The day after the Senate primary, I asked:

I wonder what these guys are gonna do now.

Well, Jay Bush is now blogging here. He says:

While, I share concerns about the GOP establishment’s refusal to back movement conservatives for statewide office in Tennessee, after some post-election night reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that sitting this race out or voting for Harold Ford, Jr. is not the solution for Tennessee conservatives.

Well, if you can’t beat ’em . . .

Nifty:

A Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist has come up with a less-toxic explosive that has potential uses in hunting and in military ammunition.

Chemist My Hang Huynh developed a new type of primary explosive, which are the explosives that, for example, ignite the main charges in a bullet or conventional bomb. The lab owns three patents.

Huynh said the new explosive is cleaner, safer and less expensive to produce than traditional lead azide and lead styphnate primary explosives, which have been in use since 1907.

I recall a while back that someone (maybe Remington) developed a new copper bullet that was designed to be, among other things, more environmentally friendly than lead. It got caught up in the ATF approval process. I wonder if this new powder will as well.

Been a bad year for the ATF. So far:

A circuit court smacks them down for their ruling on model rockets;

An agent testified under oath that the NFRTR (the NFA weapons database) was corrupt;

Having budget issues due to mismanagement;

Being investigated for breaking he law at Virginia gun shows.

And they’ve had funds cut for some of their rather, err, dubious programs.

Now, the ATF Director has resigned over excessive and lavish spending:

A report on ATF is expected soon from Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, whose office has been investigating allegations that Truscott put through or proposed hundreds of thousands of dollars of unnecessary plan changes and upgrades to ATF’s new 438,000-square-foot headquarters. The building, under construction in northeastern Washington, is at least $19 million over budget.

Sources familiar with the project told the Washington Post this year that Truscott planned to buy, among other things, nearly $300,000 in extras for the new director’s suite, including a $65,000 conference table and more than $100,000 for hardwood floors, custom trim and other items. These sources described Truscott as overly focused on the building’s luxurious details, from soap dishes to tile colors and said he wasted valuable time with innumerable project meetings and field trips to the site

I guess I’d rather they spent the bucks on custom trim than more ninja outfits.

During the run up to the GOP Senate primary, it was a battle for each candidate to portray themselves as the most conservative. That has also trickled over to the Democrat side, with Ford touting his conservative democrat persona. Heck, he’s even evoking Ronald Reagan:

Ford says he wants to restore America’s “moral authority” in the tradition of Reagan…whom he described as a man who insisted America be the strongest and best country in the world and still maintain the position of being the “envy” of the world.

I ain’t buying it. Ford’s a bit too chummy with the old school Democrats from the state of NY for my liking.

Having blamed New Hampshire, now Boston wants to blame Maine’s lax err reasonable gun laws for highest murder rate in years:

For the last five months, a 252-foot billboard near Fenway Park has been warning Boston motorists that Maine and its lax gun-control laws help supply local criminals with their weapons.

Even before the billboard went up, Boston officials had been pointing fingers north, saying that Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont must stop what they said had become a pipeline of illegal guns flowing into the city.

But what neither the huge sign beside the Massachusetts Turnpike nor city officials have revealed is exactly how many people buy guns in Maine to illegally resell in Massachusetts or to commit other crimes there.

Is Maine also sending the murderers?

Did not know this but, according to the guys at arfcom, the ATF has stated that rifles can be shipped to individuals in the same state:

A nonlicensee may ship a firearm by a common or contract carrier to a resident of his or her own State or to a licensee in any State. A common or contract carrier must be used to ship a handgun. In addition, Federal law requires that the carrier be notified that the shipment contains a firearm and prohibits common or contract carriers from requiring or causing any label to be placed on any package indicating that it contains a firearm.

[18 U.S.C. 922(a)(2)(A), 922(a) (3), 922(a)(5) and 922(e), 27 CFR 478.31 and 478.30]

Good to know.

The Carnival of Cordite is up for your weekend gun blogging fix.

Gunner has a list of how the government spots terrorist. Apparently, I’m a terrorist.

Seen at Joe’s:

Lawyers contribute primarily to candidates who vote against gun rights. Most of this money ends up in the pockets of Democrats, who exhibit a heavy bias against gun rights. Interestingly enough, the Democrat party is the one that claims to represent the little guy, while a special interest group comprised of economically-elite professionals encourages Democrats to pass more laws limiting the right of self-defense for people who cannot afford private security guards. It’s time for those who believe in traditional Democrat values to take a closer look at their party.

