The UK's "Spiralling Problem"

The spiralling problem with gun culture was highlighted by figures that show 28 firearms crimes are committed in England and Wales every day.

Couldn't they have a lie-in or a buyback or something--you know, something that's been proven to work...?

There were 10,182 firearms offences in the year to the end of September compared with 9,755 in the previous 12 months - an increase of more than 400 crimes, or more than eight every week.

And those are just the crimes that were reported, mind you. If businesses are only reporting one in eight 8 crimes, what do you think the chances are those living in or around the criminal subculture have a higher rate?

Or that the ones being reported are properly accounted for?

"Spiralling" indeed. Like down the drain and into the sewer.

[Via Paul W. Davis]

A Cautionary Tale

On January 19, 2008 I had a negligent discharge of my pistol. It's a Rock Island full size 1911. .45 ACP loaded with Federal Hydro Shok ammunition. This round utilizes a 230 grain jacketed hollow point bullet...The bullet entered my right inner thigh above the knee and exited the calf a couple of inches away lower and more to the rear of my thigh on my thigh.

A first-hand account and it ain't pretty, but is is sobering. Photos are included (just a warning to the squeamish).

Let's be careful out there.

[Via 1894C]

Red's to Get its Day in Court

Why that should have ever been an issue is beyond me, but that's the position the masters have us in.

Anyway, Ryan seems happy, so I'm happy for him.

Now let's just hope the judge will let him argue the law.

The Other Badness in the Bill

From Joe Merchant:

One of the local TV stations did a story on upcoming gun bill hearing. In the story, they misreported some info (I know, shocking). I've seen this bad info popping up on gun blogs, and have tried to fix it.

Here's the skinny: This law is all kinds of bad, but part of the minor stuff is that it requires all retail gun dealers to provide trigger locks. KMTV reported that it mandated the USE of trigger locks.

The problem is it's not part of the bill and diverts needed attention from the real threat...The GunViolence Commission. Take a look at
http://joemerchant24.blogspot.com/2008/01/break-down-of-lb958-ashford-crime-bill.html
and see if you can help me spread the word that we need to drop the fuss over trigger locks and focus instead on the other badness in this bill.

Academics for the Second Amendment Need Your Support NOW

A WarOnGuns guest editorial by
Thaddeus Fendon

To all my friends who are 2nd Amendment Supporters:

Check out:

http://academicssecondamendment.blogspot.com/

These are the original scholars who were defending the 2nd amendment many years ago, long before the "individual right" theory became widely known. They created the foundation of scholarship underlying the legal arguments in our favor today.

Unfortunately, as of today, they have raised only $10,529.58! If this is all the 2nd Amendment is worth to gun owners then we deserve to and will lose it. Hope your chains rest lightly ...

If there is any good news, it's that small amounts of money will actually matter to this organization and your contribution is tax deductible. They are continuing on with their effort to file a brief to the Supreme Court regardless of the support they receive.

This is a critical moment in history. The Supreme Court will decide if the Second Amendment recognizes an individual right and whether that right is deserving of the same level of judicial protection afforded to the other rights recognized by the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments).

Are you tired of your Second Amendment rights being a second class citizen? Ignored, inferior and constantly infringed by tens of thousands of municipal, state and federal outrages? A situation the Bush Justice Department legal brief to the Supreme Court has supported. A situation the NRA has tolerated and even been partly responsible for creating. (For example, the machine gun laws from the 1930s and the 1968 Gun Control Act).

This is your one chance to support people who are trying to change history instead of funding the NRA Executive Director's golden pay package. This chance will probably not come again for a long, long time. Prospects for a pro gun president are nil, and the new President will be appointing more Supreme Court Justices. We cannot afford to put less than a maximum effort into winning this case.

From the founding of our country to today, many have given their lives in defense of our freedoms. I'm just asking you to give money.

Oral arguments begin on March 18. Briefs to overturn the ban are due Feb. 4.

The hard work in preparing briefs is being done right now. Don't delay.

