Well, they have to.

The bill is bogged down due to funding issues. Well, that was the problem with the original Brady Bill. Seems they wanted background checks to check for people who have been adjudicated mentally defective. But, you know, no one offered to pay for it.

More Joyce Foundation Astroturf. And remember, I’m the one who’s supposedly getting cash plunked down in my lap from the evil gun lobby. Or is it gun manufacturers? I keep forgetting who I shill for.

Also, looking at tax returns.

Ridefast asks of me: How does he find this stuff?

Well, simple. I read quite a few blogs, news sites, and news alerts. And a whole lot of stuff is emailed to me. That particular item was emailed to me by a reader, who noted those people were insane. And if that reader has a blog, I’d be happy to have sent credit her way. But I don’t know that she does.

In other news, SayUncle now has three women readers!

Now, there are shirts.

So, the press was all like a man had a 50 caliber on campus. They put up the stock photo of a Barrett 50. Turns out the guy had 50 caliber muzzle loader. I didn’t get a screen cap. Did you?

We have a domain name to go along with a logo.

A video news story.

I don’t know about that. I doubt I’d draw down on a couple of ninjas. I mean, they can like deflect bullets and disappear in a cloud of smoke and stuff.

Update: So, is plural of ninja ninjas or ninjae? I mean, we settled the plural of dildo a bit back.

Update: They’re like sheep: plural of ninja is ninja. Thanks to thibby in comments.

Well, not really:

A Milwaukee County judge found the concealed-weapon prosecution of a pizza driver who shot two would-be robbers in seven months unconstitutional Monday.

The ruling by Circuit Judge Daniel A. Noonan means Andres Vegas won’t face criminal charges in the non-fatal shootings. Prosecutors had filed a misdemeanor count of carrying a concealed weapon after the second shooting, in January, and said Vegas had been warned after a July 2006 shooting not to carry a concealed gun while driving for his job.

However, Noonan agreed with defense attorneys’ contention that Vegas needed the gun to protect himself in his chosen work, citing state Supreme Court decisions that found justified exceptions to the state’s concealed-carry ban.

Les notes: Before anyone jumps to any conclusions, I don’t think this means you’re free to CCW without a license anywhere.

Well, Wisconsin doesn’t issue carry permits. The laws have made it to the governor twice and been vetoed. It will pass some day.

David notes: The court applies the new state constitutional amendment on arms, the Wisconsin caselaw construing it, which essentially requires for concealed carry that the individual’s need to carry outweigh the state’s interest in enforcing CCW bans, and that the situation be such that open carry wasn’t a feasible way to exercise the right to arms.

Seems NRA has no history of endorsing primary candidates (ed note: the NRA’s very first endorsement for president was Reagan). And some folks want that changed:

What I would do in NRAs case would be a targeted mailing in certain states stating Fred Thompson and Bill Richardson are the prefered candidates in each party’s primary. No need to make up separate mailers, just list both guys on a single postcard to keep costs down. I wouldn’t give anyone an endorsement until after the primary.

Sebastian says:

I would consider only half of that. I think it could be smart for NRA to become involved in the Democratic primary, because Bill Richardson has been a real friend to gun owners in the past, and all the other serious contenders are absolutely no friends of ours. If you can give Bill enough of a boost to where he’s a serious threat to the other two candidates, you force Hillary and Obama to spend more money defeating their primary opponents. It also will hold the Republican candidates feet to the fire, with the prospects a pro-gun democrat winning the endorsement in the general election. It wouldn’t make much sense, in my opinion, to get involved if Richardson is a lost cause.

There’s also the additional benefit of helping candidates who are pro-gun getting there to begin with as opposed to, as in recent years, pick the least worse of two options.

Right to arms in DC’s constitution? Who knew? No on in DC, apparently.

Seems the court has denied the motion to end the stay that’s enforcing DC’s storage laws for long guns. More here. And the order is here.

The SAF notes:

A federal district court in Georgia has denied a request by attorneys for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to transfer a lawsuit filed against the mayor and others by Adventure Outdoors, a Georgia retailer, to a federal court in New York State.

[…]

In a move that surprised the defendants, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia denied their attempts to have the case either moved, or dismissed. The lawsuit against Bloomberg and his co-defendants involves allegations of libel, slander and tortuous interference with business relations.

