Heh!

He says:

If your scope offends you, cast it away.

Ayup. I’d say that is applicable to any gun or gun part. If you don’t like 100%, you’re better off without it.

The AP:

Vice President Dick Cheney apparently broke the No. 1 rule of hunting: Be sure of what you’re shooting at. He also violated Texas game law by failing to buy a hunting stamp.

I don’t know that that’s the #1 rule but it is a good one. So, why didn’t Cheney have a stamp? More:

Hunting safety experts interviewed Monday agreed it would have been a good idea for Whittington to announce himself — something he apparently didn’t do, according to a witness. But they stressed that the shooter is responsible for avoiding other people.

Meanwhile, Bob Krumm, sporting new blog digs, makes a great point:

So, before instinctively defending the Vice President, I ask my fellow conservatives to consider how they woud react to the hunting accident were John Kerry the shooter instead?

I concur that Victor Wooten is amazing. But Les Claypool is amazinger

Been doing my taxes. I hate it. Going on three hours now. Then it occurred to me. Since the .gov has such broad authority despite my right to abortion err privacy to poke around willy nilly in my financial dealings, my various financial institutions are obligated by law to report when I do something out of the ordinary, and all my wage info is sent automatically to the .gov via payroll providers, why don’t they just go ahead and do my taxes for me?

Seriously. Hell, if my privacy can be violated like that, why not get some benefit from it?

Chuck has the skinny.

Marc has a good post with plenty of detail on revolver hammers.

The big news in gun blogging land is that Cheney shot someone while hunting. As a gun blogger, I guess I’m obligated to mention it. So, there it is. I really don’t have much to say about it but lots of others do:

Xrlq says: Jim and Sarah Brady have pretty well thrown away any pretense of (1) not wanting to ban hunting or (2) being Republicans. The story of Cheney’s hunting accident had barely broke when both of them implied Dick Cheney was a would-be murderer.

The other Xrlq says: Another “friend” of gun rights makes a fool of himself (and by extension, all of us) by forgetting the rules of safe gun handling.

Aunt B. says: Gun nuts, what’s the proper etiquette in a situation like this? Does the guy who got shot now get a free shot at the vice president?

The Comedian: Hunting with Vice President Cheney — still safer then riding with Senator Kennedy. Ouch. He also has some Cheney Hunting Buddy shirts.

t3rrbile says: you have to know what is behind what you are shooting at.

JR says: Who hasn’t been peppered by birdshot on a bird hunting trip? Nobody? Me neither. That’s kind of what I thought first but I’ve never known of anyone being peppered going to the hospital.

Cowboy Blob says: Vice President Cheney was hunting with an itty-bitty girly man 28 gauge. That may have saved this dude’s life.

Xavier says: Rule #4.

Rob Huddleston has a link to info on H.R. 4547, which may be a start to national CCW reciprocity. Says Rob:

The bill would allow any person with a valid carry permit or license issued by a state to carry a concealed firearm in any other state if they meet certain criteria. The bill would not create a federal licensing system; it would simply require the states to recognize each other’s carry permits, just as they recognize drivers’ licenses.

Enrevanche has the latest!

The latest Carnival of Cordite is up.

In what is turning out to be stellar last few months for the ATF in terms of getting slapped around, comes the latest. Now, a circuit court has ruled that the ATF is full of crap with respect to its desire to regulate the engines used in hobby rocketry:

The problem in this case is that ATFE’s explanation for its determination that APCP deflagrates lacks any coherence. We therefore owe no deference to ATFE’s purported expertise because we cannot discern it. ATFE has neither laid out a concrete standard for classifying materials along the burn-deflagrate-detonate continuum, nor offered data specific to the burn speed of APCP when used for its ‘common or primary purpose.’ On this record, the agency’s decision cannot withstand judicial review.

Xavier and TriggerFinger have more.

Past ATF troubles:

An agent testified in court that the NFRTR (registry of NFA weapons) was deficient

They are currently experiencing significant budget troubles attributable to bad management

They’re under investigation for breaking the law at Richmond, VA gun shows.

I mean it.

The “victims” were treated badly

The demonstrators arrived angry, departed furious. The police had herded them into pens. Stopped them from handing out fliers. Threatened them with arrest for standing on public sidewalks. Made notes on which politicians they cheered and which ones they razzed.

Meanwhile, officers from a special unit videotaped their faces, evoking for one demonstrator the unblinking eye of George Orwell’s “1984.”

“That’s Big Brother watching you,” the demonstrator, Walter Liddy, said in a deposition.

The “victims” then tasted their own medicine and found it bitter

Mr. Liddy’s complaint about police tactics, while hardly novel from a big-city protester, stands out because of his job: He is a New York City police officer. The rallies he attended were organized in the summer of 2004 by his union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, to protest the pace of contract talks with the city.

Now the officers, through their union, are suing the city, charging that the police procedures at their demonstrations — many of them routinely used at war protests, antipoverty marches and mass bike rides — were so heavy-handed and intimidating that their First Amendment rights were violated

Welcome to our world

An object at rest cannot be stopped!

