If it saves just one life ...

So goes the tired refrain from the gun banners. Here's a story of one college student who used a gun to save his own life and those of his ten friends:

A group of college students said they are lucky to be alive and they’re thanking the quick-thinking of one of their own. Police said a fellow student shot and killed one of two masked me who burst into an apartment.

Channel 2 Action News reporter Tom Jones met with one of the students to talk about the incident.

“Apparently, his intent was to rape and murder us all,” said student Charles Bailey.

Bailey said he thought it was the end of his life and the lives of the 10 people inside his apartment for a birthday party after two masked men with guns burst in through a patio door.

“They just came in and separated the men from the women and said, ‘Give me your wallets and cell phones,’” said George Williams of the College Park Police Department.

Bailey said the gunmen started counting bullets. “The other guy asked how many (bullets) he had. He said he had enough,” said Bailey.

That’s when one student grabbed a gun out of a backpack and shot at the invader who was watching the men. The gunman ran out of the apartment. ...

Article and video news report here. Incidents like this, where a would-be victim uses a gun to save innocent life, happen many times every day, all across the country. These stories typically get reported only at the local level. The national mainstream media rarely report such stories, as it doesn't fit their dishonest "guns are evil" civilian disarmament agenda.

Lawmakers raid Florida CCW permit funds

From NRA-ILA. If you have a Florida CCW, please read below:

Legislators Raid CCW Trust Fund - Try to Intimidate Governor

DATE: May 11, 2009
TO: USF & NRA Member and Friends
FROM: Marion P. Hammer
USF Executive Director
NRA Past President

In a last minute sneak attack on gun owners, the Florida Legislature raided the concealed weapons and firearms licensing trust fund. This not only effects resident CCW license holders, but non-resident Florida license holders as well!

They took $6 million from the Division of Licensing Concealed Weapons and Firearm Trust Fund that is intended, by law, to be used solely for administering the concealed weapons and firearms licensing program. (Read background information below)

Please Call, Fax, or Email Governor Charlie Crist IMMEDIATELY, and ask him to veto the $6 Million trust fund sweep from the Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services Division of Licensing authorized under Section 59 of the Conference Report of SB-2600.

Please send your email today!!!!!

And/or please contact the Governor's office by phone or fax ASAP.

Phone number: (850) 488-4441 or (850) 488-7146
Fax number: (850) 487-0801

Send your email to the Governor at this address: Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com

Read the rest here, including background information on the issue. If you have a Florida CCW, including those with non-resident Florida permits, please consider contacting Gov. Crist in regards to this bill.

Where are you in the movie?

Tonight's filmographic oddity, a website that projects where you would be in a chosen movie if the movie were stretched out over your expected lifespan.

From the site description:

If we started a movie on the day you were born, and stretched it over your lifespan, this is where you'd be in that movie. So if you're a teenager, you might see Luke arguing with Uncle Owen, or Cameron making a phony phone call to Ed Rooney. If you're a retiree, you might see the Marshmallow Man, or Toto pulling away the curtain. And if you're in your mid-thirties, you might be relieved to know that Ferris is still eating lunch, and the Millenium Falcon hasn't left Tatooine.

Go here to try it yourself: Where Are You in the Movie?

Tennessee lawmakers consider states rights gun law

From the Volunteer State:

Tennessee lawmakers may soon send the federal government a loud message[:] hands off our guns.

A new law is under consideration that would say if firearms are manufactured and sold inside the state of Tennessee, federal gun law would not apply.
...
Harris says gun owners are worried. They believe the Federal government may soon restrict certain weapons.

"But it's our way to make a statement to say this is Tennessee. These our are guns," says Rep. Henry Fincher, (D) Cookeville.

Now, lawmakers have proposed a new bill called the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act.

It basically exempts guns made and sold in Tennessee from federal regulation, because they never cross the state line.

"If these firearms are meant to be used just here in Tennessee, they're not properly regulated by the federal government because they are not in interstate commerce," says Rep. Fincher.

"Your state, and I suspect every state, will be rushing to try to do something to preserve the rights of their people," says Ronnie Barrett with Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Inc.
...
"And this is a great move to say that the state has rights, and the first thing they're going for is to protect their firearms," says Barrett.

Similar legislation is pending in several other states. Montana[']s Governor has even signed a like minded-law. ...

Article here. Alaska's House recently passed a similar bill (see my post here). And Montana's governor has signed that state's bill into law (see here). Hopefully, we'll get more and more states passing similar legislation, to reassert their sovereignty over an increasingly out of control, power hungry federal government.

Senator blasts corporate exec on extravagant spending

Today's pot-calling-the-kettle-black commercial spoof:

Gun Rights News Roundup

Articles, news stories, and op-eds of interest to gun owners:

[Michigan] Ammo supplies running short:

The fear of a Democratic Party agenda in Washington has triggered a shortage of ammunition, a gun group said.

"Many of the lawmakers in power right now have a long history of supporting legislation that violates the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans," said Ted Novin, the director of public affairs at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, The Detroit News reported Friday.

"Gun owners recognize this and are reacting accordingly," Novin said, referring to a run on ammunition that has caused shortages in 9 mm and .22 caliber rounds, the News said.

Several Michigan stores are rationing sales, the newspaper said.

U.S. manufacturers produce about 8 billion rounds of ammunition a year, the foundation said. Winchester Ammunition, on a company Web site, says, "our team is literally working around the clock to make quality ammunition available for purchase." ...

[Ohio] Concealed carry permit applications continue to rise:

In conjunction with the record pace of firearms sales, issuance of concealed handgun licenses in Ohio is also increasing.

For example, the Fairfield County Sheriff's Office is reporting that "the county is well on its way to surpassing the number issued in 2004 - the first year the county issued permits."

This increase is attributed to a number of factors.

Sheriff's Office officials chalk up the increase to several factors. They say people fear a backlash from rising unemployment rates and an increase in crime, such as burglaries, robberies and breaking and entering incidents. Others, such as Tom Parrish, feel their Second Amendment rights are on the line.

Parrish said his decision to get his concealed-carry permit came just months after President Barack Obama took office.

We've already talked about the increase in gun ownership, but this trend shows that not only are concerned citizens purchasing firearms for self defense, but they are carrying them as well. The Ohio attorney general reports that nearly 150,000 CHLs have been issued since the law's inception over five years ago, which means more than 1 out of every 100 Ohioans has a license. A side note that has always amused me is that Canada's military has 65,890 active personnel. So, Ohio CHL holders outnumber them more than two to one! ...

[Illinois] Illinois Carry says NRA lobbied against "shall issue" carry bill:

... A little background first. For the past decade and a half license-to-carry bills introduced in the IL General Assembly have become routine and hold little to no expectation of passing due to opposition from the Chicago/Cook Co. legislators. That opposition means every year the same old bills calling for statewide preemption which would force the carry law into Chicago guarantees the bill is dead on arrival. A bill or two may make the headlines but never to the floor for a vote largely due to the opposition of Mayor Daley and Cook County legislators. The likelihood of a statewide preemption bill being passed is greatly reduced by the fact that bills preempting home rule status require 71 votes for passage rather than a simple majority of 60. Double or triple that reduction by the fact that in Chicago it is illegal to even own a handgun let alone carry one for self-defense purposes. We find it somewhat ludicrous to even consider a statewide preemptive bill passing in the state of Illinois given those circumstances.

Other states like Ohio and Nebraska faced years of major opposition like this. They finally won their battle by passing a carry law which we in Illinois would call "subject to home rule". An imperfect bill that allowed major cities to opt out but did provide a means for license-to-carry to get a foothold in the state. Pro-Second Amendment groups in Ohio were then able to prove carrying firearms for self-defense works and they came back in just a few short years and successfully expanded the law to include everyone. Nebraska, just two short years after passing their license-to-carry bill now has statewide preemption according to their state's Attorney General and are now working to amend their law.
...
HB2257 started off with good promise, the sponsor reported he felt sure he could garner the 60 votes needed to pass it out of the House. So it came as a huge shock and disappointment to learn from legislators that the NRA was actually lobbying against it.

