The guys at arfcom are looking at gun myths. You know, like file the sear and soda bottles make good suppressors. No mention of Die Hard 2’s infamous:
That punk pulled a Glock 7 on me. You know what that is? It’s a porcelain gun made in Germany. It doesn’t show up on your airport X-ray machines, and it costs more than you make here in a month.
And, thus, Glock hysteria began.
Via Carl, looks like there’s a bill before the Tennessee senate to allow those with CCW permits to carry in any refuge, public hunting area, or wildlife management area. There are calls to push this bill in light of the recent bear attack that killed a small child.
Looks like they caught the bear suspected of killing the little girl. Apparently, they’ll do some sort of test to confirm. Seems like an event such as this could lead to unnecessarily killing bears who are innocent but that’s understandable.
Details are here. Still trying to get a count. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about these events it’s that some folks who say they’re coming don’t and folks who don’t commit to coming wind up showing up (that’s not a problem, of course). I figure currently we have between 10 and 15, at a guess. Also, the record for longest commute goes to Kirk, who will be heading in from Maryland.
At first glance the Knoxville alternative weekly newspaper the Metro Pulse and the establishment mainstream newspaper the Knoxville News Sentinel could not appear to be more different. Knoxville had two mainstream newspapers until 1992 when the Knoxville Journal closed it’s doors.
Many people have said that the closing of the Knoxville Journal cast a pall over Knoxville and Knox County. It is thought that this event was the catalyst for the emergence of the Victor Ashe political machine. Some people say that Victor Ashe still has influence over the political affairs of Knoxville even though he is the Ambassador of Poland and is an ocean away from Knoxville.
Over time the void left by the departure of the Knoxville Journal has been filled to some extent by the Knoxville alternative weekly newspaper the Metro Pulse. Like most alternative papers the Metro Pulse is in a tabloid format and carries advertisements a mainstream paper could not print. The back of the paper has many advertisements for dating services, escorts, strip clubs, and adult bookstores. In the center of the paper alternative subjects like, “Two Knoxville party girls peer into Nashville’s nightlife”, a story about a road trip to Nashville with two twenty something Metro Pulse reporters and the recent article on bondage “Free to be dominated” show the Metro Pulse is indeed an alternative newspaper.
Or is it?
In this weeks Metro Pulse the editorial, “Don’t let the situation confuse you — here are our endorsements” presents a political machine message of complete voter disenfranchisement. The unsigned editorial suggest is better to place your trust in the party system and let the Executive Committee of the Republican and Democrat parties select the commissioner for your district over the 41 write-in candidates running against the term limited incumbents. These 12 incumbents were term limited by the Tennessee Supreme Court. No higher court can rule on the matter. Yet Tennessee Election Law requires that the ineligible incumbents must remain on the ballot. So you may vote for them but they cannot serve. If the ineligible incumbent wins the district primary it is not the second place write-in candidate that will go to the August General Election it will be a “replacement” candidate select by the Executive Committee of the party.
Does that sound like an alternative newspaper to you?
Yet the mainstream Knoxville News Sentinel ran an editorial, “McElroy: Wait! Know the candidates before voting” with the opposite message. The News Sentinel suggests that people wait to vote until they have learned about the 41 write-in candidates.
Some examples of “party” endorsements from the Metro Pulse:
2nd District, Seat B — Billy Tindell, who can’t succeed himself, deserves your vote, so the Democrats can pick an eligible candidate to stave off any write-ins.
4th District, Seat A — A vote for term-limited John Schmid will put the decision for an August candidate in the hands of the GOP, where it belongs in this instance.
4th District, Seat B — Likewise, a vote for Phil Guthe turns the decision over to the party.
5th District, Seat C — A vote for John Griess wisely sends the decision to the Republican Party.
6th District, Seat A — Votes for Mark Cawood will assure that the Republican primary winner has a strong opponent in August.
