludes that there is not enough empirical data to determine whether gun control enhances public safety, or whether gun ownership deters crime. The report calls for further data-gathering on firearms injuries. We suggest that gathering a type of related data is equally critical: how often 911 calls result in the interruption of a crime.

The issue is central to the gun debate. The anti-gun lobbies, while sometimes conceding that people can be allowed to have sporting guns, vehemently opposes gun ownership for personal protection. The lobbies insist that crime victims should rely on 911 instead. For a disarmed victim, the police response to 911 can literally be a matter of life or death. If the data show that 911 won’t save your life when you’re attacked by a criminal, then it would be difficult for government to claim the moral authority to disarm victims.

Read the whole thing.

Remember when a bunch of angry blue-staters wanted to secede? Now Maine is looking at becoming two states:

The “Two Maines” debate has shown little sign of fading, however, particularly with the widening economic divide between the two regions revealed in the most recent census numbers.

Sen. Ethan Strimling, D-Portland, said this week that Joy’s secession talk only adds fuel to what amounts to an unproductive debate.

“We need to build bridges between these communities, not walls. We’re all in this together,” said Strimling, noting that Portland – although it is the state’s major economic engine – has not cornered the market on political power.

“I’ve been trying to get gun control through for a long time,” said Strimling, pinning its demise on formidable opposition from rural areas. “I can’t even get an assault weapons ban.”

In the end, splitting the state in two is an unlikely prospect at best, most agree, and Joy himself conceded he hasn’t nailed down all the details involved with introducing another state to the union.

JoinTogether on the Gonzales confirmation:

“Gonzales also should be pressed to explain what he intends to do to follow through on the Bush Administration’s commitment to close the loophole that allows criminals to avoid background checks when buying firearms at gun shows. The Bush Administration claimed to support renewing the assault weapons ban yet stood by in silence as it expired, and Congress deserves to know whether the Justice Department is serious about keeping guns away from criminals.”

I’m curious about Gonzales and gun control. I’m not pleased with his nomination but then anybody who wants to be AG probably shouldn’t be.

A letter to the editor on the meaningless ban.

In New York, the city council upped the penalties for violating the city’s assault weapons ban. In other news, people prone to break that law still don’t care.

This time, Wal-Mart has settled to the tune of $14.5M. Rich Smith connects the dots:

See the connection? In the Bushmaster case, the retailer permitted criminals to gain possession of its guns, and it paid for its mistake. Yesterday, Wal-Mart admitted that it allowed people to take possession of firearms without knowing whether the buyers were criminals.

The dots are plotted. All that’s needed now is to find an instance in which a gun sold by Wal-Mart between 2000 and 2003 was, or eventually is, used in a crime. At that point, I’d expect the trial lawyers to start connecting the dots.

A lot of people don’t like the standard US military rifle cartridge (or the 9MM handgun cartridge either). Maj. Anthony F. Milavic, USMC (Ret.) writes that the cartridge could be killing our troops. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it but it is worth the read. Here’s a taste:

At a Vietnam Special Forces base during 1964, I watched a U. S. soldier fire 15 rounds of .223 caliber ammunition into a tethered goat from an AR-15 rifle; moments after the last round hit, the goat fell over. Looking at the dead goat, I saw many little bullet entry-holes on one side; and when we turned him over, I saw many little bullet exit-holes on the other side. Over time, those observations were confirmed and reconfirmed, revealing that the stories we were told on the lethality of the .223 caliber cartridge were fabrications. Those false reports drove the adoption of the .223 caliber cartridge as the 5.56mm NATO cartridge and, ever since, Americans have been sent to war with a cartridge deficient in combat lethality; a deficiency that has recently caused the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

No, not the blog, but warning shots to let someone know you mean business. I say don’t do it. If you have the mental capacity to fire a warning shot, odds are that you are not acting out of fear for your life. As such, discharging a weapon is ill-advised and probably illegal.

Phelps addresses the issue noting that:

Warning shots are always a crime.

I concur with Phelps in that situation. I would have stated clearly one time to leave. Any movement other than a retreat after said warning would result in someone getting shot.

I guess Jeff is off his meds but I kinda like this new angrier gay gun-nut from Vermont thing.

The AP:

Andrea Yates’ capital murder convictions for drowning her children were overturned Thursday by an appeals court, which ruled that a prosecution witness’ erroneous testimony about a nonexistent TV episode could have been crucial.

Yates’ lawyers had argued at a hearing last month before a three-judge panel of the First Court of Appeals in Houston that psychiatrist Park Dietz was wrong when he mentioned an episode of the TV show “Law & Order” involving a woman found innocent by reason of insanity for drowning her children.

After jurors found Yates guilty, attorneys in the case and jurors learned no such episode existed.

First, why the Hell is someone using the TV show Law and Order as expert testimony? The impact of a television show on law seems silly to me. Second, who cares if the show never existed?

Mrs. Du Toit has a piece on policing our own. Do other gun owners have a right to be ass holes, act nuts or say things that make people uncomfortable? Sure. Do us more, uhm, reasonable types have an obligation to tell them to not say things like that because it scares the white people? Sure.

Publicola (no doubt one of those people she’s referring to) responds.

Citing that gay bow tie and abrasive personality as grounds, CNN has fired Carlson and is cutting ties with him.