When contacted by lllinoisCarry the NRA-ILA lobbyist confirmed the NRA-ILA was indeed lobbying against the bill and vowed to kill it. The reason given for the opposition was that the bill did not include statewide preemption, that it would create a patchwork of ordinances all across the state which could be detrimental to license holders, and it would ultimately be vetoed by Gov. Quinn and still need 71 votes for a veto override. Therefore we should continue to wait and work toward a change in the political makeup of the IL legislature. ...

Comment: To quote Voltaire, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."


[Arizona] House passes guns in parking lots bill:

PHOENIX -- The state House voted Thursday to elevate the right of people to carry guns in their vehicles over the right of property owners to keep those weapons out of their parking lot.

On a voice vote, lawmakers gave preliminary approval to legislation which says individuals can have loaded weapons in their vehicles even if an employer, a private business, a day care center or an apartment complex don't want them there. The only exceptions would be for the owners or renters of single-family detached homes or for businesses willing to fence their properties, search every vehicle coming in and providing a place for gun owners to check their weapons.

Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, who is carrying HB 2474 for the National Rifle Association, acknowledged the measure could be construed as infringing on the rights of property owners.

But Kavanagh said that is trumped by the Second Amendment right of people to bear arms to protect themselves.

"The Bill of Rights, and in fact, many other laws, do not stop at the private property line," he said. Kavanagh said this wouldn't be the first time that private property rights have to fall to more important rights.

"The owner of a private business can't say, 'I don't like blacks,' therefore the Civil Rights Act doesn't apply in my business," he said. "No blacks can come in." ...

[Arkansas] Group say park gun ban is illegal:

Arkansas Carry has contacted Sebastian County Judge David Hudson, asking him and the Sebastian County Quorum Court to repeal a county rule that bans firearms at Ben Geren Park, according to information provided by Arkansas Carry Vice Chairman Steve Jones.

The Sebastian Code rule reads: “It shall be unlawful for any person to introduce or otherwise bring into the Ben Geren Regional Park any firearm or to have within his or her possession a firearm while within the Ben Geren Regional Park unless the person has been given express permission to do so by the administration of the Ben Geren Regional Park.”

Officials with Arkansas Carry, which labels itself a “staunch ally of gun owners and the Second Amendment,” believe Arkansas law prevents local governments from enacting gun control legislation. ...

[Tennessee] House passes restaurant carry bill:

The House voted Thursday to allow Tennessee handgun carry permit holders to bring their weapons into any establishment that serves alcohol.

The chamber voted 66-23 to approve the bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Curry Todd of Collierville, a retired police officer.

The measure abandons earlier efforts to impose an 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew for carrying handguns where alcohol is served and to keep a total ban on establishments that enforce age-restricted entry.
...
The Senate would have to agree with the House version before it can head for Gov. Phil Bredesen's consideration, but it appears likely to pass since the agreement largely reflects the measure originally approved on a 26-7 vote last month.

The Democratic governor has not said whether he would sign it into law.

The bill would take effect June 1. The measure would leave unchanged an existing ban on consuming alcohol while carrying a handgun, and restaurant owners would still be able to ban weapons from being carried in their establishments.

Comment: Hopefully, the Senate will concur and Gov. Bredesen will sign the bill. We see more and more states (see next story below) removing these silly "gun free zone" restrictions (which only apply to the law-abiding) as the anti-gunners' "blood will run in streets / bars / churches / etc." argument is proven false time and again, and evidence continues to show that permit holders are the most law-abiding group of citizens in the nation.


[Arizona] Guns in parking lots, restaurant carry bill passes House:

The National Rifle Association will bring more than 50,000 visitors to downtown Phoenix for its national convention later this week, but the group's presence has already been felt at the state Capitol.

If the NRA gets its wish, registered gun owners in Arizona will be able to keep weapons locked in their cars outside of a business, regardless of the business' policy on weapons in the workplace; they'll also be allowed to bring guns into certain restaurants that serve alcohol.

The guns-in-cars legislation, House Bill 2474, moved out of the House on Thursday and its sponsor, Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, expects it to pass through the Senate. ...

[Germany] No more paintball for germans?:

The German government is planning to ban paintball and laser shooting games in reaction to the recent school massacre in which 15 people died.

Under legislation agreed by the ruling coalition of the chancellor, Angela ­Merkel, using air rifles to shoot paint-filled pellets at opponents is likely to be made illegal, and would be punishable with fines of up to €5,000 (£4,480).

The decision, which is expected to be fast-tracked through the Bundestag before the summer recess, comes two months after 17-year-old Tim Kretschmar shot dead 15 people at his former school in Winnenden, south-west Germany, with a weapon he had taken from his father's bedroom. Kretschmar's love of paintball as well as violent video and computer games was widely publicised. ...

[Massachusetts] Gun, ammo sales booming:

The firearms industry appears to be riding out the recession in fine form, with sales across the country flourishing. And the enthusiasm for purchasing such weaponry has spread to communities south of Boston, according to area gun dealers.

Firearms of all types are in demand as well as the ammunition to feed them. Customers run the gamut from the seasoned hunter and skilled marksman to the novice. Training classes for new gun owners are not only full but booked months into the future.

Eric Goldman, president of the Braintree Pistol & Rifle Club's executive board, said training class enrollment has gone up dramatically over the last several months.

"Classes are required of all new owners," Goldman said. "It teaches safe gun handling. We offer new members' classes once a month, and used to have from 30 to 35 people take them. Right now, our classes are 70 to 75." ...

[Pennsylvania] Gun, ammo sales booming:

Fueled by rumors that the Obama administration will ban assault weapons and heavily tax ammunition, gun enthusiasts are stocking up.

Handguns, semiautomatic weapons, and all types of ammunition are flying off store shelves, despite the recession.

The FBI reports a 27 percent increase in background checks for guns purchased by federally licensed dealers for the first three months of this year compared with the same period in 2008.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry trade association, notes on its Web site that manufacturers are working at "full capacity (24/7)" to keep up with the "unprecedented" demand for ammunition.

James Mastroddi, director of the Philadelphia Archery and Gun Club in South Philadelphia, said the furor was probably being caused by the "Obama factor." ...

Op-ed: arm sailors against pirates:

Somali pirates attacked a U.S. vessel and captured a Dutch ship on Thursday. These raids could be prevented if merchant mariners had guns and could defend their ships.

Richard Phillips, the heroic captain of the crew that fought off pirates on the Maersk Alabama a month ago, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee April 30 that armed crews "should be part of the overall debate about how to defend ourselves against criminals on the seas."

Capt. Phillips noted that protecting U.S.-flagged ships is the "responsibility of the U.S. government," but that he understands the limits of what even the U.S. Navy can do to protect all the commercial traffic spread across vast oceans. Just as police arrive on the scene after crimes on land have occurred, the Navy cannot be everywhere all the time. More than 25,000 ships travel off the Horn of Africa every year. That's a target-rich environment.
...
There are several legal obstacles to arming ship crews. Some naysayers worry that if crews were armed, things could somehow go wrong and that violence with pirates would escalate. But as the widespread ownership of guns on land has proven, alarm over gun possession is based on conjecture with no evidence to back it up. States that have passed laws permitting concealed handguns have experienced less violence, not more.

Liability concerns of some shipping companies are similarly unfounded, as commercial aviation has shown. U.S. pilots were allowed to carry guns until as recently as 1987. No training was required, and yet there were no accidental gunshots or incidents of pilots harming others. After the program to allow armed pilots was renewed in 2003, there has been only one accidental shot and no one was harmed. ...

[New York] Assembly passes more gun controls, bills move to Democrat-controlled Senate:

MAYVILLE - The state Senate's new Democratic majority could soon pave the way for tighter restrictions on gun ownership.

Under measures adopted last month by the state Assembly, gun owners would have to renew their permits every five years and undergo background checks if they buy guns from pawnshops. They also would have to give up their 50-caliber weapons, including the 12-gauge shotgun. [emphasis added]

If passed by the state Senate and signed by Gov. David Paterson, the laws would also require all semiautomatic pistols to be capable of stamping spent ammo casings so they can be identified and matched with the firearm, and new restrictions will be imposed on merchants to make it harder for criminals to purchase weapons.

