Blog later.

Usually, we hear of UT football players getting special treatment. Today, we learn they get harsher penalties for violating school weapons policies:

The new, zero tolerance policy says if a student-athlete is in possession of a weapon, he or she faces automatic dismissal.

The athletics department’s policy is more strict than the university policy for all students, which simply says, “Possession of a weapon is not allowed on campus or at university sponsored events.”

A lot of pro gun victories in VA yesterday. Guns in restaurants, locked in glove box with no permit, firearms freedom act. And more. And removing gun rationing of one gun per month passes the house.

A press release:

As you may be aware, we have been engaged in an ongoing dispute with the ATF for the past two years. While Cavalry Arms has at all times tried its best to run a lawful and honest shop, unfortunately, some regulatory compliance mistakes were made. We have now come to the point where we feel it is in our best interest to close our FFL and to cease all firearms operations. The owner of Cavalry Arms, Shawn Nealon, has elected to leave the firearms business and concentrate on firearms accessories instead. We are currently in negotiations with another company for that company to purchase the CAV-15 product line. Rest assured that any resulting purchase agreement will address the issue of providing service and support with regard to existing CAV-15 firearm products. We will continue to manufacture quality plastic components, grow our Medical products line, and work to bring new innovations to the relevant markets. Over the next several weeks we will be conducting a wind-down of our firearms manufacturing and FFL operations. Accordingly, please do not send us any firearms for repair or replacement. Instead, such issues should be addressed to the ultimate purchaser of our assets. Due to our limited personnel resources, during this transition/operation wind-down period, the final processing and shipping of firearm receivers already in our inventory will be our first priority.

That sucks. I have a couple of rifles built using their components.

IIRC, this came about because they had some off-site work done.

The cop who got on facebook and advocated shooting open carry activists is now national news:

Gun rights advocates have a California police detective in their crosshairs after he apparently posted comments on Facebook advocating that “open carry” supporters should be shot.

Gun bills in TN House Criminal Practices and Procedures Subcommittee. Via WPC. Some are already calling it the Year of the Gun part 2.

One suggestion

Nicholas Kristof:

Researchers have found, for example, that some humans are particularly alert to threats, particularly primed to feel vulnerable and perceive danger. Those people are more likely to be conservatives.

One experiment used electrodes to measure the startle blink reflex, the way we flinch and blink when startled by a possible danger. A flash of noise was unexpectedly broadcast into the research subjects’ earphones, and the response was measured.

The researchers, led by Kevin B. Smith of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, found that those who had a stronger blink reflex at the noise were more likely to take such conservative positions as favoring gun rights, supporting warrantless searches, and opposing foreign aid.

That makes intuitive sense: If you are more acutely sensitive to risks and more fearful of attack, you also may be more aggressive in arming yourself and more wary of foreigners.

An interesting spin, that conservative sorts were vulnerable, fearful, etc. I would think that they were just more observant and reacted to their surroundings more adeptly.

Or I could have some fun and spin it in the following Kristofian manner. Clearly, liberals are incapable of observing reality appropriately, hence their lollipop and rainbow solutions to things. It makes intuitive sense that if you’re proposing pie in the sky solutions to everything, you have no understanding of your basic surroundings and how the world works.

Boston Herald on the AL shooter:

A family source said Bishop, a mother of four children – the youngest a third-grade boy – was a far-left political extremist who was “obsessed” with President Obama to the point of being off-putting.

Phelps:

That’s a relief. If she had been a far right political extremist who was “obsessed” with President Obama we would never hear the end of it.

Video showing using lasers to track and kill mosquitoes.

Do not leave it on the roof of your car.

American Rifleman names Barrett Rifle of the Year. Other choices at the link too. And a bit on the SCAR.

The recent climategate shenanigans have been compared to a few second amendment related items. Glenn Reynolds compares it to the Bellisiles fraud:

Bellesiles eventually lost his job at Emory (and his Bancroft Prize) over the fraud, but not until his critics had been called political hacks, McCarthyites, and worse. But what’s amazing, especially in retrospect, is how slow his defenders — and the media — were to engage the critics, or to look at the flaws in the data. Instead, they wrapped themselves in claims of authority, and attacked the critics as anti-intellectual hacks interested only in politics. Are we seeing something similar with regard to ClimateGate?

Smitty calls me Brady-esque:

As a supporter of the 2nd amendment and a research scientist, I am really disappointed in the Brady-esque denial of the facts going on here. Many, many sources show a global upward trend in the Earth’s temperature. It is real.

Indeed. There is a trend of upward temperatures, though none in the last 15 years with some models. But that’s not the issue with climategate. The issue is that some of the science seems crafted to fit an agenda. Science isn’t supposed to have an agenda. And due to other issues with it, I remain skeptical.

You can get AAC’s newest catalog here.

With Mako’s kit. Warning, requires registering weapon as SBR.

Kenn Blanchard (aka Black Man With A Gun) is now blogging at DRTV.

Michael Bane on the Second Amendment March

Heh.

Hammerhead stock adapter

C-More M26 Modular Accessory Shotgun

Hart barrels. Those look very nice.