There are plenty of reasons for me not to vote for Ford but this ain’t one of them.

Let’s go ahead and tackle this now (on Friday, late, when no one is looking): Can a black man win the Senatorial race in Tennessee?

I hate to say it but I think the answer is no.

Writing to a newspaper can sometimes right a wrong.

For three years now, Tom Friedman has been predicting that the next six months will be decisively make-or-break in Iraq. Each time, those six months come and go, and… he says the next six months will be the crucial deciding time. Man, it must be so great to be a pundit. These guys are worse than meteorologists.

Time to bone up on how to be an expert.

In an update to this, someone has responded:

For a person teaching at the universtiy level, Dr. Mercieca is not very well informed.

If you have an FN FS2000, the folks at subguns.com report it has been recalled:

FNH USA has discovered that these rifles have a safety issue, which will require your assistance in recalling this product. This safety issue in a result of the inadvertent assembly of an inappropriate firing pin, which could cause slam fires when using the FS2000 with cretin commercial ammunition currently in use in the USA

Here’s FN’s Notice.

Big Stupid Tommy wrote himself in as Senator.

R. Neal has some:

One can only conclude that, despite the media coverage, the 25% of Knox County voters who bothered to vote were simply not informed and either a) voted a straight party ticket, or b) voted for name recognition. One might also speculate whether this was the reason term-limits were not a factor, and could also explain the 75% who stayed home.

Tennessee Values Authority has some too (good to see him blogging again):

The term limit issue was but a poor player on the electoral stage in 2006. A lot of sound and fury, but mostly signifying nothing.

Lots of stuff at Nashville Is Talking and Volunteer Voters too.

With the primary decided, lets’ look at an issue important to me. I’ll do a post on Corker as soon as the man actually, you know, has a record.

This morning on the local talk radio, Ford was asked about the second amendment. He stated he had a B rating from the NRA. I reported here that he had an F rating. My first thought was he just flat out lied to east Tennessee. But Ford isn’t that stupid. I figured something had to be up. Turns out, Project Vote Smart has a timeline of sorts on gun ratings. I put it in chronological order and condensed it to the following:

1999-2000 Gun Owners of America assigned Representative Ford a grade of F-

1999-2000 Representative Ford supported the interests of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence 100 percent in 1999-2000.

2000 the National Rifle Association assigned Representative Ford a grade of F

2001-2002 Gun Owners of America assigned Representative Ford a grade of F-

the National Rifle Association assigned Representative Ford a grade of F

2002 On the votes that the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence considered to be the most important as of 2002, Representative Ford voted their preferred position 87 percent of the time.

2003 Representative Ford supported the interests of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence 77 percent from 1988-2003 (Senate) or 1991-2003 (House).

I’m guessing about here is when he realized he needed to be pro-gun to win

2003 Representative Ford supported the interests of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence 0 percent in 2003.

2003 Representative Ford supported the interests of the Gun Owners of America 0 percent in 2003.

2003-2004 Representative Ford supported the interests of the Gun Owners of America 0 percent in 2003-2004.

2004 the National Rifle Association assigned Representative Ford a grade of C

2005 Representative Ford supported the interests of the Gun Owners of America 50 percent in 2005

Now, I don’t have Ford’s 2005 NRA rating so it could be a B, as he said in his interview. But I’d guess his lifetime is somewhere in the C area. Seems Ford realized at some point that if he wants national office, that alignment with anti-gun groups wasn’t the way to go. That tells me he’ll change is mind with the way the wind blows, but which politician won’t.

Update: He’s probably a liar. I have confirmed that his rating is in fact a C and not a B. Via Bitter.

So, Campfield won. He beat the establishment challenger, which is good. It will also guarantee two more years of bloggy entertainment.

Mostly incumbents won. This should shock no one because that’s what our system is set up to do.

I told you so! Bob Corker will be the next senator from Tennessee. I’ll still bet a beer on it. Corker had to change his image from moderate Republican to conservative Republican to do so. I voted for Bryant. I wonder what these guys are gonna do now.

In my home county, voters overwhelmingly rejected the wheel tax. Good.

The guy I voted for for mayor did not win.

Blogger Bob Krumm won his primary as well.

Update: MKS notes:

So much for term limits

Eight of nine incumbent Knox County commissioners win, including four of the five who filed a legal challenge over the county charter and its term-limits provision.

The voters talk a good game but they don’t mean it. That or the system makes it real easy for incumbents.