Frequent attempts by the Democratic-controlled Assembly at passing such measures failed in the Republican-controlled state Senate in recent years. Now that the Senate is controlled by Democrats, though, those laws might be easier for Democrats to pass. ...

Comment: I urge my New York readers to get involved and contact your elected servants regarding these proposed gun controls.

New York anti-gun RINO seeks more infringements

From World Net Daily:

A new gun law being considered in Congress, if aligned with Department of Homeland Security memos labeling everyday Americans as potential "threats," could potentially deny firearms to pro-lifers, gun-rights advocates, tax protesters, animal rights activists, and a host of others – any already on the expansive DHS watch list for potential "extremism."

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., has sponsored H.R. 2159, the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009, which permits the attorney general to deny transfer of a firearm to any "known or suspected dangerous terrorist." The bill requires only that the potential firearm transferee is "appropriately suspected" of preparing for a terrorist act and that the attorney general "has a reasonable belief" that the gun might be used in connection with terrorism. [emphasis added]

Gun rights advocates, however, object to the bill's language, arguing that it enables the federal government to suspend a person's Second Amendment rights without any trial or legal proof and only upon suspicion of being "dangerous."

"[Rep. King] would deny citizens their civil liberties based on no due process," objected Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America. "A 'known terrorist?' Look, if the guy has committed an act of terrorism, we shouldn't have to worry about him being able to buy a gun; he should be in jail!"

Pratt further warned WND of the potential overlap of H.R. 2159 and a recent DHS memo that warned against potential violence from "right-wing extremists," such as those concerned about illegal immigration, increasing federal power, restrictions on firearms, abortion and the loss of U.S. sovereignty.

"By those standards, I'm one of [DHS Secretary] Janet Napolitano's terrorists," Pratt said. "This bill would enable the attorney general to put all of the people who voted against Obama on no-gun lists, because according to the DHS, they're all potential terrorists. Actually, we could rename this bill the Janet Napolitano Frenzied Fantasy Implementation Act of 2009."

Pratt's biggest concern, however, is the sidestepping of the Constitution and due process that the nebulous language of this bill could permit.

"Unbeknownst to us, some bureaucrat in the bowels of democracy can put your name on a list, and your Second Amendment rights are toast," Pratt told WND. "This is such an anti-American bill, this is something King George III would have done." ...

Article here. Another attempt to deprive citizens of a fundamental, and constitutionally-protected, human right, based upon nothing more than mere suspicion, and without due process of law.

GOA: Pennsylvania GOP courting gun banning Republican to run for Senate

From Gunowners of America:

Some Republicans still don't understand why mainstream America is so upset with their Party.

Now that Sen. Arlen Specter has defected to the Democrat Party, many prominent Republicans are openly recruiting liberal Republicans to run against Specter.

And at the top of their list is Tom Ridge.

Ridge is the turncoat Republican whose vote was crucial in passing the semi-auto ban in 1994.

After having opposed a similar ban in 1991, then-Rep. Tom Ridge flip-flopped and teamed up with Charles Schumer (D-NY) to pass the semi-auto gun and magazine ban. The gun ban passed narrowly, 216 to 214, thanks to Tom Ridge.

Later, as Governor of Pennsylvania, Ridge signed one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the State's history -- the infamous Act 17 which registered and taxed long gun buyers and placed other restrictions on Keystone State gun owners. [emphasis added]

As the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge opposed arming pilots. He asked, sarcastically, if pilots carry guns, then should we also arm railroad engineers and bus drivers? As DHS Director, Ridge should have led the charge to arm pilots and people in other positions that fell under the agency's purview.

Instead, he just repeated the same tired old anti-gun line that we hear every time a state passes a concealed carry handgun law.

Guess who else opposed the armed pilots program? Pennsylvania's "Benedict" Arlen Specter, who was one of only two Republican Senators to vote against the bill.

The last thing we need is another elitist in Congress who does not trust law-abiding citizens with firearms. And yet, wishy-washy Republican Senators like Utah's Orrin Hatch and South Carolina's Lindsey Graham are touting Ridge over Specter. In other words, let's replace one turncoat with another.

There is a better option. His name is Pat Toomey, a Gun Owners of America "A" rated pro-gunner who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for three terms, before honoring a self-imposed term limit and retiring in 2004. ...

Article here. Pennsylvania gun owners better let the GOP leadership know they won't stand for another anti-gun Republican-In-Name-Only senator.

Skill

Tonight's bicycle handling skills - Inspired Bicycles team rider Danny MacAskill:



Impressive!

Appellate briefs for Chicago gun ban case

The appellate briefs, including the amicus briefs, for the Chicago gun ban case are available here.

As an aside, the law enforcement amici in support of the plaintiffs (and against the gun ban) include the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA) and the Law Enforcement Alliance of America, both groups that supported the pro-individual rights side in the Supreme Court's D.C. v. Heller decision last year. ILEETA is one of the "Big Two" of law enforcement training organizations (the other is IALEFI), and LEAA has long supported citizens Second Amendment rights. It's good to see law enforcement groups stand up for the constitutionally-protected rights of ordinary citizens.

Ed Nowicki, the guy who runs ILEETA is a retired Chicago cop, and a stand up guy, so I'm not surprised he supported the (pro-gun rights) plaintiffs in this case. The law enforcement groups' amicus brief was written by noted Second Amendment attorney Dave Kopel, who also wrote one of the amicus briefs in support of the pro-individual rights side in Heller.

Gun Rights News Roundup

Articles, news stories, and op-eds of interest to gun owners:

[West Virginia] Ammo sales booming:

PRINCETON — An increasing demand for ammunition has led to its increasing scarcity on retailers’ shelves in both Virginias and across the nation.

In the past, hunters and other gun owners usually purchased a few boxes of ammunition at a time, but now they buy whole cases at a time when merchandise is available.

Concerns among gun owners that the new president’s administration will alter gun laws or increase taxes on ammunition sales is sending consumers to retailers. Some are looking for a new firearm, too.

“It isn’t necessarily because they (gun owners) are afraid of the government putting taxes on it. It’s because of the president we elected,” said Marlin Douglas of Douglas Sporting Goods in Princeton. “Right now, I can’t buy a small handgun from any of my suppliers because they’re totally out. It’s due to the fact of electing a president who has been a strong advocate to get rid of guns.”

The public has responded by purchasing more firearms; even people who did not own a gun are buying one, Douglas said. Demand for bullets of all calibers and shotgun shells has increased. ...

Karen De Coster says: Women, stop watching Oprah and learn to love guns:

... Women never cease to amaze me. The majority of them are still "afraid" of guns. Afraid, as in "oohhhh, they are so scary." They say things like "I don’t like them around" and "they’re dangerous." I know of women who have defense-minded, pro-gun husbands and they will not let their guy talk about those nasty things in their presence. Shhh, the children will hear, or, they might actually see an evil gun! Keep them locked away. Don’t tell the neighbors you have a gun in our house, or we’ll be outcasts. And in the background you can almost hear another feeble Oprah sermon keeping women stupid, but oh, they feel good about themselves and their newfound self-esteem.

All the time, women are shocked, shocked! to hear that I have a gun, and worse, I have several guns. And then, oh no, I actually carry one with me. That’s so odd, they think. Oh she’s different. Why more than one gun? She must be the aggressive type. After all, the Oprah way is to trust everyone and insist that all people have good intentions always.

Although I tend to think that most women don’t make sense, period, I especially believe this concerning the gun issue. It’s not only difficult to get women to come around to wanting a gun of their own, but they still can’t get to the point where they will understand and accept why others want to own them. ...

[Nebraska] High court says Sheriff wrongly denied man gun permit:

LINCOLN — An Omaha man who once expressed homicidal and suicidal thoughts was wrongly denied a state handgun buyer’s permit by the Douglas County sheriff, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled Friday.

Joseph D. Gallegos had never been "committed" to a mental institution under the definition of the 1968 federal gun law, according to the court’s unanimous opinion.

He should not, therefore, have been denied a handgun permit in 2007, the court said. ...

