Last night I noticed that one of the Facebooking Morons was looking for suggestions on "how to go about buying an AR". Considering that I bought a kit to build one myself about a year ago (back when stripped lower receivers were going for less than $100, rather than the $300 or even $800 that people are asking for them right now), I'm going to try to give some advice.

Two things to remember: I wrote this off the cuff with no edit, just stream of consciousness. If I start talking about longbows, just smile and nod. Second, IANAGOAL (I Am Not A Gunsmith, Or A Lawyer). Caveat Emptor, people. Live it, learn it, know it. more...

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 10:21 AM | Comments (153)
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I was busy..

my bad. I was at the mall. Pity me some.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:06 PM | Comments (127)
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Oh, you were expecting content? On a weekend? You must be new here.

Here's some good news, George H.W. Bush is doing better and is out of ICU.

Added: Via @AppFlyer, HOLY CRAP. Video of a plane crash in Moscow today. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 12:57 PM | Comments (274)
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Dumbasses. Take A Powder, You Voted For Him. more...

Posted by: CDR M at 05:58 PM | Comments (588)
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It's NY and all but still.

In an open letter sent to the Times Union on Thursday, Petronis, president of New Eastcoast Arms Collectors Associates (NEACA), said those working to stop the show were "trying again to steal a little piece of freedom from our grasp."

It was followed Friday by an online petition created by Robert LeClair, a Hudson Falls gun owner. His effort at change.org asks City Center officials to keep the gun show. It states: "The sudden knee-jerk need to ban a perceived threat by the uninformed, ignorant few who have no understanding of what they want banned will have widespread repercussions against the constitutional rights of our children and their children."

Their efforts came five days after Susan Steer started a petition asking the City Center to cancel the gun show out of respect for the victims and families of Newtown, Conn. Her petition says community members were horrified over the massacre at the elementary school and shocked at the thought of someone being able to purchase a semiautomatic weapon along Broadway at the City Center. The center is operated by an authority whose members are nominated by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council.

Organizers are caving a bit by "asking" vendors not to bring AR-15s with them or display them discretely.

Of course the lunacy of all of this as the show's promoters points out is there are 15 gun stores within a a half hour of the convention center. Like the newspaper that published the list of permit holders, this is nothing more than rank harassment and an effort to marginalize people for daring to exercise their rights.

At the moment, the anti-gun show online petition is over a thousand "signatures" while the pro-show petition is only at about 400 or so. So, if you're so inclined....

Posted by: DrewM at 09:01 AM | Comments (149)
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Looking for that fresh thread smell? You've come to the right place...

...because these guys are working with a not so fresh smell.

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 03:00 PM | Comments (81)
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"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers". - (Henry VI part 2, Act IV, Scene II).

The most delicious part of this is that if the Connecticut school shooting suit is approved (and that has yet to be decided), the plaintiff's attorney may very well call a representative of the NRA to explain how the presence of a $600 tool and the minimal training required to operate it may have been able to prevent this massacre.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:30 AM | Comments (317)
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Last one of the year. And in keeping with tradition, this post is 110% content-free.

Posted by: andy at 03:17 AM | Comments (258)
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A New Jersey kid, the son of Ruth Allen and Herbert Norman. His name was later amended to H. Norman. And in his time, after serving in Vietnam where he earned three Silver Stars, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, he stayed with the Army and rose to greatness.

This is an except of his service (granted, Wiki, but sourced) about leadership and taking care of the men in your command.

In Vietnam in March 1970, Schwarzkopf was involved in rescuing men of his battalion from a minefield. He had received word that men under his command had encountered a minefield on the notorious Batangan Peninsula, and rushed to the scene in his helicopter, as was his custom while a battalion commander, in order to make his helicopter available. He found several soldiers still trapped in the minefield. Schwarzkopf urged them to retrace their steps slowly. Still, one man tripped a mine and was severely wounded but remained conscious. As the wounded man flailed in agony, the soldiers around him feared that he would set off another mine. Schwarzkopf, also wounded by the explosion, crawled across the minefield to the wounded man and held him down (using a "pinning" technique from his wrestling days at West Point) so another could splint his shattered leg. One soldier stepped away to break a branch from a nearby tree to make the splint. In doing so, he too hit a mine, which killed him and the two men closest to him, and blew an arm and a leg off Schwarzkopf's artillery liaison officer. Eventually, Schwarzkopf led his surviving men to safety, by ordering the division engineers to mark the locations of the mines with shaving cream.

They don't hand out Silver Stars for showing up.

RIP General. And Godspeed.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:33 AM | Comments (301)
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Great column.

Just so the various know-nothings in the media, such as Howard Kurtz, understand this:

Some laws punish people strictly for possessing a thing declared contraband. There is no mental state required to be thrown in jail, apart from voluntarily possessing the contraband. You might be able to get off if you can prove someone sneaked the prohibited item into your luggage without your awareness. But the police have heard that an awful lot, and tend not to believe it.

There is no additional criminal intent required -- voluntarily possessing the prohibited item is all the criminal intent that's required.

Now, some laws do require an additional criminal intent. With drugs, you can get hit with the lesser charge of possession, or the more serious charge possession with intent to distribute.

But there is no "with intent to [x]" attached to most gun laws. With most gun laws, simple possession is enough to constitute a breach of the law.

Now, there are additional laws for using a gun in the commission of a crime. But straight up possession? Requires no additional crime beyond possession, just as a straight-up drug possession charge requires no additional crime beyond possessing the contraband.

So yes -- David Gregory is innocent of having any additional criminal intent -- just like 90% of all people arrested for gun violations are themselves guilty of no additional criminal intent beyond simple possession.

David Gregory is precisely as innocent as most people arrested for a gun infraction-- and just as guilty, too.

Now, the idea being put forth by the media -- that you should only be arrested for possessing a gun (or part of a gun, like a magazine) if you have the additional criminal state of intending to commit a crime with that gun (or gun part), is, how can I say this? A radical gun-nut rightwing notion. I think Ted Nugent might very well agree that gun laws should always be limited to situations where guns are used in the commission of the crime or possessed with the future intent of committing a crime.

Does Howard Kurtz embrace that understanding of gun laws? Does Glenn Thrush? Do the various other know-nothings in the media -- who know both nothing about law and nothing about guns, but opine with great force and velocity on gun laws -- embrace this conception of gun laws, that gun laws should never target simple possession but only possession during the commission of a crime or possession with intent to commit a crime?

If not -- if they are less the right-wing gun nut than Ted Nugent (and even the Nuge might find this position too "extremist" for his taste -- then they are duty-bound to demand David Gregory's prosecution, as they would demand that any other Citizen Not On Television would be prosecuted.

They are endeavoring to explicitly create a High Caste with greater privileges than the lower castes, and immunities to the laws the lower castes suffer under, and that is a blood anathema to any real American -- and will be treated as such.

Posted by: Ace at 03:03 PM | Comments (329)
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