None of those bans in California prevented a tragedy. Good thing they got an A from the Brady Campaign.

Via R. Neal, comes Bob Stepno on Web Writing in Journalism Classes. OK, it’s not about blogging but bloggers could benefit from it. Check it out. A taste:

Writing clearly and concisely may be even more important online than it is in print.

David Hardy reports:

Major General Charles H. Jacoby Jr., the Commanding General of US Army Alaska, has forbidden troops under his command to carry concealed, even off duty and off base, in addition to otherwise restricting their right to arms.

Not sure what that’s about.

The National Journal interviewed Bill Hobbs.

I reported here that my EOTech was busted. It seems all better now. I just needed to reset the circuits by:

Removing the batteries

Pressing the buttons for a few seconds

Letting it sit for several minutes

Now, it works just fine.

After Katrina, New Orleans denied it confiscated guns from people. Oops:

In a stunning reversal, the City of New Orleans revealed today to attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association that they do have a stockpile of firearms seized from private citizens in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The disclosure came as attorneys for both sides were preparing for a hearing in federal court on a motion filed earlier by SAF and NRA to hold the city in contempt. Plaintiffs’ attorneys traveled to a location within the New Orleans city limits where they viewed more than 1,000 firearms that were being stored.

“This is a very significant event,” said attorney Dan Holliday, who represents NRA and SAF in an on-going lawsuit seeking to enjoin the city from seizing privately-owned firearms.

“We’re almost in disbelief,” admitted SAF Founder Alan Gottlieb. “For months, the city has maintained it did not have any guns in its possession that had been taken from people following the hurricane. Now our attorneys have seen the proof that New Orleans was less than honest with the court.”

Under an agreement with the court, the hearing on the contempt motion has been continued for two weeks, the attorneys said. During that time, according to Holliday and fellow attorney Stephen Halbrook, the city will establish a process by which the lawful owners of those firearms can recover their guns.

“While we are stunned at this complete reversal on the city’s part,” Gottlieb said, “the important immediate issue is making sure gun owners get their property back. We’re glad that the city is going to move swiftly to make that possible, and naturally we will do whatever is necessary to make this happen.

“What happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was an outrage,” Gottlieb observed. “Equally disturbing is the fact that it apparently took a motion for contempt to force the city to admit what it had been denying for the past five months.

And the second immediate issue should be putting someone’s ass in jail.

The UPS man arrived yesterday bearing presents. Enough presents to finish up the 9mm AR build. I received the Rock River Arms upper receiver from Steve at ADCO Firearms. And I must say hats off to Steve. I ordered this on Sunday night and it arrived on Wednesday. I figure he wasn’t working Sunday, processed it Monday and turned it around in two days. Impressive. I was also impressed with their two day service for the magazine block. I’ve decided to name him El Nino. Here he is all dolled up:

And here he is next to Mr. Blasty for gratuitous gun porn err comparison purposes:

Got to Coal Creek this morning intent on putting him through his paces and he performed quite well. I fired 160 rounds of Winchester White Box ammo without any gun malfunction whatsoever. I was using 9mm AR magazines made by ProMag. This rifle is a real pleasure to shoot. It’s rather quiet compared to a 5.56Nato AR and has no recoil nor muzzle flip to speak of. Highly recommended.

Now, on to the actual range report. I get there and borrow a rest since I plan on sighting it in. Since it would be an indoor range gun, my plan was to sight it in at 10 yards with the EOTech and sight the irons in at 25. I switched on the EOTech and it didn’t work. Odd, since it worked yesterday though I recall the reticle flashing to indicate low battery. I changed the battery and it still didn’t work. That and the fact a job I thought I’d landed falling through convinced me that fate was conspiring against me to ruin my day. And the irony of my Aimpoint v. EOTech deathmatch weighed on me. I had one of the guys from Coal Creek look at it and his conclusion was That’s a busted EOTech. I groaned. He recommended I contact EOTech who has good customer service. He left the range. Then, it started working. Odd, I thought but I was there to shoot. So, I fired a few rounds that were low, which was expected since it came factory zeroed. Once I got it sighted in, two 10-round groups looked like this:

I was perfectly satisfied with that.

Then, I wanted to play and shoot standing. And the EOTech stopped working again. Groan. I removed the battery cover, checked contacts and was content it wouldn’t work again. So, with open sights I was getting the same groups but they were about five inches lower than the point of aim, about what I expected. At 25 yards, it was about two to three inches low, again what I expected.

I decided to hit the EOTech button again, and it worked. I shot some more and, in the middle of squeezing a round, watched the reticle fade away very slowly. It stopped working again. That particular EOTech is less than two-years old and they come with a warranty. It’s an older model without the protective shield, which I figured was perfectly fine on a range gun. I have a call into customer service regarding how to proceed with fixing it. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Update: The EOTech is all better now. See here for how to fix.

