Saturday, December 25, 2010

Yemen the New Hotbed

Well, at least we've ended our combat mission in Iraq and will be completely out of there this year.
via Phuck Politics.

Merry Christmas

Dedicated to all our booze-swillin' gun-totin' blog friends. You know who you are, especially you and you and you sweetie.



How would you interpret those two images? Please tell us.

7th Graders With Dad's Gun

It's a heartbreaker.



The thing I can't get over is that on blogs like Snowflakes in Hell and Say Uncle, where you've got thousands of readers, not a single incident like this is ever reported. According to those guys these incidents happen to other people not to them. Gun owners are more responsible than your average folks, at least that's what they say.

Well, I don't buy it. I say that among the readership of the popular gun blogs you've got all kinds of problem people. You've got the ones who allow negligent discharges to take place, you've even got the ones with anger issues who misuse the gun from time to time. In a group so large, you've got drunks and drug addicts, you've got the "hidden criminals" as well as the defiant ones who say "bad laws be damned." Of course none of this ever sees the light of day because it wouldn't be consistent with their misleading message.

Nicholas Naumkin is dead.  I blame the owner of the gun who somehow allowed his 12-year-old access to it.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Another Rough Day in Newark

When Newark has a single murder or a simple shooting it doesn't make the news. But the other night 7 people were shot, 3 of them fatally.

Here's the interesting part.

Already this year, the city was experiencing a rise in crime, including murder rates in some neighborhoods that are double what they were last year.
This is not the first major city which has had an increase in gun violence this year, in this case a doubling. Yet, how much do you want to bet the biased, closed-minded pro-gun crowd will continue to repeat that crime is going down as gun ownership increases?

What can explain such tunnel vision?

Please leave a comment.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Man Kills Wife by Mistake

Ohh Shoot has the story.

The story's got just about everything in it, rage, drinking, assault weapons.  I suppose this guy was one of the "lawful gun owners" who felt bad laws be damned. 

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Janice Crowther - Dallas Police Spokeswoman

I'm stuck on this one.  I need help fleshing it out.  I figure it could go one of two ways.  Either Officer Crowther is a raging maniac, a danger to herself and others or she's just run into a few white racists along the way who can't stand the idea of a black woman with a gun and uniform.

Which do you think it is?

Why Gun Availability is a Problem


Easy access to guns is a problem because there are guys like this out there. What do the pro-gun folks what to do about that? They want to make it easier, of course.

They're so concerned about being inconvenienced in the exercising of their god-given right to KandBA that they don't care what the results are, the inevitable, unavoidable results. They're counting on bad things always happening to the other guy, so who cares?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Thomas Jefferson's Code

The incredibly complex and ingenious code was not deciphered until 2007. The NRA moved in to suppress all dissemination of it's long-hidden and prophetic message. In part it reads:

The day will come when men will bastardize the intent of my words in order to use them for their own advantage. This will be especially true concerning the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights. As a safeguard, as soon as the young Nation is successfully thriving, perhaps 50 years, certainly no more, the 2nd Proposal shall be stricken from the document - a time limit or expiration date shall have been imposed.

via Dan Lewis, archive - subscribe.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

21st Century Schizoid Man - kaveman

Dedicated to kaveman. He knows why.

Gun Control Extremists

The Gun Control Network is certainly on the far end of the gun control spectrum.  I guess we need guys like these to balance out, at least a little bit, the many, many on the pro-gun side, who are equally extreme in the opposite direction.

What do you think?

There Ought To Be A Law

Poster Boy - Media Sensation


Do you feel it? Yesterday he was pictured with the cutest little boy, today it's the dog. I can't wait to see what spin they put on it tomorrow.

He want's his rights back. And the good news is he's no longer suicidal.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Tammerlin Drummond on Gun Availability

After writing a very fair article in the aftermath of yet another justified Oakland police killing, pointing out how some of these incidents are indeed justified, Ms. Drummond makes the following observations.

There are countless young men in this city with guns who appear intent on annihilating one another -- and anyone else who gets in their way.

Why is it so easy for them to get access to guns?

Who is bringing them into the city?

What can we do to get this frightening arsenal off the streets?

That's the root issue that we need to be focused on.
What's your opinion? Is gun availability part of the problem?

Please leave a comment.

