Outside just now.

Heh.

Is there a place in the United States that will not allow free speech?

Sadly yes. They call them Universities.

See the film they don’t want you to see. See Indoctrinate U.

From the website:

Speech codes. Censorship. Enforced political conformity. Hostility to diversity of opinion. Sensitivity training. We usually associate such things with the worst excesses of fascism and communism, not with the American universities that nurtured the free speech movement. But American higher education bears a disturbing resemblance to the totalitarian societies that are anathema to our nation’s ideal of liberty. Evan Coyne Maloney’s documentary film, Indoctrinate U, reveals the breathtaking institutional intolerance you won’t read about in the glossy marketing brochures of Harvard, Berkeley, Michigan, Yale, and hundreds of other American colleges and universities.

“When we think of going to college, we think of intellectual freedom. We imagine four years of exploring ideas through energetic, ongoing, critical thinking and debate,” Maloney said. “But the reality is very far from the ideal. What most of us don’t know is that American college students check their First Amendment rights and individual freedom at the door.”

So, Junior now makes the shape of a handgun with her fingers, points it, and says: Pow, pow, pow. We asked her where she picked that up and she said Little Johnny* says Pow, pow, pow. Little Johnny is a kid in her class at school. The Mrs. asks her what the teacher says when Little Johnny says Pow, pow, pow. And Junior says She says don’t say pow, pow, pow. I’m taking it all in. And I finally pipe up and say Junior, we don’t point our weapons at people. The wife shoots me a glance and says let’s not go there yet.

She’ll be three this month. My thinking is go ahead and start, err, planting the seed about gun handling. At the same time, she’s a kid and needs to have some fun. Is it too soon to say things like that? I have no intention of enforcing said rule with toys and fingers but just want to lay the foundation.

* name changed, for obvious reasons.

I had this clipped to comment on last week. Never quite got around to, well, forming my thoughts in an eloquent fashion. I won’t try. Instead, I’ll say fuck that:

The film shows various cases of conservatives, libertarians or even liberals who do not toe the leftist line 100% being shut down, shut out or shut up on “liberal” college campuses around the US. One thing that struck me about the cases is that several of those who had conservative or pro-American leanings were told by administrators that in order to stay at the university, they would need to see a psychologist who, I suppose, could vouch for their mental condition.

She has some examples. What I find a bit more surprising is that therapy and evaluation appear to be a punishment and not a legitimate therapeutic exercise. Ideas are not inherently dangerous. These folks were simply shouted down for not going along with the program. And that seems to make a mockery of the whole mental health field, if you ask me. And the psychologists in this case will likely report their findings about these miscreants who dare not agree to the administration.

No, not that scary one that the Brits are afraid of (of course, they’re afraid of knives and pointy things), but the real one:

The biggest problem, in my experience, was the nervousness that was brought on by decades of anti-gun spin in the media.

Ooh, Brens.

Tam had a run in with Knoxville’s red light cameras:

1) I haven’t been through that intersection in the last year.

2) The license plate on my BMW convertible is 123ABC, not 122ABC.

3) The vehicle in the accompanying photos is a white Toyota Tacoma, license number 122ABC. I realize it was dark, but a white pickup doesn’t look much like a silver Nazi rollerskate, no matter how hard you squint.

The sad thing is that it will probably be easier (maybe even cheaper) for her to just pay the damn ticket than to take R2D2 on in a court of law.

Short version: Man was horseback riding with a .454 revolver in a holster. He dismounted the horse and his coat caught the hammer of the gun*, which blew a 5 by 8 inch hole out of the front of his leg. His leg was later amputated. He sued and won. The jury felt that the weapon’s lack of a transfer bar allowed the firing pin to travel forward even if the weapon was not cocked.

Now, I thought the mean ol’ Republicans and NRA passed that mean ol’ Protection of Lawful Arms in Commerce Act which prohibited lawsuits against mean ol’ gun makers. At least, that’s what the anti-gunners would have you believe. Shockingly, they were wrong.