[Colorado] Op-ed in favor of campus carry:

... Regents, it's time to realize that just because you may doesn't mean you should. Ask yourselves a few questions and open your minds to honest conclusions: Will a person who doesn't respect laws against rape, murder and other violence obey your gun rule?

Will a suicidal maniac with plans for murder, like the Virginia Tech psycho, opt for peace because you say "no guns"?

Gun bans have no effect whatsoever on the behavior of violent criminals. Those who obey them are the kind of people who brought this lawsuit. They are people like plaintiff John Davis, a University of Colorado-Colorado Springs senior who spent 12 years in the military and serves as a sergeant in the Army Reserves. Davis will obey your gun ban each time he steps foot on campus. If he ever hears shots ring out or sees students screaming and running, he won't be able to use his weapon and skills to save lives and bring peace. He will be hobbled by your rule. Davis won't be able to use what Miller said "any right-thinking person" must acknowledge as a legitimate hedge against crime.

Instead, Davis and others licensed to carry guns will run for cover and wait for police. As sirens wail in the background, the killer will kill and kill and kill. You and your policy will be at fault.

The Virginia Tech maniac had two hours to kill on a massive campus. Nobody could stop him because of the gun ban. The ban was more helpful to the lunatic than his own guns.

Protected by the ban, he could have killed at leisure with hammer or a knife. ...

[D.C.] Dept. of Justice report says FBI terror watch list "flawed":

Nearly eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI's terrorist watch list is so flawed that at least 10 people who should have been kept out of the United States were allowed to cross its borders, an internal audit released Wednesday shows.

Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn A. Fine concluded that the bureau also was slow to remove names that should not have been on the list, leading to outcries from civil libertarians who have long been critical.

The list also audited more than 65,000 names and concluded that more than one-third were outdated. The whole list includes 1.1 million names, though aliases and variant spellings mean these represent fewer people.

"That the FBI continues to fail to place subjects of terrorism investigations on the watch list is unacceptable," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which has oversight of the FBI.

"Disturbingly, today's report reveals that in 72 percent of the cases, the FBI has also failed to remove subjects from the list in a timely manner. ... Given the very real and negative consequences to which people on the watch list are subjected, this is unacceptable." [emphasis added] ...

Comment: Remember, this is the same list the anti-gunners want to use to deny Americans the right to purchase or possess guns.


Columnist explains why liberals should get guns:

What is a life worth? We often hear about the thousands of people every year who kill themselves with guns, the thousands more who kill others with guns and the hundreds of lethal accidents that happen in a year with a gun. The anti-gun crowd wring their hands over this carnage and begs America to disarm. They believe that if we could get rid of guns, all these deaths could be avoided. This is wishful thinking and bad logic.

Estimates I have found for the worth of a human life range from $1 million to over 7 million, depending on who is doing the figuring. They factor in lost earnings, medical costs, and legal costs. Using punitive and "pain and suffering" awards from juries in civil cases, they try to calculate a cost for the intangibles such as the anguish of the bereaved family. Violent crimes not resulting in death introduce the pain and time of healing and physical therapy, and the permanent damage to the victims spirit and mind. Whatever amount you agree with, in America we value life, and seek to avoid people getting killed needlessly. Getting rid of guns among law abiding citizens will cause more, not less death and violence.

1. Removing guns from the hands of law abiding citizens does not remove them from the hands of criminals. As has been abundantly proven with drugs in America, we cannot stop the flow of anything illegal if there is enough demand for it. Criminals prefer guns as the tool of choice for their profession. ...

[Wyoming] State's congressional delegation supports National Parks carry bill:

U.S. Sens. Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, R-Wyo., have added their names as co-sponsors of a bill that would allow individuals to carry concealed weapons into national parks.

The legislation, called the Preservation of the Second Amendment in National Parks and National Wildlife Refuges Act, seeks to replace an administrative rule that has been mired in court proceedings since January that would also allow visitors to carry concealed weapons into national parks.

A federal judge in April struck down that administrative rule, which was set in place last December by the outgoing Bush administration, after several conservation and other groups filed a lawsuit.

“While the appeal of the rule to allow guns in national parks is a small setback, the pressure to do what is right and preserve Second Amendment rights in and out of national parks will not stop,” Enzi said in a statement released Thursday. “The Wyoming delegation is turning up the heat.”

The two senators join U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., who is co-sponsoring an identical bill in the House. ...

Comment: Unfortunately, given the anti-gun Democrat control of Congress, don't expect these bills to go very far.


David Codrea takes on latest "iron river of guns" to Mexico lie:

... Come we now to a new investigate report, from the Associated Press of all places. I'm astonished because it is not the usual ignorant propaganda I've come to expect. The headline says it all:

Mexico cartel weapons cache stymies tracing

And then we learn:

Deep inside a heavily guarded military warehouse, the evidence of Mexico's war on drug cartels is stacked two stories high: tens of thousands of seized weapons, from handguns and rifles to AK-47s...

In all, the military has 305,424 confiscated weapons locked in vaults, just a fraction of those used by criminals in Mexico...

A fraction? You mean there are...millions?

That ought to give us quite an inventory to trace, right? It ought to. But then we're told:

The Mexican government has handed over information to U.S. authorities to trace 12,073 weapons seized in 2008 crimes...

Wait a minute--they have the guns all neatly stored in a warehouse, inventoried, cataloged...if this is such a huge problem, we can't just get a printout? Mexican bureaucracy (if you buy into that being the real reason) won't allow it? So the easier solution is to adjust your and my rights accordingly?

But perhaps I'm being unfair. After all, we're told there's a Spanish language barrier that hampers the effort. Lord help us finding anyone in our government who can communicate in that obscure dialect.

And then we have this astounding admission:

About a third of the guns submitted for tracing in 2007 were sold by licensed U.S. dealers.

Really? Not 90% of "Mexican crime guns" (or "95% to 100%" if you shill for the Brady Campaign)?

And remember, that's a third of the relatively insignificant quantity of guns reported, vs. actually warehoused, and that assumes what is in official inventory reflects 100% of what has been seized. Any bets that it's even close? ...

Dave Workman says pundits, politicians, and press out of touch on guns issue:

Recent national polls by CNN, NBC News and the Wall Street Journal have revealed that support for new gun control measures is declining in the United States, despite efforts by the Obama administration and its media cheerleaders to demonize guns by sensationalizing recent shooting incidents, and the bloody drug war in northern Mexico.

In April, CNN polling found that 46 percent of Americans say existing gun laws are adequate, and another 15 percent believe they ought to be relaxed, while only 39 percent of those responding want stricter gun laws.

Also last month, an NBC News/WSJ poll revealed that support for restrictions on so-called “assault weapons” had dropped from 75 percent in 1991 to 53 percent today, which may have something to do with the rush on gun shops over the past six months by people buying those guns and case upon case of ammunition for them. ...

Obama blinks on scrapping Tiahrt Amendment:

... Meanwhile, the administration is steering away from another politically-sensitive fight by proposing only minor changes to a legislative language, known as the Tiahrt Amendments after Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kansas), which limit the use of gun tracing data maintained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Obama’s budget would slightly ease restrictions on the use of the data. The changes would allow the tracing data to be shared with state and local officials even outside the context of a investigation of a specific crime. Localities could use the data to identify gun dealers who sell lots of guns traced to crimes, but rules prohibiting the use of such data for civil suits would remain in place. ...

Boo hoo: Brady Campaign's head says he's "profoundly disappointed" with Obama:

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is profoundly disappointed that President Obama has failed to follow through with his promises for 'openness' by reaffirming much of the so-called Tiahrt Amendments.

This means a continuation of the reckless Bush-era policies that endanger public safety and make it easier for criminals to obtain illegal firearms.

President Obama's proposal undermines the landmark Brady Law by continuing the dangerous Bush administration policy requiring the destruction of most Brady background check records in just 24 hours. ...

That was quick: Massachusetts governor files bill to close "loophole" due to state high court ruling, adds more gun controls:

Governor Deval Patrick is filing legislation today to reduce gun violence that includes a provision to restore a crime-fighting tool for prosecutors that was taken away by a court ruling Monday.