The Gunloon Swiss Fantasy

One could spend hundreds of posts debunking the gunloon perception of Switzerland.  To the gunloon, Switzerland is a country where the Govt. gives you an assault weapon that you can carry around, impress chicks with, and go out with your buddies and have some full-auto fun!

Of course, the reality is very different.  Switzerland has a national militia system that requires able-bodied civilian men of military age keep weapons at home in case of a national emergency. These weapons are fully automatic, military assault rifles, and by law they must be kept locked up. Their issue of 72 rounds of ammunition must be sealed, and it is strictly accounted for.  IOW, you don't get to carry your weapon around, you don't get to blast stuff in your backyard with your buddies. And no impressing of chicks.

Furthermore, private firearms are subject to stricter gun control than the US; both guns and ammo are registered.

Lately, however, the populace of Switzerland has decided they have a gun violence problem:
IOW, the electorate of Switzerland is demanding the Swiss Govt. tighten gun laws.
Shaken by a number of high-profile killings over the past decade a broad alliance of human rights groups, churches, women’s organisations, trade unions and centre-left political parties has succeeded in forcing a nationwide ballot on an anti-gun initiative.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Linoge's Idiocy Knows No Bounds

Linoge expends several thousand words in an attempt to communicate that he will never, ever, never register his firearms.

Robert Farago, in comments, notes that...well, he already has by virtue of filling out a 4473 form.  I'd also add that since Jon-Boy also has a CCW (small penis) permit granted him by the state of Tennessee--should mandatory registration ever come about, his doorbell would be among the first rung.

What makes this so amusing is that gunloons like Linoge often make pronouncements knowing full well that if the law changes, they'll meekly get in line and comply.  The plain truth is Jon-Boy isn't willing to give up his lifestyle for any principle he imagines he holds.

Update: Thinking about this a bit more; it's hilarious that Jon-Boy -who rountinely posts photos of firearms he owns--thinks not registering his precious  manhood guns will keep the Govt.--who employs him--from seizing them.

San Diego Gun Buy Back

via Flying Junior. I'll let him set it up.

Couldn't help but think of you when I heard this on the radio. A religious group organized a buyback just in time for Christmas with grocery store gift cards. $100 for any gun in working order. $200 for an assault rifle. No questions asked. 168 weapons will be destroyed. One guy turned in an Uzi! Several people refused the cards. Several more turned in weapons after the gift cards ran out.
It was the third year that the United African-American Ministerial Action Council of San Diego has sponsored the event aimed at curbing gun violence.


The event began two years ago after two teenagers were fatally shot by gang members.


http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/dec/20/people-line-turn-guns-cops/

I still don't understand why pro-gun folks object to these things.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Arizona Road Rage Maniac

Didn't Arizona recently pass a law which allows people to carry concealed weapons without a permit. In other words every gun owner is in effect a CCW permit holder.
Well, here's one.

Oman admitted to police to getting into an argument with the victim and pulling the gun from its holder on his right side, but initially denied pointing the gun at the victim, court records state.

Later, however, he said he pointed the gun because the victim spit on him. According to records, when officers told him the victim denied spitting on him and that was not justification to point a gun, Oman responded "I guess that was my mistake then, huh?"

Police found the handgun and a magazine containing eight rounds of 45 caliber ammunition in Oman's glove box, court records said.

Oman was arrested and is expected to face charges of aggravated assault.

Is that what they refer to as freedom? You can't even delay coming off a red light without some maniac gun owner coming after you. I suppose the "victim" in this case should have had his own gun, that would have helped.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

More on Our Favorite Loophole

There's an interesting post on a site called Bacon's Rebellion.  Happily, the blog title refers to the author's last name and not that vile food product some of you like so much.  After a very-well-done synopsis of the "gun show loophole" story, Mr. Bacon concludes like this.

The bottom line - I am a gun ownership advocate. I believe in the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court interpretation of that amendment in the Heller case. However, there is good reason to perform a background check prior to selling a gun. I support the adoption of Colorado's regulatory approach. Guns sold at gun shows must be through a registered firearms dealer with a background check. Private sales outside of gun shows are allowed without a background check. I can live with private sales and I can live with firearms shows - just not at the same time. 
I'm not sure where he's coming from. I know some gun control folks who suggest exactly the same and have been met with criticism from both sides that allowing private sales outside of gun shows to continue without background checks leaves us pretty much where we started out.

