For those of you who don’t remember Goose Creek, here’s the skinny:

A drug sweep Wednesday morning at a South Carolina school has some parents and students questioning police tactics.

Surveillance video from Stratford High School in Goose Creek shows 14 officers, some with guns drawn, ordering students to lie the ground as police searched for marijuana. Students who didn’t comply with the orders quickly enough were reportedly handcuffed.

Police didn’t find any criminals in the armed sweep, but they say search dogs smelled drugs on a dozen backpacks.

Pete reports on a tentative settlement resulting from a suit filed in the case:

The students could receive between $2,000 and $5,000 each.

I wold have preferred criminal charges and jail time for those involved in the raid.

An insane judge apparently signed a restraining order against David Letterman that was requested by an insane woman:

Late last week, a Santa Fe District Court judge signed a temporary restraining order against talk-show host David Letterman alleging he has tormented a city resident for more than 10 years by using code words on his television program.

[snip]

In the application for the restraining order, which was filed Thursday, Nestler alleges that between May 1994 and now, Letterman forced her to go bankrupt and caused her “mental cruelty” and “sleep deprivation.”

Nestler — who lived in Nevada, New Jersey, New York City, Maine and Santa Fe during that period — requested that Letterman, who tapes his show in New York, stay at least 3 yards from her and that he not “think of me, and release me from his mental harassment and hammering,” according to the application.

Some places have laws where if you are the subject of a restraining order, you may not legally own a gun.

GOA reports:

At issue for gun owners is a provision that would allow the FBI to obtain “firearms sales records.” The bill extends Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and allows agents of the federal government to get “firearms sales records” which, in their opinion, are relevant to investigating terrorism.

These records would be obtained from gun dealers, who are required by law to keep the gun purchase records (4473 forms). Thus, an anti-gun administration could then easily compile gun owner registration lists — an enterprise which has often been a prelude to gun confiscation.

This was a couple of days ago when the Patriot Act couldn’t withstand the filibuster. Since the Senate approved it via a complete lack of balls from an opposition party, I wonder if this provision was attached. Between this and the anti-meth stuff, mission creep is outweighing the positives of the act.

The Knob Creek machine gun shoot will be on Mail Call tonight. Set your dials. See here.

Monopoly: Eminent Domain Special Edition! That’s funny.

In the spirit of oddball thought experiments (like this one that got a lot of play in the blogosphere), here’s a new one I’ve been pondering:

Yesterday, a volcano erupted a few hundred miles off the east coast. It created an island roughly the size of Virginia. Through some bizarre set of circumstances, today said island has cooled, has plenty of foliage, fresh water, critters and is generally a hospitable place to live. I charter a boat, get there and decide I’ll start my own country, which I’ll call Uncle Land. I’m the first one there. You guys show up and we agree that Uncle Land is the coolest name for a country ever. Now, our task is to write a Constitution for our new country. What would it include?

To make it easy, our new country would consist of a national government and some (less than 50) city governments.

I think I’d start with establishing branches of government identical to the ones in the US in terms of function but with a few changes (to prevent career politicians and to ensure the people and the cities have a voice):

Executive: Popularly elected. Limited to two terms of four years. For gits and shiggles, we’ll call him God Emperor of the Multiverse.

Legislative: Two houses:

Judicial: Still up in the air on this one.

Update: Other ideas:

For a bill to become law, it has to pass both houses by a vote of 60% and signed by the GEM. The GEM can veto. The houses can override the veto by a vote of 75%.

I’m sorry, I realize HL is showing off his sweet looking Garand. But I just can’t get over the fact he has a camouflaged couch.

Over at Drug War Rant, comes this tale:

Rebecca Doussan (age 26) and her twin sister Rachel were injecting cocaine. Rebecca left the apartment to get some more, and when she returned, discovered her sister drowned in the bathtub, with the water still running and the bathroom door locked.

The autopsy found that Smith died as a result of drowning, associated with the toxic effect of cocaine, [police spokesman] Gallagher said.

Now Rebecca is being charged with 2nd degree murder for supplying Rachel with drugs which “”turn out to be the direct cause of death.”

I’m with Pete, what’s the point of this prosecution?

