Stuff like this happens:

Gun owners beware: law enforcement officials want Los Angeles gun users to know that they can be arrested for giving or selling a gun to someone without a legal background check, especially if the gun turns up at a crime scene.

Officials announced Thursday that state and local law enforcement agencies are teaming up to launch a crackdown on illegal gun exchanges.

When you pass laws regulating gun shows, they probably end up regulating other private transactions as well.

By the way, gun user? What’s that supposed to mean.

The Sun-Sentinel has a piece on the tragedy:

An ounce of pot, 10 bullets and one failed drug war

In the annals of drug takedowns, this wasn’t much. Three quarter-ounce bags of marijuana in a bedroom refrigerator, a joint and another loose gram on top. Four grams scattered on a dresser. Six pipes with pot residue, three ashtrays with less than a gram each, three packs of rolling paper and a digital scale.

For that, Anthony is dead. More:

“What in the hell were they doing with a SWAT team?” asked Eleanor Shockett, a retired Miami-Dade circuit judge who advocates a sweeping overhaul of drug laws. “To break into someone’s home at six in the morning, possibly awaken someone from a deep sleep, someone who has a concealed weapons permit? What did they expect to happen?”

This is a tragedy that never should have happened.

Even if Diotaiuto, 23, was a small-time pot dealer, which his friends and family deny, the methods used show the madness of our country’s war on drugs.

No discretion. No proportionality. No sense.

“Using SWAT in this case is like using a sledgehammer on a fly,” said Jack Cole, a former narcotics detective for the New Jersey State Police who heads Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a drug-law reform group. “I’d much rather use a little bit of stealth.”

Drugs are winning the war on drugs, which isn’t so comforting to its casualties.

Significant update:

A military intelligence team repeatedly contacted the F.B.I. in 2000 to warn about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a veteran Army intelligence officer who said he had now decided to risk his career by discussing the information publicly. The officer, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, said military lawyers later blocked the team from sharing any of its information with the F.B.I.

This unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers in the year 2000. Bill Quick notes:

The big objection to Rep. Curt Weldon’s revelations about Able Danger was that his source was anonymous. That is apparently no longer the case, so almost immediately Weldon’s charges become much more credible again.

Heads should roll.

I’ve often joked that to get the President to sign a bill, just attach it to a spending bill and he’ll sign it. He likes to spend our money. Turns out, this trend is a new record:

Like pardons and executive orders, vetoes are among the cherished privileges of the Oval Office. Ike liked them. So did presidents Truman and Cleveland – and both Roosevelts.
But apparently not George W. Bush. In fact, well into the fifth year of his presidency, he has yet to issue a single veto.

It’s a streak unmatched in modern American history, one that throws into question traditional notions of checks and balances.

Party of smaller government, my ass.

I imagine this same problem exists on the other side of the aisle:

Here are two responses I got. First Senator Dianne Feinstein raised her hand and said, “Senator Daschle, the Internet is full of pornography and pedophilia, and until that’s clean up, I don’t think the Senate should be on the Internet.” (And she represents Silicon Valley!) Afterwards, another senator came up to me and said, “Andrew, I get 10,000 emails a day into my office. How do I make it stop?”

I worked for a guy once who had an assistant check and print his email for him. These older folks tend not to be technologically savvy and their failure to embrace technology is disheartening. Politicians just don’t get it. It also makes you wonder if Dick Cheney can check his email on Al Gore’s Internets.

Kevin, unfortunately, ends with this anti-corporate boner:

… the GOP is the worst of both worlds as far as technology aware voters are concerned: a combination of giant corporations that hate the idea of any innovation that didn’t originate from them and blue hairs whose idea of a good time is a book-burning.

Yeah, because only the GOP is in the pockets of industry. And those evil corporations hate the idea of technological advancements they didn’t create. That’s why all corporations use only computers they build, running only operating systems they designed, and only using financial packages they developed. That’s why Oracle, SAP, Dell and Microsoft are out of business. Oh, wait.

Jeff has the latest on gun bias in the media.

An illusion you should check out.

Publicola has a primer on high power matches. Go read. I need to get into that, it sounds fun.

The city of Battle Creek has stripped breed specific language from a dangerous dog bill. Good.

In Indianapolis, pit bull overpopulation is a problem:

Pit bulls were a large portion of the 18,000 dogs and cats euthanized last year in Marion County.

Animal activists argue that pit bulls are only dangerous if they are raised to be.

An effort is under way to control the growing breed that officials said has overpopulated, causing an array of problems.

Christine Jeschke, of Spay-Neuter Services of Indiana, has two missions — control the overpopulation of often mistreated pit bulls, and erase the stereotype of the feared breed.

I would think that general dog overpopulation is a problem in most places. I almost hit two strays this morning.

