Heh. Ain’t that the truth. They never review a gun they don’t like.

Via MC.

The police have once again swarmed congress. Looks like there may have been a shooting in DC at the Capitol, which is odd because they ban guns.

AP New York:

Police acting on information gathered by private investigators working on the city’s civil lawsuits against the gun industry have filed the first criminal charges related to the case.

Two licensed firearms dealers were charged with misdemeanor weapons offenses on Wednesday after police reviewed videotape of a sting operation conducted in connection with the suit.

Police said the dealers, Jack Togati, 40, of the DF Brothers Sport Center in Brooklyn, and Michael Spallone, 43, of the Woodhaven Rifle and Pistol Range in Queens, each illegally sold a firearm without requiring the customer to produce a valid gun license.

But I thought the problem was with out of state dealers? More:

At each store, police said, a male investigator who failed to produce a pistol permit posed as a gun buyer and paid for the weapon, while a female companion produced the required pistol license. State law requires people purchasing guns to have their own licenses.

So, were they trying to see if the other states complied with NY law?

B-Ho notes:

U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, is an enemy of free speech. Allen is launching a new attack on political bloggers with the renewed threat of regulation under the Stifle Free Speech Act Campaign Finance Reform act even after the Federal Election Commission rightly exempted blogs from regulation under that law.

One nitpick: Everyone should be exempted from an unconstitutional act, not just blogs.

Rimfire emails this piece:

Local law enforcement officials have worked at least four cases in the past month involving semi-automatic assault rifles, a rate that has caused some alarm.

[snip]

A modification also turned the gun into a fully automatic weapon, which can only be owned legally by law enforcement officers.

That’s not a semi-automatic. It’s a machine gun, which is generally illegal. Looks like the anti-gun folks’ obfuscation of machine gun and assault weapon is sticking. And this is amusing:

“Everybody has a right to own a gun, but there’s only one reason for owning a gun like that — killing people. There’s no other use other than to kill people. That’s all they’re made for,” Marshall said.

And, you know, they’re fun to shoot – the guns, not people.

Over at The Cowboy’s.

Sorry about that. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Here’s some more rimfire porn.

In this post on a William J. Jefferson getting arrested for taking a bribe, you saw that I wrote:

If anything, those who are trusted to such office should be held to higher standards and should face more severe treatment when they break that trust.

To those congressmonkies protesting his treatment, I say on behalf of the American people: go fuck yourselves.

However, I initially wrote:

Rope. Tree. Congressmen. Some assembly required.

Despite the fact it was meant as a general statement to the congressweasels protesting the rather tame treatment of that warrant and acting as though they are better than others, I opted not to use that phrase because I discovered William J. Jefferson was black and I didn’t want to be accused of being a racist advocating lynching. And, of course, I say tame because it’s not like the agents stormed in and put 10 rounds of 9MM in his chest because he had less than an ounce of weed and a handgun carry permit. So, I left that out and opted for something slightly less offensive:

It’s nonsense like this that makes people want to grab their torches and pitchforks and storm the capitol.

But then, I thought, I don’t want to be accused of inciting violence. So, I left that out too. My thinking was that my initial rage would go away and I’d calm down the next day. You know, things better left unsaid. I figured the heat of the moment was weighing on me, that I’d get over it, and that I should be more cautious in what I wrote and that my cool head would prevail. I was wrong. I did not get over it. And that troubles me as I am not a particularly violent sort (yeah, says the guy with all the guns – ed.). I did all that before I published the post so no one saw that stuff. Though these things are usually my first thought, I eventually calm down and get over it. I usually take care not to say such things in the heat of the moment (despite thinking them frequently) for fear of being labeled an extremist. But this one, like Kelo, did not go away.

I was relieved, somewhat, to discover I wasn’t the only one particularly angered by this superiority complex from congress. In this post, insty writes:

INSANITY BREAKS OUT SPREADS

Initially, though, the post said something about Bush be will be impeached. I have no proof but you’ll have to take my word for it. I didn’t grab a screen shot but know for damn certain I saw it. Looks to me like he had the same reconsideration and quickly changed what he wrote as well.

There is a certain advantage to remaining a bit cooler. Sure, I told congress to go fuck themselves but that doesn’t involve lynching nor does it involve pitch forks and storming the capitol. It’s rhetoric to display my dissatisfaction in a manner that is mostly non-specific and generally non-violent. Well, fuck that. Why? Because as insty noted:

President Bush stepped into the Justice Department’s constitutional confrontation with Congress on Thursday and ordered that documents seized in an FBI raid on a congressman’s office be sealed for 45 days.

And Radley said:

Congress now plans to hold a rare recess hearing on the “aggressive” raid on Rep. William Jefferson’s office, called “Reckless Justice: Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?”

There is no controversy in the treatment of William J. Jefferson. There is only controversy that William J. Jefferson and members of congress have betrayed the American people. And, worse, think they are above the laws that they are responsible for. Hastert’s only pissed because he’s next. So, if this attitude by congress that they are superior continues, I say:

Tree

Rope

Congressmen

Some assembly required.

