In an update to this, Len Savage says:

I brought this up to the U.S. Attorney, and the ATF agent pushing this case.

ATF agent Lee Baldwin told me this, an I assume he must have also told the Grand Jury that indicted Mr. Wrenn:

“A FFL 07/SOT can NOT manufacture a machinegun unless he has a valid government order for one”.

The U.S. Attorney, while a nice young lady (5 years out of law school), has no understanding of the NFA or GCA. She is relying on the ATF to guide her. [She actually stated in a hearing that Mr. Wrenn was in violation of 922(o)].

The ATF agenda here: Establish case law to BAN ALL post sample machineguns.

Oh dear.

Looks like the Illinois house did not override Blagojevich’s veto of some pro-gun laws. The senate did earlier. Bummer.

James clued us in that the XM-8 was on its way out. Now, he talks about the Tavor and tanks:

Israel has had to fight its own War on Terror a lot longer than we have been fighting ours, and they are undoubtedly the most experienced army in the world when it comes to this type of conflict. They seem to be happy with the 5.56mm round even though there are more powerful alternatives available.

My favorite Israeli military fact is that, in the past anyway, one member of each squad carried an integrally suppressed Ruger 10/22. This was used to shoot at the knees when less lethal force was required and had the added benefit that the shooter was difficult to find.

Egalia is usually a disingenuous, dishonest political hack. But even a broken clock is right twice a day (unless it’s a military clock). She was right once before, wrong a bunch, and now is right again on a Right To Privacy Amendment:

Because the right to privacy is the basis of the Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) ruling, which found that married women are too allowed to use birth control, and since said ruling was used as precedent in Roe v. Wade, conservatives are forced to forever argue that American citizens do not, and should not, have a right to privacy.

As Savage points out, in a full-fledged campaign for a Right to Privacy Amendment, conservatives would scare the public to death if they seriously argued against it. Yeah, I know, they already scare most of us.

I do think abortion should be legal but don’t think privacy has anything to do with abortion and that Roe v. Wade was a crap ruling. However, I do like the idea of a specifically enumerated right to privacy because there isn’t one specifically enumerated in the Constitution and this would put an end to that debate. And putting an end to that debate would keep some Republicans from looking silly. Well, unless they opposed it.

Conversely, it seems that support for this amendment may finally be an admission from the left that there is, in fact, no right to privacy specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Damned if you do . . .

Update: JJ asks:

Why do people believe that they must go to the government to request freedoms and rights we already possess? Have they never read the Constitution? Do they not understand how our government was founded? Are they even able to read?

Well, let me be the first to say that how it was founded and what it currently is are two very different things.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, those right-wing extremists who happen to agree with Alito on machine guns, may be split in two:

Buried deep in the massive House spending-cut proposal is a provision to do what many conservatives have been wanting to do for years: split up the liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and allow President Bush to appoint some new judges to it.

The underlying spending-cut proposal trims $53.9 billion from mandatory spending programs under eight House committees. It was approved yesterday by the budget panel, 21-17, with the court-splitting provision included — one of many issues about which Democrats complained.

Republicans said the change would be good for the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit, the largest and most backlogged of the circuits, spanning nine Western states, Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands. It repeatedly has made rulings at which conservatives bristle, including the 2002 decision that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because of the phrase “under God.”

The long and short is that Wrenn’s Maxims are semi-automatic (i.e., not machine guns). The ATF is trying to convince a judge and prosecution team that the upper receivers (which per past ATF rulings aren’t even firearms) are machine guns. Wrenn’s trial begins Monday. Eric Larson has a lot of detail on the case over at Subguns:

Some years back, after receiving a dozen or so of the aforementioned “ATF Letter Ruling” documents, and noticing their seriously contradictory statements, I decided to memoralize them by putting them into the permanent Hearing Records of the House Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government Appropriations. I won’t fatigue any of you by repeating what they stated; you can see the whole obscene mess of them in the “Resources” section of www.nfaoa.org that lists my Congressional statements and testimonies.

It is less well known that after carefully studying these letters, written by 3 different people (all of them top ATF executives, including the then-ATF Director John W. Magaw), logic forced me to an inevitable conclusion. Namely, either the people who wrote those letters were professionally incompetent, or they were deliberately misrepresenting the law.

The ATF has changed the rules on a whim apparently and is prosecuting based on that. For more on what spawned this, see here and here.

Eric Concludes with:

Finally, I think all of you who have taken the time to read this far must be at least as amused, horrified, concerned and tired of “ATF Letter Ruling” documents being misused by ATF to express your concerns to your Congressional representatives.

