If you were ever a total nerd role-playing enthusiast as I was in the ’80s, you’ve probably seen Jeff Dee’s artwork. Turns out he has a home page of his own. It’s nothing fancy, but it does have some of his artwork as well as some articles he wrote. He seems like an interesting fellow.

Enjoy!

I’ve noted in the past how gun laws (notably the Assault Weapons Ban) had made it hard for troops to get adequate supplies. For example, the military magazines for the M9 pistol had spring issues and there was a shortage of the magazines and springs because there was no civilian market for regular capacity magazines (see here and here). Also, there were reports that AR15 regular capacity magazines were harder to come by because the Army’s supply was old and no one was making new ones without an interest from the civilian market.

Now, gun laws are again having a detrimental effect on the efforts in Iraq. An acquaintance of mine has accepted a job as a contractor in Iraq. He is a policeman and has been contracted to serve in a consulting capacity with Iraqi police forces for one year. It’s a sweet deal in that he gets a pretty healthy salary; three trips home for vacation; and his wages are exempt from federal taxation. Of course, it does run the risk of getting him killed. There are many, many other policemen doing the same thing.

He must provide his own weapons for the job (though I would assume he’d have access to some when he gets there). As such, I was asked if I could build him some AR15s, if he bought the parts then I would assemble them. He wants an AR15 for a variety of reasons but notably because with the US military there, parts can be found. He wants two AR15s. One with a 10.5 inch barrel and telescoping stock (at least the AWB is gone, and he can get a telescoping stock legally) for use inside a vehicle; and one with a 16 inch barrel for longer range stuff. I informed him that the 16 inch would be no problem at all. However, to get a 10.5 inch barreled AR, he would have to go the National Firearms Act route and fill out an application to make a short-barreled-rifle; pay the $200 tax; get approval from the chief law enforcement officer in his area; and then wait for 3 to 6 months for approval from the ATF. He’s leaving sooner than that. And I won’t build one because I’d go to jail.

It never came up, but I’m sure he would want them to have full-auto/three shot burst fire control groups as well. If I were in Iraq, I would. Of course, if I built one of those for him, that would be making a machine gun and he and I would go to jail. And, since 1986, there can be no new transfers of machine guns to civilians.

So, we have a guy going to Iraq, contracted by the feds, who can’t equip himself with the weapons he needs/wants. Now, he can wait and get those weapons when he arrives in Iraq. And he could spend about $100 on an AK-47 off the street while he’s there too. However, he wants to get his weapons now so that he can function test them, take them to the range, break them in, and familiarize himself with these weapons before arriving in the combat zone. It’d suck to get there and realize your AR was faulty.

Matthew White has more on Tyler Harber.

The FBI is getting in on the selling guns to people who don’t have felony convictions and are not illegal immigrants but are on a federal watch-list issue:

FBI Director Robert Mueller is forming a study group to review the law that let suspected terrorists buy guns in the United States after they cleared background checks.

Mueller unveiled his plan to form the Justice Department working group, which will include the FBI, in a letter sent Wednesday to Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. The group will also review the government report issued earlier this month that said more than 40 terror suspects were able to buy firearms in the United States last year because background checks showed they had no felony convictions and weren’t illegal immigrants.

I would hope they would be. Putting them on a list doesn’t make them guilty and should not revoke their rights.

Bubba welcomes a bunch of blogs into the fold of the Rocky Top Brigade:

Todd, who has a couple of blogs.

Blogging for Bryant, which covers the TN 2006 Senate race and who I have mentioned before.

The Chattanooga-Hamilton Civic forum.

Chris Woodhull, who I’ve mentioned before, is a blogging Knoxville City Councilman.

Communists for TennCare, who I have also mentioned before, is just too damn funny. Though the original communist shtick can be found here.

Poop Happens, by Poopie.

Tennessee Guerilla Women, kinda moonbatty but without all the crazy. And Rs.

Whoa Mama! for your mental health needs.

Will work for doughnuts. He will work hard because most people would take the easy way and spell it donuts.

Welcome aboard all.

A bill is in the works to curb eminent domain abuse in Nevada:

Care’s 2-page bill would bar the use of eminent domain by government agencies to get property for open-space use or for “protecting, conserving or preserving wildlife habitat.”

The measure also says an agency could exercise eminent domain powers to get property for a redevelopment project only after making a written finding that “a condition of blight exists for each individual parcel of property” being acquired.

Not the best but it’s a start. Of course, since the federal government owns 92% of Nevada, they’re probably running out of room.

