They Wonder What She Was Thinking

Gee, I don't know, maybe a little lesson in respect?

61 y/0 woman is arrested and charged with sexual assault for groping a female TSA agent.

See, it's ok if they grope you and feel up your children, grandparents, and disabled people, take naked pictures of you and then save them to look at later. But when you do it to them, well that's just wrong.

There's probably more to this story, but to me it sounds like a little bit of 'let me do this to you and see how you like it'.

A Crisis Averted

Or in this case, manufactured to justify further encroachments on gun owners.

So, the Just Us Dept has, in effect, created a crisis involving multiple sales to illegal straw buyers, who in turn ran these guns all the way to Mexico. Against the judgement of the stores affected, against street agent advice, and in contravention of any moral or legal code known to man.

See here, here, here, and here.

And don't forget David Codrea and Mike V's coverage of this still unfolding scandal here and here.

Because of this manufactured crisis, Just Us has deemed that multiple sales of long guns will require the same reporting requirements used in multiple hand gun sales.

Great. How long do you think it'll be before weapons from other, unknown, 'Fast and Furious' -type operations running at various locations around the country justify this requirement across the board? I think the answer will be sooner than you would think or expect.

Kommie-fornication

Came across this today wondering the Algorian intertubes.

All hell broke loose on Hwy 1 in Commifornia the other day over 'someone with a gun'.

Really, they had to close the frickin' highway over this?

One would think that with all the firepower deployed to take down someone on their way back from a trip to the range, someone should be in jail, if not in the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

But alas, just a father and son coming home from some much needed range time. If anything, they ought to charge the ninny who called it in.

All This Talk Of Bans and Whatnot

In the wake of the shooting a couple of weeks ago, debate has raged from all over as to whether our gun laws are too weak or not.

The typical poo flinging monkeys (Josh squared and Paul) have stated that gun shows, magazine capacity, and an inefficient background check system (on top of all the rhetoric the shooter never listened to or heard) were all the reasons a deranged nutjob hell bent on killing the object of his desire needed.

A couple of other bloggers, Joe Huffman and Say Uncle, pointed out that when arguing about gun control with an anti-gunner, their responses pretty much run into the 'F/U' department. In a discussion on a report out of my home state of WY becoming the 4th state to allow Constitutional Carry, the discussion turned to magazine capacity. Several commentors finally got down to the 4 letter word of the problem, need. They argue that no one 'needs' a magazine larger than 10 rds for anything. I did manage to point out that when the conversation turns to 'need' the person making the argument has lost and is showing their intellectual inferiority by doing so. I believe I said 'Your IQ is at room temperature and falling like a stone'.

In this, they are technically correct. But where they fail is that 'need' has nothing to do with it. Almost all of my rifles were designed from the outset to shoot from magazines that hold 30+ rds so I would argue that it's not need, its a requirement. My pistols, not so much. 1911's generally shoot from magazines that hold between 7 and 9 rds, depending.

It reminds me of a silly rule that NASCAR has. In order to slow things down at the superspeedways like Daytona and Talledega, they install a smaller fuel cell. 13 gallons for the super tracks vs. 22 for the rest of the circuit. The reasoning for this is it's supposed to slow the race down by making the cars have to pit for gas more often. They haven't limited the speeds on the track, they've just managed to make it more dangerous for the pit crews, as they have to deal with pitting these cars more often, placing them in harms way on pit road more often.

See any similarities to the debate on magazine capacity? Makes about as much sense, doesn't it.

It's Enough To Piss a Feller Off

Wondering the AlGorian intertubz this afternoon, checking the links on the right side of the page and came across a couple of really egregious stories.

First up we have this little gem via Sispey Street and WoG. Seems that a be-ridden grandmother was tased by an overly aggressive PD down in Oklahoma. That she did not succumb to the torture these imbeciles in blue subjected her to is both a testament to her spirit and a blessing. I'm sure that had she expired from the wounds and treatment inflicted upon her by her captors, it would have been deemed as 'within department protocol'.

