Stupid deer on FBI range
No one ever said deer were smart, and in Virginia they are particularly stupid, noted OpposingViews.com. The animals have taken to hanging out on the FBI shooting range in Quantico, just feet away from paper targets.
“They’re pretty immune to the sound. They don’t know what a gun is,” said Sean Boyle, whose very long title is, a supervisory special agent bomb technician/firearms instructor for the Critical Incident Response Group based at the academy, according to Associated Press.
Boyle said the deer like to graze on top of a berm just 15 feet away from where FBI marksmen fire off more than a million bullets every month. Amazingly, there have been no reports of any deer accidentally being shot.
In trouble for ham assault
You can bet the pig farm that a Tennessee man is not going to be enjoying a ham dinner at his mother’s house anytime soon, since he allegedly used the ham to clobber momma during what The Smoking Gun said was an “argument.”
The suspect in this caper, charged with a misdemeanor, was identified as Emanuel Cordell Kennedy, 37. He allegedly threw a ham that struck his mother, 55-year-old Brenda King, in the back as she walked down a hallway in her home. She subsequently called the cops.
Kennedy reportedly insisted he did not intend to hit his mother with the ham. Unless throwing a ham is a new way to tenderize meat, however, that’s probably not going to pass the smell test.
Would-be robber cleans up
A clerk at the We Buy Gold store in Hendersonville, NC, punched a would-be armed robber and knocked him out cold just minutes after the man barged in with a gun and demanded money, according to WYFF News 4.
“When he came through the door he told me he had a gun and he even flashed it,” said Derek Mothershead. “I stood up and threw my hands up and said, ‘Take the money.’ ” Mothershead said the man came behind the counter with a bag.
“I got the money and he had the bag out and instead of putting it in the bag I stuck it out and said, ‘Just take it.’ So, when he reached out, I took a step in, I cocked back and preloaded and I hit him hard,” Mothershead told News 4’s Mike McCormick.
The punch knocked out the would-be thief. Mothershead was able to grab the man’s weapon and realized it was a pellet gun.
While they waited for police and paramedics to arrive after a call to 911, Mothershead gave the recovered man a roll of paper towels, sprayed the floor with cleaner and told him to clean up his own blood.
Politically correct Pentagon
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in early December blasted the Defense Department for classifying the 2009 Fort Hood, TX, massacre as “workplace violence” and suggested political correctness is being placed above the security of the nation’s Armed Forces at home.
According to FoxNews.com, during a joint session of the Senate and House Homeland Security Committee, Collins referenced a letter from the Defense Department depicting the Fort Hood shootings as workplace violence. She criticized the Obama administration for failing to identify the threat as radical Islam.
Thirteen people were killed and dozens more wounded at Fort Hood, and the number of alleged plots targeting the military has grown significantly since then. Lawmakers said there have been 33 plots against the US military since Sept. 11, 2001, and 70% percent of those threats have been since mid-2009. Major Nidal Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, who is being held for the Fort Hood attack, allegedly was inspired by radical US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen in late September. The two men exchanged as many as 20 emails, according to US officials, and Awlaki declared Hasan a hero.
Dog shoots man
It wasn’t his dog’s bark or bite that had a Brigham City, UT, man concerned, it was the animal’s aim, KSL.com reported.
A 46-year-old Brigham City man was reported recovering after a shooting accident that occurred while he and a friend had gone duck hunting in late November on the north end of the Great Salt Lake. The two had their boat in a shallow marsh area when the man got out of the boat to either set up or collect decoys. He laid his 12-gauge shotgun across the bow of the boat, said Box Elder County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Kevin Potter.
After the man got out of the boat, a dog inside the vessel jumped up on the bow and stepped on the gun. The gun fired and shot the man in the buttocks.
Medical crews later removed 27 pellets of birdshot.
New York Times blistered for anti-gun bias in reporting
The New York Times is guilty of “shoddy journalism” on a purported “expose” of gun laws in other states that the newspaper suggested allow criminals to have firearms and carry them concealed.
The story appeared about the time the House of Representatives was debating the National Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, which the newspaper has editorialized against.
Firearms journalist Bob Owens authored a blistering critique of The Times story, which concentrated on the State of North Carolina, where something of a “big deal” was made about 200 permit holders who had felony convictions. However, a much smaller deal was made of the fact that there are some 240,000 active carry permit holders in the state.
He also did some comparisons on the numbers of police officers in major departments who run afoul of the law, and suggested that if the newspaper wanted to compare percentages of cops who get in trouble to the percentage of CCW holders, it would be embarrassing.
The bad guys amount to a fraction of the total number of legally armed citizens. Owens isn’t the only Times critic. The website SayUncle also weighed in, comparing the percentage to the number of mayors and former mayors—members of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, founded by New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg—who have been convicted of crimes against the percentage of Florida concealed carry permit holders.