* quotes because that is what the press says and, to me, it doesn’t sound likely. More likely is the coat was heavy and hit the hammer pretty darn hard.

Bloomberg is not only the #1 enemy of gun rights but, generally, the #1 enemy of personal responsibility. Somebody ought to inform Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam who he has chosen to ally himself with.

The Justice Department will not press charges against officer Deval Bullock. Bullock, by every account I’ve read, neglected to follow the rules of gun safety. He claims to have accidentally shot a man making a sports bet.

And, seriously, it’s 2007 and there are stings for sports betting?

Why I’ll never vote for Giuliani.

Not those but the other kind:

Help me connect the dots: A few weeks ago Teresa Lavenue bid $810 and bought a pink Glock 9 mm pistol at an auction run by the Northern Virginia Friends of NRA. Around the same time, the member of a female gang in Southeast D.C. showed off a pink-handled pistol to a volunteer trying to quell teen violence in Anacostia.

Two women attracted to a Weapon of Human Destruction simply by its color. Pink pistols — cute and deadly — are the latest marketing gimmick by our makers of Saturday night specials and sophisticated semiautomatic weapons.

“They are targeting a female market,” says Ronald “Moe” Moten, co-founder of Peaceoholics. “It’s just like cell phones. These guns are not for hunting.”

Now, I don’t care if gun makers make pink guns or blue ones or whatever. Different folks like different colors, I suppose. But I don’t know that Glock makes a pink one. That’s only relevant to the fact that this guy is accusing them of making them with nefarious purpose: to get women to shoot. And it’s bullshit. I have seen the pink ones but they are expensive custom jobs. I don’t personally care what gets women to shoot so long as something does. And they are the fastest growing demographic in terms of gun ownership. It doesn’t really make one bit of difference to me what color your weapons are. I prefer black but it’s preference. If they came in bright orange only, I’d still have one.

Before every gun-toting NRA member paints a red dot on my forehead, let me assure you I have owned rifles since I was a teenager. My first was a Mossberg .22 that I hunted with for years until I traded it for a canoe. I’ve used pump-action shotguns and 30-30s to hunt deer.

Of course you’re a gun owner, every one who writes an anti-gun column these days is.

But don’t tell me that painting handguns pink is cute. Don’t tell me a pink handle on a pistol isn’t attractive to girls in gangs.

Cute is irrelevant and a matter of preference. I think my G30 in basic black is cute. Color is also irrelevant.

Facts are that 12 young girls have been shot in the streets of D.C. in the last three months. Four were shot dead.

Despite the fact that handguns of any color are banned in the district.

Via Chuck.

Well, I guess by Ravenwood’s standard, I should view this as 73% would not consider voting for Bloomberg? Which is good.

A reader emails:

Thank you for your article about Pit Bull attacks. In almost every article that I have read where percentages involving Pit Bulls are mentioned I never see percentage of the total US canine population Pit Bulls represent. In searching the internet and emailing people who might know, I have received information that Pit Bulls represent 5% to 9.6% of the total US canine population of roughly 55-60 million dogs.The lower percentage of 5% translates to roughly 2 1/2 million Pit Bulls in the US. Other dog breeds involved in fatal dog attacks have dramatically smaller populations. Some breed populations numbers for the US that I did find are as follows:

Rottweilers- 900,000
German Shepherds-780,000
Chows-240,000

In addition to Pit Bulls, these 3 breeds were involved in fatal attacks from 1979-1998 as follows:

Pit Bulls-66
Rottweilers-39
German Shepherds-17
Chows-8

Other breeds of dogs that also caused fatalities were during that same 20 year period were:

Huskys-15
Malamute-12
Doberman Pinchers-9
Saint Bernards-7
Great Danes-7

I was unable to find any reliable population numbers for any the other breeds involved in fatal attacks.