Second, we have this from Joe Huffman, video here. Seems an amputee was singled out for 'extra security' at an unnamed airport in Kaliforn-I-A. While not being particularly troublesome before, the numbnuts in TSA got all kinds of cry-baby-pissy-pants when her young son tried to go to Mommy. This, evidently, led to an almost pedophilic moment where the goons from TSA copped a look at the young lads privates to ensure there weren't any 'explosives' hidden in his diaper. (For a bit of irony, it would have been the ultimate irony had the young'un dropped a particularly nasty radioactive load in his Pampers, wouldn't it? Better yet, the supreme irony would've been if he'd done it while being leered at by said baby diddler.)

All this led to a 'rule change' just for her. Not only was she subjected to the humiliation this extra screening brought on, but they potentially could have cost her even more of the limb by exposing her to bacteria and germs that don't go well with amputations.

My bet, is in neither one of these cases will anyone be held to account for their actions. And that, folks, is what has become of the once Great United States. A petty tyrant on every corner.

Another Grizzly Tale

Out of Jackson today, we get a report that a man, one Stephen Westmoreland, was found guilty of shooting and killing a grizzly bear.

Of all the stuff I've heard about from first hand accounts to tales related around a campfire, this (and they let you know right up front) is the first successful prosecution of somebody killing a bear in self defense.

From what I've read in the linked article, what got him convicted was the fact that the bear was 40 yds away. Now, I'm no genius here, but 40 yds is nothing when you stop to think that your average wide receiver in the NFL can do 40 yds in around 4 seconds. The fastest human runs at around 20 mph and the average pissed off bear can outrun them hands down. There's a reason why they tell you never try to run from a bear. If you do, they'll only chase you down and kill you, and you don't want to die tired.

So to set this straight, according to those in the know, even though they fall all over themselves telling you it ain't so, you've got about 2 seconds to figure out if the bear you've come across on your nature hike is going to come after you for dinner or is just trying to make an impression. Of that 2 seconds, there's that little thing drag racers like to call reaction time. The bear's already made up its mind what it's going to do, so you've got about .5 seconds to figure out what YOU'RE gonna do. And you had better hope it's the right decision, or you may well wind up in jail over it.

The prosecution wanted everyone to know that "This should not be interpreted as a message that you cannot defend yourself." Yeah right. Given the make-up of Teton County over the last 10 yrs, I think that's exactly the message they wanted to convey. Signed, sealed, and delivered.

And Now A Word From The Opposition

Having gone from trying to beat Starbucks into submission, and failing, Paul Helmke of the Brady Bunch For The Prevention of Gun Ownership is getting his bleat on about the NRA.

What does he have to say? Well, you can read for yourself, here.

Keeping up with the whole 'NRA's all about letting terrorists have guns' thing, he tries to guilt the membership into supporting his point of view.

Supposedly taking a piece from the NRA's pledge in 1954, we get this little gem:

'I certify that I am a citizen of the United States; that I am not a member of any organization that has any part of its program the attempt to overthrow the government of the United States by force or violence; that I have never been convicted of a crime of violence and that if admitted to membership I will fulfill the obligations of good sportsmanship and good citizenship.'

Now, when I got my life membership last year (I upgraded to Endowment this year on the legacy plan) I got a copy of the Bylaws of the National Rifle Association.

Reading said bylaws, Article 3, section 1, paragraph b states:

'No individual who is a member of, and no organization composed in whole or in part of individuals who are members of, any organization or group having as its purpose or one of its purposes the overthrow by force and violence of the Government of the United States or any of its political subdivisions shall be eligible for membership.'

I don't see where the NRA has ever been about giving guns to terrorists. Either by selling them or giving them away. Nobody wants terrorists, or criminals for that matter, to have access to firearms. That said, what the NRA, and a lot of others don't much care for is putting somebody's name on a secret list and then denying them civil rights with no way or hope of ever getting off the super secret squirrel list. There's something about 'lists' that conjures up all kinds of bad history and memories; from the NKVD to the Gestapo to the Stasi to the KGB and the FSB, nobody wants their name on a list for no other reason than somebody, somewhere didn't like the way they looked or acted. Those kinds of things can get ugly in real hurry.

His other complaint, about the so-called 'gunshow loophole' or as he puts it 'loopholes that allow criminals to buy guns' is a tired old argument he's been at for some time.

