If People Only Knew....

... how true this was!

The Hoplophobes’ Travel Guide to the United States

Hilarious essay by Dave Kopel.

Bookstore Cat

This (very large) cat guards a bookstore in Indianapolis.

"You gonna pay for that or what? This ain't no library."

"Next register, please."

Alfred Hitchcock's Driver's License

Now there's an idea for a play: "Hitchcock At The DMV".

Actor Tom Sizemore Busted (Again)

It's a shame this guy has such demons. He has been in Saving Private Ryan, Heat, Enemy Of The State, Blackhawk Down, True Romance and many other excellent movies.

Lock-Time II

Sebastian, over at Snowflakes In Hell, has an interview with a rep from Kel-Tec about their new RFB .308 Bullpup rifle. It has a lock-time of 4.5 milliseconds. An average AR-15, he says, has a lock-time of 9.5 ms., and modern bolt-action rifles have a lock-time of 3 ms.



Hatcher's Notebook gives the lock-time of the Springfield 1903 service rifle as 5.7 ms and as low as 4.9 ms. for the National Match version.

The Remington 3200 shotgun is said to have a lock-time of 3.2 ms., although I can't seem to find an authoritative source for this. But it seems widely accepted in the skeet-shooting fraternity.

I blogged about lock-time a couple of months ago here:
http://turonistan.blogspot.com/2009/03/lock-time.html

Stray Rounds From Firing Range Strike Nuclear Plant

It's a police/SWAT training range on the grounds of the nuclear plant.

At least five bullets escaped the firing range and traveled more than a half-mile before striking buildings and a vehicle near the reactors, according to the NRC, Constellation and the sheriff's office.

One struck the plant's "outage control center," which is used as a command area to orchestrate refueling efforts. Another hit an employee's sport-utility vehicle in the parking lot. Three others struck an office facility: Two of them hit the roof, and one shattered the outer pane of a first-floor window.

Employees were working in both buildings at the time, said Maureen Brown, a Constellation spokeswoman. The bullets did not penetrate either structure, she said.

"No one was injured. . . but it's our range and our responsibility, and we take this very seriously," Brown said. "We are investigating very thoroughly, and we're confident that no bullets left the plant property."

NRC spokeswoman Holly Harrington said the agency was briefed on the incident but was not conducting its own investigation. "This wasn't a [plant] safety or security issue, so we're really not involved," she said.

Firing ranges are common on the sprawling grounds of the nation's nuclear facilities, Harrington said. At Calvert Cliffs, the range is used about 200 days a year by plant security officers, who are tested regularly by commission auditors.
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Brown said the range is used by county sheriff's deputies and is the site of a major annual SWAT exercise. "It's part of our community outreach to coordinate with local law enforcement," she said.

On May 14, SWAT officers from various police agencies were practicing on the plant's firing range, which is west of the reactors.

Officers from Calvert, Charles and Prince George's counties, Baltimore and the U.S. Marshals Service were working in teams of three practicing "room clearing" exercises, in which they try to quickly assess dangerous situations in small places and shoot while they are moving, said Lt. Steve Jones, commander of criminal investigations for the sheriff's office.

All handled quietly and professionally. But you know the hysteria that would arise if this were a private range?

Washington Post.

Guns In National Parks

Unusually fair-minded article in the New York Times (!) without the usual hysteria. Excerpt:

Park rangers and volunteers said they were not sure whether gun possession in the park would increase or not when the new law takes effect, partly because they have no idea how many visitors are illegally carrying concealed weapons now. Hardly anyone is ever caught, though current law requires owners to lock or store their guns in a trunk or glove box while in the parks.

“If a person is going to bring a weapon in here, they’ll do it whether there’s a law or not,” said Major Sansam, a seasonal volunteer at Rocky Mountain National Park, the seventh-most popular in the system, with about 2.8 million visits last year.

In the entire history of the NY Times, I believe that is the first time that they have ever allowed anyone to state the obvious: "...they have no idea how many visitors are illegally carrying concealed weapons now."

h/t Sensibly Progressive.

Chicago Gun Case

Second Amendment lawyers Halbrook and Gura have their heads handed to them by the Justices.

Halbrook doesn't get two sentences out before he's interrupted. Gura doesn't even get his first sentence out.

The justices continually interrupt the lawyers and prevent them from completing their arguments.

The question before the court was a limited one: is the Second Amendment incorporated against the States by the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment? The judges told Halbrook and Gura that the Supreme Court had already settled the matter and that only the Supreme Court could change it. Halbrook and Gura tried to respond that there was no Supreme Court precedent for incorporation by Due Process, but the judges interrupted them and told them it didn't matter.

