Is America Arming Up For War?

Well that's what Bob Owens suggested a while back. But after looking at these charts I'm not convinced that's the case.

Clearly there's been a gun buying surge in the last few years - but note that it started in 2006 long before Obama was even considered a serious candidate.

And the real jump has mostly happened since October 2012 - probably a reflection of the election and reactions to the Aurora shootings.

And when you look at the manufacturing breakdown by firearm type, it's mainly been a boom in pistols.

Rifles and shotguns are essentially unchanged since the late 90's (although I'm guessing there's been a jump in 2013). The import breakdown is even more heavily tilted towards pistols.

So if Americans are arming up, it's almost entirely in handguns - which are not exactly your first choice for war. To me this looks more like the effects of loosened CCW and gun laws in general across the US in the 2000s along with some recent panic buying than a society preparing for war.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:23 PM | Comments (446)
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Here's Pat Toomey's statement on why he threw his hat in the ring with noted second amendment stalwarts like Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin on the Orwellian-sounding "Public Safety And Second Amendment Rights Protection Act":

Pennsylvania has a long, bipartisan tradition of supporting gun rights. I am a proud part of that tradition. I am a gun owner. I revere the rights enshrined in our Second Amendment. My record shows this.

Criminal background checks are just common sense. If you pass a criminal background check, you can buy a gun. It's the people who fail a criminal or mental health background check that we don't want having guns.

That can be done without infringing on law-abiding people's gun rights. And we ought to do it. (emphasis added)

Oh, really?

Seung-Hui Cho passed a background check before killing 32 people and wounding 17 at Virginia Tech.

Jared Loughner passed a background check before killing 6 people and wounding 13 in Tucson.

James Holmes passed a background check before killing 12 people and injuring 58 in Aurora.

Adam Lanza ... well, he murdered his mother before killing 26 other people with guns stolen from her. Lanza's mother, of course, passed a background check.

So, Senator Toomey, explain to me how this legislation actually works to improve public safety or "prevent the next Newtown" again. Oh, right, it doesn't ... and you know that. But, by gum, you "did something" you can put on your campaign ads in 2016, didn't you?

More from Charles C. W. Cooke: Toomey and ManchinÂ’s Slippery Slope

All in all, letÂ’s admit that, in and of itself, this bill is not the end of the world.

Does this mean that you should shrug your shoulders nonchalantly and turn to other things? Should you stay at home? Should we presume that qui tacet consentire videtur?

Not on your life.

Alas, there is peril ahead. Why? Because today’s “exemption” is tomorrow’s “loophole.” No sooner will the glorious presidential ink have dried on that abject page, than those provisions that were sold a few days earlier as commonsense exemptions — the product of “bipartisan compromise” and other media-tested platitudes — will become structural problems, ripe for “standardizing.”

Remember, Pennsylvania ... Pat Toomey didn't actually load the soldiers into the trojan horse. He just built it.

Posted by: andy at 09:30 AM | Comments (377)
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Just something to chew on while you await the real thing.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 04:27 PM | Comments (374)
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He's a former politician.

JWF notes his political affiliation is not mentioned in the report. Gee, wonder which party, then. I can't hardly guess.

Three women testified against former Mount Carmel Vice-Mayor William Blakely, graphically recounting times he exposed himself while driving. News Channel 11 had the only reporter in court for ThursdayÂ’s preliminary hearing in Kingsport.

“I was scared that I was gonna wreck, he was gonna cause me to wreck,” witness Deborah Sturgill said.

...

Personal accounts in Thursday’s testimonies started the same – Blakely allegedly waving to get the drivers’ attention, then escalating to honking and partially crossing over into the drivers lane.

“Waving, grabbed his shirt, kind of pulled it up,” witness Deanna Dykes said.

...

“He was taking his hand, wetting his mouth, and masturbating,” Sturgill said.

