I think it was the early 90s, maybe late 80s, when Tennessee passed its first seat-belt law? They said no one would ever be pulled over for it but if you were stopped for something else, you’d get a ticket for not wearing one. They assured us of that. They were full of shit.
More from R. Neal:
State Sen. Jimmy Kyle (D-Wartburg) got an amendment to the “guns in parks and public places” bill to also allow guns in the State Capitol building, including the House and Senate chambers and the Legislative Plaza, where guns are currently prohibited.
Sounds reasonable to me. After all, CCW promoters keep telling us they are the safest, most law-abiding people in the whole state of Tennessee. If families in state parks would be safer with CCW guns around, so would our elected officials, right? What’s the big deal?
Apparently it’s a big deal to the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Tim Burchett (R-Knoxville). He withdrew his bill rather than allow it to pass with the amendment.
In a bit of crafty maneuvering, state Rep. Frank Niceley says he will try to amend his latest “Wild West” gun bill to force the state to begin reporting mental-health records to the FBI’s national instant background check system. “If they vote against it now, they’re voting against sending the names of lunatics to the feds,” Niceley says.
Meanwhile, Jeff Woods over at some Nashville weekly gets his full-fledged gun hating rhetoric on with terms like: Wild West, supposedly law-abiding handgun permit holders [they have to be or they don’t get permits – ed], and hard-core gun nuts. He says:
Even hard-core gun nuts would have a hard time voting for handguns on playgrounds.
Err, no. We wouldn’t. No different than a mall or Shoney’s.
Also, why would they report it to the FBI NICS? Tennessee uses its own system for gun purchases. I assume they’re connected in some way.
A while back, I got a phone call. It went something like this:
Me: Hello
Person calling: This is blah blah from the Fraternal Order of Police. You have been a regular contributor for a number of years and we were hoping you’d continue that this year.
Me: I would. But it seems your organization supports renewal of the assault weapons ban.
Person calling: Sir?
Me: Yeah, your brass has decided to support gun control and I don’t appreciate that, particularly when the bill in question is so stupid and has not been shown to have any impact on crime of any kind. And the rank and file officers don’t support it.
Person calling: I don’t understand what you’re getting at.
Me: Well, I am not and will not ever again donate to your organization unless it retracts its position and apologizes.
Person calling: But your contribution . . .
Me: Sorry, not happening. Good bye.
And I have not given one dime to them since, which annoys my dad who was a cop for years. Anyway, given that position on guns, I find Bloomberg’s comments about the Fraternal Order of Police odd:
At one point during the session, Bloomberg took a swipe at the Fraternal Order of Police, which claims 308,000 members and supports a federal measure the mayor says would make it almost impossible to trace illegal weapons.
“It is one fringe organization,” charged Bloomberg.
“I would say resident within the Fraternal Order of Police is far more expertise with the administration of justice than Mayor Bloomberg’s limited experience in that area,” shot back James Pasco, the group’s executive director.
The FOP asked Bloomberg to knock off his illegal sting operation because it was interfering with legitimate law enforcement investigations. For that, they are a fringe group. Of course, for Bloomy, anyone who isn’t rabidly anti-gun must be fringe. PGP says:
Snippets like this should be the exclamation point on what I’ve been saying for a while–media bias in general is a tired, overwrought topic, but the bias against guns is plainly visible. If it were any other topic, a politician would be drawn, quartered, and excoriated instantly for suggesting that an organization representing the men and women who risk their lives daily in the law enforcement field is a “fringe group.”
Ayup.
Update: The FOP responds.
Shorter version: they put their fingers in their ears and say lalalala I can’t hear you. Via David, who notes:
Hmm. The Parker decision is “fantasy,” not to mention “inconsistency, flawed reasoning, distortion of binding precedent, and misunderstood historical materials”? Then DC should be rushing to file a petition for cert., rather than agonizing over the call.
Update: Xrlqy Wrlqy brings the Snarkenremarken.
A city council leader, alarmed by Baltimore’s rising homicide rate, wants to give the mayor the power to put troubled neighborhoods under virtual lockdown.
“Desperate measures are needed when we’re in desperate situations,” …
…modeled his plan after an approach advocated by Philadelphia mayoral candidate Michael Nutter, who won the Democratic nomination Tuesday. Nutter has called for declarations of a “state of emergency” in high-crime neighborhoods, where police would conduct aggressive stop-and-frisk searches and impose curfews.
WATE:
Legislation that would require mandatory sentencing for violent offenders who commit a felony involving a firearm has moved out of the House Judiciary Committee.
The bill sponsored by Rep. John DeBerry of Memphis is one of several recommended by the Tennessee Public Safety Coalition to curtail violent crime and make the state’s communities safer.
Under the legislation, a person who possesses a firearm while committing a felony would have to serve a minimum of three years in prison.
More of what we’re up against.