Nope, no bias here:

A five year old child is recovering at UT Medical Center Tuesday morning after being attacked by two dogs.

The boy was mauled by a pit bull and another dog on Monday, near Englewood in McMinn County.

Tragic event but was there even an effort to determine the breed of the other dog? Not a pit bull, so it’s not important.

What to do with those .50 caliber rounds you have lying around

Seen here.

Well, you gotta love a post that starts like this:

Like any red-blooded, masculine man of the male gender, I love PVC weaponry. You should too. If the concept of heading on down to the local Home Depot and transforming $100 worth of random pipe bits into a killing machine doesn’t appeal to you, you’re a frikkin’ pansy. Also, you’re probably sane and will live significantly longer than I will. Nonetheless you disgust me, and I take comfort in the knowledge that your obituary will be nowhere near as humorous as mine. For those of you who laugh in the face of hypersonic shards of plastic puncturing your spleen, here’s an intimate look at how I’ve kept myself busy for the past week: building a PVC flamethrower.

Not sure the legality of building one but I do not recommend it. This guy says they’re unregulated:

A Flame Thrower – not a DD, nor even a firearm. Unregulated as to possession, under federal law. Great way to clear snow off the driveway.

No, officer friendly, it really is for snow.

Via Kim.

I received a interesting email last night from a friend. It was a written by a City Council member explaining why he would “probably” support selling the Candy Factory and 7 Victorian houses to Kinsey Probasco and Associates.

The City Council member wrote, “First, let me say that I am not 100% comfortable with the proposal that we will be voting on Tuesday night. I don’t like selling public assets and I think these assets truly were a value to the community. Second, let me say that the proposal probably will pass and I probably will support it. It is the only plan for doing anything with these assets. And I don’t think we can wait another year to figure out what else to do. I think they could remain city assets and become even more productive than they have been. But the city has ignored them for years and too many of the former occupants have moved out once word of the sale got out.”

Who in the City made the decision to ignore the maintenance of the Candy Factory and Victorian houses? At whose direction was this done?

On the Market Square project the City prepared a RFQ on a joint venture project of public and private investment. The same firm Kinsey Probasco and Associates won the contract. In the “negotiation period” many meetings where held. Yet the entire purpose for the contract was to issue a “Comprehensive Development Agreement” which would require the “Coordinating Developer” to recruit National Tenants and invest 22 million dollars of private money. The City never issued the “Comprehensive Development Agreement”.

I emailed members of City Council to ask the questions below and I also asked these questions of Bill Lyons on the k2k forum where Dr. Lyons frequently answers the questions of Knoxville residents. There was no response.

Who or what body decided that Kinsey Probasco and Associates would be released from the “Coordinating Developer” Role and that there would not be a “Comprehensive Development Agreement” that required the recruiting of national tenants for Market Square and the investment of 22 million dollars of private monies?

When did this happen?

Why did it happen?

The taxpayers should not allow plausible deniability to be an excuse. In the City’s dealings with Kinsey Probasco and Associates the taxpayers have no accountability on the mishandled Market Square contract. From some reason valued City buildings are not maintained so now they must be sold because of “back logged maintenance”.

Each time Kinsey Probasco and Associates makes substantial profits at the expense of the taxpayers. Why will the City not answer these questions? Why does City Council shield the non-elected City employees that made these decisions? Most importantly will the taxpayers allow this plausible deniability scheme to work?

Seriously. At first, I thought he was just cranking up the rhetoric but lately he’s off his meds.

Number 8 is up, with a look at what freedom oriented folks have to say.

You know, there are very few instances that make me think someone should be taken out to the woodshed and have the absolute Hell beaten out of them. However, this is one:

“It’s a new definition of chutzpah: Confiscate land and charge back rent for the years the owners fought confiscation.”

Fight them and they will make you pay. I hope Bob Krumm is right:

Kelo v. New London is about to become the new Roe v. Wade—a Supreme Court decision that ignites a firestorm of protest. Only with Kelo, there’s no one running to defend the land-grabbing decision.

Michael Silence is looking at gas prices (which are high, if you haven’t noticed). I’ll defer to Kim du Toit on the issue:

Gasoline 1960 price: $0.30 per gallon; 2005 price: $2.50; % chg: +733%

Bread 1960 price: $0.19 per loaf; 2005 price: $1.89; % chg: +995%

It is a meaningless comparison to list gas prices as record highs in terms of dollars without considering the prices of other items.

The WaPo doesn’t seem to recall a Republican leader with a pair:

THREE TIMES in the past quarter-century, conservative leaders have promised to restrain wasteful government spending. President Ronald Reagan tried it and showed he was at least half-serious by vetoing the pork-laden 1987 transportation bill. House Speaker Newt Gingrich tried it and risked his party’s electoral standing by battling to restrain the growth in programs such as Medicare. And President Bush has tried it, declaring on numerous occasions that he expected spending restraint from Congress. None of these efforts proved politically sustainable. As The Post’s Jonathan Weisman and Jim VandeHei reported Thursday, Mr. Bush’s attempt at spending discipline has been especially limp.