Thad

This Day in History: January 26

The Connecticut Committee of Safety learns that enlistments for service in a regiment to be raised in the western counties of the colony would suffer if the designated colonel for the regiment came from an eastern county; they therefore accepted the resignation of the colonel.

Rambo Opens Today

We need one person in an influential position to stand up and tell the truth about gun control lobbies... Until America, door to door, takes every handgun, this is what you're gonna have... this is an escalating problem that’s eventually going to lead to, I think, urban warfare...It [2nd Amendment] has to be stopped, and someone really has to go on the line, a certain dauntless political figure, and say, ‘It’s ending, it’s over, all bets are off. It’s not 200 years ago, we don’t need this anymore, and the rest of the world doesn’t have it. Why should we?"

Any gun owner who goes to see this is helping this mudhead hypocrite pretend warrior disarm everyone else.

45Superman tells me Sly is a McCain man.

Figures.

Ryan has more.

Boycott this movie and tell every gun owner you know to do the same.

Image posted as First Amendment protected/Fair Use for noncommercial parody legal purposes. PSH graphic shamelessly stolen from Sharp as a Marble

Military for Paul

Stewart Rhodes posts a video by a soldier who could very well get in serious trouble for speaking out the way he has, as well as some compelling commentary from his own perspective as a veteran, with links to other veteran websites that support Ron Paul.

I'd also like to call your attention to:

Veterans for Ron Paul

Why the US Military Loves Ron Paul

The Military.com Poll on the Iraq War

It's just food for thought for those of you who are worried about Paul's ability to inspire and lead the troops.

PC/DC

...41 District workers have been fired or suspended after visiting pornographic Web sites on government computers...

Of the fired employees' estimated 200 work days a year, the investigation showed that they visited pornographic Web sites 100 times per day, Mayor Adrian Fenty says.

Employees from 18 city agencies, including the Office of the Attorney General, were accessing pornographic or sexual Web sites.

"Home Rule" at its finest, no doubt. Well, with their obscene position in Heller, this should really come as no surprise.

I wonder if the DC Million Moms'll give 'em an American...uh...Apple Pie Award?

Aid and Comfort to the Enemy

I caught a clip on CNN the other night, John Edwards shaking hands with men inside a gun store in South Carolina.

Seriously, what the hell?

Who were these fools smiling and greeting him? And who is the idiot gun store owner hosting the photo op?

Good grief, are the "sportsmen" and truly that clueless? That's a rhetorical question--I know from bitter experience that this should not surprise me.

I've looked high and low for the clip but no luck--anyone finding it, please chime in.

Strokeback Mountain

If Ms. Wolozin is really digging her knuckles into the sore muscles of her clients without benefit of a state-issued piece of paper, and if authorities choose to make an issue of the matter, she may lose her right to vote (at least temporarily), to own firearms, to hold a liquor license (you need government permission to sell booze, too) and face other restrictions.

Who'da thunk there's be an RKBA tie-in with Heath Ledger?

Kinda reconfirms how trying to do the right thing is used against us by the overlords, doesn't it?

Ignorance Personified

Why are there no charges concerning the weapon? Answer: The gun was probably in the residence legally...Because the federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004, if you can pass a background check, you can legally own such automatic guns...

We don't need to get into the cliche debate of general gun control, but I hope few would argue the need for automatic assault weapons within city limits.

Yes, the Constitution protects the right to bear arms, but we know that is not a license to hold exceptionally dangerous weapons such as bazookas, machine guns or assault weapons. As the federal government decreed in 1994, assault weapons just don't belong in our communities.

I urge the city council to further investigate this matter and consider, at least, passing a measure requiring all owners of assault weapons to be registered with the police department. I would personally advocate a ban of such guns within the city.

[Sigh]

Say what you will about him, Josh Sugarmann has done his work well.

College liberal arts juniors. Is there anything they don't know? No wonder campuses are in such sorry shape.

Go ahead and write this child if you think it will do any good.

