Carnival of Cordite #15

Welcome to the fifteenth weekly Carnival of the Cordite.



Coming on Memorial Day Weekend, I’d like to first dedicate this weeks Carnival to all the men and women in our armed services - past, present, and future - who made the ultimate sacrifice as well as to those who willingly place themselves in harms path to preserve the American way of life. One of those guys is the Collegiate Warrior who just shipped out to the Sandbox and has started a new blog to document his time there.

There is a saying you see on bumper stickers often. I saw it twice so far this weekend.

If You Can Read This, Thank A Teacher.
If You Can Read This In English, Thank A Soldier!

Truer words are rarely spoke. Jeff Soyer has an eloquent post up that you owe yourself to visit.

This is not a day for joy. It is not a day for a "Sale." It is or should be a solemn day where we remember those who have or are at this very moment serving our country. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve the freedoms we continue to enjoy. May God bless them and may He comfort their families. May we all give thanks to them and always remember them on Memorial Day, and every other day as well. Regardless of what you think of the merits of a particular war, these brave men and women chose to serve and protect and defend all of us. There are many more young servicemen and women buried elsewhere in this great country of ours, and overseas. There are also many still who are alive but living in poverty or lanquishing in our underfunded Veteran's Hospitals. Whatever your views on conflict, know that all who served in our Armed Forces deserve respect, honor, and a "thank you."

So to everyone in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and National Guard, a big hearty well deserved thank you.



In addition to this Carnival I will be spending this Memorial Day weekend in the rural south with my wife celebrating our seventh anniversary and the third with our son (who got his first water gun earlier today) as well as shooting my most recent firearm acquisition - my BAG Day purchase - a U.S. Rifle, Cal. 30 M1
otherwise known as a Garand. For lots of information, check out Shooting In Eights. For information on shooting in the rural south, check out Technogypsy.



When shooting that Garand this weekend, the rifle Gen. George S. Patton called - The greatest battle implement ever devised - I will be doing so with my family's own personal war hero - my wife’s father who served our country for over 30 years in places as remote and hostile as Korea, Vietnam (multiple times), the Cold War Front in Germany (where I was surprised to learn from him we often were involved in armed mini conflicts with Russian/East German forces) and the Middle East before ending up at the Pentagon on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Sometimes it seems like he has won more medals than I have hair on my head.

Of course, this weeks Carnival is up a bit late. There is a reason for that - even though I always seem to have reasons for getting Carnivals up late. But it is a they are good reasons. First, as you will soon be reading, there was a last minute development in one of my main stories this week. The second reason is a more pressing one, and that is that my father in law had a bypass earlier this year and while he is recovering nicely from the operation, there have been some complications requiring assistance with is care. As a result, over the last week, my wife and I have spent an inordinate amount of time caring for this otherwise 100% self sufficient American Hero. That care has included driving him and my mother in law down to Georgia this weekend from Washington D.C. - a trip which normally takes 8 hours and ended up taking us close to 24. Finally, blogger sucks (but you knew that). It has lost this post 3 times already. And, by lost I mean, vanished into the ether world.

The Right To Privacy

One of the big sticking points with gun owners is the constant attempt to create registries of who has what while the gun banners don't understand our anger at their efforts. Our lead story this week is about the decision of the Northwest Florida Daily News to violate the privacy of many Floridians by publishing on the internet the names and addresses of Florida's concealed handgun permit holders. I first learned about this from The Hight Road where at least two seperate threads arose discussing the paper's action (here and here). The response was pretty quick. Within no time, many folks in the blogsphere and on the gun boards revealed for all to see the names and home addresses (in some cases with pictures and directions) of publisher Tom Conner and his editors. However, when I read the papers unbelieveable response to some complaints I got seriously ticked off.

We published this public information because we believe there is public interest in knowing who in our area has a permit to carry a concealed weapon in public. Also, it is a public record, and the people who have concealed weapon permits appear to know it's a public record. We didn't publish the list due to any political viewpoint. I personally believe strongly in the Second Amendment right to bear arms. I also believe the public has a right to know who is carrying loaded concealed weapons in public places.

I hope this serves as an adequate answer to your email.

In response, I named the Tom Conner Asshole of the Week and decided to do a little browsing around. Turns out, if you go to the web page for the local county courthouse you can find all sorts of things about him and his family. I initially thought about publishing his wife’s name, their social security numbers, stuff about their mortgage, and information on his kid and ex wife. However, after talking to a few people whose opinions I respect, I decided to simply post a link to the information. but by Friday morning, within a day of it coming out that ALL THAT information was available, they had decided to pull down the list.

So, did they learn their lesson and pull the information down because of the blog and gun board outcry? Was it the fact that Mr. Conner realized that what goes around comes around? Or was this all simply part of the plan - to keep it up for a week and no more? We simply don't know yet, and while I tried to call the paper Friday morning, I have yet to speak with anyone (not their fault, I was only available to speak for a short time and will be calling again on Tuesday). For now, I am chalking it up as another internet victory for truth, justice, and the American way. In the meantime, I suggest these bozos and all the other anti gun newspaper staff's head on over to No Silence Here at the Knoxville News Sentinel where Les Jones has a gun advice for writers and editors.

Blogger Shoot

Speaking of Les Jones, I was hoping to get together with him today and to do some shooting. I am only about ninety minutes away from Knoxville in North Georgia and tried to get together with him once before. I don't think its going to happen though, because I need to help out with my father in law. We are going to try for some night later this week.