So a vote for the ineligible incumbent who has been term limited by the Tennessee Supreme Court and cannot serve no matter how many pie in the sky lawsuits are filed should be decided by the Republican Party or the Democrat Party?
How arrogant is the author of this unsigned editorial? This may give a clue, “A vote for John Griess wisely sends the decision to the Republican Party.”
So what may be a great chance for democracy in Knox County is rejected by the Metro Pulse because in the eyes of whoever wrote this unsigned editorial we should bow to the wisdom of the local Republican and Democrat parties?
Bow if you want. I will take my time and learn about the write-in candidates. Mr. McElroy, you got this one right. Nice work. Keep it up and I will renew my subscription.
Via Blake, if you can’t handle dissenting views, you probably shouldn’t blog.
Update: JB has more.
Via AC, comes this quote:
Last year, Washington spent $53 billion on homeland security — and $60 billion on corporate welfare. Clearly our priorities are misplaced, and it’s time to change that.
Another reported case of the ATF going after technical violations instead of real crime:
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATFE) wants to shut down San Leandro’s Trader Sports. The business, owned by Tony Cucchiara, is one of the largest gun dealerships in Northern California.
The decision to revoke the dealer’s license to sell weapons as of June 1 comes after an ATFE audit that found Cucchiara unable to document the whereabouts of almost 2,000 guns.
The ATFE believes that a proper tracking system for firearm sales is integral in preventing guns landing in the hands of criminals. Documentation of gun sales is also used to trace weapons found at crime scenes.
In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the government said that Trader Sports willfully violated the law even after repeated reminders of what was required of them to operate legally.
Then, later, we get:
Cucchiara’s lawyer, Sacramento-based Malcolm Segal, has countered that missing guns can me attributed to clerical error and the ATFE has been hyper-technical in its audit of his client — going so far as to audit records that date as far in the past as 1967.
OI:
Try as you might to find the title, “Federal Firearms Act” associated with 18 USC, chapter 44, you will not. Why then do we refer to it as such here? Many of the provisions that are currently codified to Title 18, chapter 44, were not originally codified there.
The Federal Firearms Act was enacted in 1938 and it was originally codified to Title 15. So what is Title 15? It is entitled “Commerce and Trade”. Do you remember that little discussion about creating vagueness where none originally existed? Well here is a stunning example. From 1938 until 1968, the Federal Firearms Act was within Title 15. That’s 30 years folks! Despite the law operating just fine for 30 years, someone deemed it no longer proper to have the law contained within Title 15. Want to guess why? That’s right – the government’s jurisdictional limits were far too easy to ascertain when the law was within the “Commerce and Trade” title. If it wasn’t moving in interstate or foreign commerce, then the US didn’t have jurisdiction over it! However, by moving the Act to Title 18, and thus disconnecting the Act from the Title of “Commerce and Trade”, there are few clues left to the law’s original intent and its Constitutional limitations.
I don’t have dollar amount but I’m certain me and the Mrs. have spent well into the thousands of dollars on toys for Junior. But Saturday night, she and I were piddling in the garage (making a stand alone target stand, if you must know) when we started playing a game. We’d take two small pieces of PVC pipe and set them at the top of the driveway and release them. They’d roll down the driveway. We were racing PVC pipe. When then go to the bottom of the driveway to retrieve the pipe and do it again. We did this for about two hours. $1.50 worth of PVC pipe was more entertaining than all of our toys.
The desktop computer had died. Was cruising the web, when the case got quiet. Seems the processor fan stopped working. Shortly after, it just shut off without warning. I decided it was the fan and was going to let it cool down then start it again to see if the fan kicked on. I did that and it started right up and the fan worked. Then, it died again and now it will not power back on. Any diagnosis out there? I thought it was the fan but am now wondering if the motherboard died. It’s an AMD 3100.