His latest, though, is trying to equate NRA membership with militia membership. Now, knowing what the bylaws from 2009 and the pledge from 1954 say, I think he's trying to urinate up the long hemp object hanging from the ceiling. Reason I say that is, everyone I know of who hates the government also can't stand the NRA. Most, if not all, of them think the NRA is too squishy on gun rights for their tastes.

You know, the Prez may have been right. You've got to hitch your wagon to something bigger than yourself. My wagon just happens to be the proverbial 800 lb gorilla in gun rights.

Much Ado About Parks Lately

Seems that with the passage of concealed carry in national parks where legal, there have been some, shall we say, issues.

First up, we have one Jerry Ruth. Mr. Ruth was on his own in Yellowstone NP and was attacked by a grizzly last month. Nearly losing his jaw in the fight, he shot and killed the bear with a .41 magnum revolver of undetermined manufacture. (My guess is it was a Ruger Blackhawk, but it may well have been a S&W Md 57, too.)

And now we have an incident in Denali NP in Alaska. Via the Fairbanks News Miner, we learn of a pair of hikers who had a run-in with a grizzly in a foul mood. What we know from the linked article is they used a .45 caliber pistol to defend themselves.

And in true hysterical fashion, we have an editorial from Anchorage high on emotion and rather short on logic or facts. Same with the commentors there. High on referenceto anatomical shortcomings, short on anything else.

Now, from what I have gleaned from discussions around the intertubz and with folks familiar with these types of situations is that neither cartridge is particularly suitable for large, pissed off bruin. While a .41 mag beats a .45 ACP, both beat a sharp stick hands down in fending off 1000 lbs of mad grizzly.

So now I have to ask, how would these situations ended had the ban on concealed carry not passed?

Racists Prick With a Badge

I'm a normally easy going person. I don't get easily riled up about things, and it generally takes a lot to do so, but something I came across last night sent me from calm to really pissed me off in about 3.2 seconds, or as it is termed a 'RCOB' moment. For the uninitiated, that would be a 'red curtain of blood' moment.

First off, let me provide a warning. While I can (and often do) swear like a muleskinner in real life, I refrain from doing so here. This is an exception to that rule, and hopefully the only time I will have to do so.

Seems there's a retired federal agent who has issues with the minority classes in this country keeping and bearing arms. What lies ahead is going to be expletive filled, so be warned, it will be ugly.

I came across the site in question from two sources. David Codrea's War on Guns, as well as Mike Vanderboegh at Sipsey Street Irregulars. I won't link to the site, as Mike and David have already done so.

(I will admit, I could only make it through the first paragragh of the bile spewed at the site linked to by Mike and David. If you can stand it, head on over to either site and take a read from the link they provided, then come on back over and read on.)

Since this asshole is obviously such a man among men that he won't allow comments contrary to his pustulent bile to appear, I'll make mine here.

First off, where does this motherfucker get the idea that the right to keep and bear arms is a "caucasian" right? In the 220-plus year history of this country, we have fought around the world and on our own soil to provide freedom for those who didn't have or were threatened with losing it.

Here's my advice to you, fuckstick. Go have advanced aeronautical intercourse with a laterally motivated pastry. In other words, dickwad, go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.

My wife is of Latin descent. To insinuate that because of her ancestry she is no more entitled to the same rights and privileges I enjoy as a head of lettuce shows that you have the intelligence and cognitive abilities of a pustulent boyle on the ass end of gangrenous, red-assed baboon.

The fact that this douchebag held a federal badge and was allowed to retire with what I'm assuming is a clean record pisses me off. As a taxpaying American, I helped pay this cocksuckers salary while he was on duty and now that he's 'retired' he's still leeching off the very tax money I pay. If he held these views for his entire career, then he should have been weeded out of whatever federal academy he went to and sent to work at a location more suitable to his views, like inspecting septic tanks in Death Valley.

I've spent the last 18 and a half years defending this country and the freedoms she provides. What galls me to no end is that dipshits like this are riding the coattails of the very freedom I help protect so they can tell everyone who'll listen that those freedoms aren't for everyone.

I've got one more piece of advice for you. Fuck You and the shetland pony you rode in on.

