So much for gun maker immunity that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was to grant to those gun makers.

I don’t know if I’d try a free air expansion chamber. The ATF once ruled some flash hider that reduced db was a sliencer.

Speaking of grilling

Smoking a couple of Boston Butts today. Here’s how. The night before, buy some butts, remove them from the package, run water over them then dab with a paper towel to remove excess moisture. Do not remove the fat. It adds moisture and prevents burning in the event your fire gets out of control. Make your rub. Here’s mine (I use rough percentages because who knows how much you’ll make):

30% Brown sugar
10% Kosher salt
10% Garlic powder
10% Mustard powder
5% Cumin
5% Cinnamon
10% Paprika
10% Chili powder
10% Red pepper (powder, not flakes)

And some fresh ground black pepper to taste.

As you can see, it’s largely brown sugar. Next, rub your butt. Well, rub the, err, rub on the meat. You can even slap your butt a few times for good measure. Do both sides. Place them in a large dish, cover in foil and place it in the fridge over night. This lets the rub really sink in. While your at it, take some mesquite or hickory logs or chunks and place them in a bucket. Cover with water and let them sit over night as well.

The next day, get up and make a fresh pot of coffee (this will be important later). Have a cup or two. Then, fire up the smoker. I like to use charcoal and add my soaked wood chunks every couple of hours. The soaked chips make a lot more smoke.

Now, take one 12oz can of your favorite beer and pour it into a bowl. Add roughly equal parts vinegar and the left over coffee you just enjoyed. Add a bout 1/4 cup of minced garlic to that. This stuff works wonders at both keeping your butts moist and adding a tangy garlicky flavor. Once your smoker settles between about 250-300 degrees (never over 300), put your big butt on there. About once every half hour, I take about a quarter cup of the beer/coffee/vinegar mixture and just pour it over the top of that big ol’ butt. I cook my butts for between 7-12 hours while drinking beer, and lounging around. An empty beer is a good reminder to go and pour some mixture over your butts.

Here we are about three hours in.

Yum. Notice they’re dark from the rub, which is now starting to crisp up a bit. After about 7-12 hours, sample a piece. If satisfied, remove from smoker, chop up or pull apart. Use your favorite mop sauce to have barbecue sandwiches or pulled pork. Also, if you buy one, you may as well buy 2 or 3. You can freeze any leftovers and they’ll keep for months.

ETA: And the garden shovel is to remove coals as needed.

ETA 2: And I rarely flip mine. If I do, I do it once about half way through.

According to my wife, I should not let The Second have a lighter or hang around a hot smoker. Who knew?

One of the things that really annoyed my wife on our wedding day was, err, me. Moreover, my interaction with our photographer. She was a nice enough lady but she asked me to do some pose that, in addition to being difficult for me to actually pull off and look comfortable, was unnatural looking. Now, I’d had a few adult beverages but I think I said something like I’m not doing that because it looks gay (and I meant gay in the young urban slang way as a synonym for stupid as well as the stereotypical way of effeminate).

This morning was cat herding err family picture day. I hate picture day. Really. I mean, I hate it a lot. If there’s a Hell, it will be me at Portrait Innovations having fake candid shots taken of me and Stone Phillips (I’m sure he’s a fine man but there’s just something about him that gives me the willies). Where was I? Oh, yeah. Hating picture day. I hate it because these pictures are unnatural looking. There’s fake smiling, fake posing, fake background, fake interest, fake everything. The only thing authentic is the kids’ expressions because they’ve not learned to fake smile yet. So, the photographer uses stuffed animals, whistles, toys, tricks and a clown to get them to smile. And kids don’t sit still for pictures. Once you get the kids situated, you have a window of opportunity to take the shot that is measured in nanoseconds. And the photographer misses that window roughly four out of five times, so you have to do it again.

So, we had that. Then, the other thing I really hate is fake poses. Today, the photographer dude asked me to sit on the ground with one leg outstretched and one knee raised. I said No. I do not sit like that because I am a man. So, we did a different pose that was fine. Then, I was asked to lay with my belly on the ground and both feet up in the air. Again: No, I will not lay like that because I am a man. And it’s hard to do with a Kel-Tec poking you in the hip bone. The wife was a bit annoyed. Now, this is not some masculine, macho thing where I don’t want to be captured on film looking gay. My thinking is that photographs should capture a natural state and not some contrived, fake scene. That’s what the news is for. And, well, people just don’t sit that way.

MyFox Orlando:

A pizza hut employee says he feared for his life when he shot at armed robbers. But the company says he violated policy and fired him.

Apparently, they’re more than your average thug. They train and are accustomed to being shot at. Frightening. Anyway, here’s some info the FBI compiled on cop killers.

A to the men:

The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.

Stuff to do, like the zoo. Some quick things.

Maintain a handgun.

Drug tax collectors make the rounds.