Well, and breaking gun laws.

Sebastian:

There’s virtually no argument they use that they haven’t used before. It’s like playing Whack-a-Mole. The mole keeps popping up, and you keep whacking it. The game itself is nearly pointless, but if you stop whacking, you lose.

Kevin wonders why folks like Laura Washington want gun laws aimed at us white men from suburban and rural areas when overwhelmingly the victims and perpetrators of murder are, err, not white men from suburban and rural areas.

In other news, Uncleisms?

Seems cops want breaks on traffic tickets. Now, honestly, who hasn’t had a ticket fixed. Reminds me of a story (and this is all relayed to me secondhand from a guy who worked there in college). In my hometown, there was this pizza joint. They also delivered. Like most restaurants in the small town the police got their meals free. The restaurant folks liked the police presence so it was beneficial to both. Of course, the unwritten rule was also that if they give the police free meals then the police would tend to look the other way if one of their delivery drivers were speeding. Well, one day a driver got a ticket. A few police came in and were surprised to be charged for their meal. The ticket went away. Go figure.

Seems some self-professed denizen of liberal, hippy land got her panties in a tight little bunch over some kid playing with a toy gun:

Or maybe you all go together to a child psychologist and learn that carrying a gun around, in a crowd of people in the heart of Palo Alto, California is NOT appropriate, at any age. And just maybe, you might take this a little more seriously. Cause Parents of this kid, I was not the only one staring at (and judging) you and your kid. I am just the only one blogging about it.

So, who needs the psychologist? The kid, who is likely playing with a toy that millions of other kids also have. Or the woman who overreacts seeing the child?

Heh.

I’m not entirely convinced he has seen that light but perusing the transcripts of his NRA speech, I’ll say this about him: He does get the Parker case right. Of course, I’ve said that before.

Seriously? Do they have a taste?

Two bloggers have agreed to slug it out. Pro-gun Kevin v. Anti-gun jhupp.

Update: I love this from comments at jhupp’s:

I don’t have any optimism about the possibility of real debate with the gun advocates, but I admire you for trying.

So, what kind of spices do you put on words when you’re about to eat them? I smell Reasoned Discourse^tm coming.

More: Linoge in comments:

He seems to be the only one worthy of the effort among the crowd. The other two have devolved to the point past ad hominem attacks and now they are just snickering amongst themselves at the stupid little pro-gun peons. Of course, they are probably banking on our stupidity for us to not notice that they did not even attempt to address… well… any of the points brought up.

Par for the course and why they’re a waste of time.

Ahab to Laura Washington:

The problem is that the entire anti-gun argument is based on emotion, and it doesn’t stand up. It took nothing more than three or four dedicated posters on the Brady blog to get them to disable comments, because they were tired of the blog being used to disseminate progun information. That’s not an “army”, it’s four guys with some free time.

So, Mary Winkler shot her hubby in the back and killed him. Yet, she gets a light sentence and can visit her kids. She’ll be on Oprah. Dr. Helen brings the snark: Kill Your Husband–Get a House and Car. Seems her community has given her a cheap house and a car.

Wow.

Again, wow.

Update: Really, wow. I mean, it’s almost enough to make me lose faith in people.

Laura Washington thinks that, since we’re winning, anti-gunners should get active on the internet since begging isn’t working. She says:

To defeat the gun lobby, gun-control activists need to get out of late-night local cable and embrace the Internet

They’ve tried. And they can’t stand the heat (google up reasoned discoursetm or search my archives). Laura, they try. And we keep knocking them down. You see, anti-gunners simply don’t have the base pro-gunners do. There are millions of us. And the million mom march, at last count, had about 24 people. And the anti-gunners simply cannot keep up when there is a forum for which we can refute their claims.

See, the Brady Campaign couldn’t stand the heat when people can refute their misleading claims. So, they just parrot. No comments, limited updates and yawn. And, of course, there was no better source for pro-gun information than the Brady Blog itself.

Bryan Miller went poof too. After four posts, no updates in over a month. And his condescending tone in comments there and his refusal to address rebuttals in a rational manner only reinforced the notion that he was in over his head.

Gonzo is a joke with no readers.