I know, it sounds lame, “express your concerns to your Congressional representatives.” But I tell you what—think about the scattered posts on Subguns by the growing number of folks who HAVE taken the time to involve their Congressional delegation in a valid complaint about and against ATF, and the number of posts that have touted how quickly positive results were achieved.

ATF is not immune to political pressure. It is evident from the variety of activism about NFA and/or NFRTR issues that has emerged in 2005, as noted at the beginning of this post, that people are much less afraid of ATF than in the past; have realized that ATF cannot stop legitimate activism through established political channels of representation; and that, indeed, the Congress can be and does get aroused, and when aroused, can and will do something. YOU can make that something—er, those somethings, there’s lots on the plate(s) here, including stuff I’ve not mentioned—happen much quicker if you will only take the time to participate in the political process necessary to make it happen.

Contact your congress critter. It is seriously time to reign in the ATF.

By all accounts I had read, it looked like the US military was set to switch to the XM-8 assault rifle. James, however, says the military has canceled the program. The reason is that it fired the same round: new platform, same lethality issues. I was hoping personally that the US military would adopt the XM-8 in 6.8SPC. My real preference would have been for 6.5 Grendel, but the military probably would not have been interested. Any way, here’s hoping this motivated H&K to make a semi-automatic civilian version since the military ain’t buying.

Joe Public rounds up Tennessee’s candidates running in 2006, most of which you’ve probably never heard of. Meanwhile, Sharon Cobb asks:

To Any Tennessee Republican Who Would Happen To Know The Answer To This Question

WHEN are you going to announce a candidate for Governor of Tennessee?

Good question. I voted for Bredesen and actually like him but I’m sure there’s a better candidate somewhere. Over at NIT’s post on the subject, I said:

Interesting idea would be to ‘draft’ someone, like say a blogger. I’d vote for Krumm or Blake

TN Blog troublemaker Kleinhieder responded with:

Krumm’s already said his ultimate goal is to run for office. He’s very measured — he’d be a perfect politican (sic).

Blake, however, would need some “handlers.” You know some people around to stop him from, in the middle of a health care speech, brandishing a firearm and saying, “Yeah, yeah, Medical IRAs are a good thing. Blah. Blah. But seriously folks, check out this new Walther I just picked up. SWEET! Isn’t it a beautful (sic) thing?”

That’s not a bug, it’s a feature. But maybe we Tennessee bloggers (of which there are apparently millions) should push a candidate of our choosing? I’ll nominate Bob Krumm.

Don’t nominate me, I’m doomed since I blog about porn. Speaking of porn, Aunt B. on the subject:

Let’s talk bluntly. In most porn, the ideal girl is in her early twenties and beautiful and willing to fuck any man that comes along. Now, I don’t blame you for the “beautiful” and “willing to fuck any man that comes along;” it’s the “early twenties” part that just baffles me.

Back on the other subject before mentioning porn, this blog has doomed any chance I ever had of running for office (not that I planned on it – I’m not corrupt enough and can’t take the pay cut). The reasons are that I’ve blogged about porn, I like guns, I cuss a lot, I’ve been kind of a dick to some people, and a few other things. So, if I ran for office, somebody who knows me would out me and I’d bet it’d be this guy (no, I kid. He wouldn’t but someone would). But, regardless, I have a record and, to be honest, I probably scare the shit out of your average soccer mom (see, I warned you about the cussing). And in the next paragraph, I’ll advocate breaking the law.

And then I’d also have to disclose whatever due to the unconstitutional campaign finance reform (that, by the way, any good citizen should just ignore – see, told you about that breaking the law thing) and the fact that the Online Freedom of Speech Act was shot down. By the way, (from Blake) these local idiots voted against:

-Harold Ford, Jr. – 9th District
-Zach Wamp – 3rd District
-Jim Cooper – 5th District
-Bart Gordon – 6th District
-John Tanner – 8th District

Shame on you all.

And these folks voted for it:

-Marsha Blackburn – 7th District
-Lincoln Davis – 4th District
-John Duncan, Jr. – 2nd District
-William Jenkins – 1st District

Good for them.

Now, back to other subject from which I’ve been distracted twice. Bob Krumm is early enough in his blogging career to not make those mistakes. And he’s a reasonable, level-headed guy. So, Krumm for Governor!

And no, I’m not sure exactly when this became one of those stream of consciousness posts but deal with it. I think it’s the new coffee. And, while we’re on the subject o . . . ooh look, a monkey.

Glocks are not bullet proof:

A former Omaha police officer who was shot during an attempted robbery after his gun misfired has dropped his lawsuit against the weapon’s manufacturer.