Jim Purtilo, a computer scientist at the University of Maryland, has a page up detailing how often he and others have been accused of being John Lott. Tim Lambert has led the charge and posted quite extensively accusing John Lott of using sock puppets and editing his own Wikipedia entries. For some background of some of the accusations, see here.
Purtilo’s page details how quickly his edits to Wikipedia were changed; how often he and others were accused of being Lott or one of Lott’s sock puppets; and a list of the folks who were actually editing the Wikipedia page.
It should serve as a caution to relying on the info on Wikipedia.
David Hardy tells us about Dr. Emerson, an apparent victim of the Lautenberg Amendment.
Aunt B. takes her fellow liberals to task over their position gun control:
We’re wrong about this. And it infringes on the Constitutional rights of our fellow citizens under the guise of “making us safer.” We get annoyed when the Right does that and we need to get annoyed when we do that.
Ayup.
A person named Stacey has announced their write-in candidacy over at Knoxviews:
Hi, my name is Stacey Diamond and I’m running as a write-in for county commission Distrist 1 Seat A.
I am the ward chair for the Democratic Party in Fort Sanders (10) N. I’ve been active in the local party for 6 years. I’ve grown up in Knoxville and have a degree in journalism from UT. I decided this was an unprecedented opportunity where people without special interest connections were jumping in and I took it.
I know nothing about this person and this is not an endorsement. I just think it’s neat that Al Gore’s Internets are being used like this locally,
Hedi Yewman, pondering the Columbine tragedy, lists things that have not happened that she finds shocking in light of Columbine:
Colorado and Oregon immediately passed initiatives requiring background checks at gun shows. Today 32 states still do not require background checks on gun purchases at gun shows including Washington.
The weapons used by the Columbine shooters were obtained through straw purchases. Such a measre would have made no difference.
The Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired in 1994 and was not renewed, putting guns like Tech-9s back on the streets.
Actually, it expired in 2004. The company that makes Tec-9s has gone out of business and a Tec-9 functions identically to, say, a Glock. And the Columbine incident happened in 1999, while the ban was in effect.
In 2005 Congress passed and the president signed into law a measure that, astonishingly, provides immunity from prosecution for gun manufacturers and sellers.
And this would have prevented Columbine?
The National Rifle Association is pushing hard to pass “take-your-guns-to-work” laws in all 50 states that would turn companies into criminals if they barred guns on their private property. So far the legislation has been introduced in 11 states.
And this would have prevented Columbine?
Seven states have passed legislation that eliminates a citizen’s duty to avoid a threat, and allow the use of deadly force before other options when a gun user simply feels threatened.
That is a gross misrepresentation of the bill. And would not have prevented Columbine.
Seems the super stores may not be that super for some.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) has decided to stop selling guns in about a third of its U.S. stores in what it calls a marketing decision based on lack of demand in some places, a company spokeswoman said Friday
Not sure if ammo sales will stop also but it seems likely. Is WalMart the only place to get Winchester White box?
SayUncle Adds: Since I was going to write about it and saw gunner beat me to it, I’ll add it here. At Facing South, they cover the issue:
The Violence Policy Center, a gun control group, said Wal-Mart’s decision reflected what it called a decline in gun ownership. “The marketplace has spoken and the losers are America’s gun industry and the gun lobby,” VPC Executive Director Josh Sugarmann said in a statement.
Once again, they’re lying. Post 9/11 and post Katrina and for other reasons, gun sales are up.
Additionally, Chris notes:
It’s all part of the Wal-Mart’s efforts to go upscale, trading in the plastic crap and blue collar goods image for wine bars, boutique styling, and cardigan sweaters.
Surely, those blogging for a Progressive South aren’t intimating that gun owners (of which there are an estimated 100,000,000 in this country) are all low-brow, blue collar types? Doesn’t sound very progressive.
Gunner adds
I just finished talking to a manager at WalMart and he said that they were told it would be the bottom 20% performing stores that would stop selling firearms. He also mentioned that the southern district(?) were the big sellers so we did not have to worry.
