Dave Kopel and David Hardy now of a blog entitled Of Arms and the Law. It’s mostly David Hardy right now. Still, it will be an excellent resource.

Terri Schiavo has died.

I don’t mean they’re bad for the environment in that, aside from turning perfectly good food into shit, they spend most of their time making a ton of diapers. I’ve mentioned before that the Mrs. and I recycled. We always felt it our civic duty, no matter the inconvenience, to make sure the world was a better place by recycling and some other hippie, tree-hugging bullshit that comes with the guilt of being affluent.

We had multiple trash cans for aluminum, plastic bottles, and various colors of glass bottles. We also had bins for newspapers, magazines, cardboard and plastic grocery bags. We’d make the weekly trip to the recycling centers (note the plural: no one recycling center in our area takes all recyclables so the trip always involves two stops).

With the baby, storage space is now at a premium in the Uncle household. We’re storing Junior’s no longer used clothes, toys, knickknacks, and other vital items in the event we have another child. So, we made the decision to screw the environment. No amount of hippie, tree-hugging bullshit will clear up a 10 by 5 feet area of valuable storage space in my garage. We’re not recycling anymore.

Plus, think of all the gas we’ll save and how that will put an end to global warming. Additionally, we spend about $30 per month for trash pickup. At the end of the week, our trash can had only one or two bags of trash in it for them to pick up. Everything else, we recycled. We weren’t getting our money’s worth.

I don’t feel bad. Screw the environment, what has it done for me? At least we’re not filling landfills with clothes, toys, knickknacks, and other vital items.

Cathy over at Domestic Psychology has the latest.

Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s just a coincidence but Blogging for Bryant notes that, since I chided the Van Hilleary site for it’s lack of content, that Hilleary’s website now has the disclaimer:

Welcome to the temporary website of the Hilleary for Senate campaign. We’ll have a full website and blog up in the coming weeks. Thanks for your patience.

Heh.

Update: In other news, Michael Silence informed Governor Bredesen about Stacey Campfield’s blog.

Head notes his favorite gun BS lines. I should note that gun dealers are usually the worst. I’ll add:

The military went with the 5.56 because it injured and did not kill. Thus, it took two people out of combat since an injured soldier would be rescued by a comrade.

The 5.56 tumbles upon impact. It goes in one hole and comes out somewhere else.

The 1911 is the best semi-auto ever.

Yeah, a set screw will make it fully automatic.

AKs are better than ARs.

That’s a fair price.

Dealers still label their rifles pre-ban and expect to get $1,500 for them.

I was just cleaning it, it went off in my hand.

Anyone can get a new machine gun, it just costs an extra $200.

Chrome-lined barrels are more accurate.

Update: 25 is an effective round.

A two-liter bottle, potato, or other household item makes a good silencer.

I’ve blogged before about how I’m not up to date on current movies and products because, due to TiVo, I never watch commercials. It also occurred to me tonight that, in the event of inclement weather or disaster, I won’t ever get notification via the Emergency Broadcast System since I don’t watch live TV. I wonder how long before something like that happens and some idiot tries to sue TiVo because it didn’t warn them?

Warning: Profanity to follow, do not click if that offends you and you have no sense of humor.

The Daily Probe is too damn funny

Read the rest of this entry »

I guess she looks so sad in the picture because she spent $422.25 on a gun that I bought for $275. She writes about how easy it is to buy an AK-47, which she describes as:

It was a clone, like most AK-47s in America. The first President Bush made it illegal to import the Russian and Chinese military models. The knock-offs look like AK-47s, fire like AK-47s and are very accurate at short distances. I said I’d take it.

First, you bought an imported WASR-10, which is not an AK-47. It is a semi-automatic version of the Kalashnikov rifle. It is not very accurate at any distance but is good enough.

Even this one, a semiautomatic rifle developed for Soviets tank crews to kill from a mile away.

I think you have your gun propaganda mixed up and are thinking of a 50 caliber. The bullet for an AK will travel a mile but the gun is only accurate out to about 300 yards.

Anyway, welcome to the shooting sports, Josie. Now, go get some ammo. Maybe she should go to the Second Annual Shooting for Women Conference.

An Illinois lawmaker has proposed concealed carry legislation there. Yes, that Illinois:

An Illinois lawmaker wants to allow the state’s residents to carry concealed firearms.

“We definitely believe that with concealed carry permits, the crime rate will go down in Illinois,” Rep. Brandon Phelps, D-Norris City, the bill’s chief sponsor, said.

And not only is it Illinois, but there’s that conspicuous D after his name.

That’s pretty funny.

Stacey Campfield reports that one of his bills was killed for what was quoted on his blog. He also reports that the Tennessean is going to do a story on his blog. Good. More politicos should blog. And if they don’t want to blog, they could always send emails to bloggers with permission to post it.