The correct headline should be House Approves Funding Already Existing Gun Controls.

Jeff Knox on the NICS.

Send this to your mayor, if s/he is a member of an anti-gun group.

CZ porn.

Memories.

Good. No ticket for Tam.

Gun locks: .gov failure and education is better.

Gonzo gets his marching orders right.

No blog for you. Come back later. Maybe. Taking the rugrats here.

Gun locks are easy to break into. Watch an 11 year-old disable them.

With a sword.

Over flags.

In NJ:

The New Jersey State Supreme Court issued a blow Wednesday to the way municipalities use their power of eminent domain to acquire private land.

In an unanimous ruling, the court said that for land to be taken against the owner’s wishes it must be “blighted” and not merely “not fully productive.”

The ruling is a victory for private property rights but could make it more difficult to redevelop some communities.

It’s sort of a victory, I suppose. A real victory would have been because that’s unconstitutional.

Bill Hobbs has said it for years. Now, the TN state treasurer says so.

As a follow-up to my post yesterday reporting that the state budget may include nearly $1 billion in unconstitutional spending, Ben Cunningham has posted the video of an exchange on the state House floor between state Rep. Susan Lynn and State Treasurer Dale Sims in which Sims admits the Bredesen administration has violated the state constitution and state law in the way it calculates how much it may spend under the constitution’s “Copeland Cap,” an amendment voters added to the constitution in 1978.

Turns out a lot of gun locks can be opened with little or no force using common hand tools like pliers and screwdrivers. I love how the article is no different than all the ones about how bic pens can open bike locks. It even includes a video of an 11-year-old boy opening various locks with an awl. At any rate, trigger locks won’t deter thieves. They’re really only meant to keep kids from shooting their siblings. If they don’t even do that, I’m not sure they’re worth much.

New York is about to legalize medical marijuana. I’m told the bill was supported by the optometry lobby.

He addresses the distortions about ATF trace data:

U.S. Representative Todd Tiahrt (R-Goddard) today blasted the organization behind a comprehensive campaign aimed at repealing current law that prohibits public release of critical data related to ongoing criminal investigations. In addition to a full page ad in USA Today last week, Internet ads and a series of television ads, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has now hired someone to drive a truck up and down busy streets in Wichita falsely claiming the so-called Tiahrt Amendment “puts police at risk.”

“I am no longer surprised with the outrageous claims made by this group,” said Tiahrt. “It is unfortunate that a few media outlets and advertising companies are actually willing to publicly disseminate this misleading and blatantly false propaganda.”

At issue is a campaign urging repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment, which prohibits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from releasing gun trace data to the public. The ATF gun trace database contains investigation-specific information and is made available to law enforcement agencies and prosecutors for criminal investigations. The ATF and the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the nation’s largest law enforcement organization, support the Tiahrt Amendment and have requested its reauthorization every year since 2003. Both organizations claim repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment would jeopardize ongoing criminal investigations and risk the lives of undercover law enforcement officers.

The organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns is behind the Tiahrt repeal campaign. The group claims to have the support of numerous police chiefs across the country, which is also misleading according to National FOP President Chuck Canterbury.

Meanwhile, the press takes dictation from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership. The Tiahrt amendment is supported by the ATF and the FOP.

In TN, a constitutional amendment protecting the right to hunt has passed the house:

The Tennessee House has unanimously passed a measure to amend the Tennessee Constitution to further protect the rights of hunters and fishermen.

House Joint Resolution 108 reads, “The citizens of this state have a right to hunt, fish, and harvest game and fish, subject to regulations and restrictions authorized by this constitution and prescribed by law. When reviewing such regulations and restrictions, a state court shall utilize a rational basis standard, as the standard has been defined by state courts through case law. This section shall not be construed to abrogate any private property rights, the state’s sovereignty over game and fish, or regulation of commercial activities.”

Because The Right to Keep and Bear Sporting Goods isn’t mentioned in the constitution.

A news report on the unethical standards for NBC’s To Catch A Predator.

Well, when the media goes from reporting news to making news, you can expect issues.

So, here’s the post on the new National Instant Check System (NICS) bill. The NICS is the database that is used to determine if the purchaser of a firearm is a prohibited person. As I said before, the measure seems to offer incentives in the form of grants to states that keep their NICS data up to date. That is, the bill largely serves as a means to pay for things that are already law. Conversely, states that do not can lose law enforcement grants from the feds. In short, I’m rather unconcerned about the whole thing.

David Hardy has the some of the text from the bill. He notes that:

Most of the bill is 20+ pages of verbiage about grants to states to improve input of mental health records. For me, the critical language is a couple of sections that essentially let a person who was committed at some point in their lives escape the lifetime bar that now exists. The wording is a trifle awkward at times, but as I read it, if the court that committed them makes a finding that they are not a danger any more, or the state creates an entity that can make a similar finding, they’re not a prohibited person and their name comes off the NICS list.