Since one of the main reasons I do not shop at Target is the fact that they do not sell firearms I think this will mean a loss of one customer.
You’ve likely heard this saying
“Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms should be a convenience store, not a government agency”
Seems it might be true.
If you’re not following it, Michael has a round up and R. Neal has the Cliff notes version.
It sucks. It was a hit piece and it may have resulted in Hobbs losing his job. If so, it’s another case of a fish-wrap, dog-training supply company with an ax to grind making someone’s life difficult for expressing themselves because, well, I don’t know why. Crushing of dissent.
I was going to address the free speech concern but Chris beat me to it:
… this has nothing to do with free speech, specifically, and everything to do with being beholden to our employers in general, in places where Polite, Professional Employees just don’t have opinions.
It’s another good test case for why I prefer anonymity and pseudonymity. I concur with R. Neal:
It’s just blogging, folks. Pixels arranged on a screen. People take this shit way too seriously.
Check out this video. Long story short:
Cop buys food
Says cashier short-changed him
Goes to arrest her
Sprays her with mace
Video shows she gave him the right change
A black bear attacked a family of three in Polk County, Tennessee, killing a 6-year-old girl, and seriously injuring a 2-year-old boy and the children’s mother. They have been airlifted to Erlanger Medical Center and are listed in critical condition.
This is why I’ve never understood why parks and campgrounds and such ban firearms. Going toe to toe with a bear is not good for you. Waving arms didn’t help in this case. But a few rounds of 230 grain jacketed hollow points may have convinced the bear to leave.
Somebody needs to call Al Gore. His Internets seem slow lately. Is it just me?
The IRS has a present for you:
The Internal Revenue Service is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns.
If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers for the first time would be able to sell information from individual returns — or even entire returns — to marketers and data brokers.
Via PTH.
Over at the Volokh’s, they report that:
South Park Executive Producer Reveals That Comedy Central Censored the Showing of Mohammed out of Fear, not “Religious Tolerance.”
Xrlq says the terrorists won. Actually, the terrorists won the first time some grandma hopping a flight to Cleveland had her toenail clippers taken.
CounterTop says: if recreation of Muhammad’s image isn’t allowed then how the hell would the islamists even know what images to be offended by, since presumably they have no idea what he looks like?
A while back, BB&T said it wouldn’t loan money for projectes taken via eminent domain. Now, a government agency is reacting:
The city’s urban renewal agency is looking to pull its $2.37 million out of BB&T because of the regional bank’s policy against loaning money for private projects that depend on eminent domain to obtain property.
Charleston Urban Renewal Authority members voted Wednesday to seek bids from other banks because they haven’t received answers from BB&T officials on the bank’s policy, said agency Director Pat Brown.
The authority has used its power to condemn property to help revitalize Charleston’s downtown. Once the property is condemned, it is sold to private developers.
A Foxborough man was arrested and charged Wednesday after shooting his neighbor’s Siberian husky dog, Kato.
[feel good info about the dog and its owners snipped]
Wednesday, Kato wandered to East Street where Frederick Grossmith, 48, lives. He said Kato and his own dog started fighting and, he told police, when he tried to break them up, Kato bit him. He then got his gun and shot Kato in the head.
[feel good info about the dog and its owners snipped]
Grossmith called 911 and EMT’s treated him for minor dog bites. He is not known as animal hater. He owns the most recognizable herd of animals in Foxborough. Now, however, he’s been charged with animal cruelty and weapons violations. He was arraigned in Wrentham District Court Wednesday and the judge ordered him to stay away from Kato’s family. Police confiscated all his weapons.
If the facts are as presented (and I think they are since he was treated for dog bites), why was he arrested, charged and why were his guns taken? And what are these weapons violations? I’m as dog-friendly as they get but an unrestrained, wondering animal is potentially dangerous. If that animal is not on its own property and is fighting other dogs, I think said action is justified.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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