The bill would allow suspects to be held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing for charges that involve illegal possession, use, or trafficking of guns, the governor's office said.

The legislation would also create a new felony of using a gun while committing a misdemeanor, limit gun purchases to one per month, and require sales of guns by private parties to be recorded by licensed gun dealers. ...

Comment: See my post here for discussion of the high court ruling at issue. Typical that the Boston Globe would characterize the court's ruling as taking away a "crime-fighting tool" - the court simply ruled that mere unlicensed gun possession (without more) did not fall under the statute that authorized pretrial detention for those accused of certain serious felonies.


[California] Ammo bill shelved:

One of the worst pieces of anti-gun owner legislation in a number of years effectively has been tabled by the California legislature when Los Angeles Democratic Assemblyman Kevin De Leon's AB962 was put in the Suspense File by the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Wednesday this week.

While the bill can be revived, it is likely dead for this year.

The bill would have stopped the private transfer of more than 50 rounds of ammunition per month between individuals or by stores to individuals. It would have licensed and taxed anyone selling ammunition commercially and forced these stores to get background checks on anyone selling ammunition. It would have required a thumbprint from anyone buying handgun ammunition (and a costly bureaucracy to manage those thumbprints) and it would have banned all mail-order ammunition sales. [emphasis added]

The stated intent of the bill was to stop felons and gang members from getting ammunition. If you can figure out how those provisions would have somehow stopped that, give me a call and explain that to me. ...

[Wisconsin] Open carry bicycler stops robbery with gun in school zone, legal question remains:

RACINE — Four teens knocked a 42-year-old Racine man from his bike Friday night. He thought they were going to rob him.

The man pulled a Smith and Wesson revolver from his side holster, pointed it at the sky and yelled, “Gun!”

The four suspects ran, and the man flagged down a Racine police officer.

The incident will perhaps mark the first time a new opinion allowing open carry of firearms is put to the test here, as it conflicts with another state statute that makes it illegal to possess a gun within 1,000 feet of a school, if not on private property.

The Racine man involved, who asked not to be named and declined to comment on the alleged robbery attempt when contacted by The Journal Times, was assaulted in the 1100 block of Grand Avenue, which is within 1,000 feet of Walden School, 1012 Center St.

Police did not arrest the man. After he was treated for head and wrist injuries at the scene by Racine rescue, officers escorted the man home and returned his gun to him.

But that doesn’t mean charges won’t be filed against the man, and police are questioning how such situations should be handled in the future. ...

[Germany] More gun controls on the way:

BERLIN - THE GERMAN government has agreed to curb gun rights, two months after a 17-year-old killed 15 people with a pistol taken from his father's bedroom, according to press reports on Thursday.

The left-right 'grand coalition' has agreed to present a series of measures to parliament in late May tightening arms control laws, several dailies said.
...
The proposals on the table include banning paintball, a game in which players use air rifles to shoot ammunition filled with paint at opponents.

Lawmakers say the sport 'simulates killing' and should be outlawed.

The draft law would also bar youths under the age of 18 from shooting high-calibre guns at target practice and permit police to conduct checks at the homes of gun owners to ensure their weapons are under lock and key.

An electronic registry of firearms would also be introduced along with, eventually, biometric security systems to help ensure weapons are only used by their rightful owners. ...

The Great Water Heist of 2009

Picture the future: Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink that doesn't belong to the federal government:



Is there no end to Congress' overreaching?

For additional information, go here, and/or here.

The official text of S.787 is available here.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is reportedly scheduled to vote on S.787, the "Clean Water Restoration Act" on May 14th. You may wish to contact your Senators to inform them of your opinion on this (latest) assault on property rights, because with the power grabby Dems in control, we shouldn't be surprised if and when this gets out of committee and goes before the full Senate for a vote.

[Via Some Have Hats]

Toledo lays off police officers, suspects could walk free

From Buckeye Firearms Association, on the recent layoffs of 75 police officers due to that city's budget problems:

When word of significant cuts to the Toledo police force first came out, one senior police officer issued the following recommendation to city residents:

"Buy guns. Invest in precious metals: lead, gun power and brass."

And now, Mayor Carty Finkbeiner is admitting the reason why this is such good advice:

"Violent crimes, shootings, are not ever prevented by the presence of a police officer, no matter how many thousands of police officers you have."

Saturday, May 2 marked the first full day since 75 Toledo police officers turned in their badges and guns, and according to the Toledo Blade, word of the significant cuts in the Toledo police force is on the street.

"There ain't a side of Toledo you can go where they do not know the police is going to be laid off," one resident is quoted as saying. ...

Read the rest here.

One consequence of the layoffs is that suspects arrested by the laid off officers could walk free, in the event that the arresting officer(s) are the only witnesses in those cases:

Some accused criminals arrested by the 75 Toledo police officers who were laid off last week could get a free pass on facing charges unless there is a victim to testify in their cases.

Toledo Municipal Court presiding Judge Tim Kuhlman said yesterday that the court's seven judges have been forced to dismiss both misdemeanor and felony cases when the city can't produce the officer - who, in some cases, would be the only witness.

"We are pretty much dismissing all of the cases when the officer has been laid off and the city can't go forward because their witness is not there," Judge Kuhlman said. "I can't give you numbers, but it's probably equal to the same percentage of the [police department] who were laid off."

The charges range from misdemeanor traffic offenses to felony drug cases, the judge said. ...

We'll probably start seeing more situations like this around the country, as cities, towns, and county governments face looming budget shortfalls. Indeed, as previously reported (see my post here), one California county has publicly stated that they will no longer be prosecuting misdemeanor assaults, thefts, and a host of other misdemeanor crimes, in addition to no longer prosecuting certain drug felonies.

Henson's Eleven

Tonight's movie trailer spoof, the Muppets do Ocean's Eleven:

Obama goes "line by line" through the budget ...

... and saves a whopping half a penny for every dollar of spending. The Wall Street Journal reports on this mighty feat of Obama style thriftiness:

President Obama unveiled a budget Thursday with a 2010 price tag of $3.5 trillion financed with $1.2 trillion of new debt. For domestic agencies, that's a 9.3% spending hike over last year.

Mr. Obama and his advisers know the public won't accept gigantic governmental expansions without at least some effort to pare the waste in Washington. So they scrubbed "line by line" through this historically huge budget and identified $16.7 billion of budget savings. This is less than a penny, about 0.47 cents, of savings out of every dollar Uncle Sam will spend this year. And these aren't real savings that will reduce debt, because Congress has already fixed the budget totals. Thus, each dollar saved from the African Development Foundation gets reallocated to some other foreign aid program.

Read the article here. So when President Obama talks about "shared sacrifice", remember, he doesn't mean the government, just you.

Hope and Change comes to the 9/11 families

From an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Debra Burlingame, director of the National September 11 Memorial Foundation:

In February I was among a group of USS Cole and 9/11 victims' families who met with the president at the White House to discuss his policies regarding Guantanamo detainees. Although many of us strongly opposed Barack Obama's decision to close the detention center and suspend all military commissions, the families of the 17 sailors killed in the 2000 attack in Yemen were particularly outraged.

Over the years, the Cole families have seen justice abandoned by the Clinton administration and overshadowed by the need of the Bush administration to gather intelligence after 9/11. They have watched in frustration as the president of Yemen refused extradition for the Cole bombers.

Now, after more than eight years of waiting, Mr. Obama was stopping the trial of Abu Rahim al-Nashiri, the only individual to be held accountable for the bombing in a U.S. court. Patience finally gave out. The families were giving angry interviews, slamming the new president just days after he was sworn in.

The Obama team quickly put together a meeting at the White House to get the situation under control. Individuals representing "a diversity of views" were invited to attend and express their concerns.

On Feb. 6, the president arrived in the Roosevelt Room to a standing though subdued ovation from some 40 family members. With a White House photographer in his wake, Mr. Obama greeted family members one at a time and offered brief remarks that were full of platitudes ("you are the conscience of the country," "my highest duty as president is to protect the American people," "we will seek swift and certain justice"). Glossing over the legal complexities, he gave a vague summary of the detainee cases and why he chose to suspend them, focusing mostly on the need for speed and finality.

