The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
As I was departing Philly for St. Louis, I noticed there was a Liberty Bell made entirely from Legos in the Philadelphia Airport. It’s located in the new International Terminal:
I thought that was pretty impressive, so I thought I’d share. It’s even the actual size.
I made it to St. Louis, and so did my Glock. The check in process was painless. They didn’t even ask to inspect it. I’m guessing the x-ray machine they use can see whether a round is in the chamber, but there was a big cable lock through the magazine well and slide. I thought I heard one TSA agent mention it was a Glock. Another actually came over, saw my NRA shirt, and asked me if I was a member, when I affirmed, he started asking me about good pistols to get started with handgun shooting on. I told him I was a Glock man, but that some people don’t like them, and SIGs are also pretty good. Either way, I was happy it was such a painless process.  I will not hesitate to travel with a firearm again.
Sorry for the light blogging tonight.  I’ll be liveblogging the convention.  For your entertainment tonight, be sure to read Bill Whittle’s latest essay.
Ahab has several posts on Don’s Guns of Indianapolis. He’s not a big fan of Don, and his support of local gun control measures. As soon as he mentioned this I could swear seeing this name before, and sure enough, I have. I’m not sure where I originally ran into this guy, but my first instinct was “I’m not sure I’d rent or buy a gun from a guy who doesn’t know to keep his finger off the trigger and keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.”
I agree with Ahab. I think it’s a safe bet this guy is a bozo, and man, that laugh is just creepy. I’d rather this guy was selling something other than guns.
Just because it’s your sandbox, doesn’t mean you should be a brat to all the other kids in the neighborhood, because they don’t want to play the same way you do. It’s a good lesson, I think.
UPDATE: The continuing controversy is making me consider proposing a new verb:
Althoused
verb
Usage: #9 got seriously althoused over at KnoxViews.
Hopefully Prof. Althouse isn’t insulted by this proposed verb, but she’s the most prominent target of this type of behavior I’ve seen to date. But it appears she’s not the only one who causes the lefty blogosphere to start stoking the fire underneath the stakes.
I’m still debating whether to take the Glock along to St. Louis.  I’ve never checked a firearm before, since I don’t travel much by plane. I’ve always been kind of worried about getting a clueless ticket agent or TSA drone, and having complications and missing the flight.  Or, even worse, have them lose my luggage.
I’ve meant to blog about this, but I thought I’d do some linky-no-thinky instead. The City Troll has as good a write up on the incident as I would have done. Sestak is a class A bonehead, and this incident just reinforces it.
The really sad thing about this editorial is that I’m not certain whether it’s for real or a joke. If they were talking about any other politician, I would assume a joke. But according to this, John Street is about to blame Philadelphia’s murder rate on global warming.
I really think it’s satire, but since the city government is the biggest joke in the universe, it’s hard to tell for sure.
Looks like St. Louis Today is trying to say nice things about the NRA in advance of the upcoming convention which I will be attending and live blogging:
The NRA says fatal firearm accidents among children in the Eddie Eagle age group — preschool through third grade — have dropped 80 percent since the program began 19 years ago.
Good. But from there:
No local figures are available, but earlier this year, two children shot and killed two others in separate incidents. Timberlyn Terrell, 2, died in January when a child under 5 found a loaded handgun and shot her in the head in a Venice apartment. A few days later, an 8-year-old boy found a shotgun under a couch at his home in Edmundson and killed his 3-year-old brother.
Throw in a little local anecdotes to cast doubt on the claim. And of course, our friends at the Brady Campaign:
On average, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a young person was killed by a firearm once every three hours in 2002, the last year for which statistics were available.
That year, the organization said, guns were involved in the murder, suicide or accidental death of 2,893 young people.
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady group, credited the NRA for promoting gun safety. But he criticized the gun group’s tactics.
“It’s their version of Joe Camel,” he said of Eddie Eagle.
Because Eddie Eagle is all about making kids buy guns, right? How can someone even say that with a straight face? Overall this is at least a decent attempt at a balanced article. But the media should not take either the NRA or the Brady’s numbers at face value. The Brady’s have been caught counting people up to 24 years old as children, and here they throw statistics on murder and suicide in to obscure the fact that gun accidents among children are exceedingly rare.
I’m not arguing that murder and suicide of young people is not a legitimate social problem, but it’s not one likely to be solved by any of the Brady’s prescriptions. But why debate that when it’s easier to jumble statistics together to create an impression that accidents are a bigger problem than they really are?
According to a new study, Pennsylvania’s penchant for local government is really hurting the state. Any article that has something like this in it:
Recent studies say the state’s fragmented governmental structure and near-total absence of regional planning holds back economic progress, crippling older communities and allowing unchecked development despite nearly $1 billion in new funding aimed at community revitalization and open-space preservation.
is automatically suspect.  I read it thusly: the decentralization of state power makes it really hard for those of us who would like to impose our own personal tastes and preferences on the rest of humanity. We really need to take control of these matters at the state level, so that we can dictate to your locally elected leaders just how wrong you are.
Piss on that, I say.