Grenade-selling FFL Dealer

Grenades were sold to an doctor by a licensed gun dealer, reports the Arkansas News.

A retired weapons dealer testified today that he sold grenades similar to one used in a 2009 bombing that critically injured the Arkansas Medical Board chairman to the Pope County physician accused in the blast.

Lloyd Hahn of St. Charles, Mo., also told a federal jury that he sold to Dr. Randeep Mann 100 grenades similar to the ones found buried near Mann’s home outside Russellville and a Russian-made machine gun without the necessary federal paperwork.

Prosecutors attempted to use Hahn’s testimony as the most direct link yet offered between Mann and the February bombing that wounded Dr. Trent Pierce in the driveway of his West Memphis home. The blast caused severe injuries to Pierce’s face, arm and leg, and cost him an eye.

He was testifying under immunity. I would imagine this was not the very first time he'd sold grenades and machine guns and other stuff like that. We often talk about the concealed carry guys who go bad, but my contention is when they make the news, they'd already gone bad, or had always been bad. It's the same with the FFL guys, at some point they get caught.

What's your opinion? Do you think the pro-gun rationale which says the percentage of bad apples is extremely low is valid? They use this argument a lot, gun accidents with kids, CCW guys who go bad, unscrupulous gun dealers. I don't buy it.

Please leave a comment.

Someone Should Tell Joe Huffman

What was that question again, "Can you tell me one place where gun control has worked?" I may be misquoting it, but I think that's the idea.

Datelines Philippines reports on the good news.

From January 1 to the end of June, 157,674 crimes were recorded nationwide, a 68 percent from from last year’s 502,655, Directorate for Investigative and Detective Management (DIDM) figures released by Camp Crame showed.

“What is very noticeable here is the direct effect of the gun ban to peace and order, particularly the gun-related crimes,” PNP Chief, Director General Jesus Versoza said in a statement.

That seems pretty clear to me, I can't wait to hear how the gun bloggers will rationalize it away. You see, they already know it can't be right, so now they just have to find a way to explain why. And if all else fails, they'll just say they don't trust the stats or the folks reporting them.

I hope that's what they do, because when I did that about some of their fluky reports, they didn't like it very much. This will be a way of balancing out the argument. Let's see.

“Crimes are effectively prevented when the instruments of crime were virtually ‘taken away’ from the hands of criminal elements, threat groups and other unauthorized individuals,” Verzosa said.

Now, wait a minute. Where did a Police Director, way down in the Philippines get an idea like that? Do you think he's been reading the Brady Campaign or the VPC site? Or do you think, as a reasonable man, looking at the facts, he came up with the same exact conclusion that many reasonable people looking at the facts in the United States have concluded. The fewer guns the better.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Rob Portman and Gun Control

The Cleveland Plain Dealer asks the question did Rob Portman ever really say, "I never met a gun control bill I didn't like."

In order to determine that PolitiFact Ohio asked the folks who have used the quote against Fisher, "including the Buckeye Firearms Association, the Ohio Republican Party and the campaign of Rob Portman, the Republican running against Fisher for the U.S. Senate."

It spoke with people who dealt with Fisher two decades ago and opposed him on issues in the Ohio Senate. And it asked the National Rifle Association -- twice -- to dig into its research archives, although the NRA didn't follow up either time. We checked decades' worth of newspaper clippings and websites and asked those who keep using the quote to check their records in case they've found it.

Guess what? No one has come forward with anything indicating that Portman ever said that.

Anyone who reads the gun blogs could have saved them a lot of time. This is the typical way pro-gun people treat their adversaries, or those they perceive as adversaries. A Republican politician who gets a low rating from the NRA is fair game to attacks like this. One exaggerated remark, glib and catchy, which then is repeated countless times, begins to have a superficial credibility.

Isn't it funny that pro-gun folks often refer to anti-gun people as sheep. What's a better example of sheep-like behavior than mindlessly repeating catchy one liners, regardless of their veracity?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Arizona's the First

An op-ed in the Arizona Daily Star expresses my concerns pretty well.