No party is the party of small government and only the Democrats tried to balance the budget (yeah, it was fedmath but at least they tried it). It’s true.

So, with that in mind, here’s the deal: I am willing to buy my freedom. It’s true, I’ll cave. I yammer on and on about taxes being too high and that I pay too much and that my money pays for a bunch of useless crap. And that’s all true too. But I would gladly pay that price; deal with the 1,395,000 words and 693 sections of the IRS Code; and 20,000 pages of regulations containing over 8 million words from the Treasury department; etc. if I knew that my freedoms weren’t under attack.

But that’s kind of the problem, really. The more they tax, the more resources they have to bureaucratize my freedoms away. And that’s what they do (seriously, 26,911 words dealing with the sale of cabbage?).

I’m willing to let the .gov use my money to pay for all the roads, space programs, indoor rainforests, golf course repair work, etc. that it wants to, if it leaves me alone, stops taking people’s land, stops trying to pass nanny laws, etc. Think that will work?

I guess I’m not a good blogger because I have not followed this Cindy Sheehan business. Someone got the Cliff Notes version? Or, more importantly, should I really even care?

At End The War on Freedom:

Putting It In Perspective

Pythagorean Theorem: 24 words

The Lord’s Prayer: 66 words

Archimedes’ Principle: 67 words

The 10 Commandments: 179 words

The Gettysburg Address: 286 words

The Declaration of Independence: 1,300 words

U.S. Government regulations on the sale of cabbage: 26911 words

A while back, I wondered what the point of the FFL EZ Check was:

The ATF now offers FFL EZ check so that if you need a firearm transferred from another state, the seller can verify that the buyer’s FFL holder is legit. The problem is that nobody I’ve ever used to transfer firearms is willing to transfer based on the FFL EZ check. They still want a signed copy sent to them via snail mail. Even that ATF site says that the EZ Check is no substitute for a copy. I can’t figure out the point of the system.

Well, it’s not so useless now. Robert reports:

CERTIFIED FAXED COPIES OF LICENSES

Section 27 CFR 478.94 requires the following for sales or deliveries of firearms between licensees:

“A licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer selling or otherwise disposing of firearms, and a licensed collector selling or otherwise disposing of curios or relics, to another licensee shall verify the identity and licensed status of the transferee prior to making the transaction. Verification shall be established by the transferee furnishing to the transferor a certified copy of the transferee’s license and by such other means as the transferor deems necessary:…”

This section of the regulations requires a licensee to verify another licensee’s status prior to making sales or deliveries to such licensee. Please be advised that ATF will now recognize a faxed copy of a Federal firearms license as an acceptable alternative form of verification.

This section of the regulations requires a licensee to verify another licensee’s status prior to making sales or deliveries to such licensee. Please be advised that ATF will now recognize a faxed copy of a Federal firearms license as an acceptable alternative form of verification.

ATF strongly suggests that FFLs utilize the FFLeZ Check system and verify the authenticity of the transferee’s license prior to shipping or disposing of a firearm(s) to another licensee.

In addition, verification and certification of a license is not considered valid unless a legible copy of the transferee’s license clearly identifies the name, address, license number and expiration date of the license. Acceptance of blurred or illegible copies of a transferee’s license may constitute noncompliance with regulations.

If you’re on the receiving end of an FFL transfer, this will speed the process up considerably.

From Deb, we learn that a law awaiting the governor’s signature in NC will require clerks to give people requesting restraining orders information on a concealed weapons permit. Cool. Paper protection often isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

Pistol Pete to be pistol-less:

New Mexico State University’s mascot, Pistol Pete, is being disarmed. University officials have also stripped the word “Pistol” from Pete’s name. The new logo shows Pete twirling a lasso. The old Pete toted a pistol.

They say it’s marketing but I say it’s more PC nuttiness.

The other day, it occurred to the Mrs. and I that neither of us had any idea how much it costs to use a pay phone. Sort of surprising to me that they’re still around given the prevalence of cellular (yes, I know they’re not really cellular) phones.

Why is the Candy Factory different than a City park?

In an election cycle neither the Mayor nor City Council would dare cut funding to parks. In another fine column on Saturday August 13th Hayes Hickman writes about the Worlds Fair Site project. From his column we learn that the Candy Factory and Victorian houses cost the City about $ 200,000 per year in operating costs. I thought it would be interesting to compare this cost to other costs in the City’s Budget.