Oh, and they can still go fuck themselves.

Tarring and feathering is good too.

No, Bloomberg is a certifiably nannyist loon:

Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg thrust himself into the national immigration debate Wednesday, advocating a plan that would establish a DNA or fingerprint database to track and verify all legal U.S. workers.

Insane. Why is the mayor of one city so seemingly involved in national legislation?

1,635 crimes that didn’t happen.

David Hardy has the skinny on some gun bills in the works. I wish the NRA would get on that repealing the sporting language stuff.

Blake video blogging is pretty damn funny. Love the Sopranos thing and he scored an interview with a Bredesen spokesdemon.

Yes, even though we established the proper spelling of dildos last time, I just like the legalese better.

R. Neal at facing south says:

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed the rash of anti-sex toy legislation sweeping the South?

No, it’s not just you. The legislation of things that tingle your naughty bits seems popular lately.

He notes:

South Carolina is the latest to consider a ban, and legislation has already been passed in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas. Similar legislation was proposed in Tennessee earlier this year, but it was quickly withdrawn. Apparently nobody in Nashville wanted to touch the sex toy issue.

Between that and the war on entertaining ways to waste your money, seems someone is always mad that someone else may be having a good time.

Jay shows of his Marlin. Personally, I’m more of a 10/22 fan when it comes to rimfire rifles:

The AP is getting blog friendly:

AP stories on those sites will show a module featuring “Top Five Most Blogged About” articles. If you click on a story, you’ll be taken to a Technorati.com search page listing blogs that are writing about the story. “Blogger voices will now be heard in several hundred local online news organizations,” said Technorati’s chairman, Peter Hirshberg. “I believe that this is a deep validation of the power of citizen media.”

The Washington Post has mentioned blogs for a while.

Now, this stuff seems a bit too black-helicpoterish to me and I know nothing about the source. But, I love me some conspiracy theories. Sadly, I cant’ say I find it entirely unbelievable. After all, the FBI once issued some propaganda that classified folks who ‘quote the Constitution’ as potential terrorists. There’s some video I’ve not been able to watch. Probably crazy talk but interesting.

Update: Moved my comments to the top of the quote instead of after so that a casual reader won’t think I buy this black helicopter stuff.

Update 2: Looks like black helicopter stuff to me.

Read the rest of this entry »

That’s what headline should be. But this Brady Presser says:

In a rare release of information the gun industry has tried to keep secret, the Justice Department has revealed data naming the gun dealers who rank as the five leading sellers of guns traced to crimes.

[…]

Each of the five dealers, the court documents show, had an average of more than one gun recovered in crime every day of the year in 2005. By contrast, 86 percent of gun dealers in America have no crime guns traced to their stores in a typical year. Just 1.2 percent of gun dealers supply 57 percent of all crime guns recovered across the nation.

I’d say there’s also a correlation between volume of sales and gun crimes. If the dealers complied with the law, there’s nothing really to report.

Went to the KnoxViews get together last night. Got to meet a few folks and put some faces with online names. Always good to see Mr. and (the charming) Mrs. R. Neal. Got to meet all-around troublemaker and commentator persimmon; Steve from Whites Creek; Betty Bean; a couple of folks from The Metropulse (one who sort of apologized for being mean to me on the old blab); Bob Stepno; and KnoxJon (whose blog seems to have disappeared – I apparently called him an idiot once and am happy to report he is, in fact, not an idiot and is actually a nice guy).

A couple of things:

I offered to take Betty Bean shooting. That offer is open any time.

R. Neal agreed to hire me as his CFO and will pay me minimum wage so some folks will stop bitching.

Update: R. Neal on the meet.

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard details of Michael Bloomberg and the city of New York hiring private investigators to conduct a sting on out of state gun dealers that are the source of crime guns in New York. USA Today had the story first:

Wearing hidden cameras, the investigators entered stores in teams of two and attempted “straw purchases,” in which the buyer completes the paperwork and passes the background check, but later hands over the weapon to someone else who is not allowed to own a firearm.

More specifically:

The city said the undercover investigators entered stores in teams of two, usually a man and a woman. While the woman roamed the store and acted disinterested, the man made all the inquiries about the gun and made it clear he was the buyer. When it came time to make the purchase, the woman would step up to fill out the paperwork.

Trouble for Bloomberg is that if this is how it went down, then it’s not necessarily illegal, assuming that the man was not a prohibited person. If the man was a prohibited person, the investigators broke the law. Also, said private investigators from New York have zero law enforcement authority in the states wherein they committed these supposed investigations. They may have also committed felonies by giving false info on ATF Form 4473, which asks specifically:

Are you the actual buyer of the firearm indicated on this form?

Further, it looks as though Bloomberg’s antics jeapordized real investigations:

Mayor Bloomberg’s decision to hire private investigators to conduct undercover stings at Southern gun shops has potentially jeopardized several criminal cases, law enforcement sources charged.

Four cases were compromised and an additional 14 were put at risk by the six-week sting aimed at gun stores in Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia, the sources said.