Some numbers on the % of folks with CCW info by state:

7.45% South Dakota
6.79% Indiana
6.76% Pennsylvania
5.23% Connecticut
5.12% Washington
4.34% Idaho
4.10% Utah
3.86% Oregon
3.45% Tennessee
3.15% Alabama
2.72% Florida
2.71% Kentucky
2.67% Wyoming
2.41% Maine
2.18% Arkansas
2.11% Virginia
1.94% West Virginia
1.76% Arizona
1.75% Oklahoma
1.70% Montana
1.70% Michigan
1.62% Texas
1.39% South Carolina
1.34% North Dakota
1.00% North Carolina
0.86% Mississippi
0.62% Louisiana
0.58% Nevada
0.45% Minnesota
0.36% Missouri
0.33% Ohio
0.20% Colorado
0.17% New Mexico

There’s more there.

Looks like the US and others are saying not to the UN’s arms control nonsense:

As the United Nations prepares to host a review conference on curbing trade in small arms and light weapons, disputes over the extent of such measures and whether they should be legally binding are hampering progress. The disputes have helped block participants from even agreeing on an agenda, raising the possibility of a repeat of a 2001 conference that ended without an agreement on binding measures.

More than 50 countries met at a Jan. 9-21 New York preparatory meeting for the June 26-July 7 UN review conference. At the conclusion of the preparatory meeting, Chairman Sylvester Rowe of Sierra Leone compiled a document of possible policy options for the conference, including consideration of legally binding measures. But the lack of consensus on the document brought the meeting to a close without an agreed agenda.

A number of countries, including the United States, resisted any attempt to discuss legally binding measures and also rebuffed efforts to address limits on civilian ownership, legal trade and manufacture, and transfers to nonstate entities.

These views track those the United States put forward in July 2001 when UN members gathered in New York for the first global conference on the illicit international trade of small arms and light weapons. The 2001 conference was unable to agree on le gally binding measures, instead producing the voluntary Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. This document outlined a series of voluntary measures to stem the illicit trade of small arms and light weapons, which range from grenades, pistols, and rifles to machine guns and man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS.

Good. Seems Bolton ain’t so bad after all.

Fox 19:

An 80-year-old woman has been ordered to move out of her Clifton house after a battle with the city of Cincinnati over eminent domain.

It’s for a Good Samaritan Hospital.

But that doesn’t keep the ChicTrib from obfuscating the two:

Six months before he allegedly killed 14-year-old Starkesia Reed in a spray of automatic gunfire, gang member Carail Weeks went to Indiana to buy an AK-47.

Weeks already had been under investigation by federal agents for almost two months last September because a gun he had previously bought in Indiana had been seized in an armed robbery arrest, according to law enforcement sources.

But that didn’t stop Weeks from going to a suburban Indianapolis gun shop, showing a fake Indiana state identification card, and walking out with two handguns and an AK-47—the type of gun used to kill Starkesia on March 3, the sources said.

The Tennessean notes a bill to allow the FBI to conduct NICS in Tennessee instead of having the state bureau of investigation do it:

Background checks on firearm purchases in Tennessee would be performed by the FBI instead of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation under legislation headed for a vote in the state Senate.

Currently, the TBI charges gun dealers a $10 fee to do a background check on customers, while the FBI does it for free through the National Instant Background Check System, or NICS.

That $10, of course, has always been passed on to the buyer. I’d like to see it pass.

There’s a push for shall-issue in Delaware:

Legislation to make it easier for law-abiding Delawareans to obtain permits to carry concealed handguns was introduced Tuesday in the state House — with enough sponsors to guarantee its passage in both chambers.

Under current law, applicants must demonstrate a compelling need for a permit and convince a Superior Court judge to issue it.

Wow, lots of states pushing shall-issue these days. It’s like the early 1990s again. Good.

With the TeeVee season in its second run series (evidenced by the fact Joey is on), me and the Mrs. have been TiVoing some game shows since there’s not much else to watch. A few random observations:

With TiVo’s fast forward, we can watch Wheel of Fortune in about 12 minutes. When you get rid of learning about the contestants (who cares about some office manager from San Bernardino?), commercials and the product pimping, there’s only about 12 minutes of actual puzzle solving. Also, I realized that with TiVo, you get the same view of the board as the contestants because you can pause the screen. I hate when a contestant calls a letter and they don’t show the board.

We also TiVoed some older shows, like Card Sharks. These shows were obviously filmed in the 70s/80s. We often ponder which of the contestants on that show are still alive and which ones are probably dead. Same with The Newlywed Game, only we add likelihood of being divorced/murdered by spouse into the guessing process.