Many family members pressed for Guantanamo to remain open and for the military commissions to go forward. Mr. Obama allowed that the detention center had been unfairly confused with Abu Ghraib, but when asked why he wouldn't rehabilitate its image rather than shut it down, he silently shrugged. Next question.
...
News reports described the meeting as a touching and powerful coming together of the president and these long-suffering families. Mr. Obama had won over even those who opposed his decision to close Gitmo by assuaging their fears that the review of some 245 current detainees would result in dangerous jihadists being set free. "I did not vote for the man, but the way he talks to you, you can't help but believe in him," said John Clodfelter to the New York Times. His son, Kenneth, was killed in the Cole bombing. "[Mr. Obama] left me with a very positive feeling that he's going to get this done right."

"This isn't goodbye," said the president, signing autographs and posing for pictures before leaving for his next appointment, "this is hello." His national security staff would have an open-door policy.

Believe . . . feel . . . hope.

We'd been had.

Binyam Mohamed -- the al Qaeda operative selected by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) for a catastrophic post-9/11 attack with co-conspirator Jose Padilla -- was released 17 days later. In a follow-up conference call, the White House liaison to 9/11 and Cole families refused to answer questions about the circumstances surrounding the decision to repatriate Mohamed, including whether he would be freed in Great Britain.

The phrase "swift and certain justice" had been used by top presidential adviser David Axelrod in an interview prior to our meeting with the president. "Swift and certain justice" figured prominently in the White House press release issued before we had time to surrender our White House security passes. "At best, he manipulated the families," Kirk Lippold, commanding officer of the USS Cole at the time of the attack and the leader of the Cole families group, told me recently. "At worst, he misrepresented his true intentions." ...

Read the op-ed here.

Amish Segway

Today's Segway Human Transporter, Amish Edition:

:)

Dr. Sanity explains Obama and the neo-marxists

From Dr. Sanity, comes an insightful essay into Comrade Obama and the neo-marxist Left. An excerpt:

... If we turn to our own country, we must deal with an entire political party and half the nation or more in the grip of projection and early paranoia. It is the same powerful agenda of paranoia and projection that has pulled the political left away from reason, truth and reality.

In a sense, the Palestinians have become the poster children for all those on the political left who are as unwilling as they are to face reality. Hence the rising anti-semitism we witness in this country by the left, who actually identify and feel an emotional 'solitarity' with the Arabs. It is that emotional link that is the psychological basis of their alliance of hate with the Islamists, jihadists, and foes of America wherever they may be.

The paranoia, projection and denial all serve to make them feel better about themselves; make them feel less like the losers they are. By inventing themselves as the victims of the BushHitler--or the Jews, or the neocons or the Republicans or of capitalism and business-- they can, like a typical, arrogant paranoid psychotic, pat themselves on the back at their heroic, courageous, and "principled" stand against the forces of oppression. Their failures are NOT THEIR FAULT. Everything in their life would be better if THE EVIL OPPRESSORS would go away. Their need to externalize blame for their own failures, or for their own greed or envy, will trump any facts and obscure any contradicting reality.

When it comes to the Palestinians, and Islamic culture as a whole, without the paranoia, they are nothing. Without their feelings that they are persecuted and oppressed by the Jews, they might actually have to take responsibility for the pathetic state of their own society where killing the Jews is more important than life itself. Time after time they have been given the opportunity to have their own state and live in peace with Isreal and look forward, abandoning their dysfunctional envy and coming to grips with what keeps them backward and unable to thrive.

Likewise, for the political left who so recently won back the White House. But, to look forward would mean they would have to abandon their scapegoating of Bush and Republicans. To look forward would mean that they would have to acknowledge their own issues and correct the flaws in their ideology's basic premises. Instead, they have refused to give up the denial of reality and continue to nurture their paranoia and projection through a frenzy of undoing and hysterical amnesia.
...
The paranoid solution to unacceptable thoughts or feelings is to say, "If I am having these bad thoughts or feeling or behaviors, then someone else must be to blame and is making me do it." The neo-Marxist of today's left does not take responsibility for his own thoughts or feelings or behaviors--their own envy or greed--because to do so would cause the whole house of Marxist cards to come crumbling down. Paranoid neo-Marxist logic goes like this:

* Are you poor? Someone must have robbed you of what you are entitled to!

* Are you angry and experiencing hatred, but like to think of yourself as a loving, compassionate sort of person? Then the object of your hatred magically becomes the one who hates...you!

* Is your genius not universally recognized? You must have powerful enemies that prevent you from achieving the success you know should be yours.

* Have you made mistakes in your life or shown poor judgment? Someone has clearly tricked you into acting a certain way otherwise you wouldn't have.

Has your ideology continually and repeatedly failed in the real world and resulted in death and misery for all who implement it? Take heart! It is not your fault or your ideology's! Either it wasn't implemented virutously enough; or there were evil people [Capitalists, Republicans, Neocons, Males, Whites, Christians, Jews] (choose one or more) who have been plotting against it!

The above mental gymnastics allow the left to externalize blame and avoid responsibility--and to encourage as many others as possible to avoid taking responsibility and to claim that their misfortune is always someone else's fault and not their own. ...

Read the whole thing here.

If at first you don't succeed ...

Tonight's insemination video:

State may raid cities and towns for cash

From the Golden State:

SANTA CRUZ -- Call it a threat or a grim reality. Whatever it is, it's not being welcomed at city halls across California.

The governor's office suggested this week that if the May 19 budget-reform measures are rejected by voters, the state will have to borrow $2 billion from cities and counties.

The proposal, which comes as polls show little hope for the ballot measures, is being met with horror by local governments that face red ink of their own.

"Our budget gap is so big it's beyond anything we could have imagined already," said Santa Cruz City Manager Dick Wilson. "If the state adds this additional burden, it's overwhelming. ... It's appalling beyond words."

Under the state proposal, the city of Santa Cruz could be forced to hand over as much as $1.6 million next year, adding to an existing hole of $6.5 million. With a total budget of $75 million, the city is already having to make concessions -- like giving up operation of two museums and a community center and asking employees to take pay cuts -- which Wilson said would become more severe should the city lose more money.

The May 19 election includes five measures that would generate $6 billion through new taxes, borrowing and funding shifts. The most recent poll, released Thursday by the Public Policy Institute of California, echoes earlier surveys and shows none of the five measures has more than 43 percent support.
...
The state, under voter-approved Proposition 1A, is permitted to take up to 8 percent of the property taxes collected for cities and counties as long as the money is repaid, with interest, in three years. ...

Article here. Maybe they should change California's nickname from the Golden State to the Fools Gold State. :)

Now, before you indulge any sense of schadenfreude at seeing the socialist California government fail, realize that our Socialist-in-Chief and his buddies in Congress Comrade Nancy (who represents San Francisco) and Comrade Harry ain't about to force California to cut its obviously out of control spending. Rather, I suspect the rest of us will be ponying up some more of our money to bail them out. Stimulating thought, no? After all, California is "too big to fail", the argument will go. Does that mean the rest of us are too small to succeed?

China fears bond crisis

From the UK Telegraph:

China has given its clearest warning to date that emergency monetary stimulus by Western governments risks setting off worldwide inflation and undermining global bond markets.

"A policy mistake made by some major central bank may bring inflation risks to the whole world," said the People's Central Bank in its quarterly report.

"As more and more economies are adopting unconventional monetary policies, such as quantitative easing (QE), major currencies' devaluation risks may rise," it said. The bank fears a "big consolidation" in the bond markets, clearly anxious that interest yields will surge as western states try to exit their QE experiment.

Simon Derrick, currency chief at the Bank of New York Mellon, said the report is the latest sign that China is losing patience with the US and aims to diversify part its $1.95 trillion (£1.3 trillion) foreign reserves away from US Treasuries and other dollar securities.

"There is a significant shift taking place in China. They are concerned about the stability of the global financial system so they are not going to sell US bonds they already have. But they are still accumulating $40bn of fresh reserves each month, and they are going to be much more careful where they invest it," he said.