One obvious improvement would be, under the Bacon Plan, that all those lying gun sellers who fly under the radar and frequent gun shows as private sellers would be out of business. Or would they? Couldn't they just take their business somewhere else, the internet, the local want ads, their garage?

No, I'm afraid limiting the restrictions to gun shows is not gonna get it.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Shooting Range Suicide

Tampa, Florida was the site of this terrible incident. The reporter must have been either lazy or late for the deadline. Usually in these stories they list some of the other recent gun-range suicides that have happened in their area. It's not as rare as the pro-gun crowd would have you think.

What's your opinion? Is it right for depressed and suicidal people to have such easy access to guns? Wouldn't it be better if there were some attempt to screen them out and get them help. Isn't this a good place for the friends, relatives and shooting buddies to step in and help? I'm sure no one over at The Truth About Guns knows anyone like this, but sadly, they're out there.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Proper Sentencing for a Gun Incident

Anyone can get drunk and get themselves 86ed from the bar. But when you bring a gun back and threaten to kill people you've gone too far. You must pay the ultimate price, which for the gun owner is not loss of life it's loss of gun rights.

Along with the $50,000 bond came special conditions of absolute sobriety. Cozine is also not to possess any firearms.
What's your opinion? Do you think this guy was already a criminal? Do you think it's right for a guy like that to have such easy access to a gun?

Please leave a comment.

Proper Sentencing for a Gun Accident

When a terrible gun accident happens, whether the victim is a friend or relative, many times the shooter is already punished. Excessive jail time may not be necessary, but allowing future gun rights to continue would be a terrible travesty of justice.
Sometimes they get it right.

Conditions of his probation included following recommendations of a chemical dependency evaluation; no use of alcohol or controlled substance and random testing; no use or possession of guns, and forfeiture of the Glock semiautomatic pistol involved in the death.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Xmas Shopping Tip

What do you get the gunloon in your life?

Sure, it's easy enough to get the usual and the expected.  But he got that the year before and the year before that...

A DVD? He's got Red Dawn and the Die Hard box set.  Books? Nope. His Turner Diaries may be dog-eared but it's got a couple readings left in it.

What to get?





Another DGU Gone Wrong

Whoopsie:
They got out to confront the teens and Breonna Roberts got into a fight with them, deputies said.



"At some point during that confrontation Roberts returned to his vehicle and retrieved a firearm," Humboldt County sheriff's spokeswoman Brenda Godsey said. "During the continuing fight, Roberts’ firearm discharged, striking his wife."

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The DGU Gunowners Dream About

The title of this post is meant quite literally.  Once, I think it was, Robert Farago posted about dreams, which naturally must be a part of every gun owners subconscious life.

This DGU story doesn't quite qualify for the super duper category, for that you have to disarm the criminal and kill him with his own gun.  But this one is pretty dramatic, just the kind our gun-loving friends must fantasize about.

A 19-year-old man is dead after he fired a semiautomatic pistol at a boxed-in motorist who then shot him back, Seminole County deputies said Saturday. 

The driver, whose name was not immediately revealed, told authorities that he was heading home about 2:15 a.m. Saturday near Old Lake Mary Road and Egrets Landing when he saw two cars following him. Sheriff's Lt. James Clark said the driver tried to turn around, but was boxed in by the vehicles. 

A man later identified as Desmond Willis got out of one of the cars and began firing a semiautomatic pistol at the motorist in what the Sheriff's Office called an attempted robbery. The driver had a gun and returned fire, Clark said.
What's your opinion? Is that a clean DGU? Do you think the investigators determined so quickly that there was no connection between the men? Did the shooter have to provide a Florida gun license of any kind and explain his whereabouts at 2:00 a.m.?  Do you think they checked to see that he himself was not a prohibited person?

Of course if the source information in Florida is anything like that in Colorado, this hero could have been Jack the Ripper in disguise.

Please leave a comment.

Colorado Gun Permit Database

It's not surprising that the maintenance of this tool, which law enforcement finds useful for obvious reasons, is a total mess.  But why?  What's so difficult in keeping records.

Colorado's concealed-weapons database does not contain information about 16,000 permits — 45 percent of those issued — partly because 20 counties, including Douglas and El Paso, don't enter the information with Colorado Crime Information Center.