“At over 90 miles per hour, he had his penis out [the window]… he was masturbating… and that’s when it got really, really bad. I wouldn’t look over any more, and I wrote his tag number down on my hand, which I believe he noticed, and he exited very quickly,” Street said.

He's charged with four counts of Being Awesome.

Posted by: Ace at 01:18 PM | Comments (630)
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Rigorous and unalterable standards for border security are an absolute prerequisite for the rest of the plan being implemented.

In related news, you know that thing I promised I wouldn't do in your mouth?

Well... we should probably talk about that. Later. Once you get cleaned up.

Posted by: Ace at 12:47 PM | Comments (41)
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First, on Toomey's motivation to take part in this charade. Yesterday there were reports that Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns group was amping up the pressure on Toomey in Pennsylvania.

New York Mayor Michael BloombergÂ’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns is on the air in Pennsylvania Tuesday with a TV spot targeting Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who is in talks to sign on to a proposal that would require background checks for all commercial gun purchases.

Then, today:

Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns is pulling its ads in Pennsylvania, citing Toomey's work on compromise bill.

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlakeWP) April 10, 2013

Now, about the actual bill. Erick Erickson picked up on a possible nasty little detail in the bill.

The proposal will allow a doctor to add a patient to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) without ever telling the patient he or she has been added.

There would be no due process requirement. Not all doctors will be able to do it with the same ease, but many will. Knowing a doctor could add him to a federal database as mentally ill without his knowledge could potentially dissuade a patient from going to the doctor in the first place to get help.

Worse, if the doctor does so and makes a mistake, the patient would have to actively work through the system to get himself removed — guilty before being proven innocent. In some states, should a doctor flag you as having mental illness without your knowledge, you may very well see the state come collect your previously purchased guns.

One of Pres Obama's 23 Executive Actions today clarifies that ObamaCare allows doctors to ask their patients about guns in their homes.

— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) January 16, 2013

Posted by: JohnE. at 12:48 PM | Comments (274)
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This week, we're talking the circle of stellar life. For the urban observers, I challenge you to find and enjoy De Mairan's Nebula (M43), a smaller portion of the Great Nebula in Orion. For those of you with darker country skies, I invite you to hunt down the Crab Supernova Remant in Taurus. Next week we'll focus on the cosmic time-bombs that lay between the clouds. Coincidentally Sky and Telescope has an article about a new possible type of supernova, though this one involves much smaller stars and with the added disappointment of progenator star survival. Also making news this week was the Herschel Space telescope's protostar images, some of the "youngest" images of stars yet taken. Anyway, onto the challenge. more...

Posted by: CAC at 07:30 PM | Comments (76)
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Seemed stompworthy...

Of course she's coming at it from the left, pimping the Krugmanesque Moar, Moar, Moar strategy. But still...

Largely missing from the plan, and from all the breathless press around it, was any real acknowledgment of the jobs crisis that had -- yet again -- been made obvious only hours earlier. So if you knew absolutely nothing about what was going on in the United States and then read the details of the president's budget and the coverage that followed, you certainly wouldn't come away thinking, "Wow, there must really be a big jobs crisis here."

We're years into it, millions of lives have been derailed and destroyed, and yet you'd never guess that by listening to what's being prioritized in Washington.

N.B., there appears to be a disturbing lack of typical vitriolic republican bashing there... This piece has its sights set on Obama.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:20 PM | Comments (137)
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An uncomfortable and not funny grilling of Lindsay Lohan. Not that Lindsay Lohan doesn't deserve some ribbing. But this isn't a ribbing, it's an ambush, and it's an ambush because the buzzard knows Leno is moving out of the Tonight Show gig and the coming months are his last opportunity to get some ratings momentum going.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:05 PM | Comments (123)
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Sorry, this is turning out to be a highly unmotivated day.

On the plus side I'm making fun of Jim Carrey on Twitter. I'm hoping Twitchy compiles it.

Posted by: Ace at 11:48 AM | Comments (208)
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