A New Twist

On an old game. This may very well end up being one of things that comes on line and we wonder where the hell it's been the whole the whole time.

Not that I need much more reason to watch the Sportsman Channel.

A New Yorkers View On Us Little People

There are soooooo many things wrong with this article I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll start out at the beginning and go from there.
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Our New Yawker starts off with what seems like a tribute to veterans and then devolves into the War on Terror (clue to Mrs Rubin, there's no more War on Terror, it's an overseas contingency operation, didn't you get the memo?) and telling everyone the NRA is in the midst of it's own 'War of Terror'. I'm sorry, did you just assert that a specifically enumerated Constitutional right is the source of 'terror' in the United States? Did I read that right?
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"This Veterans Day, above all, has demonstrated that the US War on Terror and the NRA's War of Terror have consequences."

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Yup, I guess I did. She then goes on to equate being a veteran with being a mass murderer. So I guess, myself and the MILLIONS of men and women who have served this country for periods from 2 yrs to 40 yrs are now murderers in the making. I mean Timothy McVeigh was a vet right? So was the DC Sniper. I guess that seals it, doesn't it.

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Then we find out that on any given night, 130,000 veterans are homeless. After going from the Iraq/Afghanistan war to all veterans is a bit of a stretch. I'm pretty sure that most of the personnel who have deployed in support of OIF/OEF are not homeless by any stretch of the imagination. But hey, if it helps get your point across, who am I to get in the way, right?

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"At least 121 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been charged with a killing after returning from the war.

On any given night says New Jersey Senator Menendez, 131,000 veterans are homeless, of which 10,000 are in New York City and northern New Jersey. Indeed, one-fourth of all homeless in America are veterans "home" from the war."

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But now we get to the meat of this hit piece. See, we can't blame the Muslim terrorist who shot the hell out of Ft Hood, no we have to blame everything and everyone else except the turd who did the shooting. See, it can't be his fault because he had 'secondary post traumatic stress disorder' From Charles Krauthammer:

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"After all, secondary PTSD, for those who believe in it (you won't find it in the DSMR-IV-TR, psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistics manual), is known as 'compassion fatigue'."

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It seems Mrs Rubin thinks this shooting was the result of a failure of policies, namely 'gun control'.

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So the shooter walked into a gun store, after the investigation of him by the federal powers-that-be decided not to investigate him further, and bought a Fabrique-Nationale Herstal 5.7x28mm pistol. Which is still a perfectly legal action in every state in the union (although it's becoming a major PITA in some, namely New Joisey). A pistol, our intrepid editorialist assures us is a 'cop killer'. Never mind that not one single cop has been killed with it, that the ammuntion that made it a 'cop killer' is not legal for any civilian to own, and the 5.7x28 is ballistically comparable to a .22 mag, but the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership says so, so it must be true. Don't believe me? Just ask them, they'll tell you.

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She also goes on to draw the line that this bloodbath would have been averted if that stupid George Bush and that dastardly Republican congress hadn't allowed the 1994 assault weapons ban to expire. Because as we all know, the pistol used by the shooter would have been illegal, right? Well, maybe the 20 round magazine would have, but not the pistol itself. According to her, all these mass shootings since 2005 can be laid directly at the feet of the expiration of said ban.

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The rest is typical screed from tired old talking points. At this point, I've given more attention than I probably should have to begin with. If you want, go on over and check out the rest. But I'm warning you, don't have anything light and easily throwable or had anything to eat. You're liable to throw something or lose your lunch after you read it.

Oh Boy, Here We Go...

From across the pond comes an interesting item. Seems the folks at FN Herstal over in Belgium have developed a tattle tale for your gun. The version they talk about appears to fit in the grip of a standard AR platform, but can be adapted to any gun.

Now, your local constabulary can stop you and plug your gun into their little "reader" and be able to tell exactly where you've been, what you shot, where you shot at, and what you had for breakfast for the last 3 days (ok, I made that last one up).

This ought to give you pause. As is hinted at in the article, the limits to this technology are scary. This is what they've been waiting for. Smart gun technology. The only thing missing is the remote off switch so if you don't have 'permission' to use your weapon, you won't. You can bet it won't be far away.