Sounds bad, but:

Holland said his gun was disabled after it was hit by a bullet during the March 2000 incident at a branch of the Great Western Bank, where he was working security while off duty.

I don’t think I’d expect many guns to function after being shot. Via David.

David Hardy quotes a law prof who says don’t bet the farm on Alito’s Second Amendment cred:

Jodge (sic) Alito would give Congress the green light, under the commerce clause to regulate – BAN – firearms “if Congress as a whole or even one of the responsible congressional committees had made a finding that intrastate machine gun possession, by facilitating the commission of certain crimes, has a substantial effect on interstate commerce.”

Meet the 660 yard pistol!

The AP:

Charging that the Supreme Court undermined one of the pillars of American society, the House took up legislation Thursday to block court-sanctioned seizings of people’s homes for use by private developers.

The bill, headed toward easy passage with bipartisan support, would withhold federal funds from state and local governments that use powers of eminent domain to force homeowners to give up their property for commercial uses.

I wonder if that would include pork?

Last night (or night before, I’m not sure. Damn you, TiVo) The Daily Show pulled a funny. It had a few Senators with Ds after their name all stating that Alito was out of the mainstream. Then Jon Stewart said something to the effect of:

Out of the mainstream? As if they were a political party that was in the minority in Congress and didn’t have the presidency.

Heh. Even better, the audience kind of hissed and Stewart quipped: Not so funny when it’s your guy, eh?

Fellow blogger #9 has been covering the WATE/Steve Hall thing diligently (here and here). It’s important to point out that Michael Silence notes:

I’ve seen the press release. It came out a couple of weeks ago from Register of Deeds Steve Hall. It was short and simple and said RofD Hall was not running and was not to be confused with Councilman Hall. I’m home under the weather and don’t have a copy of it. But call the RofD office and they’ll fax or e-mail you a copy of it.

Update: And Betty Bean has much more.

Final Update: I have it on good authority that this entire incident was the result of an error. I do not think there was any nefariousness on the part of anyone. I can’t comment further.

The VPC:

Supreme Court Nominee Samuel Alito’s Views Could Imperil Most Federal Gun, Ammo, and Explosives Laws, New Violence Policy Center Backgrounder Shows

So, which is it? You guys are fond of saying firearms are unregulated. They conclude with:

If Judge Samuel Alito’s views on firearms and public safety, as expressed through his minority opinion in U.S. v. Rybar, became the law of the land, all Americans would be at greater risk from virtually uncontrollable firearms proliferation. The federal government would be almost powerless to keep firearms, ammunition, and other deadly commodities out of the hands of criminals and even terrorists. In a time of increased concern regarding homeland security, such views are not only counterintuitive, but exceedingly dangerous.

First of all, this case reflected his views on the commerce clause and not guns and public safety. His effort to address congress’ authority is refreshing. Second, I don’t know of a firearms law that has kept a gun out of the hands of a criminal.

At the San Francisco Chronicle of all places comes a reasoned discussion of Alito’s dissent in the machine gun case (the first reasonable discussion I’ve seen in the media, anyway):

In a lone dissenting opinion as a federal appeals court judge in 1996, Alito argued that the federal ban on possessing machine guns was unconstitutional — a stand described by both admirers and detractors Tuesday as one of the most revealing cases in the lengthy judicial record of President Bush’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“He understands the original design of the Constitution as being one of limited government,” said Roger Pilon, director of the Center for Constitutional Studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. In his opinion, Alito said the federal ban on possessing machine guns exceeded Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce, but a majority of his court disagreed, and the Supreme Court denied review. He took no position on whether the Constitution protects an individual’s right to possess firearms.

Pilon said the case showed Alito’s recognition that Congress’ constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce is not a license “to regulate anything and everything.”

Reasonable until the Bradies get their turn:

But Dennis Henigan, legal director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said the opinion is “perhaps the most powerful evidence that Judge Alito is very much a right-wing judicial activist” willing to disregard congressional judgment.

When asked if he’d ever heard of checks and balances, Mr. Henigan replied: Those are gun parts, right? You right-wing, militant whacko!

Congress has decided to continue to use the Bill of Rights as toilet paper by deciding that online political expression should not be exempt from campaign finance law. Says Alphie:

Soon I shall have to start reporting my posts to the FEC.

Not this guy. I will keep on keeping on. And, though I’ve never really done political endorsements in the past, I may start just to be a dick.