Allowing those who have their rights revoked an opportunity to have their rights restored is a good thing. It seems there is no remedy for relief for other minor infractions (like say a non-violent felony conviction). That has been part of the law but has never been funded by the congress. Some states have provisions for the restoration of rights but they seem at odds with the feds over that. The policy of the ATF has been to follow state law, unless said former prohibited person crosses state lines. However, I will make the prediction that this portion of the law will never be funded. Why do I make that prediction? Because that’s been the case since the the Brady Law authorized the same thing.

GOA opposes the bill.

The bill should clarify the term adjudicated mentally defective, but I’ve seen no evidence that it does. Currently, ATF policy defines that term rather broadly. I think the bill should clarify that term as open-ended definitions lead to policy issues.

The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre says unequivocally that this is not a gun gun control bill and that efforts to make it so will be opposed by the NRA. Says Wayne:

There’s been a lot of confusion and questions surrounding NRA’s position on a NICS improvement bill that’s being written in Congress. Part of the confusion comes from the fact that the anti-gun media is portraying this as a “gun-control” bill. Let me make it clear: It’s not.

The NICS bill, as written, wouldn’t expand the definition of a prohibited person. It wouldn’t disqualify anyone currently able to legally purchase a firearm. In fact, it would provide an opportunity for people who’ve been disqualified to clear their name. Right now, folks don’t have that ability. Gun owners lose nothing in the bill as it’s currently written, and in fact the bill improves the system for those who’ve been caught in the bureaucratic red tape.

So why is this being called a gun-control bill? In part because one of the bill’s authors is anti-gun Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy. It’s easy to call any piece of legislation from McCarthy anti-gun, even if it’s not. But the biggest reason the media’s calling this “gun-control” is because they’re desperate to report on a gun-control victory in Congress.

Which is basically what I said about it. Sebastian breaks it down further. He says it clarifies the definition of adjudicated mentally defective, however, I have not seen that language.

Also, the bill status is here.

In terms of the political game being played here, the NRA snubbed Carolyn McCarthy according to the WaPo. Then, it seems the Dems snubbed the NRA by allowing her to be a sponsor. Not really relevant, but it’s some inside baseball that may be important later.

In other news, the astroturf organization funded by the Joyce Foundation got their marching orders wrong. Seems they were, at first, unhappy with the bill. Then, the post got pulled. But Google is forever. It’s quite amusing to read. They were full of sound and fury (signifying nothing, of course) and then pulled it. I’m assuming the purchasers of the astroturf said hey, it looks like gun control so shut up. Life must be hard if you’re a paid shill.

For posterity’s sake, some of Gonzo’s real boners are below the fold:

Read the rest of this entry »

TN Rep. Curry Todd (who seems to have a last name for a first name and a first name for a last name):

Although it seems to have been clouded by other issues, the General Assembly once again faced several pieces of gun legislation this year.

Because I have a past in law enforcement, I am very much in favor of the Second Amendment, and usually have a hand in much of this legislation.

This year, I sponsored House Bill 411, which has been more commonly referred to as the “Castle Doctrine.” We did pass a version of this, expanding the circumstances under which the use of force is presumed justified. I felt this measure was vitally important; our citizens should be able to defend themselves.

He also notes some gun stats:

The facts show that in countries where gun control laws increase, so too do the crimes that those laws attempt to prevent. For example, according to the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, in Luxemburg, where handguns are totally banned, the murder rate is nine times higher than in Germany, which has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in Europe. Although Russia has one of the lowest rates of gun ownership in the world, between 1998 and 2004 Russian murder rates were quadruple American rates.

They always shoot the dog:

This whole area strikes me as a perfect scenario for a law school question. Under what circumstances do the police have a right to shoot dogs? Obviously, they’ll always say that the dogs were attacking, but if the police have invaded private property without a warrant, and the owner of the dogs is given no notice that they were there, how is the dog supposed to know that they were “good guys” and not the bad guys it is their job to protect against? Nothing is more dangerous than police in hot pursuit or police acting under a mistake, as unlike criminals, they’re acting under legal authority, and if you don’t know they are there, anything might happen.

There’s a lot more.

He has some PVC pipe and spuds!

Tales of the Gun on DVD.

Update: I linked because I thought it was cool. Now, A&E is offering me compensation for the link. Full disclosure, and all of that. So, if you buy something, I may benefit. But that’s not why I linked it. I really dig the show.

Update 2: Nevermind, I’d have to sign up for an ad network and all of that. Still, it’s a cool show which is why I linked in the first place.

A video.

Irony.

No, you can’t has a fucking cheezburger, urz a goddamn cat.

Please stop emailing me, linking, or generally mentioning this lolcatz crap.

Thank you.

Update: heh.

The fourth circuit has ruled the feds can’t go holding people indefinitely without charging them. Good.