David Hardy reports that the NRA has come out in support of it. The bill would allow a 90 day amnesty to register NFA weapons that were acquired overseas between June 26, 1934 and October 31, 1968. First time in recent memory the NRA has done anything for the Class 3 folks, I think. Now, let’s get on that repealing the Hughes Amendment, the NFA tax, and the sporting purpose language.

With the liberals in Canada threatening a gun ban, it should surprise no one that gun sales are shooting (heh) up:

As soon as the Liberals unveiled their promise to ban the weapons earlier this month, Vancouver gun shop owners saw a jump in handgun sales.

Of course, I’m guessing that criminals aren’t the ones buying them at gun shops. As we all know, they get theirs from the US.

14 rounds of 45ACP. Nice.

In a rebuttal to Democrats recasting their image on gun control, Alan Gottlieb and Joe Waldron:

Milligan’s well-written piece, unfortunately, did not explain that the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting, nor did it say that Democrats are changing their opinions about guns and the people who own them. Not surprisingly, gun rights activists who frequent KeepAndBearArms.com – the busiest firearms rights website in the country – were quick to pick up on this. Wrote one correspondent: “It’s always ‘seeking to improve the chances of its candidates’. Notice exactly whom that serves…OK, contrast it to ‘seeking to better understand their constituents’ needs’.”

Throughout the Globe article, there were repeated references to hunters, but the vast majority of law-abiding gun owners in this country aren’t hunters. They own firearms for personal protection, competition, recreational shooting and collecting. Even hunters own guns for other purposes. Many gun owners simply like to tinker with firearms the way car buffs spend hours under the hoods of their high-performance sports cars.

Democrats will not acknowledge that they really aren’t changing their underlying philosophy about guns, they’re simply trying to repackage the message to make it less offensive to the tens of millions of Americans upon whose gun rights they want to infringe. They stopped calling it “gun control” and now call it “gun safety,” but the product is always the same: Some new scheme that ratchets down on a citizen’s right to own a gun. Sometimes, as reported by the St. Petersburg Times recently, they shy away from the gun issue altogether, terrified to admit that theirs is the party of restrictive gun laws.

So. they really are just recasting their image and not their actual position.

The AP:

The terror-fighting USA Patriot Act may have a new lease on life. The GOP-controlled Senate on Wednesday approved a six-month extension of the USA Patriot Act to keep the anti-terror law from expiring on Dec. 31. President Bush gave it his grudging blessing.

The Republican-controlled House is now expected to come back and consider the legislation keeping the 16 provisions of the law passed after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington from expiring.

Republican leaders and Bush wanted to make most of the law permanent, but were stymied by a filibuster in the Senate and had to resort to a six-month extension.

Anyone know if all the law enforcement wish-list stuff made it on?

So, 652 words on FISA and all that gets one comment (update: 2 now). 34 words on whether Pirro is a babe or not gets 15. Just found it odd.

or is Jeanine Pirro, who may be ending her Senate run against H. Clinton, kind of a babe?

Update: It is apparently just me.

The other day on the TeeVee, I saw a commercial for a video game that simulated paint ball. It had a paint ball gun that you pointed at the TeeVee to shoot other paint ballers (no, it did not fire paint balls). I found it odd because paint ball is supposed to simulate playing war or cops & robbers or whatever. Now, we have simulations of our simulations. Strange. Or maybe we have to simulate simulating stuff because if they made a first person shooter for kids (the obvious target of the game) that was based on war or cops & robbers and actually featured shooting simulated people as opposed to simulated paint ballers, some soccer mom somewhere would shit her pants.

I want The A-Team first person shooter game. No matter how many times you fire your gun, you can’t hit anyone. But you always manage to affect the environment in such a way as to stop the bad guy, who is later seen knocking the dust off himself while coming out of an overturned a car or a wall you knocked onto him so that you know that he survived. Then the police come and take them away and you escape. And you learn the valuable lesson that unions are evil and union busting is good.

The Brady Bunch released a presser opposing Alito’s nomination:

Judge Alito’s nomination poses serious dangers to the safety of our communities, our families, and our children, as evidenced by his troubling dissent in U.S. vs. Rybar, 103 F.3d 273 (3rd Cir. 1996). In that case, Judge Alito argued that the federal machine gun ban amounted to an unconstitutional exercise of Congressional power under the Commerce Clause. Alito attempted to erect arbitrary hurdles to Congressional efforts to reduce the availability of machine guns to the criminal element.