LA Times Gets It's (Anti) Gun Thing On...Again

As has been reported around the interwebz the last couple of days, a rabid anti-gun zealot, Professor Garen Wintemute tells everyone how evil gun shows are in a 300+ page "report". Of course, the LA Times, being that bastion of fair and balanced reporting, can't help but pimp the Brady Line.

Dave Workman, the Seattle Gun Rights Examiner, gets into Wintemute's twisting logic and flights of fancy, here.

Seems the good professor witnessed what we here in the free world call free exchanges of goods and services between consenting, like-minded adults. In other words, he saw face-to-face transfers of legal firearms. Now, in just about every free state in the western US, outside California, these transfers are perfectly legal. And that, evidently, is enough to get his knickers all kinds of in a twist.

And in typical progressive form, he (and the LA Times for that matter) can't help but paint gun shows and the gun owners who attend them as racist swine by letting you, the objective reader know that at a good portion of the shows he attended (and video taped), racist materials like the Turner Diaries and Mein Kompf were being peddled almost as fast as it could be put out on tables.

I do gun shows where I'm at, and you know, I've never seen a copy of either at any gun show I've gone to in over 5 yrs. Funny how that works, ain't it?

Some Things Just Won't Go Away

Seems Miss Stephanie Kraft can't get over the fact that people can lawfully purchase firearms even if their names appear on a super-secret-squirrel list kept by the DHS.

What gets her knickers in a twist is the fact that someone who hasn't been accused of a crime, let alone been convicted of the same, can walk into a gun store and lawfully purchase a firearm.

Never mind that DHS admits there are flaws with their super-secret-squirrel list. What with over a million names on it, there's bound to be innocent people on it somewhere.

Now, this has been old news for about 4 months. Apparently Miss Kraft needs to keep up with the times. Not only has Frank the Fixer's bill been reintroduced, but so has Carolyn "Barrel Shroud" McCarthy, and Rep King from NY.

By the way Stephanie, all of these bills are DOA in Congress. You're a little late.

Wow!

One has to wonder what they hell is going on around here. First, we have the WH telling everyone that carrying firearms at presidential events is hunky-dory. Now, we've got the NYT itself actually carrying a decent piece on semi-automatic weapons on their "At War" section.

Pretty good piece that actually is devoid of the usual pants-sh**ting hysteria that is so common in their op-ed pages. Of course, the comments don't disappoint in that regard. Some of them still need to come in from barking at the moon.

As a proud owner of one of their products (SA-M7 carbine), I think what they're doing is noble. They just need to keep on top of some of their recent quality control issues.

Gotta Love That PayPal

Seems the ijits over at PayPal shut down the donations of a non-profit veterans website the other day over an on-line raffle to support Project Valor-IT which gives voice actuated laptops to injured and disabled troops.

Gotta love PayPal.

Quote of the Day (My First!)

Seems a goober with a holier-than-thou attitude tried to stand 200 yrs of legal theory, at least 3 Supreme Court decisions, and millions of man-hours/days of research on its head by claiming the 2A doesn't protect and individual right at all, and he has "irrefutable" evidence to back up his claim.

In steps Robb Allen, followed by Kevin Baker at TSM who handed this dude his proverbial behind as only he can.

Reading the email Kevin received from the dude in question in the piece linked above, I think I agree with Miss Tam:

"Seriously, he should sue whatever school system handed him a diploma for criminal negligence and deparved indifference."

An Interesting Question

From Joe Huffman over at the View From North Central Idaho comes an interesting question:

Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?

Several have tried (mostly the anti-freedom/citizen disarmament set) to answer it, and have failed miserably. What they cannot get their minds around is this. That when the .gov has the monopoly of force, there is no limit to what they can extort from the populace as a whole. I find it ironic that the very folks who eschewed "the Man" when they were in college now see fit to turn themselves into "the Man". The very same people who will hold a picket sign demanding "keep your laws off my body and your government out my bedroom" have no qualms at all with having armed agents of the state provoke a violent encounter with non-violent people doing things that non-violent consenting adults do.

What this all boils down to is, in response to the question posed above, they can't.