With a tip of the Stetson to The Gun Wire for the link the Daily Mail reports country canary LeAnn Rimes has joined the shooting community.
And judging by the expression on her face – she is enjoying the hobby. Click on the link above for the full story and bragging pictures.
Stranger
Somehow, I did not expect that. The Daily Caller reports ultra leftest Van Jones has “ripped” Eric Holder over Fast and Furious. While I welcome the comment, when a leftist attorney general loses the support of a Van Jones, it is long past time for them to pack it in.
Briefly quoting Jone’s comments reported in the Daily Caller:
“I believe that if this was happening across our other border in Canada, we’d probably take it a little more seriously,” Jones said, implying much of the carelessness over Operation Fast and Furious came because many of the victims are Hispanics from Mexico.
I agree with Jones. The media has been sweeping Fast and Furious and the other ATF operations under the rug. Besides Fast and Furious and GrenadeWalker from Arizona, we have at least two “operations” involving the Houston and Dallas ATF offices; Florida has Castaway from the Tampa office; plus GangWalker from Indiana. As well as the State Department operation involving the legal export of guns to the Zeta Cartel. That makes seven Obama Administration “operations” that apparently are intended to arm either the Sinaloa, Gulf, or Zeta Cartels.
In addition, gun dealers from Charlotte and Minneapolis areas tell me privately that they have received pressure to sell guns to suspicious persons. It’s an easy run from Owatonna and Albert Lea to the Canadian border and there are hundreds of possible ways to get guns into Canada. The Rainy River is no obstacle at all; and it’s Interstate all the way to Pembina, North Dakota. Once you are at Pembina there’s nothing between you and Canada but a few ranchers gates.
So while I have no proof that guns have been “walked” to Canada, I would certainly not call it unlikely. After all, the Cartels have an impressive presence in British Columbia and are rapidly spreading across Canada.
The plain fact is that we do not know how extensive this Administration’s GunWalking operations are. Holder is blocking Congress attempts to obtain that information. And Obama is supporting his efforts, for whatever reason.
Stranger
FOX News reports Supreme Court Justice Stephen Bryer has been robbed for the second time in three months. This time burglars struck his Washington, DC, home.
Briefly quoting the FOX News item linked above:
Breyer’s property was raided May 4, The Washington Post reported Thursday, with cutlery and candlesticks worth about $3,500 taken.
Given the violent nature of DC criminals, Breyer is fortunate he was not at home at the time.
Stranger
An old time cowboy, Jules Verne Allen, sings of the Old Santa Fe Trail. Moderns cannot really conceive of the work or the pain of “the push west.” Your vote can help preserve and restore the legacy they left. It is only 172 days until the election of 2012. Are you ready?
Stranger
This video clip from My FOX Detroit is self explanatory:
Women Packing Heat: More Getting Concealed Pistol Licenses: MyFoxDETROIT.com
“I am not a vigilante, but I will protect myself, my family, my property.” That is the very essence of civilization.
Let me be blunt. The primary reason the black homicide rate is 17 per 100,000 population is the historical “blacks do not do guns.” These ladies are bringing down the crime rate in their neighborhood. They are making themselves safer. They are doing what the police cannot do. They are protecting themselves and those around them from criminal violence and predation. As Americans, they have every right – and as potential victims they have every reason to do so.
Good for them!
Stranger
Deos enim religuos accepimus, Caesares dedimus.
The gods were handed down to us, but we created the Caesars ourselves.
Which reminds me of the Boston Brahmin who gave his butler a jug of whiskey for Christmas. After Yule, the man asked the butler how did he find his gift.
“About right,Sir,” was the butlers response.
“About right, about right you say. What do you mean by about right,” demanded the Brahmin.
“I mean, sir, that if it had been any better you would have drunk it yourself, and if it had been any worse I could not have drunk it; so it was about right,” explained the servant.
And in this United States of America we get the worst rulers we can tolerate.
Stranger
I see that ‘Bam made a stump speech in someone’s garage the other day. The media was kind and said several neighbors stopped to see what all the remote trucks were doing, but only the couple whose garage he borrowed showed up to see ‘Bam’s speech.
Obama reminds me of a country preacher I ran into in a country store south of Branson, Missouri. The preacher came in, marched up to the counter, and asked for a 100 percent ministerial discount on gas and groceries.
“I’m only a poor preacher, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” sez the storekeep. “I heard about your sermons.”
But I ‘spect ‘Bam would have better luck if he took a few tips on gathering a tip* from the old time pitchman. I remember Jim Osborne, who pitched Red Star tire patch in the Model T days, never had any problem drawing a crowd. He used a monkey.