I am unsure if the Chow, Rottweiler and German Shepherd population numbers are accurate but if they are even remotely close, Pit Bull population is 10 times the population of Chows and 2-3 times more than Rottweilers or German Shepherds. If this is the case, would it not be logical to conclude that the actual number of fatal attacks involving a Pit Bull would be higher than other breeds? When I used those populations and divided them by the attacks each breed was involved in, Pit Bulls were last on the list. Chows were number one. The AKC has only registered dogs in their statistics and do not even recognize Pit Bulls to be a specific breed and therefore no numbers on populations were available. I have had a difficult time getting dog populations by breed on the internet. It’s been a frustrating search and I still have not gotten any reliable numbers regarding breeds and their populations. In my opinion, without knowing the true populations of each breed involved in fatal dog attacks, all the statistics and percentages of specific dog breeds involved in these attacks are misleading if not flawed. Do you agree? When I read that Pit Bulls are responsible for 60% of all fatal dog attacks it is the same as finding out that California has more suicides than Rhode Island. Also, are there any web sites that have any information on breeds and population numbers in the US that you are aware of?

I’ve never found any info on that. Trouble with ‘pit bulls’ is that so many different ‘breeds’ are also considered to be ‘pit bulls’. So, the numbers would likely be inflated.

Make the New York Times:

Despite their menacing appearance — and in some cases, because of it — black rifles are now the guns of choice for many hunters, target shooters and would-be home defenders. Owners praise their accuracy, ease of use and versatility, as well as their potential to be customized with an array of gadgets. While the gun industry’s overall sales have plateaued and its profits have faded over the last decade, black rifles are selling briskly, says Eric Wold, an analyst in New York for Merriman Curhan Ford.

Moreover, manufacturers say, for every dollar spent on black rifles, gun buyers spend at least another customizing the guns from an arsenal of accessories. All of this has combined to make black rifles a lone bright spot for long-suffering American gunsmiths.

Yet Mr. Zumbo is not alone in finding the popularity of black rifles and the trade in them to be disquieting.

Gun-control advocates say black rifles are simply assault weapons under a different name — and just as dangerous as they were when Congress instituted a ban on some of them in 1994. The ban did not eliminate black rifles; manufacturers were able to make minor changes to comply with the law and kept selling them. (The ban expired in 2004.)

Surprisingly balanced article for the otherwise hysterically anti-gun NYT. And we gunny types like to call them evil black rifles, even if they’re pink.

Update: Pay particular attention to the graphic on tricked out rifles. It correctly notes that the collapsible stock is for comfort and adjustment and not for spray firing your bullet hose from the hip.

for possession of illegal machine gun:

Hector “Big Weasel” Marroquin, 51, was arrested at his home in the 8000 block of 6th Street in Downey, said Susan Raichel, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

He was charged with the sale of an assault rifle, a machine gun, two pistols and two silencers, Raichel said.

As part of the same investigation, Sylvia Arrellano, 25, was also arrested at a home on Elizabeth Street in Cudahy, and faces the same charges, Raichel said.

Agents raided a junkyard Marroquin owns in the 4000 block of Mason Street in South Gate, and his restaurant, Marroking Seafood and Bar, in the 7000 block of Atlantic Avenue in Cudahy, Raichel said.

At each location, agents found gang photos and writings, she said.

Raichel said the arrests came as part of a nine-month investigation into weapons sales by the 18th Street gang, believed to be the largest in California.

A onetime member of the gang, Marroquin founded the group No Guns in 1996, which purported to work against gang and gun violence in inner-city communities.

But I bet 80% of Americans can’t tell you what current gun laws are.

SOUTH CAROLINA v. US, 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905):

The Constitution is a written instrument. As such its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when adopted, it means now.

Seen at Sebastian’s:

To assist you and your customers to better understand this provision, ATF is clarifying the Firearms Transaction Record (ATF Form 4473), to make it clear, for example, that any person who has been found by a court, board or other lawful authority to be a danger to self or others is prohibited from purchasing a firearm or ammunition. We will provide you with additional information about this change in the Form 4473 in the near future.

Yeah, ’cause that have stopped Cho.

