For the record, the only reason this interests me is since it is bloody hot down here most of the year, and wearing a jacket or long shirt over my usual t-shirt is simply not going to happen.  And since I’m a girl, wearing the typical shorter-tailed girlie type shirts, this means belt carry under my shirt is not possible.  Any sort of movement, even walking, will cause my holster to be visible, which will undoubtedly cause old ladies to keel over in fright.  Therefore I usually wind up carrying in my purse, which A) is extremely heavy and annoying, and B) is like not carrying a gun at all.  Passage of this bill means I can belt carry and not worry about being arrested when some Neanderthal deputy – which seems to be the only kind they’re hiring these days – sees a flash of holster on a sunny day.

Alas, my county’s sheriff – who on a good day has delusions of being the next Joe Arpaio – thinks this is all Very Bad:

A visible weapon could provoke crimes of opportunity, and concealed-weapon permit holders — unlike deputies — don’t have to pass physical fitness tests, said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.

…

In phone interviews, each sheriff said he supports the Second Amendment. Judd said he’s an advocate of the NRA.

“But at the end of the day, this is bad legislation and should not be passed,” he said.

They’re worried that deputies who respond to a conflict won’t know who to disarm if they see several people with guns.

I am quite pleased the top cop in my county is apparently a sniveling moron, who will not take responsibility for hiring adequately evolved individuals with enough native intelligence to disarm “several people with guns” long enough to check their IDs/permits.  I am also pleased there’s no intention of better training said Neanderthals to carry out the above simple operation sans pants-filling.  This seems like a spectacular usage of the property taxes I pay to this county every year.

Here’s a thought, Sheriff Judd:  If your homunculi deputies come across “several people with guns,” shoot the ones who turn the guns on your deputies.  Because if folk who have bothered to sit through the concealed carry class (as well as get fingerprinted and background checked, and pay the cash money required for the license) are stupid enough to actually point their pieces at a man with a badge, then we surely don’t need them in our rank and file and you are more than welcome to their cooling corpses.

Alternatively, man up and actually TRAIN your people to be more than mere shit-kickers.  Oh, and kindly check the stats in the OTHER FORTY THREE STATES that allow open carry to their CC holders.  Rube.

Updated to add anecdote: Yesterday the kids and I were grocery shopping.  My son – who is 13 – said, “Hey, did that open carry bill pass?”  I said, “Not yet, why?”  He said, “There’s a guy over there with a gun on his belt.”  I looked, man with a high and tight wearing nice dress pants and a dress shirt, gun holstered neatly on his belt.  I said, “Probably a cop.”  Son shrugged and said, “Hey, can we get some Cheerios?”

No hysteria, no pants-filling.  And unsurprisingly (at least to those of us with sense) none whatsoever from the rest of the grocery-shopping public as well.

A new report to the Connecticut state legislature shows police have used the state’s unique gun seizure law to confiscate more than 1,700 firearms from citizens based on suspicion that the gun owners might harm themselves or others.

The state’s law permits police to seek a warrant for seizing a citizen’s guns based on suspicion of the gun owner’s intentions, before any act of violence or lawbreaking is actually committed.

I don’t know about you, but it is an IMMENSE comfort to me to know that the police in Connecticut can now read minds. How wonderfully crime-free this state must be! I think I will move there right away.

Under the statute, dubbed the “turn in your neighbor” law by opponents, any two police officers or a state prosecutor may seek a warrant, following a specified process of investigation, to confiscate guns from people deemed a risk to harming themselves or others. The vast majority of cases, however, begin when a person – usually a spouse or live-in, according to the OLR report – file a complaint.

Ok, how about a law now to pre-emptively arrest parents before they abuse their children?  How could you tell?  Well, of course if the child complains, they must be at risk of abuse, no?  Of course they’re not just crying about the spanking they received for coloring all over their bedroom walls, or about being grounded due to sneaking cigarettes from Mom’s purse.

And Neighbor Bill, who let his kids trample through your flowerbed and was asked to keep control over them…he’s only complaining to authorities about your guns because he thinks you might blow your thumb off, not because he wants to get back at you for so rudely pointing out his lackadaisical parenting method.  He cares about YOU, man.

“It certainly has not been abused. It may be underutilized,” Ron Pinciaro, co-executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence, told the Waterbury Republican American. “The bottom line from our perspective is, it may very well have saved lives.”

Thanks, Nanny-State!

*Yes, this is a link to a story on Worldnetdaily, which I ordinarily eschew, but the law exists, and it is idiotic in the extreme.

