An SKS with all the trimmings.

You guys know I like to play poker. But I don’t play any underground games and that’s because they keep getting robbed. I stick to the non-raked games at peoples’ houses and not full on gambling enterprises.

Also that Ed Miller notes the madness involved in NY:

In my opinion, NYC government has its head up its ass on this one. Not only are they wasting everyone’s time by “enforcing” the law in a way that annoys people but doesn’t actually change anything, they are creating a very dangerous environment for club management, players, and even those who live and work in the vicinity of the card clubs.

Jay Bush has returned to blogging.

Background here. She supports your right to own a gun so you can kill yourself with it:

There is so much that begs to be changed, in this society, why waste your valuable time and energy harassing a writer whose greatest crime is her naivete where human nature, and the viscera of the American gun culture, are concerned. You may keep your guns, with my pleasure, I can think of no better solution to the problem of overpopulation.

In a couple days she’ll be swearing up and down that she didn’t wish us dead.

SeattlePI:

America’s most powerful political lobby, the National Rifle Association, is having a torrid time: Nobody wants to fight with it and so far gun control is not an issue in the 2008 presidential election campaign.

From The Skinny on CBS News:

I love my AK-47! All responsible, freedom-loving American families should have one.

Well, I’m biased against the commie guns myself but still. NinthStage notes:

See, with this new internet media, they are listening to us. Pre-internet, no wireless media would acknowledge readers opinions like this, except maybe as a single “representative” “letter to the editor” one day a week. They are now paying attention which means we should keep doing the same.

The Journalist’s Guide to Gun Violence Coverage

Now, little clips. Seems ATF has no issue with people selling inert grenades. Unless you put the safety clip in them. Odd.

Good question. Also, makes me wonder why I have to go through background checks every time I buy a gun even though I have several and have a license to carry one.

After my fight with them, I find this ad sent in by a reader a bit, err, disturbing:

The new and improved Mr. Plinky:

Tapco stock (yea, I know, it’s Tapco but this stock has a real nice fit), Uncle Brand^tm Single Point Sling, BSA Red Dot ($29 at Wal-Mart – try as I might, I can’t justify putting a $400 optic on a $150 gun), and it has all the Davis Custom internals to give it a nicer trigger pull and improve reliability.

He used to look like this:

See, I will tacticool anything.

Via reader ELB, comes this:

Butler chased after the accused purse snatcher. who took off running and ended up asking a police officer for help.

“He displays a weapon and it scares the suspect,” said a deputy on the scene. “The suspect runs up the police car and saying, ‘Let me in. They are shooting at me’.”

For the record, I think it’s generally a bad idea to chase a robber like that. And, if you wind up shooting him, it’s also likely hard to defend in court.

Handguns 101, a bit on handgun carry permit classes:

The class qualifying Saturday was the largest yet with 27 members and more than one-third female.

And:

Women continue to make up a greater percentage of each class and most prove to be remarkably accurate marksmen.

8 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were registered to vote. Can we run NICS checks on voters? Nah, we can’t even ask them for ID.

Pro gun liberal Sebastian is in the news.

Seen at DCist:

We’re still mixed on what would be the better blessing for the District — for the court to grant their appeal or to just turn it down. On the one hand, if the justices voted to take the case, the District would at least have a chance to save its gun laws, but at the expense of a monster case that could well reshape the national debate on gun control. On the other, should the court choose not to hear it, the city will have to deal with the more immediate problem of re-writing their gun restrictions, but other urban areas won’t be forced to scrap their own gun regulations.

Longball or smallball, I don’t care. Either way, it’s likely a win.

Bill Richardson:

I resent some elites telling me my position on gun control is wrong, for example. It’s a cultural issue in New Mexico and the West, a respect for a way of life. Most gun owners are law-abiding. I’m not going to change my position. That’s where I may deviate from others in my party, too, the elites on the coasts. I have very common tastes.

Reader Shane sends a link to this piece on the truth about gun accidents. The only group smaller is poison by gas in terms of fatalities.

In an update to this, Here’s WBIR’s online piece with a map.

And here’s WKRN’s piece.

Tragic. I’ll miss that little guy.

He weeps for he has but one small tongue with which to taste an entire world.

So, I wonder if this guy was on the terror watchlist?

And then you need to put that fury to good use.

Read the whole thing. You’ll be glad you did.

I dunno about training but I’d recommend you keep your weapon in a holster with the trigger covered.

Seems that 44 people on the suspected terrorist watchlist were permitted to buy guns despite a NICS check. Of course, NICS doesn’t check the terror watch list so who cares? Anyway, even if you’re on a watchlist, you’re not convicted of a crime so due process and all that.

They keep using that term. I do not think it means what they think it means.

Or rather my county. Seems the federales are looking into police purchases of confiscated items taken by the drug task force. Now, I’m not in anyway assessing guilt or innocence here but am I the only one disturbed by the fact that the police can buy items that they’ve confiscated? I mean, one bad apple decides he likes your car? I think it’s bad policy.

And why the military won’t change easily. Someone tell HL.

S&W 39.

In an update to this, that’s what they get for buying American. They could have just left the country and ordered suppressors made in another country.

Our gun laws, at times, are inhibiting.

Locally, on WBIR, they’ll be covering handgun carry permit holders. And they have interesting stats here.

And, in Nashville, The Life of a Gun will air. They apparently had a gun show up in a murder that was sold once by the police. Also, they note the number of traces in Nashville. Well, a trace does not always indicate a crime has occurred and, often, doesn’t indicate a violent crime has occurred.