We keep seeing more bills against eminent domain lately. I’m guessing people are getting mad enough to contact their representatives or they figure the Supreme Court will not rule in favor of property owners.

An $80M federal program to give people free gun locks isn’t working out as planned. It seems farmers are using their free gun locks to lock their gates. I want my money back.

I, personally, have about 10 or so gun locks laying around the house collecting dust. It seems everyone gives you one with the purchase of a new gun these days. I don’t use them. Maybe I could donate them to some farmers.

Via Deb.

In this post, I pointed out how a report had confused millimeters with caliber. I then (from memory, TLTG) figured up a quick caliber conversion. I was wrong. Reader Andrew commented

As I have no doubt you are aware, the .38 special caliber shoots 0.357″ bullets, which equates to 9.0678mm (exactly – the inch has actually been defined as exactly 2.54cm. Interestingly the meter has been defined as the distance that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 seconds. The second has been defined as the time it takes for 9,162,631,770 vibration cycles in the radiation emmited (sic) by cessium (sic)-133). Near enough to just call it 9mm. Now, if the .38 special actually fired 0.380″ bullets, it would be 9.652mm.

I am nothing, if not self-correcting.

Michael Silence notes that some local politicos aren’t happy about other local politicos blogging.

Matthew White first drew attention to the issue:

Speaker Jimmy Naifeh’s staff is taking pot shots at a State Representative for starting a blog and daring to show the public what goes on behind the curtain. The Speaker himself has retaliated against the blogger, Rep. Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville), by re-referring one of Campfield’s bills to committee because he didn’t respect the institution of the House.

And what non-scandal would be complete without an intern. Here’s the intern’s blog and here’s Stacey Campfield’s blog.

For all your weekend gun blogging, The Carnival of Cordite #6 is up.

A reader emails:

Was reading up on Walther PPKs, as it was recommended to me by a county police officer. My situation? I am a paraplegic with tremendous upper body strength and am finding I tend to get accosted lately in mall parking lots…when I’m getting back into my van. I carry police grade mace and a knife, but quickly realized these bozos must have been scoping me out because they picked the moment or two when I was MOST vulnerable to come up to the van and into MY space. Mace and knife both out of reach…

Question: where can I get info on permits and CC in North Carolina? I keep getting different answers from those I ask….and haven’t found the right website yet. This is new territory for me and I’m trying to get all the steps in order so I can find myself on the local shooting range, checking out which handgun will suit me best.

He also wants advice on which gun and carry set up to use. I have addressed wheelchair carry before but that person stated they had weak grip strength so I don’t think it’s completely applicable. I should point out that he wants to carry the gun on his person and not on his wheelchair. I, of course, recommended either a Sig, Glock, H&K or Springfield XD in any .4X caliber as the Walther, though easily concealable, doesn’t fire a powerful enough round. He also wants to carry in a shoulder holster for cooler weather and an ankle holster in warmer weather. So, if you have any advice, leave it in comments.

If you’re familiar with North Carolina’s CCW law, steer the gentleman in the right direction. I recommended he head down to the local range/gun shop and take a class. Those folks would provide him with the information on where/how to get a permit in addition to training him properly in the safety and handling of firearms.

He also writes:

A little background on me: I’ve been in a wheelchair for 30 years and moved to NC eight years ago. I have to admit I was NOT pro-gun for most of my life, but I have seen the error of my ways! I am 53 and value my independence above all else. My attitude now is that I’ll go do my shopping (or whatever) by myself and if anybody tries to F**K with me seriously, I’m going to be prepared and trained to defend myself.

There you have it.

Update: Apparently, the reader is not a he. I just assumed and we know what that does. So, she may not need the blond with a big chest that reader Robert suggested.

Bruce notes a report that a 38MM handgun has quite a kick. Then, they corrected this error noting it was a 0.38MM handgun.

For those who don’t know, it’s actually a .38 caliber handgun which is approximately 9.5MM, IIRC.

I’m sure this doesn’t matter to some folks because it doesn’t matter if the bullet is near 1.5 inches in diameter, or 0.38 inches in diameter, or 0.02 inches in diameter because they’re all killers so who needs the truth?

Update: They’ve since fixed it.

There’s a new blog in town (my town, anyway) devoted to Blount County. Check out Blount Truth.

Update: I found this item about a police search at a local high school rather troubling.