The sources argued that several suspects being watched by authorities had frequented some of the 15 gun shops–but are now cleaning up their acts or lying low because of the publicity. None of the ongoing cases was linked to New York, the sources said.

“A bunch of private eyes straight out of ‘Barnaby Jones’ run their own sting operation and all the real enforcement agencies find out about it on the day they are having a press conference? Not good,” said a law enforcement source in Washington.

The Justice Department held a meeting last week to review potential problems, another source said. “The goal is to lock up gun criminals, not file civil lawsuits with publicity stunts,” the source said.

And, the final bit of funny, is that the ATF may be investigating this sting:

ATF has said they will be investigating every aspect of these “sting” sales (and there were ATF people present who repeated that). This may be bad news for the city, since IF the sales were illegal straw sales, their investigators committed felonies.

I’m going to go ahead and call Bloomberg’s latest antics of sending private investigators to investigate gun shops in other states for the purpose of suing them a victory for gun rights. Why, you may ask? Simple. It essentially shows that NY’s stringent and draconian gun laws are not having the desired affect. Since folks are unwilling to deal with the real issues after their ideas fail, they must have a scapegoat. In this case, that scapegoat is SC, GA, VA, etc. The facts are that NY has some of the most stringent/draconian gun laws in the country (in third place, with DC first and Chicago second) but they still have a significant number of gun crimes. Since they passed the laws, there must be some reason those aren’t working and it must be due to the failure of other states. Otherwise, they’d have to admit their laws are not an effective means to their end.

And watching the failures and consequences of the actual investigation unravel is kind of amusing.

In honor of Tourette Syndrome Awareness Week, let me just say titty, titty, assface, cunt.

As you were.

Update: Boobies. Ok, as you were, you pigfucker.

alandp notes:

As gun control laws have been added piecemeal over the years, it has forced gun owners to deal with conflicting and redundant requirements. Furthermore, the interstate requirements for buying a gun have needlessly forced gun dealers to ship firearms via commercial carriers, thus subjecting them to being lost, damaged or stolen.

To counteract this, Rep. Renzi is set to introduce the Firearm Transfer Improvement Act in the next few days. Renzi says that because gun dealers must comply with the laws of two different states in addition to federal law, these regulations are both “redundant and costly.” It is bad enough that the national government has created an unconstitutional federal background check system, but we still have this 1968 interstate ban left over.

“My legislation simply states that federal law and the law of the state of the seller must be complied with for all firearms sales,” Renzi said. “It also applies the same rules to rifles and shotguns, which are currently handled differently than handguns.”

To do something (anything!) about puppy mills, TN is looking to tax dog food:

Cat and dog food would be subject to a $2.00 per-ton tax to help defray costs of stricter enforcement against puppy mills under a bill passed by the Senate Wednesday.

The measure sponsored by Sen. Curtis Person would increase the penalties for people selling more than 25 dogs or cats without a license.

The bill would close what the Memphis Republican called a loophole that exempts breeders who sell directly to consumers.

The TN eminent domain is on it’s way to the governor. Not the best bill, but it’s a start.

Over at Knoxviews, we learn:

President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations.

Seems from the piece that Bush (though this has been around since Carter) is the first to delegate it down. Delegation is nothing knew, really, as many agencies (DEA, USDA, ATF, JD, etc.) have been delegated decision making authority. Honestly, it sucks knowing that important decisions are made by cronies instead of, say, elected officials doing their jobs. We’re be run by bureaus while politicians clamor for more special privilege.

In terms of financial and SEC disclosures, I wouldn’t worry much. The big accounting firms still sign off on those things and they won’t sign off without sufficient evidential matter even if the CEO has a note from mommy.

Crebralfix notes the anti-gunners are excited about micro-stamping. The likely plan:

Step 1: convince folks it’s a good idea.

Step 2: mandate that into law and older guns come under attack.

Dr. Strangegun is back with a cool new project:

And I’m going to convert it to TEN MILLIMETER. WOOHOO!

911 is a joke in your town:

A 911 audio tape obtained by Eyewitness News reveals that, instead of sending an ambulance right away, dispatchers from Memphis and Barlett could not decide which agency should answer the call.

The police can’t save you if they think it’s someone else’s job. And you can’t sue them for that.

Via tom.

Hastert, on the FBI raiding a congressman’s office, thinks the documents should be returned and the agents involved ought to be frozen out of that (case) for the sake of the Constitution.

Separation of powers should not impede with a valid criminal investigation. Ever. It’s a weak argument and TPTB should know better. But that’s not the case:

The raid also has united Democrats and Republicans in a rare, election-year accord. But while they stand together in opposition to an executive branch raid of a legislative branch office, party leaders are acting on different political agendas.

It seems the only thing that both parties holding office can agree on is that they are above the law.

An editorial lauding Bloomberg’s illegal sting appears in The Reading Eagle. They have a comments section so tell them something. Seems their comments are moderated but if enough folks chime in (politely, of course), it my be worth it.

I round up my thoughts on Bloomberg over at No Silence Here.