“Sergeant Bill”, on the surface, seems to have taken upon himself to kit up with a Crown Vic, play policeman, and bust a boatload of meth heads. With the willing co-operation of the town mayor, CoP, and three of the five cops employed by the town. At least 17 lawsuits (claiming millions) are in the works, the mayor is facing impeachment, and the town needs a few billets filled on the police duty roster. (No word on whether any of the folks he “arrested”, without any warrants mind you, were actually meth users, dealers, or producers.) If Billy Boy actually has cleaned out the town of it’s drug problem, I would almost say he had done a sadmirable job. But the real cops in that town, and the mayor, should all stand for bastinado.

Joe Horn, however, is just a guy protecting his neighborhood. I would have done it, too. Except i wouldn’t have called ES until after the echoes from the gunfire had died off. Some criticism has come his way since he shot the career criminals in the back. Some others counter with the fact that the perps were illegal aliens committing a B&E in broad daylight so therefore didn’t have any right to keep using up our oxygen. I am not going to stick my face in that hornet’s nest, feel free to hash it out in the comments. All I know for sure is that Mr. Horn is the kind of neighbor I want on my street. Assuming he doesn’t get killed by jackasses in retribution, I’m thinking there isn’t going to be any more burglary within a mile of Joe’s house.

At my own house. On a day where I didn’t have to go work for the State or the Man or Factory Number 118 making lead paint. Because I get to pick the job I want based on my skills, desires, training, etc.

I also had a little time today to prowl around the interwebs and found this gem of reporting from the LA Times.  We aren’t a ‘gun blog’ like so many out there, but we does loveses our precious.  So yeah, I think the idea is great, way to go, thumbs up terrific.  But does anyone else think the tone of the article is one of “gee, I sure wish those rednecks would grow up”?

This is a Patriot’s Journey post. Remember to check out the other Patriotic Journeyers: Drumwaster, The Bastage, Inessential Musings, and The Edge of Reason

All I can do is try to describe my memory and see if it rings any bells.
I don’t know if you can help or not, but I am looking for a 1911 like my dad used to have.  It was a govt issue, slim 1911 .45.  It didn’t have all the extra swirly bits that 1911′s seem to have in newly manufactured pistols, what with triple safeties or internal gun locks and whatnot.  It was a plain, simple, beautifully ugly gun; if beauty is in the simplicity of use and ugly is in the beat-up finish.  To be totally honest, I don’t even remember for sure but think I remember that it was olive colored with black plastic grips, possibly even had a big “US” on the grips. I do know for sure that it had a lanyard loop.

I don’t know if trying to hunt down this piece of nostalgia is worthwhile, what with the age of a gun like this possibly precluding it’s actual use, but would love to see if any new manufactured pistols still follow the old design.  The closest I have come are some of the Springfield models.

If it helps even to narrow this down some, my dad was a Navy corpsman serving with a Marine unit back in the Vietnam era.

No, I don’t know what happened to this pistol or I would be carrying it right now.  All I can hope to do is replace it.

Thanks in advance for any information you might have to point me in the right direction.

I like pretty things.  Sue me.

…bullets kill people. Guns just get the bullets going really, really fast.

Struth.

(Via some dang comment somewhere on Weasel’s site…)

Is there some particular reason the people of NY tolerate this buffoon?

UPDATE:  Here are the specifics:

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has moved from outrage to atrocity, said the Second Amendment Foundation, by asking anti-gun activist federal Judge Jack B. Weinstein to ban any reference to the Second Amendment during a civil lawsuit trial beginning May 27 against Georgia gun dealer Jay Wallace, proprietor at Adventure Outdoors.

The New York Sun reported that Bloomberg’s attorneys made the request.  Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, said the move clearly shows that Bloomberg has “total disregard not only for the Second Amendment, but also the First.”

Bloomberg’s attorney on this case, Eric Proshansky, has reportedly argued in a brief that “Any references to the Second Amendment or analogous state constitutional provisions are likewise irrelevant” to the upcoming trial.

How so, fellas?  Because it would be crippling to your case?  Last I checked, that was not a good enough reason to disallow.

A West Palm Beach man pulled out a gun in an argument with two supermarket managers, who then whipped out their own guns, police said Tuesday.

The man fired into the store and at one of the managers, but no one was injured, police said.

I would like to point out, for the benefit of the PSH-ers out there, that neither of the properly-licensed individuals fired a single shot.

Grant fired three shots into the store, which had several customers inside, according to authorities.

Hernandez yelled at Grant to drop the gun.

Instead, Grant got behind a car and pointed his gun. He shot again, this time at Hernandez, police said.

Hernandez did not return fire, police said.

But he would have been well within his rights to do so.  I suppose the “fear for your life” feeling kind of subsides a bit when your opponent has a demonstrated inability to strike the capacious exterior of a cow byre.