In this post highlighting how the comparison to machine guns and their semi-automatic counterparts from the Brady Campaign is hypocritical, Barry comments that:

And this is a big deal to anyone but you? It’s verbal shorthand, that’s all…

It is not verbal shorthand. It is intentionally misleading. The Violence Policy Center (an anti-gun group) even concluded:

Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.

It is an intentional effort to mislead you. I guess it’s OK for someone to lie as long as it’s not something Barry cares about?

A bill in Illinois to arm judges has been introduced. They compare it to judges in Texas carrying guns. They don’t point out that almost everyone in Texas can carry guns with a permit.

Do mine eyes deceive me? Someone gets it right regarding the Red Lake shooting:

It has become clear over the years that most of these spectacular episodes are so freakish that they are not amenable to regulatory solutions. It has also become clear that any imaginable gun control laws are not likely to have much effect on crime in America.

Even the staunchest anti-gun organizations made only perfunctory efforts to capitalize on the Minnesota shootings. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence used the opportunity to criticize Congress for letting the federal “assault weapons” ban expire, mandating immediate destruction of the records of gun sales, and considering a bill to limit lawsuits against gun dealers.

But these had nothing to do with what happened in Red Lake. Records of gun sales? The killer, Jeff Weise, 16, wasn’t old enough to legally buy a gun in Minnesota. At least two of his guns were stolen from his grandfather, a police officer whom he killed.

Assault weapons ban? His arsenal included no such weapons–only a .22-caliber pistol, plus a police-issued .40-caliber handgun and 12-gauge shotgun. Limiting lawsuits against dealers? A bill that hasn’t been enacted couldn’t have caused a mass shooting yet.

My favorite snippet is:

But decrying America’s love affair with guns is like decrying America’s love affair with football or movies. There are some 260 million firearms in private hands in this country. Any solution requiring vast numbers of people to reject something they have long valued is not a solution but a fantasy. It’s also an admission that no politically feasible options are likely to have any perceptible effect on crime.

Excellent!

To further their agenda, anti-gunners often mislead, misrepresent or outright lie. The Brady Campaign did it again:

“I can’t imagine what’s going to happen to 100,000 AK-47s…I can’t understand why Venezuela needs 100,000 AK-47s. I personally hope it doesn’t happen. I can’t imagine, if it did happen, it would be good for the hemisphere.” — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

The Bush Administration very deliberately allowed the Federal assault weapons ban to expire last fall. Since the ban expired, it is quite likely that there are more than 100,000 new assault weapons like AK-47s in the United States.

Here is the lie. The AK-47s that Venezuela is getting are AK-47s. The AK-47s that the Brady’s are referring to in the US are just guns that look like AK-47s.

I can’t imagine lying for a living.

It’s a little short notice, but the weekly auction in Mebane, NC has some antique black-powder rifles and pistols tonight.

Due to the recent comments by President Bush regarding immigration, the Schiavo fiasco, and baseball steroids; I figure the Republican Party will be in trouble in 2006 and maybe through 2008. These issues have really pissed off a bunch of people who are ordinarily inclined to vote Republican.

Gunner says it much more eloquently.

They have to lie to win: Michelle Malsbury who misquotes already misleading statistics regarding the ban on weapons that look like assault weapons, repeats Brady Campaign talking points. I can almost excuse her general dumb-assedness but when Joe pointed out the errors in her report, she responded to Joe in the following highly sophisticated manner:

Hi Joe. Thanks for your thoughts on this subject. I guess that any percentage of decline would not make a difference for those bent on carrying guns that get in the hands of babes and then kill other children…so let’s begin to issue guns to children in grade school so they can protect themselves from each other. NOT!

She does not address the factual inaccuracies in her hysterical piece and resorts to sarcasm. She can’t win based on the facts and has to resort to debate tactics reminiscent of the 1980s valley girls.

Feel free to email her at Zackywacks@aol.com.

Perhaps the website name should be changed from Useless Knowledge to Useful Idiots.

A local security guard at a credit union has been fired for leaving his gun in the bathroom. The thing that leaps out at me is this:

While Daryl Thornton was in line at the TVA Employees Credit Union off Clinton Highway Wednesday afternoon, his son, Billy, went into the bathroom and says he found a Glock 40 sitting on the back of the toilet pointing at him.

“I was just shocked that it was just sitting there. When it’s not really, don’t come every day that a gun is sitting there towards you,” Billy says. He also says that he didn’t know what to think. “Umm, I didn’t know whose it was so I was just freaked out.”