As you were.

Lots of folks trying for Frist’s spot. Kleinheider runs it down.

What’s a Rooney? Well, they are overly tricked out guns. Kevin found the Rooney of the year.

Gun Blast has it! Here’s pics from Day one.

New blog digs here.

Via David Hardy, here’s the letter that some police chiefs wrote on behalf of the Illinois police officers who illegally possessed machine guns. Seems their concern is the sentence for the crime is excessive, that I concur with. But it’s excessive for anyone not just police. A snippet:

Yes, the troopers are to have allegedly personally possessed them, which is illegal. However, there is no indication that these weapons were inappropriately used or involved in any other offense. The only difference is the assault rifle, which many of us own legally, and the ones the troopers allegedly possessed is the amount of times they fire with a single pull of the trigger.

The troopers, if the charges are true, should be held accountable, but a federal charge carrying the possibility of 10 years in prison and $250,000 fine is excessive. One wonders, does this punishment fit the crime?

And the letter does conflate the made up term assault weapon (i.e., a weapon that looks like an assault rifle) and machine guns. Police should know better.

The latest is the possibility of a civilianized version of the Steyr Aug.

Via R. Neal, comes this piece that ties Reid to Abramoff. Sorry, but it’s bullshit. After several twists and turns that say Reid and Abramoff have ties (just like Abramoff has ties with just about everyone on Capitol Hill), I can’t find exactly what Reid supposedly did that was illegal. I see no indication that Reid was complicit in any of Abramoff’s confessed crimes. Reid took money from a tribe represented by Abramoff as did 160+ other congressmonkeys. Unless the transfer of funds was of questionable legality, I say no harm no foul. Even if the funds transfers were questionable, I’m less inclined to care. Campaign finance laws (like tax, gun and some environmental laws) are so arbitrary that their violation doesn’t have much of an impact on the appearance of impropriety anymore.

Somebody help me out. What did Reid do that no other politician who took money from Abramoff did? He took meetings. So. He took money. So. Anyone?

Via Brittney, comes this:

Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been “authorized” by Cheney and other White House “superiors” in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration’s use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.

Gunner looks at alternate fluids to clean guns with.

All the cries were for blood in the street and road rage. As is always the case, these claims haven’t came to light:

{Sheriff} Merritt says the law hasn’t had the effects that opponents feared.

“I have not seen any road rage, where people jump out of a wrecked car and start waving around a weapon. That’s what people were afraid of,” he said.

Records show 43 gun crimes were committed in 2003 in Missouri. In 2004, that number dropped to 32 — 13 incidents before the law became active in July 2004 and 19 more through December. There were 34 firearms crimes in 2005.

“I think it’s very much a success,” said Merritt.

Les and Jeff discuss the incident of an officer who got his jacket draw string stuck in his trigger guard and then shot himself in the buttocks. Both imply that the Glock may not be safe. I disagree. It’s safe if you follow the rules of gun safety and handling. In this case, making certain that the weapon was clear of objects prior to holstering would have prevented this incident.

Now, people in the gun world seem awful quick to criticize the Glock and people seem awful quick to defend it. But I think Les summed it up best in comments:

But some guns give a little more margin of error than others for times when our gun safety is less than perfect.

I think that’s true but I also think gizmos and gadgets should never be a substitute for gun safety.

There’s another push in Maryland for a ban on weapons that look like assault rifles. Pro Gun Progressive was at the press conference and got to ask some questions.

Tam posts a pic and discusses her house gun, an AR-15 carbine with some gizmos on it. Check it out. It’s worth the read. Though I must say the color scheme doesn’t look right for a house gun. Shouldn’t the furniture be sort of wall colored? 😉

We gunnies all seemed to know that Britain and Canada had higher rates of violent crime than the states, though the US has a much higher murder rate. The big criticism of that claim was that the US and Britain didn’t report the data the same (i.e., the US reported from police reports while the Brits used survey data). Well, Gallup to the rescue:

Historians, world leaders and assorted pundits with Yankee bashing in mind have long cultivated the idea that America is a violent place.

Not so, says Gallup, which released a report yesterday revealing that the nation is not necessarily Dodge City: The impact of crime is lower in the U.S. than in Britain, and in many cases Canada.

Via Gun Law News.

After Kelo, there were quite a few local/state governments who had measures to reel in eminent domain abuse. Like these recent examples:

The Senate voted 23-to-five today a resolution asking voters to enact a law creating a new right to trial by jury on whether a condemnation by the state or a local government is for a public use and therefore allowed under state law.

The Senate also approved a bill to declare that a projected increase in tax revenue or other economic benefit doesn’t qualify as a public use for which eminent domain can be used.

and:

Governor Sonny Perdue said, “The government’s awesome power of eminent domain should be used sparingly, and never abused for private profit.”

The Governor also proposed a constitutional amendment rhat (sic) would prohibit the use of eminent domain for economic development or to boost tax revenue. The changes in law will likely be too late, however, to block Phoebe from seizing the 93 year old woman’s house.

But to date, I really know of no place where such a law has passed. Anyone?