Don Knotts, RIP

As the bug-eyed deputy to Griffith, Knotts carried in his shirt pocket the one bullet he was allowed after shooting himself in the foot. The constant fumbling, a recurring sight gag, was typical of his self-deprecating humor.

G'night, Barney. Thanks for all those years of entertainment.

I think I'll go rent "No Time for Sergeants," where he so hilariously perfected that high-strung character.

The LA Times also has a real nice write-up on his life and career.

[Via Texican Tattler]

Hey Kids, Do You Know What Day It Is?

It's Second Amendment Saturday!

We're the Only Ones Retentive Enough

Constable Elizabeth Roth, 34, was on duty at Wetherill Park police station when the man, who was known to police, jumped the counter about 6.30am (AEDT) today and snatched her pistol.

The man turned the weapon on Constable Roth, who was working alone in the south-western Sydney station, shooting her once.

I have a great way to prevent this from ever happening again.

Develop "smart guns."

Then require everyone to have them except the police.

What?

They're already planning that?

Hoist By His Own Petard

Federal agents have revoked the firearms license of a prominent Baltimore County gun shop.

Valley Guns, of Parkville, is owned by Sanford Abrams, who is a National Rifle Association board member.

Hey, "enforce existing gun laws," right?

Taking Shots at America's Gun Culture

Still, he returned for the 2005 festival with his third film, Dear Wendy, in which he directed a von Trier screenplay about Americans and their firearms, starring Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) as a teenager who writes a love letter to his gun.

There's an old maxim, "write what you know."

See, that's the thing--this movie's not about "America's gun culture," one of the most peaceable and rational demographic subsets on the planet. It's about an imaginary misfit--and one dreamed up in the prejudiced, neurotic fantasies of a snotty Danish elitist, at that.

Here's something else I can't help notice--the Danes publish some Muhammad cartoons and the whole Islamic world goes apeshit. They release a film calculated to provoke and enrage gun owners, and we not only have to inform each other it exists via minor blogs--but I don't see us rioting and torching, issuing death warrants and killing people.

Most of us just won't go see the movie--not that it looks like it has mass appeal, anyway. If we react at all, it will be to remark on the foolishness of the filmmakers.

Is that your best "shot" guys?

Yawn.

I do have a few more questions for our artsy, disdainful detractors, though. How long did it take the Nazis to conquer and occupy Denmark? Why didn't the same thing happen to Switzerland? What effect do you think the absence or presence of a "gun culture" had on the different outcomes?