Seen at TriggerFinger:

We disagree with the District Court’s reasoning. There is no categorical “harassment exception” to the First Amendment’s free speech clause. Moreover , the SCASD Policy prohibits a substantial amount of speech that would not constitute actionable harassment under either federal or state law.

I’ve said before that with free speech should come the expectation to occasionally be offended. Alito seems to agree.

Blake is showing off his Romanian, wire folder SAR. So, what’s that on your hip? He says in comments he wants to do some upgrades. maybe something like this:
Read the rest of this entry »

Soldiers from the 278th National Guard Unit returned home early this morning. Welcome home.

Yesterday, I said I thought there was no registry since the law says there shouldn’t be one. Jed asks if the ATF is keeping purchasing records and quotes the FBI:

The privacy and security of the information in the NICS is of great importance. In October of 1998, the Attorney General published regulations on the privacy and security of NICS information, including the proper and official use of this information. These regulations are available on the NICS web site (www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/nics/index.htm). Data stored in the NICS are documented federal data, and access to that information is restricted to agencies authorized by the FBI. Extensive measures are taken to ensure the security and integrity of the system information and agency use. The NICS is not to be used to establish a federal firearm registry; information about an inquiry resulting in an allowed transfer is destroyed in accordance with NICS regulations.

Jed also asks:

So, is this just another example of the ATF making up its own rules as it goes along. If this eTrace program does in fact do what the article says, then there is a registry in place. If that’s true, then where is ATF getting its info, if not from NICS checks?

JJ Horner has reviewed the Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on IRAQ so you don’t have to:

(U) Conclusion 12. Until October 2002 when the Intelligence Community obtained the forged foreign language documents[9] on the Iraq-Niger uranium deal, it was reasonable for analysts to assess that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa based on Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reporting and other available intelligence.

That’s what it says. Not sure who this I person is, but they have a plan that includes:

Stiffening the penalties for gun trafficking. That sounds reasonable.

Extending RICO to gun traffickers. When all else fails, we use RICO.

Banning sales of ammunition to people who have committed certain crimes. I wonder how they plan on doing this? Apply the NCIS to ammo sales? This one really strikes me as unenforceable. Any plan to make it enforceable would be too costly and cumbersome.

Requiring destruction of used law enforcement firearms.

Requiring the reporting of stolen guns within 72 hours.

Wednesday morning WATE news anchor Gene Patterson came on the Lloyd Daugherty radio program on AM 1180. He was there to explain what happened on the Election Day WATE morning news broadcast when a WATE reporter said on air that City Councilman and candidate Steve Hall had dropped out of the race. For almost an hour Patterson patiently took phone calls from the public and explained what had occurred.

Patterson said that around 6:00 AM an honest mistake was made by a 23-year-old producer who found an old press release from Steve Hall the Register of Deeds for Knox County stating that he was not in the race. This information was given to an “out of town”(not from here) reporter who read on air that City Councilman and candidate Steve Hall had dropped out of the race. It was not possible to call candidate Hall to verify this because it was early in the morning and they did not want to wake him.

Patterson said his wife woke him later after the mistake was made and his phone starting ringing with the news. According to Patterson WATE corrected the mistake at 7:25 AM and 8:25 AM on the same morning broadcast. Then WATE correctly stated Hall was running against Ellen Adcock at noon, 5:00 PM, and 6:00 PM so the television station felt it had done everything needed to correct the mistake. The only time that WATE admitted it made a mistake was at 7:25 AM and 8:25 AM.

Repeatedly Patterson said the station had made a mistake and it deserved to be questioned and chastised. He said the producer made the assumption Steve Hall was dropping out of the race and that the reporter was not familiar with Steve Hall the Register of Deeds for Knox County. Most callers to the radio program were dubious of Patterson’s version of events and pressed him for more information. Twice Patterson challenged callers for attacking his integrity. He reminded them he was not in management and was the primary news anchor and had come on the radio program to explain to the community what had occurred.

Patterson’s friend Lloyd Daughtery accepted the version of events and apologized to Ellen Adcock for suggesting it might have been a political trick. The radio panel agreed that nothing more would come from the mistake and it was a good thing that Steve Hall won the election as it prevented all kinds of unpleasantness.

So case closed? Not just yet. Steve Hall’s attorney on Tuesday asked WATE who the source for the story was and they were told it was a “reliable source”. Patterson said the source for the story was an old press release from the office of Steve Hall Register of Deeds.

