Ninth Stage

Fourteen years ago, when I was planning a move the the Nashville area, I started taking The Tennessean (they’re happy to mail it to wherever you’ll pay for it).  I wanted to develop a feel, a connection to my new home to be.
Living my life ’till then in Los Angeles, I’d stopped taking the L.A. [...]

Among the most accurate descriptions of a weapon I’ve read in the media in a long time.
Pendleton said several shots were fired from a semi-automatic AK-47-type . . .
And then they blow it completely.
. . . assault rifle inside the house and several more were fired on the outside.
Folks, folks, folks.  Semi-automatic rifles are [...]

At CBS, The Skinny is “Keach Hagey’s take on the top news of the day and the best of the Internet.”
Yesterday a topic was the reaction to The Skinny’s earlier coverage of the WaPo story “U.S. Guns Behind Cartel Killings in Mexico“. Hagey distills readers take on the story with.
Skinny readers, it turns out, [...]

Tonight Nashville’s WKRN Channel 2 news at 10 had segment called “Life of a Gun”. Mostly it’s trying to find controversy over a Sheriff office selling confiscated guns.
Classie Wilson was killed by 14 year old using a recycled handgun. The gun had been”traded in” by the Maury County Sheriff in 2001. [...]

The headline tells it all. Or does it?
[Besides guns,] Deputies also bought stolen boats, trailers, trucks, electronics and drugs. All told, close to $2-million worth of stolen property was recovered.
A storefront sting netted a bunch of stolen goods including guns.  But one boat or one truck is more valuable than a pile of the [...]

You’ve got to keep hammering them, otherwise it’s all VPC talking points.  In a letter to the editor:
Another term that is frequently used is “assault weapon.” As most any item can be used to perpetrate assault, the phrase “assault weapon” is meaningless and is merely a catchall term to cover guns that politicians fear will [...]

I’ll be watching you.
Australian radio show has not a clue.
Yet in some states like Pennsylvania, getting a gun is almost as easy as ordering a pizza.
Eighty-five, eight-six per cent of homicides are by handgun or handguns are out of control here in the city of Philadelphia.
And this year alone, Philadelphia has issued more than 4,000 [...]

Speaking of machine guns.
An article at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Law change drives the high price of machine guns.” We knew that already but it’s good to see it treated without any PSH.

In a newspaper article by Mike Moore (no, not that one) caroms all over the place while shooting a few rounds from an AR. Not a bad story for a newbie and newspaperman but I think he gets this one reversed:
Personally, the world I inhabit sits between the weapon-free, Coke-and-a-smile one and the [...]

9mm “Assault Rifle” more dangerous than hand grenades.
Police found a 9 mm assault rifle, air guns, hand grenades, a bomb-making book, videos of the 1999 Columbine attack in Colorado and violence-filled notebooks at the boy’s home Wednesday, prosecutors said. They found no ammunition for the most dangerous weapon, the assault rifle.
I’m betting the 9mm “Assault [...]

Scott Thomas Beauchamp, “boy or girl?“

I can think of few things less interesting than a magazine about bloggers and podcasters.  I guess there’s an audience out there, probably dead tree media types trying to steal some mojo.
Via coals to Newcastle.

Michael DelGiorno is an idiot, he’s also the new morning radio talk show host on 99.7 WTN here in Nashville.
Last Thursday a breathless DelGiorno exercised his meme busting skills. The meme he was destroying was the “half of all marriages end in divorce” meme. DelGiorno came across this factoid: “Divorce rate: 3.6 per [...]

Michael DelGiorno has one favorite subject, Michael DelGiorno. Michael DelGiorno talks about Michael DelGiorno in the third person. Michael DelGiorno interrupts callers whenever Michael DelGiorno is reminded of an anecdote about Michael DelGiorno.
Other facts about Michael DelGiorno:
Michael DelGiorno doesn’t read books. Michael DelGiorno signs them, even if they weren’t written by Michael DelGiorno [...]

“The last thing we want is to have another stolen gun running around.”
“Really bad things can happen when these things are out and about.”
“It is very important for us to recover the gun. It’s a powerful weapon, and we don’t like those things floating around unattended.” (Emphasis mine)

All from one Wyoming newspaper article.

This is just about the worst news story about so called “assault weapons” I have ever read.
A few tidbits:

“They’re capable of firing hundreds of rounds in just a few short seconds.“
“Captain Mark Holley with Shreveport’s Narcotics Unit says assault rifles are popular with big game hunters.“
Shreveport police variously get “three to five per day” or [...]

I’m not sure why I dislike Pajamas Media so much. Sure, I find the name too precious and the shenanigans around it’s origins were tawdry, but that doesn’t explain the depth of my distaste. Fortunately, using Adblock, I never see any of Pajama’s ads and I’m only reminded of their existence from links [...]

The Taliban and it’s Al Qaeda allies can’t do it alone, they need your help.
[T]he Taliban and its remaining Al Qaeda allies have been testing the NATO force. The Taliban wanted to inflict at least one casualty-heavy defeat on a NATO ally, and then magnify that in the media.
I’m sure that there are some [...]

Sounds like a bad guy was arrested but read this description of the weapons seized.
Many of the firearms had been modified with high-powered optical sighting scopes and had extended capacity magazines with high velocity bullets, Kurylowicz said.
Modified (something was bolted on?) Scary!
High-powered optical sighting (hunting?) scopes. Scary!
Extended (normal?) capacity magazines. Scary!
High velocity (come on now, [...]

The Probability Broach, a graphic novel serialized online.  It’s a heartbreaking view of an alternative history that might have been ours, except for our early traitors.
Read it and weep.