UltiMAK mount for Krinks

MRDS

Mentioned earlier a bill in MD:

Legislation introduced in both the state House and state Senate will require that gun owners have a special license to purchase handguns, and will mark their status as a license holder with a “scarlet G for gun owner” on their existing drivers license.

I noted I couldn’t find the language in the bill. The bill must have changed as Freddy notes in comments:

A regulated firearms dealer or person may only sell or transfer a handgun to another person if the purchaser or transferee presents to the seller or transferror a valid Maryland driver’s license with an approved handgun purchase designation or photographic identification card with an approved handgun purchase designation issued to the purchaser or transferee by the Motor Vehicle Administration.

I’ve searched the bills online and can’t find that language.

So says the Gothamist. The NY Daily news quotes:

“The city has never broken the law, but we have caught unscrupulous gun dealers selling in violation of federal law,” Post said.

No. Since the original stings had to be illegal if illegal sales occurred. The second stings involved no law-breaking since they didn’t complete a purchase. Seems they lost their gumption after the first round of criticism. But, yes, you either broke the law or lied about it.

New soldier’s prayer: Dear Lord, please let me get through this checklist before the jihadi shoots my ass

And, really, who picks a fight at WalMart?

Update: A comment:

Want to know the funny thing about this story? Mr. Dunkelberger actually said to Mr. Dresseler when drawing his gun ‘don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.’ The not so funny thing is that the man he was protecting was my father. I am forever thankful to Mr. Dunkelberger for stepping up and potentially saving my dad’s life. The aggressor Mr. Dressler posted $20,000 BAIL within a few hours. Any guesses on what he does for a living? I have a few of my own… Must’ve felt like a big man being 26 picking on a 56 year old man. Lesson learned though- our entire family will have our gun carry permits ASAP!

Mr. Completely tells us that Cheaper Than Dirt is now putting up prizes for the E-Postal Matches:

Cheaper Than Dirt has generously donated a $50 gift certificate to each month’s e-Postal match, to be awarded by random drawing to one of that month’s entrants.

Nice.

Regarding my criticism of the Tea Party:

a post like that is almost always written by a conservative blogger looking to gain approval from his leftist buddies. In fact, he probably heard a similar statement from some so called moderate pundit on TV

A few things, when have I ever done anything on this blog to gain approval from anyone? In fact and probably don’t go together. And I watch absolutely zero television pundits. But to the meat of the criticism:

The whole premise of Say Uncle’s post is BS though. Uncle knows damn well that most of these people were raising holy hell when Bush and the Republicans were running up debt.

But they weren’t taking to the streets and organizing, now were they? Which leads me to believe they could stop doing that when someone with an R after their name is in charge.

Update: In comments, I am reminded of Porkbusters. So, there was definitely some protest activity.

Have a cup of joe with Joe:

As I forwarded from Mike yesterday we need to have a Starbucks Appreciation day. In some back channel communication with other gun bloggers and friends in the gun rights community (Ashley V. suggested some wording for me to use) no one had any objection to Mike’s suggestion. Therefore I would like to announce that one week from today on Sunday February 21 gun owners should have a Starbucks Appreciation Day.

I’ll be having some Starbuck’s Sunday.

By all accounts, an odd tale. This woman had apparently killed her brother and some local politico dropped the issue. She may have been involved in an attempted mail bombing. All around, seems to be a first class crazy.

A couple of other interesting things, she was supposedly a socialist. Not a big deal, really, except I imagine if she’d been right wing and not left wing, we’d be hearing all about right wing extremists in the press now.

Also unusual, she’s a woman. Not saying that women can’t be prone to violence but I don’t recall a mass shooting involving a woman shooter. But, then, quite a few shootings have gone against the stereotypical angry white male gets a case of the crazy.

Ambulance Driver weighs in.

Tactical pink pocket carry

In Britain, the test to become a subject err citizen has questions on how to stand in a line.

A pic and specs here. I see it comes with a 7.62 specific magazine, which is good. I’ve had 7.62 ARs before and they don’t feed that well. The only magazines I found that were reliable were the ugly Frankenmags. But they were hard to find and expensive. And they were ugly.

Also, a Bushy in 308.

Seen at ar15.com:

Just got back from the range. Took my Garand out for her maiden shoot. Damn, I am in love with that rifle. But that is not what this thread is about.

I noticed an old timer standing behind me watching me shoot. During one of the breaks in firing, he struck up a conversation about the old M1. Told me about the his time in Korea and how much he liked the M1. Believed that without the old Garand, we would have lost a lot more boys over there.

I offered to let him shoot my rifle. He seemed hesitant, but I think the thought of reacquainting with an old friend finally got the best of him. He said he’d take a couple shots. I handed him a full bandoleer and told him to shoot as much as he wanted.

The look in his eye after that first shot went off was worth more than the cost of ammo could ever be. It was like he had just lost 60 years and was a youngster again. He ended up shooting of all six clips.

When he finished, he handed me back my rifle with a tear in his eye. Told me that shooting the old M1 brought back a lot of memories, some good and some bad, but everyone of them worth holding on to.

Letting that old timer have that experience made my day.