Jim shaved that monk, right there on top of his tripes and keister*. Shaving the monkey would draw a tip in no time flat because no one had even thought about shaving a monkey.
Of course, the monk didn’t stand very close to the razor. He got one of those Yasser Arafat shaves. Sort of stubbly.
Stranger
* A “tip” is pitchman’s slang for a crowd of potential customers.
* A keister is a pitchman’s suitcase, the tripes is the tripod used to hold the suitcase up.
S
Someone came by searching for “foid and homicide rates.”
Let’s look at Illinois’ homicide rates from 1960 to 2010, for an answer to that. You can click on the graphic on the left for a clearer view, or click here for a spreadsheet of Illinois crime rates from 1960 to 2010..
The then Chicago based American Broadcasting Company started the gun control ball rolling in 1964, after a meeting of major network and production studio heads in Chicago. It took two years to gain enough support in Springfield to make a serious effort to enact what became the “Firearms Owners Identification Card” scheme.
In 1960, the homicide rate was a quite respectable 4.9 per 100,000 population. The homicide rate was 4.8 in 1961, 5.3 in ’62, 5.1 in ’63, 5.5 in ’64 and while gun control picked up some media support, the homicide rate was still 5.2 in 1965. Then the fun began.
Armed with both political support from Mayor Richard J. Daley and the Chicago Machine, as well as broadcast media support, Chicago area legislators very nearly passed a gun control bill in 1966. That year, Illinois homicide rate hit 6.9 per 100,000 for the first time since the early 1930′s. That bill failed, but the somewhat less restrictive FOID law was enacted in 1967, to take effect January 1, 1968. Illinois’ homicide rate hit 7.3 in 1967, and 8.1 in 1968; the first year of FOID.
Illinois Violent Crime Rate 1960-2010
By 1974, the Daley Machine was erasing violent crimes and homicides like mad, and the official homicide rate hit 11.8 per 100,000 population. The slower to react violent crime rate, which had been just 330.3 per 100,000 in 1963 had been pushed up to 627.1 per 100,000 in 1974.
While the number of homicides and violent crimes remained fairly stable the passage of Fred Roti’s gun control law, which Chicago’s Mayor Jane Byrne signed into law resulted in the next spike in Illinois’ violent crime and homicide rates.
Followed by the spike caused by Handgun Control, Inc’s (currently dba “The Brady Campaign) drive to ban handguns and “assault weapons” in the late 1980′s and early 1990′s.
Illinois experience with its FOID law is typical of every gun control drive and every gun control law. Variations in the amount of increase in homicides and violent crimes depends on the severity of the law, and the rigor of enforcement. Even comparatively mild gun laws can trigger a disastrous increase in violent crime if they are rigorously enforced.
Strange
The Daily Caller reports Eric Holder is “considering” releasing “merchant of death”Viktor Bout to his native Russia.
Bout who has been called the “world’s largest merchant of death,” was convicted of selling arms to Columbia’s FARC rebels, and has been linked to arms sales to various NarcoCartels as well as Africa’s “Lord’s Resistance Army,” Angolan rebels, and other similar groups. Reportedly, the going price for a full auto AK-47 retired from the Soviet Army was as little as the equivalent of USD $9.00. So Bout is at best a very questionable character.
Briefly excerpting the Daily Caller report linked above:
….Holder told Russian news outlets that the U.S. may return convicted arms dealer and terrorist Viktor Bout, the infamous “Merchant of Death,” to Russia to serve out the remainder of his 25-year prison term…”
Given the situation in Russia, Bout will probably serve the rest of his sentence in a nice dacha on the Black Sea. And Eric Holder will become the second most prolific arms merchant at liberty.
Stranger
Someone came by searching for “how many Texans own guns.”
That depends on what you regard as gun ownership.
Do you limit ownership to those who have gone to a gun dealers, put money on the counter, and filled out an ATF form 4473?
How about wives? “His” gun is often “her gun” as well. And of course, men often gift wives and significant others with guns. Should the gift of a life preserver to a significant other make them gun owners?
How about children? Does the twelve year old who has been given a gun and who considers it his or her property count?
Conventionally, everyone over the age of 10 in a household has some claim to to the guns in that household. If we agree to that metric, Texas has about 25,250,000 residents, and approximately 18,600,000 of those have some claim to gun ownership. However, only about 7,450,000 Texans have actually laid down the money to purchase a gun.
Therefore, the answer is between 7,450,000 and 18,600,000. Which is as close as I can come without a clear definition of a “gun owner.”
Stranger