Well, it also heaps you praises. Thanks for the update. But don’t feel too bad, it is a stated strategy among anti-gun groups to intentionally mislead you. Via Sebastian.

Now, I’m as gun nutty as gun nut can be. But gun laws don’t generally correlate to crime, for good or bad, in any meaningful way. The CDC agrees.

Background here.

Update: And for the record:

I still firmly hold to the existing Supreme Court interpretation of the amendment, which to my understanding does not support the kind of individualized gun rights often advocated by groups like the NRA.

There is no such interpretation. The SCOTUS has not ruled on the issue specifically but has casually referenced the individual right to arms a few times. In US v. Miller, they asked for clarification. Miller then died and the case did not proceed. If the court bought the collective right mythology, it would have asked Is Miller a state? It did not. It asked if the weapon in question (a short barreled shotgun) was suitable for militia use.

I often write about “The Law of Unintended Consequences”. It is surprising that few people consider the possibility that not all decisions from the mind of man work exactly the way intended. That is one reason I have been such a harsh critic of Al Gore. There is an irony that liberals and progressives who constantly howl that religious populism is a very bad thing could follow Al Gore in locked step slobbering obedience. Elmer Gantry had nothing on Al Gore.

Two things Al Gore is bringing for the consideration of the American people are very questionable ideas. But on the front end they seem to make sense. Even conservatives may think that compact fluorescent bulbs and ethanol made from corn are no brainers. Each of these ideas have serious economic and environmental drawbacks. But in the current state of frenzy not everyone is thinking about what the future implications of these ideas will be.

The good news is that a few people are navigating through the fog and considering the full implication of what wide acceptance of compact fluorescent bulbs and ethanol made from corn. Even the folks at KnoxViews. R. Neal is even beginning to see that corn based ethanol doesn’t make either economic or environmental sense.

My told you so piece on CF bulbs was back in March. Rich Hailey expanded on the mercury issue in May after R. Neal at KnoxViews wrote a long piece defending CF bulbs.

So before we think about a new religion maybe we should look under the hood and think whether the old religion is really broken. This is really all about politics. The liberal progressive side of the fence has shown to be incompetent when it comes to National Security. So the Earth First religion is what they have to offer. The simple facts are that without mandatory recycling CF bulbs will cause environmental and health issues which will negate any electricity or cost savings they may have. Corn based ethanol is one of the worst ideas for energy independence.

So why are liberal progressives changing their tune on corn based ethanol? Because the other team has gotten out in front by supporting switchgrass based ethanol which may make economic sense and which will not hurt the environment. In other words, it is CYA time for the liberal progressives.

The good news for the American people is that two questionable ideas are finally getting the full thought process required and maybe we can use our heads and not go on a National fools errand.

One of my longtime friends got hitched. To a foreigner. Trouble is, it’s hard to get them in the country, despite what you may have learned watching sitcoms. I told him to fly her to Mexico and meet her in Texas. He chose the high ground and decided to go legal. He started a blog about it here:

A married couple transversing the strange waters of the immigration process, all the while trying to keep from being eaten by the gigantic, souless shark that is bureaucracy…

Guess the firearms! Via Jeffy Weffy.

Seen on a video here:

Parenting is too hard. Help us MPAA.

Last night, I drove by a local pharmacy that’s close to my house and saw the parking lot full of police cars, an ambulance, and the yellow tape. I thought to myself: Self, someone’s been shot. I was right. Odd occurrence for my town.

I done run everybody off. That means I’m busier than a one-legged cat trying to bury a turd on a frozen pond. In other news, getting up at 3:30 sucks. But there’s still time for some gun porn.

Don’t look now but Tennessee’s reps might do something smart instead of something dumb. For once.

TCPR:

Nearly every proposed private, nonprofit and non-governmental recipient of Gov. Phil Bredesen’s last minute half-billion dollar budget request have ties to the Bredesen administration, according to an examination by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

I worked in a prison for a few years. I never met him either but I’m familiar with his work.