And that is just part of the problem. Among other audit findings:

• Of 51,000 records that are entered by participating sheriff's offices onto the computer system, 32,000, or 63 percent, of the records contain inaccuracies, the audit says.

• Although concealed-gun permits expire in five years, the database contains records for dozens of permits claiming they won't expire for 40, 50 or 100 years.

• 2,000 records in the database are duplicates, with one showing the permit as valid, and a second showing it as revoked — for the same person.

• Another 2,700 permits indicate on an initial screen that a person has a permit while a secondary screen shows that they were denied a permit.
How do you account for this mess? Who is it exactly who is failing to report or creating duplicate records? Who's responsible for this?

Who benefits from this confusion? Wouldn't this be one of those situations that benefits all gun owners.  The out and out criminals, the hidden criminals and the law-abiding gun owners all enjoy this one.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Gun Licensing in Scotland

If you listen to the pro-gun crowd you'd get the impression that lawfully-owned guns have practically disappeared in the United Kingdom. They use expressions like "guns have been banned there," and other ignorant and misleading statements to paint a false picture. If questioned, they fall back on that tedious argument over the meaning of "ban."

This story
is interesting because it shows that there's a very different situation in Scotand than we've been led to believe regarding gun ownership. It also brings up the fascinating subject of children and guns.

A minimum age limit for shotgun licences should be introduced, according to the Scottish Government, after it emerged one had been given to a child of 10.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Chris Christie Commutes Sentence of Criminal

Three triple decker burgers, please.  And super-size 'em
The NJ governor whose name sounds like a fairy elf has opted to commute the sentence of criminal gunloon Brian Aitken--posterboy of the oppressed small penis crowd.

Remember this: as I've sagely noted, gunloons like to talk about getting tough on crime--more enforcement, longer sentences.  But when a (white) gunloon commits a gun crime....well, laws are for other (black, brown) people.

Monday, December 20, 2010

The Complicity of Gun Owners

Over on Snowflakes in Hell I've been met with the usual resistance. Here's my latest comment on that thread.

Allow me to repeat my assertion in a different way. Most of you guys have friends or relatives who you know are not fit to own guns. You do nothing about it for several reasons, you feel it's none of your business, or you feel it's their right to own guns in spite of whatever disqualifying problems they may have.  Maybe you even have mixed feelings about it but inertia takes over, you do nothing.

That's where you're complicit.

To clarify for you contentious guys who like to purposely miss my point, but disqualifying problems I mean all those things I itemized on my post The Famous 10% (no link provided because you know where to find it if you want and I'd hate to prove Sean the mindreader right that all I'm looking for is traffic).

I'll change that "most of you guys" to all of you guys. Every one of you knows some gun owner who drinks too much for his own good, or who flies off the handle showing signs of anger problems.  You justify not intervening because maybe, let's hope, it never results in a bad scene. How about the prescription medication guys, the ones who've had back problems or depression and got hooked on the medicine. And let's not forget the accident prone.

Of course some of you go much further, you have friends or relatives with violent criminal pasts who seem to have straightened out. What are you going to do, play cop and criticize their desire to exercise a natural human right like everybody else. Of course not.  That's why you're all complicit in this.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Teaching Kids Gun Safety

Down in Shreveport, where a teenager was just killed by accident the other day, they're starting gun safety classes for kids.

Here's the part that really makes me laugh.


"We're trying to take the curiosity away from children so no one is injured by a firearm found in the home," said sheriff's deputy Cpl. Jim Dunn. "Its the worst call I've ever been to when a child is unintentionally injured by a firearm."
I don't believe such a thing is possible. The inquisitiveness and mischievousness of many children is such that nothing can overcome it. The more a kid is told not to touch, the more he'll want to do just that. It's irresistible.

I've been a bit ambivalent about this question, but now it's clear to me. Teaching kids gun safety does more harm than good, just like gun ownership itself. The incredible naivete of the pro-gun folks who think safety and common sense can be taught to very young children is typically self-serving of them. The fact is it cannot, but what can be taught is the idea that guns are good, that owning guns is the answer, that hunting animals is a healthy activity. These are the lessons the kids learn, meanwhile the dads continue to leave their guns around in closets and nightstands.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Tennessee Boy Dead Cleaning Guns

The boys who were only 13 and 14 were "seasoned hunters," according to the report. Yet, one of them pulled the trigger while pointing the gun at the other. Of course the TV reporter said the gun just went off. That's how they describe these incidents, when it's convenient, the gun has that magical power, other times they mock gun control people for focusing on the gun.