Not only can you trick them out to look like ARs, but you can trick them out to look like AKs:

Sweet.

I’ve written a lot about how ignorant the American press is when it comes to guns. But other countries’ coverage of the American gun issue are just fucking retarded:

Statistics show us that more people are killed by the gun in the United States every year than in all of the countries combined!

Absolutely false. And this gem:

The National Rifle Association (NRA), which makes millions of dollars through the manufacture and sales of weapons,

Oy. And that’s how the world views America on guns.

Officer.com:

The District’s crime rate has slowed after the declaration of a crime emergency during each of the past three years, and the current emergency appears to be following suit.

Two slayings, including one in Northwest yesterday, have been recorded in the District since police Chief Charles H. Ramsey declared an emergency Wednesday. There had been 13 killings in the first 11 days of this month.

So, kudos to DC for declaring an emergency to get them to act on something they should have been doing all along. Or something.

Have you ever wondered what exactly is happening in your brain when you do drugs? Well, the University of Utah hired a bunch of cartoon mice to explain it to you (no coincidence, one of the drugs they study is acid). My favorite is the fidgety little guy on coke.

It’s great that people are doing more research into the brain chemistry of recreational drugs. This is the kind of stuff that could lead to safer (and legal) designer drugs, as well as better treatment for addicts.

I hope many, many mice were harmed in the making of this flash demo.

Surgery last week went well and the vet noted nothing appeared to have spread. Today, we got the lab results back and his tumor was benign. He’s A-OK!

Thanks all for the support.

GQ has a roundup of the 100 funniest jokes of all time. They spread the schtick thick over there. My favorite:

A Jewish guy goes into a confession box. “Father O’Malley,” he says, “my name is Emil Cohen. I’m seventy eight years old. Believe it or not, I’m currently involved with a 28 year old girl, and also, on the side, her 19 year old sister. We engage in all manner of pleasure, and in my entire life I’ve never felt better.” “My good man,” says the priest, “I think you’ve come to the wrong place. Why are you telling me?” And the guy goes: “I’m telling everybody!”

None of the jokes deals with firearms, which made me wonder. What are the 100 gunniest jokes of all time?

Seen at Les Jones’ joint. Summing up the AR v. AK Debate:

1. The AR is a tempermental, finnicky tool that will only cycle through a full magazine when blessed personally by the pope, plus it shoots a round that won’t even stop a well-fed hamster. The AK can be filled with concrete and it will still fire 10,000 rounds without a stoppage. Plus, it shoots a man’s round.

2. The AK is so inaccurate that you couldn’t hit a barn from the inside with a full magazine. It was made by communist slaves who used rocks to assemble the receivers, in the dark. The round has such a curved trajectory that you have to aim at a target’s hat to hit his feet at 150 yards. On the other hand, the AR is a precision weapon that can hit a matchhead at 600 yards consistently, and should have night vision, IR, a red-dot scope, a tactical sling, and a tactical flashlight, making you a single-man ninja army.

Heh.

It’s election day. If you’ve not voted, get out there now. Go on, I’ll be here when you get back.

I just did it myself and it was mostly painless. But those voting machines in Blount County are the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen.

I haven’t written about Mel Gibson’s little bout of anti-Semitism because, frankly, I don’t give a shit. I realized long ago there were weirdos and hateful sorts who just hated other people for random reasons. If we were all the same race/religion, someone would hate you because of your size. If we were all the same size, they’d hate you because of your eye-color. And on and on. There’s just stupid, hateful fuckers out there. Deal with it.

My issue with Mel is that he’s blaming one of my favorite things: booze. I like to drink. I like to drink a lot. And I drink it all, except vodka, wine and frou-frou drinks. I drink beer, whiskey, beer, rum, beer, bourbon, beer, and scotch. And, for a skinny white boy, I can drink a lot at a time. But none of that has ever made me hate Joos. Or black folks. Or homos. Or anyone. In fact, it has often made me love lots of folks, both in that you’re an OK dude and that You’ll regret this tomorrow kind of way. Yeah, before my wife went and domesticated me, I was a bit of a, err, partier, we’ll say.