Mr. Campfield, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, you need to run a spell checker on your posts. You can get one here. Granted, it won’t pick up things like for all intense and purposes but it’s a start. A proofreader wouldn’t hurt, either.

Update: TeeVee picked up on the story.

As did The Tennessean.

Bill Hobbs has more.

Update 2: Forgot to mention, Matthew White broke the story first.

I’m all for gun safety. I’m all for educating kids about guns and educating parents too. A recent $40K ad campaign has kicked off in Knoxville advising parents to lock up their guns:

The first of many billboards went up Tuesday morning, announcing the gun safety campaign. The signs say “Put ’em up for children’s sake, lock up guns.”

Lamar Advertising donated billboard space for the $40,000 campaign. The agency is teaming up with the Knox County Sheriff’s Office for the campaign.

“This is a very important reminder for parents and anyone with children in the house,” Sheriff Tim Hutchison in a press release.

Of course, if you lock up your guns so that your child cannot access them, then you’ve defeated the point of having a gun in the first place because you can’t access them. If they’re in your safe, they’re not going to be real accessible in the event you need one. I have a gun safe for most of my guns but I keep one at the ready in case I need it. Fiddling with a lock is not something I want to be doing in the event I need a gun.

That said, I recommend people explore options such as quick access gun cabinets or storage boxes. They can be accessed by typing in a code or other measures. Junior isn’t walking around yet so, for now, my at the ready gun is in the nightstand. Once she’s mobile, I guess I’ll have to come up with something else. And, more importantly, when she’s of age, we’ll talk about guns and gun safety. Unfortunately, many parents don’t address guns and gun safety with their kids and act like they don’t exist. It’s a pity.

One of the problems with the AR-15 platform is that the gas tube can get dirty very quickly. This will result in failure to feed problems if the weapon isn’t cleaned regularly. This design issue (commonly called it eats where it shits because the gas tub comes in at the bolt, where ammo is fed) can also lead to carbon build up on the bolt and carrier, spring issues, unnecessary heat build up, and more.

Because of this, DSA and POF USA teamed up to create the P-416. This upper, while pricey at $975, operates on a gas piston system and features a ton of extra goodies. Excellent. Arms Tech has had one for a while but is so backed up with military contracts that there are no civilian sales.

Defense Review has more.

Having solved all of the county’s other problems, there will be more legislation against local adult businesses:

Knox County Commission Monday unanimously passed an ordinance that requires adult businesses to get a new license. However, it’s not as far reaching as you may think.

[boo-hooing and crying about the ordinance not going far enough snipped – What media bias? – Ed.]

Meantime, adult businesses in the county have 30 days to apply for a license. Then everyone who works at the store has to pass a background check.

Why a background check? Wait for it:

“One of the things we want to make sure is that employees of these businesses aren’t felons,” says county Law Director Mike Moyers. “And specific felons, basically not sexual predators or drug dealers. We’re limiting the hours of operation.”

Huh? What the Hell does a felony conviction have to do with working at a porn store? I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to sell illegal drugs illegally at other places too. Are we going to perform checks on folks who work at drive-thru restaurants too? It seems to me, they just want to put an undue burden on the places to make opening such an establishment less appealing. More:

The stores can only be open from 8:00 a.m. to midnight Monday through Saturday. They can’t be open on Sunday under any circumstances.

You should be in church, you heathen, not getting a turgid little nubbin in the porn store.

The most significant thing the ordinance does is define what’s classified as an adult business. Some adult stores found ways to get around the classification under old zoning laws that used the amount of adult inventory.

Blount County had a problem with definition of adult businesses too. But, it seems in Knoxville, people skirted the law:

“On Lovell Road right now, there’s a store that sells X-rated videos and they have three, two, maybe three antique Harley Davidson motorcycles in there for sale. The value of those three motorcycles is greater than the value of all the X-rated material they have for sale. So they’ve circumvented the current zoning ordinance,” Griess explains.

I’m glad they’re trying to keep me safe from porn by requiring five tests ranging from the amount of displayed merchandise to the amount of revenue derived from adult merchandise. I mean, you can’t help but go in there. There’s nothing preventing me from going in there except, you know, self restraint and personal responsibility.

The Emergency Evacuation Kit distributed to state employees in NY. How utterly, terribly sad.

Jeff has the latest on anti-gun bias in the media.

Yeah, I know.

A man convicted of raping a woman at gunpoint for two hours before shooting her has been spared death:

The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday threw out the death penalty in a rape-and-murder case because jurors had studied Bible verses such as “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” during deliberations.

On a 3-2 vote, justices ordered Robert Harlan to serve life in prison without parole for kidnapping 25-year-old cocktail waitress Rhonda Maloney in 1994, raping her at gunpoint for two hours and then fatally shooting her.