Beginning Thursday you can carry a concealed weapon in Arizona without a permit.

Supporters of the new law say it's all about freedom and extending Second Amendment rights.

Some supporters even argue that the more people who carry firearms, the safer we will all be from robberies, assaults and lunatic shooting sprees.

We think not. We suspect a bunch of armed citizens trying to intervene in such incidents will be more likely to endanger innocent, unarmed citizens than to prevail over the bad guys.

But the law's the law. So let's be responsible with these new freedoms.

In other words, tough shit, gun controllers. The author of this article is a bit more optimistic than I am. I don't think too many people who decide to carry concealed guns in Arizona will bother with the classes and training. If they were they types to do that, they would have already gotten the concealed carry permit like so many others.

Good luck Arizona. I sure wouldn't want to be in the vicinity of a crime when the intervention of some armed citizen is so much more likely. I predict these guys will do more harm than good.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

About Andrew Breitbart

The Huffington Post published a wonderful article by Peter Dreier and Christopher Martin about Andrew Breitbart. After providing a detailed synopsis of the ACORN situation, which he manufactured, they ask some hard questions about the Sherrod case.

Clearly the Obama administration over-reacted, fearful, as a high-level official put it, of having the Sherrod story show up on Glenn Beck's Fox News show. Why they are so intimidated by Beck and his ilk is a mystery. Their followers, and those who identify with the Tea Party, represent no more than 15 percent of all voters. Moreover, very few of Beck's (or Limbaugh's) devotees would even consider voting for a Democrat. After all, they think Obama is a Marxist, a Muslim, and a foreigner. This is not a constituency that Obama and the Democrats are going to win over by appearing to be bipartisan or middle-of-the-road.

And if Obama and his inner circle are worried that Breitbart's and Beck's poison will spread from their base among right-wing zealots and start influencing "independent" and "swing" voters -- and thus help sway close elections toward Republican candidates -- then the best way to prevent that from happening is to fight back, and challenge their lies and distortions, not run away and hide, or capitulate, as they did by firing Van Jones, abandoning ACORN, and firing Shirley Sherrod.

Breitbart's credibility may or may not survive the Sherrod controversy. But what's important is whether responsible journalists -- as well as the Obama administration, the Democrats, and liberals and progressives -- learn some lessons from this episode.

Yes, acquiescence is not the correct response to the tricks and lies of the right. This is the beauty of the internet. Whether the main stream media, the White House or anyone else does the right thing, in the liberal blogging community you can be sure to hear the entire spectrum of opinions on everything from Shirley Sherrod to the War in Afghanistan.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

More Jon Stewart

Have you noticed that after thousands of reports about the building of an Islamic Learning Center ON the 9/11 site, or AT the 9/11 site, we're beginning to see NEAR the 9/11 site? The reason is it's going to be two blocks away. There's a gigantic building separating it from Ground Zero, which will not even be visible from the building site. And, there are churches and synogogues in the area as well.

What is wrong with the right wing, xenophobic conservatives, the same ones who viciously oppose amnesty for illegal-Mexican-immigrant workers, why can't they speak the truth? Why do they have to exaggerate the supposed offense by disseminating a false image of a Muslim Mosque right where the Twin Towers used to be?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Profile of a Killer

The Seattle Times published a detailed profile of Christopher Montford who allegedly shot two cops last year, killing one of them.

His four years as a 30-something college student in the Seattle area give the clearest picture of the obsessive political ideology of Monfort, who carried a copy of the Constitution in his breast pocket and saw himself as a modern-day version of a Revolutionary War-era patriot.

The article describes at length his intense objections to the War in Iraq and the Bush-era initiatives which many viewed as anti-freedom. He was one of those guys who can't seem to turn it off. Once he got ranting about one of his favorite complaints, he became overbearing and seemed a bit unhinged.

I know some people like that, how about you?

Please leave a comment.