[Via HZ]

The Leading Man

Paul got 52 of 142 votes, while Romney got 35 and Huckabee 30. John McCain came in fourth with 20 votes and Rudy Giuliani had four. Fred Thompson came in last with one vote, despite having dropped out of the race earlier in the day.

In Arkansas.

[Via Paul W. Davis]

A Question About Homeland Security...

...for those who think maintaining our current foreign policy is necessary to defend the nation against Islamic terrorists:

What's the ONLY delivery system they have for deploying WMD against us here at home?

Basically, in order to get one--and the personnel over here to exploit it, they merely need to take advantage of our non-existent border and port security, and our criminally negligent immigration "controls".

That's the foreign policy you think will keep us safest? Really?

Kwa-me, How I Love Ya, How I Love Ya...

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff lied about their relationship last summer at a police whistle-blower trial that has cost the cash-strapped city more than $9 million, according to records obtained by the Free Press.

The false testimony potentially exposes them to felony perjury charges, legal experts say.

What...you mean Mayor Against Guns Kwame might be a felon for citizen disarmament?

Let's look in on the misunderstood young lovers:

Beatty: "And, did you miss me, sexually?"

Kilpatrick: "Hell yeah!
You couldn't tell. I want some more. "

Not family man Kwame...!!!

Mayor Kilpatrick and his wife Carlita have three sons: 12-year-old twins, Jelani and Jalil, and 6-year-old Jonas.

And not Capable Christine...!!!

As chief of staff, Christine Beatty has built a solid “can-do” reputation.

I'll bet!

But Kwame, ever the gentleman and respecter of "strong women" asks that "the media respect the privacy of my wife and children and of Christine Beatty and her children at this deeply painful moment for our families."

Yeah, I guess that is private, except:

Because they were sued in their roles as city officials, Kilpatrick and Beatty did not personally have to pay the costs from the $9-million legal fight.

That and the part about lying under oath.

Take a good look at the creatures who would control you and me, but will not control themselves.

This Day in History: January 25

I am very sorry that Arms are so scarce with you, that none can be furnished on Account of the Continent, at this critical period. I know not what will be done. Those of the three Regiments, they will be allowed to carry away when their Service is ended, unless they choose to sell them. I will gladly buy, but never had an Idea of detaining them against their consent.

George Washington's idea of a "gun buyback."

"It's the Economy, Stupid!"

Stop what you're doing right now, click on the title link and watch the whole thing--it takes a little under 9 minutes.

Does anyone really think national security will be served if we don't have the money to finance the military--or anything else?

As Pat Buchanan noted recently:

We are thus in the position of having to borrow from Europe to defend Europe, of having to borrow from China and Japan to defend Chinese and Japanese access to Gulf oil, and of having to borrow from Arab emirs, sultans and monarchs to make Iraq safe for democracy.

We borrow from the nations we defend so that we may continue to defend them. To question this is an unpardonable heresy called "isolationism."

I've been called a single-issue voter, and freely admit the right to keep and bear arms is for obvious reasons the cornerstone, but it truly is all about freedom.

With what we've got facing us, anybody who doesn't put everything they've got into backing the only candidate who won't continue steering the economy over the precipice, and the only candidate who won't attack gun ownership, needs to reexamine the fundamentals.

A New Word for "Three"

But the spate of shootings begs the question: Did the castle law – which gives people the right to use whatever means necessary to protect themselves and their property without fear of civil liability – unleash a flurry of gunfire? [More]

"Spate."

Thanks, Dallas Morning News. I was looking for the answer to 14-down, triad, begins with "s"...

[Via Tony G]

I'm Mad as Hell...

Joe's Crabby Shack tells the GOP he's not going to take it any more.

We're the Only Ones While the Cat's Away Enough

A former Rockland County prosecutor is facing sex abuse, rape, and endangering charges in a case involving teenage boys... The incidents allegedly happened last summer at Modica's home in Sloatsburg while her husband, Spring Valley Police Chief Paul Modica, was out of town.

Because, you know, "The Only Ones" are so much more moral and everything than the rest of us...

[Via Declan]