[snip]

In June 2005, the Supreme Court issued its latest ruling on Congressional power under the Commerce Clause in Gonzales vs. Raich, rejecting the theory advanced in Judge Alito’s Rybar dissent. Six Justices, including Justice Scalia, sustained the application of federal drug laws to intrastate medical marijuana use. Based on this ruling, the Supreme Court vacated a 2-1 ruling in the Ninth Circuit that had declared the machine gun ban to be unconstitutional.

Nevermind that, at the time, Alito applied the most recent SCOTUS ruling on the matter and the other two justices disregarded it. More:

Machine guns are fully automatic weapons that have been heavily regulated since 1934. They fire continuously with one pull of the trigger and can discharge hundreds of rounds in seconds. In 1986, President Reagan signed a federal law banning the manufacture of machine guns for the civilian market and banning the transfer and possession of machine guns not lawfully possessed before May 19, 1986. These “grandfathered” machine guns remain subject to strict registration, possession, transfer, and taxation requirements.

Wow! Did the Brady Bunch, for once, correctly represent a Federal gun law? Too bad they spent so much time obfuscating supposed assault weapon with machine guns.

These are the facts as I understand them and correct me if I’m wrong:

FISA (The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) was established in 1978 and establishes procedures for conducting surveillance, physical and electronic. There’s much more info here.

It establishes that the Attorney General:

may authorize the emergency employment of electronic surveillance if a judge having jurisdiction under section 1803 of this title is informed by the Attorney General or his designee at the time of such authorization that the decision has been made to employ emergency electronic surveillance and if an application in accordance with this subchapter is made to that judge as soon as practicable, but not more than 72 hours after the Attorney General authorizes such surveillance.

So, we have here a case in which civil liberties can be overridden in case of emergency by filling out some after the fact paperwork. I’m uncertain what remedy (if any) there exists if the after the fact court authorization is denied. In short, the after the fact authorization is a damn near pointless control. In the event of an emergency, I tend to doubt reasonable people would find such surveillance to be unreasonable. However, that does not mean that the after the fact authorization is an effective means of protecting civil liberties.

Bypassing said after the fact, non-protection of civil liberties has apparently been around since Carter who signed an executive order that stated:

Pursuant to Section 102(a)(1) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1802(a)), the Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order, but only if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that Section.

Clinton signed a similar EO that stated:

Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) of the Act, the Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order, to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year, if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that section.

I’m not sure what those certifications are but the non-protection, after the fact authorization took another hit. We have a situation wherein the law passed by congress erodes one level of protection (i.e., specifying that after the fact warrants are adequate) and then we have two presidents who signed orders stating that warrants are not even necessary. In other words, the protections afforded in the law aren’t worth the paper they’re written on due to the actions of Congress and two executives.

In other, other words, standard operating procedure since 1978 included after the fact, non protections. And since 1979, even the after the fact, non protections were no longer required. Needless to say, it’s a bit troubling but, in the event there is a specific emergency or a threat, I don’t think you’d find a lot of folks who would state that the .gov should not act. In fact, I think they should. However, this guise of after the fact, non protections is a silly requirement. If they wish to call these after the fact, non protections the review process then they should call it that. They should not be called authorizations because that’s not what they are.

So, it seems to me that Bush has engaged in standard operating procedure that has been in effect for a while. The only thing he’s guilty of is not doing his follow-up paperwork, which apparently may or may not be required.

This is all based on what I’ve read so far. If anyone has any other pertinent info that contradicts what is written here, let me know.

Update: Via Tim F. (reading Kos so I don’t have to), the EOs signed by Clinton and Carter did not mean what I thought they meant.

And Oops.

Update 2: Or maybe not.

Update 3: John Schmidt says the president has the legal authority to authorize taps.

Not one of you has any advice regarding my suppressor questions? I’m disappointed.

We know our political debates are scripted but did you know that DC protests are too? Me neither. David Hardy on his time spent in DC:

One day their conversation went like this: “It’s all worked out. The protestors will come in as part of a White House tour group. They’ll send ten, perhaps twelve. At 9:15 they leave the tour group and go onto the White House lawn and sit down. At 9:30, Secret Service will tell them to leave, and four will refuse, the others will return to the group. At about 9:40 the four will be arrested, booked, and released.”