The proposed 05/06 City Budget includes:

Jobs Now campaign $ 400,000

Knoxville Partnership $ 696,840

Knoxville Zoological Park $ 864,210

Recreation (parks included) $ 10,044,100

Ballpark improvements in parks throughout the City $200,000

Lonsdale Park improvements $400,000

Development of a skate park facility (a new project) $450,000

Senior Aides (a new program) $ 456,750

The Total proposed budget for 05/06 is $ 307,783,760. A 7.47 % increase over the adopted budget of 04/05 of $ 286,394,320. This increase is $ 21,389,440.

The $ 200,000 to operate the Candy Factory and Victorian houses is .94 % of the budget increase for 05/06. So one of the most valuable City Assets, which in reality is owned by the taxpayers of Knoxville, has to be sacrificed so the City can balance the budget?

It gets worse, Hayes Hickman writes that, “The sale would, however, relieve the city’s immediate burden of some $200,000 in annual operating costs for the buildings, as well as an estimated $3.5 million to $4 million in backlogged maintenance needs, Lyons said.”

So is Bill Lyons saying the City has been negligent on maintenance of one of the City’s most valued assets? Why have these maintenance needs been backlogged? From the budget excerpts above you can see that money is not the issue. So why do over one hundred groups that use the Candy Factory as a public meeting place have to be kicked to the curb? This is about much more than the Arts Community. The groups that use the Candy Factory as a public meeting place should have the same rights as skateboarders or people that walk their dogs in the park. The question is why is there a double standard?

Ouch:

Let’s just say that it isn’t too hard to tell the bloggers from the MSM. The bloggers, for instance, aren’t complaining about the food spread (“those frugal evangelicals” – no kidding, that’s what she said), the technology at the church, or that they aren’t in D.C. or Las Vegas. In fact, I’m trying to make this update quick, as the reporter sitting behind me (the one who made the line about above about the “frugal evangelicals”) is starting in on bloggers and how she doesn’t “have time to read someone else’s opinions every day.” Well, of course she doesn’t. She’s probably too busy getting her own out in her “unbiased articles.” I won’t include her employer’s name, but let’s just say that it is a national publication.

Check out this twin MG42/22. It’s a Gatling gun made out of two 22 rifles.

In my discussion of What Is A Right?, reader Ron W. writes:

One thing about a right, if someone else must provide it for you, it isn’t a right…such as healthcare or education.

Xrlq has been banned from commenting at Reason because he called a lie a lie. What is actually worse is the lack of defense of the lying.

Noting the instances of Glock Leg, James says that for folks just getting into shooting, that he cannot recommend the GLOCK:

I try very hard to avoid prejudicing my students towards or away from any particular type of firearm, with a few exceptions. Most of the guns that I suggest they avoid are the really cheap weapons that wear out quickly. Since the students are just starting out, and regular practice is the way to develop and maintain proper skill, it would just be a waste if they spent money on a gun that couldn’t handle 10,000 rounds or more before major repairs were called for.

But that’s the cheap end of the scale. I also urge them to pass on buying anything from Glock, which produces robust and effective handguns.

Why would I do that? Mainly due to the fact that Glocks have few external controls, which makes an accidental discharge more likely if the gun is in the hands of a beginner.

Though I have not instructed as many newbies as James, readers should not be surprised when I disagree. When I take a newbie to the range, my focus is three things in order:

1- gun safety
2 – sight alignment & trigger squeeze
3 – having fun

The Glock is excellent at all three.

1 – James thinks that the lack of an external safety can lead to an accidental discharge. I wholeheartedly disagree and think that such features are more likely to cause an accidental discharge. A manual safety, particularly for newbies who are still at the tinkering phase, can instill a false sense of security. A newbie is more likely (like I did when I was new) to take the gun, practice loading, dry fire, etc. while getting accustomed to the new weapon. Safeties fail and people fail. Forgetting you chambered a round and other stuff can lead to bad stuff.

A Glock forces the newbie to abide by the rules of gun safety. Period. There’s no false sense of security inherent in a manual/external safety that is superior to treating all guns like they’re loaded; keeping your finger off the trigger unless you’re ready to pull it; and pointing the weapon in a safe direction. Period. By this rationale, I think revolvers and the various lines of DA or DAK triggers are also excellent. Friends don’t let newbies shoot Berettas, too many contraptions and gizmos that take away from sight alignment and trigger squeeze.

2- The Glock trigger squeeze is the same every time. No double/single action trickiness. None of that cock/don’t cock stuff. One consistent, steady trigger pull. Newbies need consistency. This consistent trigger pull leads to focus on sight alignment since the choice to cock or not and DA v. SA trigger pulls are never an issue.

I’ve let newbies shoot the Sig DA but only after they shoot the Glock. Most comment on the trigger pull difference being very different and somewhat distracting.

3 – Glocks are fun to shoot. They go bang every time.

The local high school has banned the Confederate Flag at events. Thank goodness, that will surely solve all the racial tensions at the locals schools.