One phone caller asked Patterson to produce the fax or email press release from Steve Hall Register of Deeds. Patterson said that could be done but he did not know where it was and he had not seen it. This is very important. This press release clearly states that Steve Hall is the Register of Deeds for Knox County. So the question must be ask how could both the producer and the reporter not see that the press release was about Steve Hall who is the Register of Deeds and not City Councilman and candidate Steve Hall? Is it possible that anyone at a major television news station could know so little about the town that they live in? What about the fact that the press release came from the Register of Deeds for Knox County?

In the interest of the community WATE television should produce this press release that was used by the producer who made the assumption that candidate Steve Hall had dropped out of the race. It should be made available to the public and Greg Mackay the Administrator of Knox County Elections. This is a serious issue and the public deserves to see the source document that caused this serious mistake to be made.

Gun Owners of America:

GOA wants to thank all of you who contacted the President recently and suggested that he appoint a strong constitutionalist like Samuel Alito, Jr., to the Supreme Court.

As you know, Judge Alito (from the Third Circuit) has a strong record in support of the Constitution. Gun Owners Foundation was involved in the Rybar machine gun case which we ultimately lost in the courts. But Judge Alito offered a strong dissenting opinion to the majority report and argued that Congress has no right to regulate the private possession of machine guns.

The nomination of Alito is going to drive the other side crazy. Good. Judge Alito is a tremendous choice, and GOA will be asking you in the future to lobby your two U.S. Senators in favor of this pick.

I have my reservations but I do figure GOA knows what they’re talking about.

A couple of times, I’ve mentioned this proposal for a civic arts center in my hometown. I’ve said it’s a waste, won’t be successful and that it basically is a way for taxpayers to foot the bill for Maryville College. Well, it looks like this soon-to-be-known-as-a-colossal-failure is moving forward:

The city of Maryville on Tuesday committed the first share of public funds toward construction of a $55 million civic arts center on the campus of Maryville College.

City Council members agreed to issue $9,375,000 in bonds as the city share of the cooperatively funded arts center, which will contain a performing arts center, theater, academic space, and banquet and museum space.

Blount County and the city of Alcoa will be approached this month for funding commitments of $11.87 million and $3.75 million, respectively, said Maryville College Vice President for Advancement and Finance Mark Cate.

The college board of directors has already agreed to allot $20 million in privately raised funds to the project; federal and state funds will round out the funding plan. The project will be managed by Lawler-Wood.

Cumberland Securities will issue the bonds through the Blount County Economic Development Board at a variable rate of 4.5 percent payable over 25 years, Cate said. The governments’ share of the debt will not become payable until the $20 million in college funding is applied to the cost of the bonds. Maryville College President Dr. Gerald Gibson told City Council the fund-raising effort has already garnered $9.5 million.

So, the city (my the city) is going to go into debt to fund this thing and basically turn it over to Maryville College. The convention/arts center is being built for different types of entertainment and educational and conference activities. Who is going to come to Maryville for those things? The much larger city of Knoxville already has its own boondoggle err convention center and it’s largely unused. Seriously, check out their calendar. People don’t come to East Tennessee for conferences, they go to touristy places like, say, Las Vegas or Orlando.

Mark my words, in a few years this will be an burden on the city (my the city), the county and the city of Alcoa.

I said here:

I have to confess that while I found his dissent in the machine gun case refreshing, it does not necessarily denote his views on the second amendment. He may be pro-gun but he may also have been sniping at the definite lack of a commerce clause.

Matt Rustler takes a much more in depth look into it:

Note that, in arguing the individual rights view, Alito wouldn’t have had to argue that the Second Amendment guarantees an unfettered individual right to a machine gun. There is much in the majority opinion to criticize without going that far. Alito studiously ignored all of it. That doesn’t fill me with great confidence.

Read the whole thing. In my opinion, that and the fact that Alito is from Hell err New Jersey, have me a bit concerned regarding his views on the Second Amendment.

So, as of now, I am neutral on the Alito nomination until I hear more.

Some left leaning folks are ecstatic because Harry Reid shut the Senate down (which, by the way, shutting the Senate down in my view can’t be a bad thing generally). So what? The crap those guys do when the session is open is bad enough but I’d say it’s worse when no one is there to see it. Not sure I’d call it a victory, really.

This story about a 520lb wild hog is amazing. Couple lessons to take away: A 22-250 is not an adequate farm gun and farmers need politically incorrect dogs.

On Republicans:

“I was part of that wild and crazy Class of ’94 that shook the political landscape by taking over the House after more than 50 years of unfettered Democrat control. We came to Washington full of ideals and conviction. But sadly, what they say about absolute power is coming to reality in the 2005 GOP Washington. Republicans in just 10 years have developed the arrogance it took the Democrats 30 years to develop.”

— Former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-OK), writing in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.