Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Wentworth Confused About Drinking on Campus

via Chris Brown at Media Matters.

PolitiFact Texas reports:

State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, played hardball with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews last week, when the pair scuffled over whether suds are allowed on college campuses.

Wentworth, discussing his legislation that would allow concealed handguns on college campuses, balked when Matthews wondered whether "booze and guns" are a healthy combination.

"We don’t have bars on campus in Texas," Wentworth said on the Feb. 22 segment.

Matthews: "You don’t?"

Wentworth: "It’s against the law in Texas. That’s exactly right."

Matthews: "It is?"

Wentworth: "Yes, sir. No alcohol allowed."
The fascinating story goes on to show that it's not exactly like the good Senator said. It makes one wonder, aside from the stupidity of the lie, why Wentworth would be trying to paint such a picture of campus life in Texas? Maybe he's hardpressed to respond to the most common complaint about guns on campus.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Why It's Difficult to Take Gunloons Seriously

MikeB tells the story of gunloons at a gunshow behaving badly.

In comments, commenter "P" tells us the apocryphal story of scary black men secretly loading guns at a gun shop:

There was two patrons who were very odd acting and kept handling every shot gun on the rack furthest from the counter. Even the clerk noticed it and got my attention and I walked back to that area of the store. As I approached they seemed quite furtive and after a couple of whispers left the store. The clerk followed them out and had a conversation with them and they took off to a bus stop. When he returned I was trying to put the guns they had been handling back in order. As is my custom every gun I touch was opened to check the action. The third or forth gun I opened had a live round in the chamber. I immediately called the clerk over and we went through every gun on the rack. These a-holes had loaded nine shotguns intentionally and put them back in the rack.
From the state that brings us scholarships for white males only, we get the latest lunacy:

Students in Texas could soon be allowed to bring their guns into class under new legislation the notoriously gun-friendly state is poised to adopt.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Odd Suicide at the Gun Range

Zorroy offered the link to this one. "Hey, Mike--I know how much of a kick you get out of these gun range suicides, so thought you'd be interested in this odd story:"

A man is in critical condition after shooting himself in the head five or six times at a Panama City gun range.

The Bay County sheriff's office says the shooting was self-inflicted but doesn't know yet if it was accidental or on purpose.

The man walked into Jays Guns and Accessories on Highway 390 near the old airport to use the range just before one o clock. First responders got the call half an hour later that someone had been shot multiple times in the head.

Paramedic's rushed the man to Bay Medical.

Jays Guns and Accessories is divided into a gun shop and a shooting range. Major Tommy Ford of the Bay County Sheriff’s Department told NewsChannel 7 no one was in the range with the man at the time.

"The employee of the shop was watching from the shop side separated by the wall. There were no other customers in the store and no other subjects shooting in the range area at the time."

Authorities haven't released much information about the man yet, but we do know he is in his mid twenties and carried an out-of-state driver's license.
Odd, to say the least. Do you think it's possible to shoot yourself repeatedly in the head?

Bloomington Gun Show Accident

via japete

"Accidental" discharges can happen to the most experienced.

Two men were injured in an accidental shooting Saturday morning at the ECA Gun and Knife Show at Bloomington’s Sale Barn.

An attendee at the show was handling a mini-14 semiautomatic rifle at about 11:15 a.m. As the patron was laying the rifle back on a vendor table, the gun accidentally discharged, said McLean County Sheriff Mike Emery.

“The round went through a post, through a person and then into another person,” Emery said.
So, applying the one-strike-you're-out rule, we've got to include the seller of that gun, the one who handled it when in "accidentally" went off all by itself, and of course, the organizers of the show.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Jon Stewart on the Abortion Haters

The Third Amendment

I've often referred to the 3rd Amendment as an example of ideas which made sense at the time of the writing of the Bill of Rights, but which have no meaning today. I feel this applies also to the 2nd Amendment, but admittedly, the 3rd is a clearer example.

Zorroy provided this link to a wonderfully humorous Onion article which makes the same point in their satirical way. But, oddly, he accompanied the link with this: "The Third Amendment is not irrelevant--the government requiring people to house and feed soldiers in their homes would be an intolerable abuse."

From The Onion:

The National Anti- Quartering Association, America's foremost Third Amendment rights group, held its annual gala in Washington Monday to honor 191 consecutive years of advocating the protection of private homes and property against the unlawful boarding of military personnel.

"This is a proud day for quarters-owners everywhere," said the organization's president, Charles Davison, in his keynote address. "Year after year, we have sent a loud and clear message to the federal government and to anyone else who would attack our unassailable rights: Hands off our cottages, livery stables, and haylofts."
In early 19th-century America when troops were moving from say, Pennsylvania to Virginia, this amendment made some sense. Today it doesn't.

In a similar way, in the very early days of our nation, when standing armies were a concern and when the federal government had exactly the same weapons of war as the civilian population, the 2nd Amendment made some sense. Today it doesn't.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.