The third grader at Carter Elementary had been taught in school never to touch a gun so he ran out and got his dad, Daryl Thornton. “It was loaded. It was laying there. Anything could happen,” Daryl says so he took it to the credit union’s manager.

Looks like the NRA’s gun safety program for children can pay off. Remember, kids, if you find a gun:

1 – Stop
2- Don’t touch
3 – Leave the area
4 – Tell an adult.

Well, that’s odd.

First, a jury sides with a landowner regarding just compensation:

After a one week trial, the jury found on March 10 that the MBTA underpaid Ricky Bernasconi, the owner of the former Landing Auto Sales property on 25 Quincy Ave., by approximately $325,000.

Attempts to obtain comment from the MBTA about the verdict were unsuccessful.

On Jan. 29, 2002, the MBTA took the land from Bernasconi, who operated a used car sales and repair business on the property.

At that time, the MBTA valued the land at $350,000.

Bernasconi filed suit on Sept. 29, 2002 through his attorney, George McLaughlin III of the McLaughlin Brothers law firm of Boston, claiming that the MBTA undervalued his land.

The jury concluded that the land was worth $673,000, resulting in damages of approximately $700,000 after interest, almost double the value initially determined by the MBTA.

Excellent. Also, citizens fight city hall in opposition to eminent domain and win.

And a politico was pitching eminent domain at a meeting and almost everyone disagreed with him.

A good day for property rights, I’d say.

No, really:

Battle lines were drawn Tuesday in the debate over the government’s counterterrorism powers, as an unlikely coalition of liberal civil-rights advocates, conservative libertarians, gun-rights supporters and medical privacy advocates voiced their objections to crucial parts of the law that expanded those powers after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Keeping the law intact “will do great and irreparable harm” to the Constitution by allowing the government to investigate people’s reading habits, search their homes without notice and pry into their personal lives, said Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman who is leading the coalition.

If you’re going to abuse your teenage daughter, make certain that you don’t do so when the cameras are rolling as you’re participating in a stupid reality show:

Production was halted on an episode of ABC’s reality TV show Wife Swap being filmed in Nashville after one of the participants was arrested and charged with punching his 13-year-old daughter in the face Tuesday evening, network and police officials said yesterday.

Yanni Panagiotakis, 38, who owns the Athens Family Restaurant on Franklin Road with his wife, Dina, was charged with domestic assault late Tuesday and freed yesterday morning on $1,000 bail, Metro police said.

Everything here is my own opinion, so you know who to blame…

For me, especially lately, it’s getting to a point where I just don’t know why I bother serving in the military to protect our country. Much of it comes from liberal media, much of it from friends and co-workers who just don’t really know the truth behind the lies. Worse, I used to honestly say that I fought for freedom. Do I now?

Read the rest of this entry »

I still owe three people five questions. I’ll get to it soon, promise. But, to reduce that number to two, here are questions for Kirk:

1 – I assume you’re going to Boomershoot. What are you taking?

2 – If you could have one and only one gun for the rest of your life, which gun would it be?

3 – Boxers or briefs?

4 – Why do you advocate the abuse of gummy animals?

5 – You have a ton of hobbies, which is your favorite. How do you find the time?

Looks like the reason they took Tyler Harber’s computer was to probe the theft of emails of some local officials.

The Tennessee Senate approved the bill allowing handgun carry permit holders to carry their weapons into places that serve alcohol:

More than 100,000 Tennesseans who hold handgun carry permits will be able to pack their pistols into establishments that sell alcoholic beverages for the first time under legislation approved overwhelmingly by the Senate on Wednesday.

The state’s gun permit law, adopted in 1997 amid considerable controversy, included a provision forbidding pistols in bars as a concession to critics.

Experience since then has shown that permit holders are law-abiding citizens and the restriction is unnecessary, said Sen. Doug Jackson, D-Dickson, sponsor of the bill.

“They respect the law. We have had no problems at all,” he said. “The experiment is over.”

And I love this quote:

“All the doomsday we heard at that time – there’ll be shoot-outs at stop signs and all – have never happened,” Ramsey said.

Some details about the bill:

Jackson said the permit-holders now run the risk of having their weapons stolen when they go into a restaurant, leaving guns inside cars in “a dark parking lot.” He said that poses a greater risk than having the weapon taken inside.

The bill specifies that the permit-holder cannot consume alcoholic beverages himself and allows restaurant and bar owners to decide individually not to allow weapons in their establishments.

Sneak-a-taxes.