You see the darndest things for sale/trade on the Internet

Homemade cannon for sale or trade

The Armslist, a website devoted to the buying, selling, and trading of firearms and related stuff, has this ad from a creative amateur gunmaker from metro-Detroit. The man (?) wants to sell his homemade cannon for $2,000 USD or trade it for a 1911-style pistol. Heh. I wonder where you would have to go in order to test fire it?

Why I am an NRA member despite some misgivings

Stories like this one from the legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy: "Felon Steals Gun, Accidentally Kills Himself, Estate Sues Owner and Gun Manufacturer".

Yes the plaintiff here was the deceased felon's estate who wanted to sue the arms-maker Glock for not designing a safer storage box for their pistols and the owner of the Glock pistol which the deceased felon stole and then shot himself with. And they may well have done so except that the National Rifle Association's brainchild  The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005 required that the Masshole courts decline to allow such lawsuits to proceed.

Many of my libertarian friends are often telling me that the NRA while good on RTKBA issues represses freedom in other areas and is stupidly, blindly, pro-war and pro-cop. I agree that it usually is, but in this instance it kept a decent if misguided person from being sued and the Glock firearms company from having to defend an expensive lawsuit leading to potentially ruinous claims for damages. So, like them or not the NRA can be "useful idiots" on occasion. Occasions like this for example.

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Tiffani Hardin

Former Michigan Center high-school athlete now playing in pro-football league - MLive (Jackson)If you count the Lingerie Football League as a "pro" sport. Tiffani Hardin's webpage is here.

Move to "de-fund" NPR begins in House of Representatives - Washington Examiner
 "With 500 cable TV channels, Internet on people's cell phones, satellite radio, we have so many sources of media that we don't need a government-subsidized source of media." 

Lansing medical marijuana clinic robbed - Lansing State Journal
 If they're going to sell a valuable commodity like weed they need to have a higher level of security, like banks,  jewelry stores, and gun shops do. It just makes sense. 

Hartford, CT mayor & NYC "public advocate" call on police departments to boycott Glock firearms unless they stop selling Hi-cap magazines - NY Post
Seeing as how Glock is the primary manufacturer and vendor of pistols for police departments in the US it's hard to see how anyone but a  very small department could successfully pull that off. What is NYPD going to do? Dump all their Glocks into the Atlantic and buy all new stuff? Whatever. On second thought let 'em go back to revolvers. NYPD and the rest are way too trigger happy as it is so limiting their cops to six shots may be a good idea.

Hilarious slide show of Cold War era alarmist propaganda about Soviet era weaponry - Popular Science

"Cheap food, easy credit, overwhelming consumer choice, lax social mores, and all the other virtues that bedevil us here in the land of the alarmingly unrestrained..." - Reason (Greg Beato)
The good life is making us lazy, stupid and fat. So government "choice architects" are needed.

Good point: "I keep asking this question- Since when does a supposed 'free country' have checkpoints?"


Fired Michigan football coach donates huge stash of U of M clothes to Salvation Army - Fox Sports

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Stowaway microbes may have contaminated Mars, hinder search for life - Popular Science

Hutaree defense team challenges their "no-bail" status with increasing effectiveness - Detroit News

So Prime Minister what do you really think? - The Sun (U.K.)

British PM Gordon Brown shows his utter contempt for a typical member of his party's base. Calls a simple working-class woman a bigot and cry-baby for her questions to him on a forgotten but still live microphone.

Buy guns because you want them not as an investment - Notes From The Bunker

My feelings exactly. Just buy what you need or want. Leave the "investment" stuff to the professionals.