Drinking has made me do lots of things, like walk down my friend’s street naked singing Stand By Your Man at 2 a.m. accompanied by three other equally drunk, heterosexual men. It’s caused me to wake up next to people who I had to promptly introduce myself to then ask if they wanted breakfast. It’s made me utter the phrase and at this point, we need to throw exactly 17 bananas. It’s made me think that it was a good idea to jump off the blue bridge in Dandridge, Tennessee. It made me and a friend think that it’d be cool to stuff some gun powder in a cinder block and light it (well, OK, that actually was cool . . but not smart). It’s made me think that on karaoke night I could actually pull off No Rain by Blind Melon (hint: if you have testicles, you can’t pull that song off). It made me decide that dressing in a corset, fishnets and Sebagos was a good idea. It made me and some friends realize on the fourth of July, you could light bottle rockets 144 at a time if you used a blowtorch. It made me think it was cool to drive with the top down . . . in January (I did have the heat on). It made me and some friends think it was perfectly reasonable to wrap PVC in foam and beat the shit out of each other with it. It made me decide it was a good idea to tell a 6 foot 8 inch, 300 pound angry-looking dude he can’t park there. It made me respond at my 10-year high school reunion when asked what I did for a living that I was a ninja (kick ass dental!) or a fire truck (here’s a picture of me at work) or a fluffer (Peter North is such a gentle man but he’s not into chicks) or a member of the super-villain group The Legion of Doom (And then, he threw a chimney at us). [ed note: for plausible deniability, one of these is made up. I’ll never tell]

Well, the point is that it made me do a lot, but hating people and spouting off conspiracy theories isn’t one of those things. So, Mel, stop blaming the spirits. It just makes you an anti-Semite who also happens to be a dick. A dick with a publicist trying to save your career but still a dick. Leave my beer alone.

He writes an anti-second amendment screed for the Coloradoan that says:

The text of the amendment is “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Actually, it reads:

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed

It has only one comma. Some folks think that is important (for why they do, see here) but I don’t really think it is to the overall meaning.

The amendment consists of one sentence of 27 words. It cannot be interpreted in pieces, but only as a whole, the NRA to the contrary.

Indeed. But even the whole supports an individual rights view. As noted by Roy Copperud (whose credentials on the English language are quite astounding) notes:

The sentence does not restrict the right to keep and bear arms, nor does it state or imply possession of the right elsewhere or by others than the people; it simply makes a positive statement with respect to a right of the people.

…

The right is not granted by the amendment; its existence is assumed. The thrust of the sentence is that the right shall be preserved inviolate for the sake of ensuring a militia.

…

To the best of my knowledge, there has been no change in the meaning of words or in usage that would affect the meaning of the amendment. If it were written today, it might be put: “Since a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged.”

Roemer continues:

The principle debate concerns whether the right to bear arms applies to individuals or only to a militia.

Yes, that is the debate. And you just lost it. He continues:

The Supreme Court has never decided the issue; however, there is currently a conflict between two Circuit Courts of Appeals that make the issue ripe for review by the Supreme Court, but unfortunately the individuals involved in the two cases have not seen fit to appeal either case to the Supreme Court. See U.S. v Emerson 270 F. 3d 203 (5th Cir. 2001) is in favor of individual ownership and Silveira v Lockyer 312 F. 3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2002) is against individual ownership.

He’s sort of correct. While the Supreme court has never ruledon the amendment, it has acknowledged gun cases a number of times. David Kopel, who analyzed 35 Supreme Court cases involving guns, concludes:

Twenty-eight opinions remain, including nineteen majority opinions. Each of these opinions treats the Second Amendment a right of individual American citizens. Of these twenty-eight opinions, five come from the present Rehnquist Court, and on the Rehnquist Court there has been no disagreement that the Second Amendment is an individual right.

And the book entitled Supreme Court Gun Cases noted that:

the researchers conclude from the evidence that the Supreme Court has recognized an individual right to arms for most of the past two centuries.

Additionally, the fifth circuit acknowledges the individual right. So does the Congress and the President. So do the official platforms of both major political parties. So does the Justice Department.

He also concludes:

So the Second Amendment only applies to the federal government, leaving the states to regulate the ownership of weapons as it sees fit provided that the state legislation does not conflict with any federal law on the same subject.

Simply, the courts are wrong. Period. Congress, it seems, is looking to remedy that situation.

Update: The folks at KABA note:

Emerson had two writs of certiorari denied. The first on June 10, 2002 and another on July 2, 2004. In Silveira certiorari was denied December 1, 2003.

So, he’s wrong on many levels.

Alphie has one for Shelby County.

Rhineland Arms makes an AR-15 style stock for the Ruger 10/22. Check it:

You can buy them at Numrich.