“Comparatively speaking,” the website noted, quoting some information from another website, Walls of the City, “Mayors Against Illegal Guns members are almost eight times more likely to be convicted of crimes than Florida concealed firearm license holders—but that number is based on 23 years of licenses versus four years of MAIG. Assuming the mayors had as much history as the licenses, and assuming the same trend (11 mayors convicted in four years—a sizeable assumption, but it is all the data we have to operate on), you are looking at MAIG members being over 45 times more likely to be convicted of crimes than Florida concealed firearm license holders. How funny is that?”
Oak Park weighs revised gun law
Almost 18 months after the US Supreme Court struck down the handgun bans in Chicago and neighboring Oak Park, IL, officials in the latter community are now reportedly crafting new regulations aimed at discouraging gun ownership.
According to the Oak Park Patch, the idea is to “limit potential firearm owners” by writing laws that consider gun ownership as a “public health issue.” Village officials have apparently subscribed to the positions of the American Public Health Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics that gun-related crime is a “public health epidemic.”
The strategy appears to be the brainchild of Village Manager Tom Barwin, a former Detroit police officer, the newspaper indicated. He complained about the “tremendous costs associated with guns” including treatment and incarceration.
According to The Patch, the village board of health volunteer panel has been looking at this strategy since September. Officials believe the village is on “sound legal ground” to adopt its own gun ordinances.
Casper, WY, City Council adopts meetings gun ban
Everyone will have to hang their guns at the door before entering the Casper, WY, City Council chambers under a new ordinance passed just before Christmas.
In a five-to-four vote reported by the Casper Journal, the council approved a controversial measure that prohibits bringing a firearm or other deadly weapon into any public city government meeting.
The law drew the ire of a number of gun rights and constitutional groups, and is expected to be challenged in the state legislature and also the courts.
“We’ll bring a suit forth,” said Anthony Bouchard, executive director of Wyoming Gun Owners, following the meeting. “But we’re going to look at all the angles first. If we could do something legislatively, we’ll work in that venue first.”
In an hour-and-a-half hearing prior to the third and final vote, several audience members spoke for and against the ban.
“James Madison said there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and threatening action,” said Casper resident Doug Bergeron in opposition to the measure. “This would be one of those steps. It’s just an encroachment; it’s the failure to obey the supreme law of the land, the federal and state Constitution both claimed to be that.
“The second question is, ‘Do gun bans work?’” Begeron went on to ask. “The answer is no, and I have about six cases of facts and statistics and evidence that guns bans not only don’t work, but … many times have a negative impact on crime.”
Bergeron suggested rather than pass what he believed was an unconstitutional ordinance, having police at every meeting would be a more effective deterrent.
“All you have to do is put a sign in front of every door that, for your protection, there will be two police officers in every city council meeting. That’s the only thing that will stop this kind of attack.”
“This is serious business folks, this is about not just rights, but responsibilities,” said another Casper resident, Alan Crowder, noting some people carry weapons because they need protection outside of council meetings. “Can you guarantee a businessman or doctor or a lawyer who may have either done something that somebody doesn’t like or something, can you guarantee they’ll be protected between the council chambers and their vehicle? This ordinance keeps them from being able to protect themselves, yet are you guys going to take the responsibility? You know you’ve got to ask yourself questions like this.”
Not everyone who spoke was against the ordinance. R.C. Johnson said it sets an example of good government, particularly for children.
Casper resident Susan Graham took another side of the issue, however, in opposition to the ban, saying children need to learn there’s also a place for self-defense.
The council also came under criticism for its handling of the issue. Bouchard was particularly critical of Vice-Mayor Kenyne Schlager.
Bouchard also questioned a number of aspects of the ordinance, raising constitutional and other issues.
Mayor Paul Bertoglio voted against the ordinance, saying he also felt it was unnecessary, and an issue that needed to be resolved at the state level.
“I don’t see where this is going to do anything more than make us feel good for a little while, but the reality is, in the long run, it’s going to do nothing,” Bertoglio said. “It will potentially open up the city to spend significant sums of money on legal fees to discuss a constitutional issue which I still believe, as Senator Jennings said, it’s in the very initial part of the statute that says the state legislature has the pre-emption to address, and the jurisdiction.”
In the final vote, council members Bertoglio, Goodenough, Maury Daubin and Bill Brauer were opposed, while council members Sarosy, Meyer, Powell, Kim Holloway and Schalger voted in favor.
The council made two last-minute amendments. One would sunset the bill if the Wyoming legislature approves open-carry weapons in its chambers (they’re currently banned under a governor’s executive order), and the other would exclude pocket knives from the definition of prohibited deadly weapons.