And quite odd is Family Feud. The reason is that so many of the answers that would have been given in the 70s/80s aren’t valid anymore. For example, a question was:

100 people surveyed, top 7 answers on the board, here’s the question: Name something you do before taking a trip.

The Mrs. said Get cash, which wasn’t there. I’d say back then, more folks carried cash than do today. When we take a trip (being the non-cash carrying folks we are), we always get cash. Not an issue then, I’m guessing. Also, one of the top answers was get film, which never occurred to us because we have a fancy digital camera that holds like 500 pics. Of course, some answers were still the same, such as getting tickets and making reservations.

And, one more odd thing, a new episode of The Price Is Right actually gave away a set of encyclopedias. Me and the Mrs. wondered why since a computer was cheaper and had access to all kinds of info on Al Gore’s Internets.

Looks like it’s set to go, even with the promised veto of soon to be former governor Kathleen Sebelius:

A bill allowing Kansans to carry concealed guns is one step closer to becoming law.

The House passes the Conceal and Carry Bill returning it to the Senate where it passed by a large margin.

It looks like Kansans will soon be able to carry concealed guns.

The bill could become law.

Because it’s passed with more then a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate, a veto by the governor could be overridden.

If you’re in Kansas, you may wish to make some noise and contact your congressmonkeys.

You see these for sale and they run between $20 and $50. I decided to build my own, from stuff I had around the house. You’ll need one long board (mine is 40 inches by 12 inches), one small board, two wood screws and some sort of sealant. I cut the small board (1′ by 3′) six inches long and 2.5 inches wide (2.5 inches is roughly the magazine well’s measurements). However, the fit was too tight. So, I sanded it down with the electric sander until it fit smoothly. Next, I placed the small board 16 inches from one end and used the two wood screws in the bottom of the big board to attach it to the long board like so:

In hindsight, I probably would have made the small board 8 inches tall in the event I get an AR with a longer barrel. You should use some sort of sealant (polyurethane or other water proofing sealant) because gun cleaning products are rough on bare wood. I used some cheap polyurethane I had in the garage. So far, this gizmo has proven very useful in assembling AR-15 lower receivers. No need to wrap the lower in a towel and stick it in a vice. Also, the 6 inch rise allows me to remove the rear pin to drop the upper receiver down. This is particularly handy when cleaning the bore. Basically, I’ve made myself a third hand. Here it is in action:

Update: BTW, doesn’t work for lowers with 9mm mag blocks installed for folks who may need to know that.

R. Neal notes that Republican State Senator Raymond Finney’s website indicates he gets the importance of Al Gore’s Internets:

These sites don’t have a slick, flashy design and don’t employ a trendy “blog” format, but they are highly functional, well organized, loaded with information, and provide numerous opportunities for voter interaction and feedback. Whoever put this together did an excellent job, and Finney appears to invest tremendous time and effort in maintaining it.

I concur. It’s good to see a politico put it all out there for the world to see. I do think, however, a blog format would be easier to follow.

Marc says:

Law and Order SVU tonight is a farce. Schoolyard shootup leads to a gun store, “Gun Ho” (stupid gun owners) run by racists (stupid racist gun owners) in New York friggin’ City. It continues with this gem: “The long gun loophole, no background check!” Apparently NICS doesn’t apply in New York City. This is the first 30 minutes.

And the guys at arfcom note that it portrays gun owners as irresponsible, mention of sniper rifles, an incorrectly filled out Form 4473, a 16 year old works at a gun shop, and assault weapons with regular capacity magazines line the walls.

Don’t have Showtime so I’m late watching it. But check out Penn and Teller’s episode of Bullshit on gun control. Long, but worth it, I think. Particularly the bit on the words in the second amendment. Also good was the gang banger telling us how much he loves gun control laws.

But my favorite was when the congresswoman from Texas says why have all the mass shootings in the US occured at schools and post offices? Because they’re gun free zones. No one ever goes nuts at an NRA convention or the local gun show.

That’s supposedly the number of people whose names are on a government list of terrorists or people with suspected ties to terrorists:

Police and other government workers in the U.S. have come in contact with terrorists or people suspected of foreign terror ties more than 6,000 times in the past 28 months, the director of the federal Terrorist Screening Center said Tuesday.

The encounters in traffic stops, applications for permits and other situations have resulted in fewer than 60 arrests, said Donna Bucella, whose agency maintains a list of 200,000 people known or suspected to be terrorists. The list contains an additional 150,000 records that have only partial names, Bucella said.

But how many are actually terrorists? And how many just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time? Of some comfort:

The vast majority of people on the list are not in this country, and many have only tenuous or inconclusive ties to terrorism . . .

How many? Seems that would be important to know.

Not sure who this person is, but she’s getting plugged by everyone else. So, I figured I’d throw some traffic her way. She can’t be all bad with stuff like this:

I will gladly answer questions about just who I am and I will start by saying I am a conservative and a Republican. I am not a GOP-Davidian, meaning that Democrats will get credit when credit is due and Republicans will get hit when a thrashing is necessary.

