MSN: Partnering With Authority

This came out over the weekend when traffic was slow. I'm linking to it here on a higher traffic day because it looks like a lot of site visitors missed it.

Evil, Violent Gun Attacks Boy!!!

Police tell us when Rollman went to put the gun away after investigating the noise, it went off and the bullet hit his son in the hip.

Dang--another one of those self-animating guns. I'm sure Mr. Rollman's finger was nowhere near the trigger, or the reporter would have surely written the account that way.

But this has even more terrifying implications: At the beginning of the story, did you catch the bit about "High winds [being] partly to blame..."?

Tags: gun

If You Build It, They Will Come

"We don't know if the gun range has caused the drop in attendance (at the park)," Bartsch said.

He said the decrease in visitors occurred at the park, golf course, nature center and farm center.

Uhhh...maybe they're all at the gun range.

Tags: gun

Gun Grabber Hypocrisy

Jon Dougherty weighs in on the story of the battered San Francisco woman who was caught with an unsanctioned pistol, and skewers the reporter, Joan Ryan, for hypocrisy.

Incidentally, Ms. Ryan never did respond to my questions.

Tags: gun control

The Better to Eat You With, My Dear

Gun lobbyists are fuming because the state police have been slow at processing FOID applications. State law requires that be accomplished in 30 days. But callers to the state police bureau that handles FOID cards get a recording that says it may take eight weeks. A gun owner is in technical violation of the law if his card expires before a new one arrives in the mail...

Gun owners want better service? Hike the FOID card fee.

Translation: We force you to comply with a process we can't perform, so it must be your fault.

Tags: gun control

Gun Czar Adds to Load

Deputy Commissioner Richard Ross is now head of internal affairs, and will retain his title as the city's gun czar.

I repeat a question I've asked before: Why "czar"?

Why don't they ever call these guys "fuhrer"?

And as for Commissioner Ross adding to his load, well, I'd really rather not go there.

Tags: gun control, police

We're the Only Ones Guarded Enough...

A jail security officer was placed on administrative leave after a woman visitor got past an X-ray machine carrying a gun, leading to the closure of two Clayton County courts on Wednesday...."She got as far as the lobby and was called back because she didn't fit the dress code. Her arms were exposed or something," the sheriff said.

No, her arms weren't exposed. Hence the lockdown.

Tags: gun control

The Registry That Never Happened

Technical problems have once again delayed the national firearms register, nine years after it was first proposed..."‘If the Home Office really is incapable, over a period of eight years, of computerising something as straightforward as a few hundred thousand firearms records, then it does suggest that they do not have a hope of making a success of the introduction of the national identity card scheme,"’ he said.

Eight years?

For "a few hundred thousand" records?

How much information do they need to record?

Why do I suspect that this could have all been entered into an Access database by a few dozen clerks in a matter of weeks?

How much have they forked over to this Anite outfit to develop the software? And how are we doing on projected costs?

Maybe we've been approaching this all wrong. Maybe the safest place we could put our gun ownership information--to ensure it will never be discoverable or retrievable--is with the government.

Still, bummer this hampering their "national identity card scheme."

Tags: gun control, UK