“Just because you legally possess a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn’t mean that we’re not going to walk into that home and check to see if you’re being responsible and safe in the way that you conduct your affairs,” [District Attorney] Harris said.
Sounds like a good way to get shot to me. And another:
It’s focused on making it as inconvenient and as difficult as possible for people to possess guns in a way that people will be harmed
Remember, these are reasonable restrictions.
Oh, sure we don’t see eye-to-eye on much. I mean, I thought his porn for corn bill was just about the dumbest and poorly thought out thing ever. But this is beautiful:
Representative Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) announced today that he refused to submit his request for pet pork projects in his district. The House Democratic leadership proposed that $20 million be spent on pet pork projects in each House member’s district. Democratic leadership is giving each member until 4:30 p.m. today to submit a proposal on how to spend the $100,000 allotted to his district for so-called “community enhancement grants.” Rep. Kelsey instead submitted to the Democratic leadership an envelope of bacon, saying, “I’m not going to take the pork. I’m giving the pork back today.”
Sorostitutes. My wife was one and she gets mad when I use that word.
So, is it odd that this disclaimer:
It should be noted that I took this picture myself using the self-timer on my camera. You should never, EVER point a gun at anyone*—even if you just want to take fun pictures—even if you’re 100% certain it’s unloaded. It’s a very bad and dangerous practice to get into.
Shows up on a pic? Probably not since you don’t want to make the list.
Over in Progressiveville an interesting conversation is going on about “Whatsa Progressive Blogger to do?” It sounds a little religious but it is an interesting read.
What caught my eye was this, “That’s what’s so frustrating about intellectual frauds like #9. They engage in discussion in bad faith. They’re not out to learn; they’re out to proselytize their disinformation to the credulous. And see, that’s where this whole bargain breaks down – because it’s *their* mission to spread *their* version of events, or whatever, and it’s completely at odds with your mission. That’s an irreconcilable collision.”
If you have ever engage “progressives” ie “liberals who can’t really admit they are liberals” in any kind of discussion you may appreciate the Pot calling the Kettle black meme here.
I don’t know what brought this about, maybe the specter of Fred Thompson getting into the Presidential race, but there is no joy in Mudville Progressiveville.
When you have had discussions with “progressives”, do you feel they engage in discussion in good faith?
If I want to get people’s pretty panties in a bunch, I just have to do a post about bicycling or global warming?
I tend to avoid the discussions. Anyhoo my thoughts:
Cycling: Don’t care. Do what you want but obey the rules and don’t be a dick.
Global warming: It’s happening. However, the impact of humans on it and the perceived level of Armageddon it may cause are debatable. So far, neither side does a decent job of convincing me. And I’m all for doing my part and whatnot but the fact is I can’t haul around two kids, all the junk required by two kids, a dog, and other items in damn Prius. Deal with it.
As you were.
Last fall, I was reporting on a story about Blackwater USA — the private military company. Though Blackwater is chiefly known for the mercenary/security work they’re doing in Afghanistan and Iraq, they also do a lot of military and law enfocement (sic) traing on their 7,500 acre compound in North Carolina. At the compound they even have an abandoned school bus and an entire firing range modeled after a high school(!) for SWAT training.
Anyway, I was interviewing one of Blackwater’s vice-president’s and I noticed that he had Radley’s Cato report on paramilitary police raids on his desk. I asked about it and from the ensuing conversation and I can tell you that Radley’s work was being taken seriously within the law enforcement training world.
Unfortunately, it’s not being taken as seriously within police departments. Later I asked the president of Blackwater CEO Erik Prince about the company’s law enforcement training business. He told me that almost all of the law enforcement training they do is for police officers and SWAT team members that are paying for their own training.
I think instead of armored vehicles and expensive optics that they put on wrong, a little training would go much further.
First, there can be no compromise with people who think reasonable gun control means banning guns. Sorry, just a fact. If these people got their way, my collection would be down to zero. If you want a serious discussion, the first words out of your mouth ought not be we need to ban . . . Just saying.
Next, behold the hoplophobe in all it’s pants-shitting glory:
The combination of mental disease and access to guns leaps out at almost everyone in media coverage in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings. But from there, ideas and advocacies, widely distributed by the press, tend to become amorphous and tinged with hopelessness.
Actually, I’m mostly just afraid of the people with the mental problems. After all, they can substitute box cutters, gasoline and a Ryder truck loaded with fertilizer for a gun. Continuing:
Some years ago, the distinguished historian Richard Hofstadter told me that, after a lifetime of studying American culture, what he found most deeply troubling was our country’s inability to come to terms with the gun—which in turn strongly affected domestic and international attitudes. Emotions of extreme attachment to and even sacralization of the gun pervade American society, and commercial interests shamelessly manipulate these emotions to produce wildly self-destructive policies.