Robyn Ringler tried too. But she soon was frantically deleting comments that didn’t support her view and eventually shut them off because, like the others, she can’t hang.

See, when your entire viewpoint relies upon misleading people or, well, flat-out lying, you simply cannot have an audience point that out. Laura continues:

The People of the Gun are beating their drums on websites from Keepandbeararms.com in Washington State, to alphecca.com in Vermont. Every time a plea for gun restrictions surfaces on the Internet, the gun stalwarts furiously post hundreds of missives in homage to the Second Amendment.

Through organizing, the Internet, and plunking down plenty of cold hard cash, the gun lobby has proven it is ready for primetime. Meanwhile, its opponents are languishing in the wee-hours of late-night local cable.

And who plunked down cash? These are just websites set up by people and not a lobby. No one paid them. You’re just lying. Your side can’t say the same thing because the Joyce Foundation has bought and paid for the anti-gun side’s blogs to the tune of $60K$650K. Strangely, no one has to pay me or Jeff at Alphecca. Why, Laura, do you suppose that is? More:

After last spring’s massacre at Virginia Tech, ABC News polled adults nationwide and asked: “Do you favor or oppose stricter gun control laws in this country?” Sixty-one percent favored them, 36 percent were opposed and 3 percent were “unsure.”

But what about those polls last month? More:

That majority is represented by well-meaning citizen groups, like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and graying civil rights stalwarts like the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson and his Rainbow/PUSH. Their tactic is to organize anti-gun marches and rallies to push for stricter gun laws and penalties. But here’s a news flash: No one is listening.

Because gun control is what you do instead of something.

The majority’s collective voice is being ignored. The anti-gun movement must mount a strong response.

Now, I see the problem. You think you’re the majority. Well, sparky, you’re not. Period.

Gun control activists: start playing the other side’s game by embracing technology. Progressives: harness the Internet and aim it at Democratic and independent voters.

They’ve tried. And failed. Read above.

The NRA has built a juggernaut of a website that networks gun advocates from hither to yon. A modest investment and some digital ingenuity could pave the way for digital networks in black churches, sororities and other civic groups in black urban America to fight back.

I dunno about juggernaut. I mean, they’ve linked me before and I didn’t quite notice a huge uptick in traffic.

Fact is, we’re winning because the facts and reason are on our side. And we outnumber you. Whenever these folks get active on the internet, I’ll be there to send readers their way to address their misrepresentations. And if I don’t, someone else will. And we’re not bought and paid for by anybody. I know it’s convenient to think we are or to think there’s some conspiracy but there is not. We are many. We are passionate. We are right. We are active. And we are smarter.

We’ll be here to shut the next one down too. And I won’t be getting a fat check from the Evil Gun Lobby.

Update: Ayup: I wonder why gun control advocates presume that the pro-gun blogosphere is a big conspiracy bankrolled by the NRA, instead of what it really is, a true grassroots effort by smart people who are passionate about liberty.

Even more: You’re doing it wrong.

Still more: Bigoted much: On us being almost exclusively of white men from suburban and rural areas:

I think Bitter, Tam, Denise, ZendoDeb, and Squeaky would be interested to know that the “gun army” was made up exclusively of males. Pro-Gun Progressive, a resident of the Pigtown section of Baltimore, MD, might be surprised to find out that we’re exclusively suburban and rural. Kenn Blanchard might be surprised to learn we’re exclusively white. Jeff Soyer, who Washington’s article mentioned, is, in fact, a rural white male from Vermont, but he’s also a gay rural white male; not your stereotypical Bubba.

At least she’s right about our rapid response.

Send some thoughts and prayers Cam’s way.

The 2006 crime numbers are out. And they come with a warning:

These rough rankings provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state, or region. Consequently, they lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents.

I’m sure the VPC will do a Google study with it.

Speaking of the VPC, they paid Joe a visit.

Bane has one.

Tom King is right. Our target audience is soccer moms. Not pants-shitting idiots who threaten violence against people who don’t agree with them. The latter group is a lost cause as evidenced by the sheer vitriol and the inability to form cohesive arguments.

Arrest made in Johnia Berry case.

In other news, blogs scooped the local paper. Les, by the way, has been covering the case for a while and help set up a johniaberry.org.