I say the parents should be arrested for not having taught the 4 Rules of Gun safety and for not having supervised this gun-cleaning operation.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Arizona Bar Shooting

Already covered by Jadegold.

I'm sure the characters involved in this shooting have nothing to do with the squared-away, responsible and upstanding gun owners of Arizona, except for the fact that they enjoy the same permissive atmosphere with regards to guns as their more-legitimate neighbors.

On the other hand, not to be guilty of racial profiling, who's to say the shooter wasn't one of the good guys who happened to be "Hispanic and about 25 years old."  Oh, I remember, the good guys don't drink and get in fights in bars when they're carrying.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Colorado Man Shoots Pregnant Wife

Unlike the characters in Stephen Wright's book, these are your real Coloradans.  Of course the neighbor described them "as down to earth and normal people."

Castle Rock Police arrested a man who held SWAT officers at bay for more than 10 hours Saturday.

Officers said the standoff came to a peaceful ending just after 7 p.m.Police said the situation started after a man in the Castle Rock home shot his pregnant wife.

Shannon Orendorf, 33, was shot at 8 a.m. in her home on High Plains Street and High Plains Place. At least report, Orendorf was in stable condition at a local hospital after surgery. Family members and friends told 7NEWS Orendorf is three months pregnant.
Since they were such normal people, one possible explanation is that something was wrong with his medication. Of course when I suggested that folks with this problem make up a small part of the Famous 10%, it was met with unanimous dismissal by the pro-gun crowd.

The news report also revealed that he'd had a restraining order against him some years ago, but in Colorado such things are of little importance. Out there in the Centennial State, they're mainly interested in freedom and rights. The problem is guns are bad news for women, especially in places like Colorado.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Fast Forward

Stephen E. Wright, when he's not hawking his horribly awful vanity press e-book, writes:
My children will someday have to know there are people like you in the world; but I don't need to invite you into my house.
Now, I could write something snarky such as reading your daddy's book should be trauma enough but, in truth, this is very likely what his children's wedding will look like:

The Cost of Gunloonery

I'd meant to post this earlier, but life intervened.

All too often, we tend to think of the cost of gunloonery in terms of lives lost.  Certainly, that's a very heavy cost.  And gunloons would like for us to forget about the lives that are shattered in terms of families and friends. But there are many more instances where a gunloon's victim doesn't die; at least, not right away.

Here's one such story:

Six weeks later, he was in a rage when he tracked down Ms. Keo, then 17, at a friend's house in Oakton. He broke through the door of a bedroom where she had taken refuge and flashed a handgun, yelling "You're gonna die, bitch!" before shooting her four times.



She bled for two hours before police found her, then spent seven weeks fighting to survive. Doctors saved her life, but not her spinal cord: Ms. Keo was paralyzed from the neck down.

Her case riveted Washington for months. But the headlines eventually faded, and Ms. Keo's efforts to fashion a life continued in private. She was 45 when she died Dec. 8 of a respiratory illness at her home in Alexandria.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Drinkin' 'n' Gunloonery

Still don't mix:
At about 11:35 p.m., someone called 911 from the bar to report that "at least one man had been shot."


Police arrived at the bar to find one man suffering from a gunshot wound. He was taken to hospital, where he died a short time later. He is Hispanic and about 25 years old, Ronstadt said.

The Matrix Stockroom

via Mother Jones, where there's a fascinating discussion about the Brady Brief on carrying guns during North Carolina emergencies. 


Big Victory for the Gun Lobby

The long overdue White House decision about multiple sales of long guns has been delayed until spring.

It seems clear that pressure from the NRA and their lobbyists is responsible for this.  What could be more reasonable than to require gun dealers to report bulk sales of weapons, the very fact that they are being bought in bulk being an indication that they may be destined for Mexico.

What's your opinion?  Is this another example of Obama just not doing what he said he'd do?

Please leave a comment.

Shreveport Teen Dead

A bunch of teens were together, one was brandishing a gun, suddenly it went off and a boy was dead.  Everyone involved agreed it was unintentional.

Of course the parents of these kids and the gun culture they were brought up in  has nothing to do with it. And certainly the easy availability of guns in that free State of Louisiana has nothing to do with it, either.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.