Not only in Iraq, but here in the states too:

Since the Sept. 11 terror attacks and especially since Hurricane Katrina, Americans are taking pro-gun positions. Both events underscored the ease with which civil order can collapse, and have renewed people’s interest in home security.

Democrats have been getting the message that gun control is becoming a loser with voters. Since 2000, some Democrats — though not all — have begun courting the gun lobby to get endorsements

Here’s hoping the Democrats figure it out too.

Bitter notes:

Bob Ricker, the main employee of American Hunters and Shooters Association, was at a conference recently arguing that every young female who purchases guns legally should raise a red flag as being a criminal subject to federal prosecution and 10 years in prison.

That exact reason (and racism, apparently) is why the ATF is under investigation for its behavior at Richmond area gun shows:

John White, a former law enforcement officer who is now an FFL operating under the business name “The Gunsmith,” said female customers who approached his sales area at the Richmond shows were immediately targeted by the “undercover” officers.

“If a woman showed up at my table, she was surrounded by law enforcement,” White recalled. “If the lady walked off and suddenly stopped, they would have bumped into each other. Their surveillance methods were pitiful.

“Every woman that makes a purchase, every woman who comes to my table to buy a gun was automatically [treated as] a straw purchaser,” White said. (A “straw purchaser” is a person who can otherwise legally purchase a firearm, but who does so with the intent to illegally provide it to an ineligible buyer such as a convicted felon or an illegal alien. “Straw purchases” are illegal.)

I’ve noted the blatant anti-gun bias in The Christian Science Monitor before. Now, they’ve reached a new low in just running a story based entirely on a Violence Policy Center press release.

Aunt B., in a post entitled Slowly, Slowly, These Gun Nuts Work Their Way With Me, says it’s not the nanny state we have to worry about but the busy-body state:

Holy shit. This isn’t just a “nanny state;” this is a “busy-body state.”

So, I’ve been thinking all morning about what it might mean to think about the busy-body state. I hate to use the word “reframing,” but I think it fits. What if I reframe the way I think about judging appropriate government intervention as the difference between encouraging a busy-body state and not?

Which brings us back to the gun nuts, in the first place. I’m interested in hearing their take on this, because I think this has been their big complaint and I just didn’t get it. See, I’ve been thinking about the whole gun issue as a broad, panicked public safety issue–guns are dangerous, therefore we must get guns off the streets–and haven’t been too concerned with the implications of that.

Uncle concurs, generally. However, I don’t see how the abortion thing is only busy-body type stuff. As I’ve said many times: abortion is a heinous, disgusting and deplorable practice but it can only be made worse by criminalizing it. I don’t buy that opposition to abortion is a matter of being a busy body because it ends a human life (and arguing about whether that life has really started or not is just details). Criminalizing it will not stop abortion. You just open up an unregulated black market where, instead of a sterilized and safe doctor’s office, women will go to some shack where there’s a guy named Snake holding a pointy stick. And that would endanger two lives. And one thing a ton of pro-choice folks do that annoys me is assert woman this or woman that when there’s also the issue of the man involved and what say he has in the whole thing. Takes two to tango but only one to make a life altering decision that will lead to a life time of regret? Feh, no thanks. Aunt B. buys into that line of thinking as well, when she says:

Here you have a moral issue that has been turned into a legislative issue by people who believe that women cannot control themselves and that sweeping legislation must be enacted to make all women’s lives difficult, even though women have many legitimate reasons for needing abortions and what those women do almost never adversely affects the anti-abortion people.

Now, I know a lot of anti-abortion people (who I also disagree with). Not a single one has ever said that women can’t control themselves nor have they ever expressed desire to control women. They just take issue with the whole ending a human life thing. So, I don’t buy the whole guns and abortion are equal in terms of the impact of busy bodies because, while my gun ownership affects no one else really, abortion does affect others.

But guns, tobacco, drug, and a whole host of other laws are entirely busy body in nature.

In Iraq.

And get the nomination too. Seriously. Looks like Daschle‘s going for the trifecta at destroying the Democrat party.

R. Neal links to a couple of bills aimed at curbing abuse of speed traps:

HB3614 would declare that any municipality deriving 20% or more of its revenues from speeding tickets is abusing its police powers and would authorize the district attorney general and the TBI to investigate them. It would also apply to municipalities who issue more than 50% of their speeding tickets for exceeding the speed limit by 10 MPH or less.

Sounds like a start. Somebody tell Mayor Danny Crosby.

He even looks like a reformed liberal.

Bob is now bloggin here. And has what appears to be a campaign site here. You should announce those things at your old blog, unless it’s a secret.