guns

Chris Knight's avatar

Walt Disney World has declared that its employees will be exempt from a new Florida law allowing citizens of that state to keep personal firearms locked in their cars while at work.

And how exactly does a company like Disney – which is Florida’s largest single-site employer – get around law like that?

By taking advantage of a loophole that was added to the bill just as it was approved as legislation that “creates an exception for companies whose primary business is to manufacture, use, store or transport explosives regulated under federal law.”

Since Walt Disney World has a permit for the vast arsenal of fireworks it keeps on its grounds for its famous pyrotechnics shows, the company is construing that this exception can apply to them and is thus legally declaring their company to be a munitions dealer!

Maybe Disney can transfer John Locke from its Buena Vista division ...

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The decision was 5-4. Which is why I’m not happy about it. That’s still too close. In a saner day and age, the decision would have been 9-0 in favor of gun ownership.

Being one vote away from tyranny is still tyranny, in my book.

And then there are those of us among the citizenry who hold to the notion that this ruling has no real meaning at all, because we already know that the individual has the right to defend himself or herself. I sure as hell wasn’t waiting with baited breath as to what nine justices in some marble building in D.C. had to say about it.

Here’s the text of the ruling (in Adobe Acrobat format) if you’re inclined to check it out for yourself....

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From The Register comes more evidence that giving a gun to a robot is a very, very bad idea…

US war robots in Iraq ‘turned guns’ on fleshy comrades
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Kill-droid rebellion thwarted… this time

By Lewis Page
Published Friday 11th April 2008 10:10 GMT

Ground-crawling US war robots armed with machine guns, deployed to fight in Iraq last year, reportedly turned on their fleshy masters almost at once. The rebellious machine warriors have been retired from combat pending upgrades.

The revelations were made by Kevin Fahey, US Army program executive officer for ground forces, at the recent RoboBusiness conference in America.

Speaking to Popular Mechanics, Fahey said there had been chilling incidents in which the SWORDS* combat bot had swivelled round and apparently attempted to train its 5.56mm M249 light machine-gun on its human comrades.

“The gun started moving when it was not intended to move,” he said.

Apparently,

...
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Chef extraordinaire Paul Prudhomme – from whom millions of people have learned that there’s more to Cajun cookin’ than just having a bottle of red pepper handy and who has sometimes been blamed for the near-extinction of the redfish – was hit by a stray bullet while preparing food on a golf course near New Orleans during a PGA event two days ago.

Prudhomme felt a sting on his right arm above the elbow and thought he had been stung by a bee.

Turned out that he had been grazed by a .22 caliber bullet.

So what did Prudhomme do? He kept on cooking! Minutes later he was back in action and served up some tasty cuisine for the golfers, caddies and guests at the Zurich Classic.

Doesn’t surprise me at all. Having known some, I can attest that them Cajuns are a good and hardy folk. Glad to hear ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Today the Supreme Court of the United States is going to hear arguments in a case regarding the interpretation of the Second Amendment. Namely, whether possession of a gun is the right of an individual or whether it’s a “collective” one.

I would like to report that I am cautiously optimistic about how they will decide on this, but I can’t even muster up that much.

This is the same Supreme Court that a few years ago that effectively destroyed the security of owning personal property by way of the Kelo decision. They ruled in favor of “the community” then and against the rights of the individual. Why should we believe that they will do any differently this time, on this issue?

Actually, I must confess that part of me is secretly hoping that the Supremes will attack individual rights on this one. Maybe then some of the Christians ...

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So says U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, speaking on behalf of the Bush White House, which is supporting the District of Columbia’s ban on personal ownership of handguns.

Clement also claims that the Second Amendment supports “reasonable regulation” on gun ownership.

They do all of this in the name of the “public”.

But let’s get real here…

Anytime the government takes more power unto itself, it will always excuse it by saying it’s “for the good of the people”. But it always, always, does it for itself.

American government long ago ceased being something of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Government in America… and I believe that the Bush Administration and the current Congress have exemplified this more so than at any other time in this nation’s history… has long been about raw, naked, unforgiving power for sake of power. Government in America ...

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According to this story on Wired (which I first found via Slashdot), a robotic cannon being tested by the South African military went haywire last week and started shooting at everything on its own. Nine people died and fourteen others were wounded.

Here’s some of the account…

SA National Defence Force spokesman brigadier general Kwena Mangope says the cause of the malfunction is not yet known…

Media reports say the shooting exercise, using live ammunition, took place at the SA Army’s Combat Training Centre, at Lohatlha, in the Northern Cape, as part of an annual force preparation endeavour.

Mangope told The Star that it “is assumed that there was a mechanical problem, which led to the accident. The gun, which was fully loaded, did not fire as it normally should have,” he said. “It appears as though the gun, which is computerised, jammed before there was some sort of

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And the death toll might be 7, if another hospitalized victim loses the fight for his life.

Here’s one story that I’ve found so far about Tyler Peterson, a 20-year old off-duty sheriff’s deputy in Wisconsin who, overcome with anger after an argument with his girlfriend, stormed her house with a gun and opened fire on ten teenagers, who were having a party with movies and pizza. At least seven were hit, with six dead including Peterson’s girlfriend.

I’m hearing some reports that in spite of his age, Peterson was already a member of the sheriff’s department’s SWAT team. Which if true would add an even worse angle to this story. Nobody that young and inexperienced needs to be put into the situation of being a SWAT member. Personally, I think that SWAT teams are something that lend themselves toward tremendous abuse anyway: the trend is that we see these ...

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A deputy sheriff in Minnesota shot and killed a family’s dog, in front of a 2-year old toddler in the family’s yard. It’s a pretty sick story.

Who here is willing to bet that after an “internal investigation” that it’s going to be announced that the deputy over-reacted and will be fired?

More likely the sheriff’s department will come out and say that the deputy did nothing wrong, and will soon be back at work as if nothing happened.

That’s what always happens in these situations. And they’ve been happening all too often in the past few years.

Let me be clear on something: for the most part, I honestly believe, there are good people in law enforcement. I’ve known plenty of them over the years. Some are good friends, if not outright members of my family. I can’t say that there’s been any reason for me to think ...

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The government of Australia has banned the import of the Transformers Masterpiece Megatron collector’s toy into the country (click here for the story).

This is Megatron as he originally appeared when the Transformers line was first introduced in the early 1980s… but this one has a much better sculpt, is greatly articulated, is made of die-cast metal and is a lot sturdier than the ’83/’84 model (how many of us cried when the original Megatron’s arm came off?).

He also transforms into a life-sized Walther P-38 semi-automatic pistol… which is the problem. Masterpiece Megatron is now considered a public health threat by the authorities in Sydney. Yup, 20 years ago this was a perfectly okay child’s toy. In 2007, at $100 a pop and marketed primarily to adult collector’s, you need permission from the Australian government before you can import one from there. So far they’ve impounded about ...

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