I was astonished … how could you predict these events, down to the minute? The Parks attorneys explained that in a DC protest of this type, all the details were negotiated in advance between the protestors and the government. It made it more convenient for everyone. The government tried to dicker them down on how many would stay and be arrested (less work for the agents), and they tried to dicker the government up on how long a time window between refusal to leave and arrest. There might be other terms to be worked out as well. But this way the media could be notified to show up at 9:30 for photos, or earlier for the story. If you didn’t coordinate — why, what if the media showed up and security was shorthanded and couldn’t make arrests for another hour? Or someone threw the timing off and arrested before the media showed up? Or somebody got hardnosed and instead of book and release, actually popped the protestors in jail? Much better to reach agreement in advance. Besides, by scheduling early in the day you ensure that the reporters have time to write the story.

Wow.

Via Brittney, this bit made me laugh out loud:

However, the weirdest dream by far was when I birthed a doo doo weasel. Yes, you heard me right — a DOO DOO WEASEL — also known as a rodent made out of 100% shit. The little guy got away and went on to survive in a Japanese toilet. I kid you not.

I’m still crying.

Just Johnny has started an FAQ on membership in the Rocky Top Brigade.

Hayes Hickman of the KNS:

A revised definition of what constitutes an adult business was unveiled Tuesday night as Knoxville City Council members unanimously approved a 90-day moratorium on any new such operations.

The moratorium offers a “numerical standard,” explained city Law Director Morris Kizer, to help classify adult bookstores and video stores on a percentage basis of their merchandise, floor space and revenues associated with sexually oriented material.

The suspension, approved without discussion, also covers any business that regularly features sexually oriented material, prohibits access to minors and advertises “adult, XXX, X-rated, erotic, sexual, pornographic or similar material.”

Council members could soon consider the numerical standard as an amendment to the city’s ordinance regulating adult bookstores and video stores.

The council enacted a new, sweeping set of regulations in May governing the licensing, hours of operation, location and practices of adult entertainment businesses.

The proposed amendment would replace the city’s previous wording, which was struck down after a lengthy court battle with the former Fantasy Video. In that case, the state Supreme Court ruled the city’s earlier definition “void for vagueness.”

They’re holding off implementing any new standards until the lawsuit is concluded. Now, make no mistake about it, the city is trying to shut down the adult stores (they’re also trying to shut down tittie bars) when the real solution is, if it offends you, don’t go there.

Ravenwood is hosting the Carnvial of the Vanities.

I’ll miss that name

Via Xrlq, Aubrey Ellen Shomo addresses her critics and addresses the following allegations:

I do not have a CCW permit.

Yes, I said that. Because her original piece states I am now qualified for a concealed weapons permit. Why not just say I have a concealed weapons permit? She removes all doubt by posting a picture of her permit there (good for her). However, it is worth noting that it is entirely possible Tim Lambert helped forge one (for those who haven’t been reading this site a while, that would be a joke).

I violated state and/or federal law in handling a weapon, or in applying for a permit, or that I must have lied on my application form.

Well, nothing I found anywhere else (granted, I didn’t look very hard) intimated that said commitment was 1) by your parents and 2) technically not considered adjudication nor technically considered committed to a mental institution. So, it seems, you have benefited from the parental commitment loophole. And that is fine with me. Seems to be fine with you as well.

I am a psycho.

I never said any such thing.

A few other notes on her comments:

Should I be allowed to own a firearm now? Yes, I believe so. I have a completely clean bill of mental health.

I don’t disagree. Innocent until proven guilty and sane until proven otherwise as far as I’m concerned.

That said, I probably should have had to prove it. Nothing, under the law, separates me from anyone else with my past who might – very understandably – not be the sort of person the General Assembly of the State of Colorado wants to see armed.

And how would you prove it? The NICS (National Instant Check System) is generally inaccurate when it comes to mental health issues. And unless it picks up a blip, there’s nothing to prove. If it does pick up a blip, there is a procedure to dispute said blips.

My point is about how easy it is to get a permit, and about how stereotypical my instructors were.