The jurors in Harlan’s 1995 trial sentenced him to die, but defense lawyers discovered five of them had looked up Bible verses, copied them down and talked about them while deliberating a sentence behind closed doors.

The Supreme Court said “at least one juror in this case could have been influenced by these authoritative passages to vote for the death penalty when he or she may otherwise have voted for a life sentence.”

I’m generally opposed to the death penalty but I am also opposed to judges usurping the functions of a jury.

WATE reports:

A woman from Seymour has sold her name on eBay for $15,199.

Once the legal work is done, Terri Iligan’s new name will be goldenpalace.com.

The mother of five points out, the name change will only be on paper.

“To my kids and to my husband I will always be Terri. My husband is real supportive. He thinks it’s funny and the kids think it’s funny. As long as they get to call me mom, they don’t care.”

To study the recent deaths of people from Tasers and other stun guns, a professor plans to test them on pigs to see if they die from the shock or other causes:

A professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison plans to study whether stun guns alone can kill pigs — or whether other medical factors must be at play — as part of an effort to understand why 70 people have died in North America since 2001 after being shocked by Tasers.

Animal rights groups are upset about it. Why the test?

Webster wants to test his hypothesis that Taser-related deaths were the result of heart failure fueled by drug use and other medical factors, not electrocution by the devices. To do so, researchers will begin in the next month studying how Taser electrical currents flow through 150-pound pigs.

A law aimed to curb the production of Meth in Tennessee is about to become law. The bill would require certain cold medicines be kept behind the counters at the pharmacy.

Sounds like a decent idea, I suppose. However, I’d say this could lead to more pharmacies being robbed at gunpoint.

First, sorry for taking so long to get to this fifth one (and I will do a sixth for Publicola) but been a bit busy. So, here are five questions for Ben:

1 – You can have one handgun and one only for the rest of your life, which would it be?

2 – Now, a rifle?

3 – So, what exactly is Carnaby Fudge and what does it mean?

4 – You use Linux? What on earth for?

5 – Battlestar Galactica: 2005 or 1970s?

Blogging for Bryant alerts us to the fact that Senate hopeful Hilleary has a launched a website. I guess Hilleary and his peeps don’t understand what a website can be used for. All his site tells us is that:

1) He’ll vote for conservative judges

2) So far, he’s in the lead. Yes, 19 months prior to the election, we want to know that you’re in the lead. Whoopty-damn-doo. You were also in the lead in that run for governor. How’d that work out?

We want the issues, dude. Give us that or go home.

Update: Oh yeah, and he wants money.

It’s pretty cool that a local congresscritter has a blog. It’s even cooler that he references South Park. Heh.

No, not the blog. But this article entitled The War of the Wrong is worth reading. A taste:

The recently expired Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) actually gives real insight into the mindset of the Million Mom March, the Violence Policy Center, or the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The AWB, which went into effect in 1994, was passed largely as a “feel good” measure. It made some politicans (sic) look like they were concerned about gun violence at the same time the law was essentially worthless. Though the anti-gun advocacy groups praised the AWB, and even demanded its renewal and expansion before it sunsetted in 2004, the reality of the AWB was that it addressed almost nothing but purely cosmetic features of various “ugly” firearms. The banned firearms, outside of appearances, didn’t fire different calibers at greater speeds than many hunting weapons not affected by the ban. This shows that anti-gunners are far more concerned with how things look than with how they actually are.

I don’t really have an issue with passive verb tense other than to the effect it is used to minimize something. Like this:

Two sheriff’s deputies in Lake County, Fla., were shot and injured when an officer’s gun accidentally discharged while training, according to a Lake County Sheriff’s Office release.

The officer accidentally discharged it. The gun did not accidentally discharge itself.

But only in that half-ass, they don’t really mean it kind of way:

The Virginia state legislature has passed SB301 which will protect some owner rights when property is seized by the state or its divisions through eminent domain.

Property owners, however, will have to wait a while before they obtain any kind of relief. The bill provides that when property is seized by any state government agency and has not been put to the public use for which is was seized after a period of 15 years; the property owner must be offered a chance to repurchase it. The offering price must be the original sale price plus interest at 6 percent per year.

Or how about, you know, just not taking it in the first place if the project isn’t ready to go?

Registration for the Blog conference to be held in Nashville has opened up. If you plan on going, head on over and sign up. Looks like a bunch of folks will be there, some of them I’ve even heard of.

The judge in the Jackson case has ruled that the past allegations of child molestation against Jackson may be used as testimony. Where have these folks been? In a cave in Afghanistan?

Who on the Earth doesn’t know that Jackson has been accused of this stuff before?