Hans Redeker, head of currencies at BNP Paribas, said China is switching into hard assets. "They want to buy production rights to raw materials and gain access to resources such as oil, water, and metals. They know they can't keep buying bonds," he said[.] ...

Article here. I would disagree that the Chinese aren't trying to unload, or at least pare down substantially, their existing U.S. Treasury holdings. I'm sure they would like to, they just have to do so as quietly and as unobtrusively as possible. The Chinese probably won't be buying any of our new debt, however, which will prove problematic for our government's ability to finance our "Hope and Change" level of spending.

The $328,835.00 photo

Here's the photo that $328,835.00 of your hard-earned dollars bought (you paid for it, so you might as well enjoy it):

(Photo: The White House)

WSJ story here. Your tax dollars hard at work.

And now, for a little hotness: Kate Beckinsale

Tonight's dose of hotness:

British actress Kate Beckinsale (click image for larger version):

IMDB says:

Kate Beckinsale was born on 26 July 1973 in England, and has resided in London for most of her life. Her mother is Judy Loe, who has appeared in a number of British dramas and sitcoms and continues to work as an actress, predominantly in British television productions. Her father was Richard Beckinsale, born in Nottingham, England. He starred in a number of popular British television comedies during the 1970s, most notably the series "Rising Damp" (1974), "Porridge" (1974) and "The Lovers" (1970). He passed away tragically early in 1979 at the age of 31.

Kate attended the private school Godolphin and Latymer School in London for her grade and primary school education. In her teens she twice won the British bookseller W.H. Smith Young Writers' competition - once for three short stories and once for three poems. After a tumultuous adolescence (a bout of anorexia - cured - and a smoking habit which continues to this day), she gradually took up the profession of acting. ...

Skimmer Scammer

Today's identity theft prevention video - beware the ATM card skimmer:

Environmentalism over the Second Amendment

From an op-ed in Human Events by Utah Rep. Rob Bishop on the injunction against the National Parks rule allowing lawful concealed carry [Hat tip: reader Jason]:

In January, I praised changes to the National Park Service regulations that allowed law-abiding Americans the same right to carry concealed weapons inside our national parks as they have outside of the national parks. Reversing a clear violation of the Second Amendment, the Department of the Interior changed their regulations whereby National Park Service (NPS) lands would be governed by state concealed firearms laws.

For all the reasons I articulated in my earlier commentary, this decision was a welcome change. Coming on the heels of the District of Columbia v. Heller in which the Supreme Court struck down D.C.’s draconian gun laws, one would think this would be a fairly easy issue for those tasked with upholding and enforcing our nation’s laws. Sadly, it seems personal political beliefs are ruling the day.

On March 19, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly decided to grant an injunction against these new regulations going into place. Most interesting is Kollar-Kotelly’s reasoning and what she refused to consider when arriving at her decision. Astonishingly, in Kollar-Kotelly’s 44-page opinion, there is not a single mention of the Second Amendment. Not one. Not a single mention of whether or not the Heller decision is relevant. In a case involving the federal government essentially banning the right to bear arms, this wasn’t even an issue. Even though Kollar-Kotelly notes one of the main reasons why NPS gun regulations were changed concerns “self-defense,” she never addressed whether Second Amendment rights might be violated.

Instead, Kollar-Kotelly decided that an injunction should be placed on the new regulations because of environmental concerns. ...

Read the rest here. Once again, I would not be at all surprised if the "environmental review" underway ends up concluding that the concealed carry rule somehow poses a grave threat to the environment in our precious National Parks, and thus concludes that the rule allowing lawful concealed carry should be invalidated.

Snyder: Plastic people

From Jeff Snyder, writing at LewRockwell.com on the plight of Canadian Pierre Lemieux:

... Pierre Lemieux, a French Canadian, economist, professor, author, libertarian thorn in the flesh of the Canadian Leviathan, and a friend, has become a felon. Pierre refused to answer one of the questions on his application to renew his firearms license, and the licensing center refused to renew his license. He now faces the prospect of 10 years in prison for keeping firearms without a license.

I will tell you some of his story. At this stage you may be thinking that it’s going to be about gun control but, rest assured, it’s not. Too many see trees, only trees, everywhere they look, and never a forest. Every abuse, every injustice is singular, isolate, one more thing to be addressed, corrected or reformed – unfortunate, deplorable really, but circumscribed, in an arena separate from the rest of life, someone else’s problem, and someone else’s cause.

No, Pierre’s story is about what it means to be ruled, what it means to need permission from the state. And if you stop looking at trees and see the forest, then Pierre’s refusal to follow orders may pose a question for you: How far will you accommodate the state before you resist? Is there some limit to your ability to mold yourself to the state’s designs? At what point will the state cross a line within you, when what you are ordered to do is more than you will accept or bear, when you will say, "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise"?

Or does no such line exist? Are you that final object of all the state’s labors, that Quintessential Being that the state expects, demands and needs you to be: a plastic person?

In 1995 Canada passed an "Act Respecting Firearms and Other Weapons," generally referred to simply as the "Firearms Act" or by its original bill number, C-68. At the time, Canada already had handgun registration. The Firearms Act created a long gun registry and a new firearm licensing authority, and required citizens to possess licenses to own firearms. The licenses are good for five years. Pierre registered his firearms, and submitted his first application for a firearms license in 1996, which was granted, his first application for renewal in 2001, which was granted, and his second request for renewal in 2007, which was denied.

Pierre believes that Canadians have the right to own firearms without government approval. In fact, he has written extensively on the subject to educate his fellow Canadians and to peaceably restore respect for this right. Nevertheless, like most people, Pierre complied with the registration and licensing scheme in order to keep what he loves and to live a "quiet life." Unfortunately, despite his best efforts to comply, Pierre ran into his own personal limit with an impertinence in the license application that he simply could not abide, viz., question 6(d) of the license application, which asks:

"During the past two (2) years, have you experienced a divorce, a separation, a breakdown of a significant relationship, job loss or bankruptcy?"

The instructions to the application state that all personal history questions must be answered, and that "[I]f you answer YES to any of the questions . . . you MUST provide details on a second page. . . . If details are not provided, your application cannot be processed. A YES answer does not mean your application will be refused but it may lead to further examination."

In each of 1996, 2001 and 2007, Pierre, waging what he describes as "a dignity battle" against the law, refused to answer this question, instead responding that "My love affairs are none of your business / Ça ne vous regarde pas." In 2007, Pierre took the additional step of sending, by registered mail, a copy of his application, a cover letter and three pages of his book, Confessions d'un coureur des bois hors-la-loi, which chronicles his resistance against Canadian gun control laws, to the Prime Minister of Canada.

Two months after his license expired, having heard nothing from the licensing center, Pierre made a freedom of information request to find out the status of his application. Eventually, he received word that his license renewal was denied by reason of his failure to answer question 6(d). Pierre now owns firearms – registered firearms – in violation of the law, a crime punishable by 10 years in prison. On the webpage where he chronicles his resistance to the Canadian license law, Pierre wonders: " Will I be the first Canadian to be jailed for refusing to tell the state about his love life? Not the last one, I fear." ...

Read the rest here. Mr. Lemieux's story should serve as a warning about the often insidious and intrusive nature of government bureaucracy. Of course, there are many other reasons to oppose gun registration, chief among them the fact that registration is a necessary prerequisite for effective confiscation.

A hop, skip, and a jump

Tonight's cheerleading video - the Kings Firecrackers cheerleading squad performs at the U.S. Naval Academy during halftime:




Impressive, huh? Here's an article on the team:

LEXINGTON - Deep within the bowels of massive Rupp Arena, two dozen girls warm up in a chilly, colorless receiving area, largely ignoring the muffled applause and cheers above them.

This team of grade school and junior high girls has traveled more than 100 miles from their Warren County homes in the Kings Local School District to the 23,000-seat college basketball mecca at the University of Kentucky. They are here to do once more what they have done in dozens of high school, college and professional basketball arenas, as well as in two Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parades and on The Late Show with David Letterman.

They will jump rope.

