Links for Tuesday, 21 February 2012

When Gun-Control Advocates Carry Guns
It’s more prevalent than you might expect. From The Firearms Blog,

There is a level of hypocrisy that goes beyond belief from the anti-gun crowd. Over the years anti-gun zealots such as Rosie O’Donnell suggested that no one should have gun, yet her bodyguard was armed. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg continues a crusade against all guns (not just the illegal variety) with his anti-gun group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, yet everywhere the billionaire goes he has armed guards.

And now it seems that David Brock could be the biggest hypocrite of them all. His name might not be as familiar to readers as Bloomberg or O’Donnell, but Brock is founder of Media Matters for America, a progressive watchdog site that routinely calls out the NRA for anything pro-gun.

Yet it gets even better (or worse, depending on your point of view), from the Daily Caller,

By 2010, Brock’s personal assistant, a man named Haydn Price-Morris, was carrying a holstered and concealed Glock handgun when he accompanied Brock to events, including events in Washington, D.C., a city with famously restrictive gun laws. Price-Morris told others he carried the gun to protect Brock from threats.

Remember incidents like these whenever someone advocates “common-sense” gun laws. Yes, as these anti-gun people so plainly illustrate, “common-sense” equates to taking the necessary steps to protecting oneself.

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CEO Demonstrates Body Armor
By having a live round fired at him, point-blank!

Kids (and adults) DON’T try this at home!!!

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Negligent Discharge (ND) of the day
Remember, Remember, Remember: Guns don’t discharge or “go off” all by themselves. From Knoxnews.com (emphasis added),

A vendor at the Knoxville Gun & Knife Show shot himself in the hand while attempting to show off his personal weapon Sunday, according to the police.

Adams, a licensed vendor at the event in the Jacob Building on Magnolia Avenue, apparently was showing his personal concealed weapon — a Kimber .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun — to a customer when the weapon discharged, DeBusk said.

Please, people, know and practice the 4 Rules of Gun Safety.

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If you keep a firearm for home defense – know when the safety is off
And when it’s on. From the Springfield News-Leader (emphasis added),

Branden M. Slavens, 28, has been charged with first-degree burglary, first-degree assault, armed criminal action, felonious restraint, first-degree robbery, felony resisting arrest, third-degree assault and two counts of first-degree tampering, according to the Greene County Sheriff’s Office.

Between 3 and 3:30 a.m. Friday, Slavens used an ax to force his way into the back door of a residence within one mile of the crash site, the documents said. A woman at the residence, awakened by noises, initially told Slavens to leave before he used the ax to get in. Once inside, he threw the woman onto the floor, the documents said. A man at the home then came down the stairs with a rifle. The man later told police he pulled the trigger to protect himself and his wife, but the safety was on. Slavens then struck the man on his left arm with the ax, causing severe injuries. Slavens then took the gun.

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New York City working on “X-ray Vision” to look under your pants
For any concealed guns you might be hiding. And the ACLU is not happy (among others). From the New York Times,

In a speech on Tuesday morning to the New York City Police Foundation, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the department was working with the Defense Department to develop gun-scan technology “capable of detecting concealed firearms.”

The tool would operate as a sort of reverse infrared mapping tool by reading the energy people emit and pinpointing where that flow is blocked by some object, like a gun.

Can we all say, “governmental intrusion”?

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Another pregnant woman with a shotgun
In Minnesota, and she ran off burglars by racking her shotgun. From CBS,

It’s the last thing two burglary suspects expected to hear when they broke into a Coon Rapids home. From within the house came the unmistakable sound of a pump shotgun. At the other end of that gun was a 22-year-old woman who is nine weeks pregnant.

Rusty Nails (SCO v. 49 – Firearms edition)

It’s not like we haven’t warned you that New York City is rabidly anti-gun (especially its Mayor Bloomberg)

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And you can’t even own a Flintlock in NYC

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What if you’re a citizen from another state with a concealed carry weapon permit?
And, while visiting the 911 Memorial you see a “No Handguns” sign (which surely must mean the place is safe, right?) so you want to do the right thing and check in your legally owned handgun?

From the New York Post,

Really, you can’t bring guns into the 9/11 Memorial?

A tourist from Tennessee waltzed into one of the most secure sites in the city — and politely asked a cop if she could check her weapon.

Instead, she was dragged out in cuffs.

Now, Meredith Graves, 39, is facing at least three years in prison for thinking New York’s gun laws are anything like those in the Bible Belt.

Get it? A law-abiding citizen, albeit very wrong in her understanding of the anti-2nd amendment laws in New York City, was attemtping to follow the law and now faces prison time.

Also in the story,

Mayor Bloomberg, with the help of the five district attorneys, has crusaded against the flow of illegal guns, especially from the South.

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But surely a former Marine can check in his legally owned handgun while visiting the Empire State Building?
From the WSJ,

Some veterans linked to the Leatherneck.com online community started sending letters to city officials Monday urging them to drop the prosecution of Ryan Jerome.

He’s accused of trying to check his gun, registered in his home state of Indiana, while visiting New York City in September. They say he was acting responsibly and got bad information about city rules.

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Well how about the guy recently arrested in New York City, for possessing a firearm, who claimed to be a Navy SEAL?
The authorities, not believing him, threw him into a psych ward. Turns out… he was telling the truth!

From the New York Post,

His story about being a Navy SEAL wasn’t so fishy after all.

The Virginia man arrested for gun possession in Manhattan Thursday and thrown in a psych ward when he claimed to be a member of the elite military unit but couldn’t provide proof was telling the truth, The Post has learned.

Oops.

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It looks like Tennessee lawmakers are not too thrilled with the treatment of Meredith Graves
From the New York Daily News,

A Tennessee lawmaker angry that a home state tourist was busted with a loaded gun at Ground Zero introduced is threatening to go after New Yorkers who speed in his state.

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CNN report on Jerome and Graves

Comparing Alaska and New York City; Does size matter?

In Obama and the Palin Effect, Deepak Chopra states,

…On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City…

Now, that was an interesting comparison, wasn’t it? Chopra is arguing that because the number of Alaska’s 683,478 residents is about one-tenth the number of New York City’s 8,274,527 residents, the task of governing Alaska must also be about one-tenth the job of governing NYC.

But let’s take a look at this graphically. Below is a bar-chart histogram which compares both New York City (NYC) and Alaska (AK) with regards to their population levels.

Palin_effect_pop_nyc_ak

Clearly, the population of NYC dwarfs that of AK.

However, what if we were to look at the size of NYC as compared to that of AK? The chart below illustrates this for us.

Palin_effect_area_nyc_ak

So, in terms of area (square miles), Alaska’s size (656,424 sq. mi.) so overwhelms that of New York City’s (469 sq. mi.), that NYC doesn’t even register on the chart. Simply put, Alaska is 1,400 times the size of New York City.

Using Chopra’s reasoning, this must mean that, in terms of area to govern, the job of running Alaska is expanded to the scale of running 1,400 New York Cities!

I wondered how these resource-based comparisons played out when comparing Obama’s state of Illinois to that of Palin’s Alaska. So I did a little bit of research. I found the results interesting.

Read the rest of this entry