I thought your point was to make fun of gun nuts and the CCW process. Yet, you seem to feel the need to justify that you, in fact, are perfectly within your rights to get one. As I said, I do not disagree.

And my only point now is that you should have written that a bit more clearly.

Update: I knew it. In response to my comments at her blog, she writes:

When I initially wrote the piece, I did not yet have a permit.

A letter to the editor from Adam Goldfarb of the Humane Society concludes with:

If Lincoln County wants to be a safer place, then thoughtful, non-breed specific legislation should be enacted and enforced. Such legislation would address responsible pet care and severely punish irresponsible owners, as well as provide local animal control with the power and funding to enforce such laws. Breed bans are ineffective and expensive and will not curtail the problems caused by dangerous dogs.

Went to Kohl’s and Babies R Us the other day to buy boy stuff for The Second. I found a nice little white onesie and on the front in red letters it said:

Tax Deduction

I bought it, of course. I’ve expressed my dissatisfaction that no one markets a Glock, SigArms or AR15 onesie before. But this was good enough.

By my calculation, 97.23% of us are not New Yorkers. Yet, the transit strike there is the top news story everywhere I look.

At this point, my employment ends at the end of the year. I do not have another job lined up. During the holidays, with a baby on the way, and a new house in the works, Merry Christmas to me.

No, this is not the post where I beg for money and put up a tip jar. That won’t happen. And, the facts are, that I’ll be OK financially by using savings (that’s what savings are for) for quite a while. And I won’t have to dip into my retirement funds or anything like that assuming this is as temporary as I think it will be (first quarter is a big hiring time for us financial guys). The kicker, though, is that I make some income by property investments and my banker has told me that, sorry, he can’t finance these things while I’m unemployed. Can’t blame the guy, really.

Still, this means that I’ll have to be a bit frugal with my spending and, as such, I don’t anticipate any new gun projects for the foreseeable future. I’ll finish building my AK since the cash in that project is already spent. So, personal type gun blogging won’t be happening. That said, once I get the Uncle household fully operational, I’ll start my next two projects. Project one is building a 9MM AR-15 (to shoot at the indoor range because it’s 20 degrees outside) and the other is a suppressor.

I’ve decided that I’d like to avoid paying the $200 NFA tax multiple times and want to get one suppressor that works on as many guns as is possible. The guys at Subguns.com recommend a 9MM and some even suggest a .45ACP. The 9mm suppressor can be used on 22LR, 380ACP, 9MM and a host of other calibers. In short, I’d have one suppressor that I could put on my SigArms 229, my Walther P22, my Ruger 10/22 and my soon to be finished 9mm AR-15. In fact, some folks say that the 9mm suppressor has better sound suppression than a lot of dedicated 22LR suppressors because its innards are steel and not aluminum. And some say the higher end models can be used on rifle cartridges, like 5.56 and 30 calibers. I don’t know if that is true in most cases as the pressure on rifle rounds is typically much, much higher than pistol rounds. I don’t recommend it and if you try it and blow up your suppressor, don’t blame me.

So, with that, anyone have a good recommendation for a 9MM suppressor? I like the CAC-9 because I can take it apart but it looks way too unwieldy for handguns use so it’s out. The AAC Striker gets good reviews too, as does SWR. And Gem-Tech, realizing that a lot of people are buying one suppressor for many guns, has a suppressor made specifically for that called The Trinity, which comes with a variety of mounting options.

Anyone out there got a recommendation?

WATE:

For the first time in America, the Governor’s Office Of Homeland Security is training a select group of people from Knoxville on how to better track terrorist activity.

With help from the Department of Homeland Security, the state office is teaching civilians how to use a terror tracking program, called the Homeland Security Information Network. It’s terror training for the average citizen.

Under close watch from the Department of Homeland Security, a select group of civilians, nominated by Knoxville police, are learning how to better track terrorist activity.

[snip]

If a citizen terror tracker sees something out of the ordinary, they can log on to the network and fill out a secure online document. Then a link is established with local and federal law enforcement agencies across the United States.

Exactly what are they seeing? I’m not sure I like the idea of regular folks tracking regular folks. Anyone have anymore details on this? Seems rather Big Brotherish to me.