The attorney for the City, Ms. Solomon (Sullivan?) continues at length without interruption, except for praise from the judges.

Grrrrr... It is infuriating to listen to this.

Gun Seizure In China

The caption reads, "Earlier this year, police checked illegally owned guns in China's Henan province."

This stuff looks like it was left over from the Boxer Rebellion! Oh, wait, that's racist.

This stuff looks like it was left over from The Righteous Harmony Society Movement! That's better!

What's probably going on here is that the senior cops are keeping the modern arms and re-selling them, either personally or through intermediaries, and destroying only the very oldest guns and ammo.

Entrepreneurial law-enforcement.

Bang! Ow!

Recite the Four Rules, everybody!

I am not going to hot-link these images from Massad Ayoob's post. They are not for the squeamish. View them at your peril!

http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/2009/05/25/the-price-of-carelessness/

If Cats Taught Philosophy ....

h/t Trailer Park Paradise.

Vintage Ferrari Sells For $12.4 Million

It's a 1957 Testa Rossa 250.

Ze New Bathroom

They started on this while I was in Indy and finished last Saturday. Stripped it down to the walls and rebuilt it. The original dated from 1954 and had a yellow linoleum floor and a leaky tub. The new improved version has a GFI outlet and a ceiling vent fan.

How much did it cost? Remember that Krieghoff K-32 4-barrel skeet set that I used to mention from time to time? Ain't gonna happen.

The Lost Boys

A report from a conference on college men sounds like a satire written by P.J. O'Rourke:

Edwards and Harris also recommended providing opportunities for critical self-reflection about what it means to be a man – “to disrupt the functioning of hegemonic masculinity” – including through facilitated student affairs programming and academic courses (a course in women’s studies, for instance). They recommended a need to build "cultural competence" for faculty and staff in issues of gender. While many in the audience lauded the transformative impact of small group discussions among men, one common point was the need for a facilitator who really understands gender dynamics.

No wonder there are fewer men on campus every year: ya'll are threatening to send 'em to Re-education Camps as a required course.

h/t Old Grouch.

National Ignition Facility

Yup, we have one, and it's being dedicated this week.

In theory, the facility’s 192 lasers — made of nearly 60 miles of mirrors and fiber optics, crystals and light amplifiers — will fire as one to pulverize a fleck of hydrogen fuel smaller than a match head. Compressed and heated to temperatures hotter than those of the core of a star, the hydrogen atoms will fuse into helium, releasing bursts of thermonuclear energy.

That's not a #2 pencil; that's the "target holder".

1967 Killer Exposed As Stasi Agent

In 1967 a young, unarmed demonstrator in West Berlin was shot and killed by a police officer. The slaying sent West Germany lurching to the left and was the inspiration for violent action by terrorist groups like the Red Army Faction and the Second of June Movement.

Now a discovery in the archives of the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, has upended Germany’s perception of its postwar history. The killer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, though working for the West Berlin police, was at the time also acting as a Stasi spy for East Germany.

The most insidious question raised by the revelation is whether Mr. Kurras might have been acting not only as a spy, but also as an agent provocateur, trying to destabilize West Germany. As the newspaper Bild am Sonntag put it in a headline, referring to the powerful former leader of the dreaded East German security agency, Erich Mielke, “Did Mielke Give Him the Order to Shoot?”

New York Times

Friendship

I ran across this in the process of looking up some details on the life of the legendary Scottish commando leader from WWII, Lord Lovat. Here is a picture taken on August 19, 1942:

Lovat and the 4th Commando are returning from a raid on Dieppe.

Less than two years later, Lovat was at Sword Beach on D-Day:

They say that's him, wading through the surf, just to the right of the main column, and carrying an old Winchester rifle. In the foreground is the bagpiper of the 4th Commando, Bill Millin. In defiance of strict orders to the contrary, Lovat had Millin pipe the men ashore. Lovat was badly wounded six days later. He survived the war and died in 1995. Millin also survived the war. He played the pipes at Lovat's funeral.

Government Motors

The White House is offering the UAW 100 cents on the dollar for equity in a restructured GM. By comparison, other bond-holders are being offered less than a tenth of that:

While the Obama administration has been playing hardball with bondholders, it has been more than happy to play nice with the United Auto Workers. How else to explain why a retiree health-care fund controlled by the UAW is slated to get a 39 percent equity stake in GM for its remaining $10 billion in claims while bondholders are being pressured to take a 10 percent stake for their $27 billion?

WaPo.

New Netpix Service Sends Unlimited Photographs For Monthly Fee

Whoooooa! What a business plan. Wish I'd thought of it. From The Onion.

Also:

Archie To Choose Betty Or Veronica