However, Jay G who posts at what used to be North Georgia Dogma but is now named after the Aerosmith LP Toys In The Attic, is looking to shoot with Northeastern Bloggers. In the meantime, Team Blogger Blast is getting underway in the Northwest. If you want to shoot with some bloggers - but don't know any personally, you can always enter a postal match. Og's running a series of 'em while Mr. Completely has what may be the most fun one to shoot.

Hotties With Guns


Kim's got 'em. The first is extra sweet.
Gunchicks has more.


SKS Owners For Kerry

Going from hotties with guns to old ugly hippies with guns is sort of like taking a sauna and then jumping buck naked into the snow. But, someones got to do it.
Plus, I like this guys spirit. We need folks on the other side of the aisle, and the more there are, the better our chances of saving the constitution. Last week's host Les Jones has the scoop.

Time For A Reload

Don't know if you bothered to check out the SKS Owner For Kerry. If you did, well then its time for a bit of reloading. Here ya go. Check it out. Don't worry, I'll wait.

There, feel better?

Reloaders are the homebrewers of the gun world. Being a one time homebrewer, I have been itching to get into reloading for awhile, but haven't gotten around to finish my bench yet. Hopefully it will happen soon cause it sure is fascinating. Speaking of which, the Libercontrarian has a first batch report.

For The Ladies

Since I've thrown up so many scantily clad women, I thought it was only fair to post something for all the ladies out there.



Ban The Chefs

As Glenn Reynolds says . . . . Heh!

1911, a fine year

Chris Byrne is talking about his ultimate 1911.

Here's my Colt - my ultimate 1911 (what's funny about this picture?).


Others, of course, have a different outlook on life and prefer to think about what to get if your options are limited and what you must have regardless.

Serious Gun Porn

Zendo Deb has the details on this gorgeous Semi-automatic-revolver



Sweet and sexy!

Seeing The Light

More and more people are coming over to our side. Speaking of seeing the light, Gunner has the coolest tacticle light I've ever seen on this AR-15.

On The Legislative Front

Being a sometime lobbyist, legislative stuff excites me, especially when its legislation that does good things - like makes gun purchases easier. When that kind of legislation gets some legs, then I get all giddy. Now, all you folks in Oregon, don't you want to make me giddy? Thats right, get on the phone and call your state rep!

Newbies

A big round of applause and a hearty welcome goes out to the Great Lakes Shooting Sports Association which just went online. I linked to them earlier in this carnival. Did you all find their great post?

Condi, Condi, Condi.

Dave Hardy isn't letting up on the Condi Rice Larry Kind debacle. He has an update on what happened to the transcript.

Rim Fire Fun

What happens when a superstar gun blogger goes a shopping?
Jeff Soyer wanted soemthing fun, and I can't disagree with his choice!



The Ruger 10/22, the funnest little rifle ever built. Of course, some people like Martini's

Speaking of rimfires . . . How about some race guns.

Accuracy In Reporting
While the Pajamapundit was asking If the border's are so porous, why is california wasting its time going after the good guys? . . . Jeff Soyer's weekly analysis on bias in the media included a wonderful report on the bias against the .50 Caliber. As part of the report, Jeff did something most members of the media fail to do . . . he contacted Ronnie Barratt of Barratt firearms to see if some quotes were indeed correct. Here is part of Barratt's response.

No military in the world is training its soldier to use the Barrett rifle to engage flying platforms of any kind. One would be quite foolish to suggest it, and more the fool to believe it, and regretfully, more to print it.

The continued defamation of Barratt and .50 Calibers by the Mainstream Media - and reliance on clearly false propoganda by the Nazi's at the Anti American Anti Constitution Gun Banning Groups is getting old. In response, I sent Jeff an email raising the rhetorical question of whether or not this might be an opportunity for Barratt to go on the offensive. Its tough to win a product defamation suit (or tortious interference with contract), especially in our modern anti gun court system, but enough is enough. The quality of information out there is so bad - on gun issues as well as everything else - that I think we are coming closer and closer to the time when Michael Crichton's prediction of information liability will actually become reality.

There is third method for vetting data that is on the horizon. It's not here yet, but I am convinced it is coming. I'm talking about product liability for information.

We live in an information society. Nearly one American in three is a knowledge worker. More people are knowledge workers in this society than are engaged in manufacturing. By and large, what these knowledge workers do is generate information. And our society is totally dependent on the integrity of information. Yet we still do not define information as a product. And as a result it has evaded the Quality Revolution that has transformed other industries.

But product liability is already enforced for maps and charts, and will soon be applied to other information products as well. It's absolutely essential for the future.

Last week in his Carnival turn, Les Jones requested that future Carnival hosts start a discussion about guns or gun rights in comments. I'd really like to explore this topic of information liability. To the lawyers out there - what hurdles do you see till its eventual acceptance. How could a movement of informational liability be expanded beyond mere defamation and tortious interference actions? What elements would need to be shown? What harms need to be proven?

For the non lawyers out there - can you think of examples where a favorite product, food, activity has been unfairly curtailed because of the distribution of false information - either by the media or more frightenly by the government? Does anyone know anyone who was physically harmed because of a reliance on falsly published information?

I look forward to reading your thoughts and will be posting mine too.

Thanks for stopping by and next week the Carnival should be returning to Resistance is Futile. You can keep up to date on the hosting situation by checking out the calendar. Also, if you see some typo or other error - or a link doesn't work, shoot me an email or post about it in the comments and I will fix it as soon as I can.

Be good and keep shooting.