These girls are the Kings Firecrackers, and they jump as few others have. Team jump-roping is growing in popularity, supported by organizations such as USA Jump Rope and AAU jump rope, with hundreds of competitive teams, some in the Tristate.

But the Firecrackers don't compete, they perform. ...

Report: Census working to record GPS location of every home

From World Net Daily, on reports that Census workers are seeking to record the GPS coordinates of every house in America:

According to an online Yahoo program, the Global Position System coordinates for the White House, probably one of the best-known publicly owned buildings in the world, are 38.898590 Latitude and -77.035971 Longitude. And since you know that, it's no big deal for the White House to know the coordinates for your front door, is it?

Some people think it is, and are upset over an army of some 140,000 workers hired in part with a $700 million taxpayer-funded contract to collect GPS readings for every front door in the nation.

The data collection, presented as preparation for the 2010 Census, is pinpointing with computer accuracy the locations and has raised considerable concern from privacy advocates who have questioned why the information is needed. The privacy advocates also are more than a little worried over what could be done with that information. ...

Article here. Anyone know, or can think of of what legitimate uses this info may be to the Census?

Putting on my Kevlar-lined tinfoil hat for a moment, I would note that knowing the GPS coordinates of your front door will allow the government to drop a GPS guided 500 lb bomb on your house -- no doubt occupied by all sorts of "right wing extremists" -- without the need for, say forward controllers to paint your house with a laser designator. Ok, tinfoil hat off. :)

Gun Rights News Roundup

Articles, news stories, and op-eds of interest to gun owners:

[South Carolina] Gun, ammo sales booming:

Gun sales are surging and ammunition is difficult to find across the Grand Strand, following a national trend that began in November when Barack Obama was elected president and was stoked by a fear that the recession will spur a rise in crime.

Sales at local gun shops have soared as much as 65 percent since the election. And since November, federal firearm background checks — required to become a gun owner — have outpaced previous years by 25 percent to 50 percent a month, FBI statistics show.

Many gun buyers are concerned that President Obama’s administration will attempt to push legislation that would make it more difficult to buy guns.

And some people say they are stocking up on weapons and buying guns to protect themselves in the event of a home invasion.

“What are you going to do? Throw a pillow at them in your house ... at 3 in the morning ... with your wife and kids there?” asked Tony Maloney of Myrtle Beach. “This guy wants to ban guns? They’re destroying the honest citizen of their Second Amendment right (to bear arms) ... or at least trying to.” ...

[D.C.] Support waning for more gun control laws:

WASHINGTON — Amid a wave of publicity about drug-related gun violence along the Mexican border and police killings in U.S. cities, more Americans than ever oppose new government efforts to regulate guns.

Recent polls show shrinking support for new gun control measures and strong public sentiment for enforcing existing laws instead. So strong is the shift in public opinion that a proposed assault-weapons ban — once backed by three in four Americans — now rates barely one in two.

Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll, told reporters Tuesday that “every bit of data is showing us that Americans are getting more conservative about gun control.”

A CNN poll conducted in April found that 39 percent of Americans wanted stricter gun control laws, down from 50 percent in 2000. Another 46 percent said the gun laws should stay as they are, while 15 percent said they should be loosened — up from 9 percent in 2000. ...

[New York] Op-ed: Assembly dodges bullet by changing day of gun control vote:

What do you do when a bunch of gun advocates are coming to town by the busload and you're about to pass a bunch of anti-gun legislation?

You do what the state Assembly did this week. You run and hide. Or more specifically, you reschedule the votes to the day before they're scheduled to arrive, basically eliminating any chance that the lobbyists will have a chance to influence the outcome.

We shouldn't be surprised. This is how the state government works. They do things in secret so the public doesn't have a chance to give them grief for it. They prepare the state budget behind closed doors every year, then pass budget bills literally in the middle of the night. This year, they were even more secretive about the budget than ever. They do it with pay raises for appointed staffers. They're doing it with the federal stimulus money.

And this week, they did it to the gun lobby.

There's a word for that kind of governing. It's called "cowardice." ...

[Tennessee] House passes permit privacy bill:

NASHVILLE — The House voted 83-12 with no debate Monday night to make secret the names of all 220,000 Tennesseans who have state issued handgun-carry permits.

“This would make information contained in your handgun carry permit private and not open to the public,” Rep. Eddie Bass, D-Prospect, told colleagues, who passed the bill seconds later.

Meanwhile, House negotiators earlier in the day backpedaled on another permit-related bill and voted 3-2 to adopt a Senate version allowing permit holders to bring loaded pistols into bars and nightclubs.

Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, R-Collierville, the Senate sponsor of the measure shutting down public access to permit holders’ records, said he may bring the bill to the Senate floor next week. ...

[Tennessee] Committee removes restaurant carry curfew from bill:

A joint committee on a bill to allow handgun carry permit holders to take their weapons into restaurants that serve alcohol decided to remove restrictions passed in the House that would not have allowed the guns in age-restricted restaurants and would have barred the weapons from any restaurant from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m.

The House panel in the committee voted 3-2 to recommend a Senate amendment that contained neither of the stipulations that passed the House. Rep. Curry Todd, R-Collierville and the sponsor of the bill, indicated to the AP that the restrictions he fought for in the House didn’t matter once the bill went to a conference committee. ...

[South Carolina] High court kills gun tax holiday:

South Carolina’s top court Monday shot down the state’s gun sales tax holiday, ruling lawmakers violated the state constitution by including an unrelated matter in the law, passed last year.

State Rep. Mike Pitts, R-Laurens, who pushed for the gun sales tax holiday — held for the first time the weekend after Thanksgiving — disagreed with the ruling.

“What they did was legislate from the bench, which is absolutely what they’re not designed to do,” he said Monday.

The S.C. Supreme Court unanimously reversed its earlier stance on the General Assembly’s practice of “log rolling” or “bobtailing,” which involves adding unrelated items — usually at the last minute — to a bill on a separate subject.

In recent years, the court removed the unrelated section of a challenged “bobtailing” law while upholding the rest of it. With Monday’s ruling, the justices said they would strike down an entire law if they found one part to be unconstitutional.

“The ‘bright-line’ rule announced today will deter log rolling, provide certainty and avoid arbitrary judicial enforcement of the one-subject rule,” Justice Costa Pleicones wrote for the court.

In striking down the 2008 law, the court said a provision dealing with the blending of ethanol in gasoline didn’t relate to the gun sales tax holiday or another provision creating a sales tax exemption for certain noncommercial, energy-efficient products. ...

Life after Heller

From Reason Magazine, on the Ninth Circuit's recent Nordyke v. King decision (see my post here for more info and a link to the decision):

In a peculiar but not unprecedented turn of events, an anti-gun control plaintiff lost his case, last month's Nordyke v. King, but nonetheless managed to elicit a groundbreaking pro-gun rights declaration from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In deciding that it was OK for California’s Alameda County to bar the possession of guns on county property—a law that quashed a gun show that had long been held on county fairgrounds—the Ninth Circuit affirmed that the Second Amendment does control state and local actions as well as federal ones. That was a step farther than last year's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, when Supreme Court declared authoritatively for the first time that the Second Amendment did indeed protect an individual right to bear arms. That decision concerned only federal actions.

It’s not unusual for an important gun rights principle to be embedded in a decision upholding a gun law. In fact, that outcome has a positive historical pedigree. The same thing happened in the groundbreaking 2001 Fifth Circuit case, U.S. v. Emerson, where the court declared that the individual right to possess weapons existed in principle (as distinct from some collective right connected with militia membership). But the opinion also said that the particular statute at issue, which barred individuals currently under restraining orders from owning weapons, did not violate the right.

What mattered for the future of gun rights was not whether the plaintiff won his challenge (he didn’t). What mattered was that Emerson created a split in judgment over what the Second Amendment meant among the federal judicial circuits. That laid the groundwork for the Supreme Court to take up the question in Heller. Similarly, what’s most important for the future of gun rights jurisprudence with Nordyke is not whether Alameda County will once again see gun shows on its property (it won’t) but that the decision creates a clear circuit split on whether or not the Second Amendment applies, through what’s called “incorporation” via the 14th Amendment, to state and local actions. ...

Read the rest here.