We’ve come to terms with the gun and have decided that people should have them. The only one who hasn’t come to terms with them are, uhm, you guys. But here’s the rub: It’s not people like that a gun turns into a killing machine. It’s people already predisposed to that sort of behavior. As David Kupelian notes:
“Why don’t you pick up that gun and blow your brains out?”
“You could kill a whole lot of people with that gun.”
“Why not shoot her right now? That would shut her up!”
These are the sorts of vile mental suggestions many people experience from within their own minds when they see a gun.
That’s right. Dark thoughts and impulses, too horrible to dwell upon or even acknowledge, occur to many of us at the mere sight of a firearm or a naked blade. When we see the firearm, we sense the presence of evil – so naturally we assume the gun is its source, when actually the gun’s close proximity caused our own buried, angry, violent tendencies to surface for a moment.
Thus, many people who “dislike” or “are afraid of” guns are actually afraid of what they might do if they had a loaded firearm in their hand.
Yes. I noted before about an anti-gunner:
So, he admits in a public forum to assaulting someone. See I, as a responsible person and one not prone to violence and one who carries a handgun, don’t beat people up. Nor do I get into fights. Nor do I start them. I generally avoid physical confrontation regardless of how steamed I am.
And the now famous bit on the Internet about guns and radiation:
If I were to take a live, armed weapon and carry it on my person, in public, it would eat away at my sanity just as if it were emitting lethal radiation. To know that I carried an instrument of sure and certain death on my person, available and ready to be pulled out and used at a moment’s notice to possibly kill…a child. A homeless person. An innocent.
And that’s rather the problem: people who don’t trust themselves sure as Hell don’t trust you. But that makes this (via Rustmeister) rather interesting:
Persons who hold egalitarian and communitarian worldviews worry more about crime and gun accidents, an anxiety that coheres with their negative association of guns with patriarchy, racism, and selfish indifference to the well-being of others.
Persons of a hierarchical and individualistic worldviews, in contrast, tend to see guns as safe, and worry much more about the danger of being rendered defenseless against attack; this perception of risk coheres with their positive associations of guns with traditional social roles (father, protector, provider) and individualistic virtues (self-reliance, courage, physical prowess).
Gun nuts are individualists and assume responsibility for themselves? As opposed to anti-gunners, who look to others and worry about things going bump in the night? Who knew? Did we need Yale to tell us that?
The state senate has voted to ban boobies on TeeVee:
A bill to ban advertisements for “Girls Gone Wild” or similar products is dead in the Tennessee House and constitutionally suspect. But that didn’t stop the state Senate from passing the measure unanimously today.
They just keep wasting their time and my money.
I think, as a general rule, you shouldn’t cuss a 911 operator. See? I don’t care who you are, that’s funny.
Here:
In the past year or so, most people involved in the shooting sports have noticed a growing “ammunition crisis” which has been marked by dramatic increases in ammunition prices, and in many cases, a corresponding shortage of ammunition stocks. It is not unusual to contact vendors and find the entire surplus ammunition stock sold out, and where there is ammunition in stock, to find prices have gone up by two times or more.
It’s about metal. But I’ve also noticed the surplus stuff is harder to find.
Via Tam.
Gun-control advocates are quietly acknowledging that Fenty (D) is in a difficult spot. Across the country, many of them and their attorneys have been meeting in conference rooms to analyze the potential damage that could be done nationwide if the D.C. law falls apart. Some fear that an adverse Supreme Court ruling could lead to more gun lobby challenges and the collapse of tough gun regulations in New York, Chicago and Detroit. Other potential casualties include federal laws that require background checks for gun buyers or ban the manufacture of machine guns for civilian use.
So, the good guys win in DC and they’re afraid we’ll win nationwide? Sounds like we won that round. Countertop predicted that there’d be no challenge a bit back. We’ll see.
A bill to remove gun free zones (you know, those places where all the mass shootings occur) is up for consideration in Michigan.
Yawn:
Today, Politically Incorrect dog is five. That means, factoring in dog years, we’re the same age.
This is the short form. Follow closely.
Here we learn that if you have herpes it may protect you from “bubonic plague and other bacterial contagions, at least in mice”.
But, here we learn that herpes may cause ” Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia”.
Yet here we learn that “Marijuana’s Key Ingredient Might Fight Alzheimer’s”.
And over here we learn that “Red Wine May Help Prevent Alzheimer’s” also.
This is science as we currently understand it.
The same “science” that supports man-made Global Warming. So if you don’t want to get Alzheimer’s you better spend most of your time stoned drinking Red Wine. Don’t despair, at least you won’t get bubonic plague, at least in mice.
This may explain why so many people have fallen for the man-made Global Warming scam.
I can’t get into why, but if you were trying to pitch Tennessee’s gun laws to a company, what would you say?
I would start with:
Legislative history is pro-gun
Not much anti-gun stuff going on
Ample hunting
Shall-issue
Local LEOs are mandated by state law to sign of on NFA approval
Right to hunt bill being considered
Help me out here. I need info ASAP.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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