Looks like the power brokers in DC are squirming in the hot seat today. According to government rules Congress and some of their staffers are required to disclose their financial information publicly. This is an effort to make sure your elected officials and those they employ are not corrupt.

According to this article from The Hill -

Furious senior House aides are demanding committee action against a website that has posted their bank account numbers, signatures, home addresses and children’s names that are included in financial disclosure documents.

Some are demanding legal action against the website LegiStorm, which since February has been posting congressional documents online as a way to increase transparency in government. Aides have brought their complaints to the House Administration Committee and the clerk of the House.

But things don’t appear to be so dire when you read the response from Legistorm -

- The U.S. Congress wrote the law that requires disclosure of personal finances to aid in the fight against public corruption.

- Congressional staffers were the ones who voluntarily filed what they did in their personal financial disclosures. In a handful of disclosures, a tiny fraction of the total, staffers included unnecessary personal details like investment account numbers and children names. Their signature is the only detail that they now most complain about that is required.

- The Congress made these documents public. It did so after a one-month review process that concluded, apparently, that nothing was wrong with their disclosure.

- Neither the House nor the Senate require any form of identification to access this information. Anybody can access it without talking to a single person and by simply entering a fake name into a computer.

- We have voluntarily gone to significant lengths and costs already to scrub the most sensitive of information released due to staffer slipups and ethics committee oversight. This includes investment account numbers and Social Security numbers. We did so without delay.

- We have voluntarily provided various security measures such as user registration and authentication, a legal warning (one that is not present on two other heavily trafficked web sites that have for years provided member of Congress disclosures), and a human response system to make sure that automated bots cannot access the data.

So, instead of simply exposing the government documents to the world (which I would have no problems with) they have gone above and beyond what is required and attempted to clean up some of the mess which the Hill is complaining about.

Every time the government proposes new intrusions into its citizens private lives we hear the supporters repeat the mantra - “If you are innocent then you don’t have anything to hide”. It is high time that we turned the tables on the people who are behind the laws and regulations that infest our daily lives. They certainly seem to be doing alot of squirming and spreading alot of FUD about LegiStorm — I wonder what they are trying to hide from us?

Legendary actor, civil rights leader and political activist Charlton Heston passed away today, at the age of 84. He died at his home with Lydia, his wife of 64 years, at his side. Mr. Heston was loved by his two children, Fraser Clarke Heston and Holly Heston Rochell, and his three grandchildren, Jack Alexander Heston, Ridley Rochell and Charlie Rochell.

From Yahoo

From the Colorado Springs Gazette comes this report:

El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa wants more guns - not for his deputies, but for citizens. “Offenders in the jail system tell me they avoid crimes against people because they know there is a very high concealed-carry rate,” Maketa told The Gazette.

Read the rest of the story here

HatTip to Say Uncle

Breaking news across the gun bloggosphere is that Cavalry Arms has been raided and its inventory seized. According to The War on Guns the warrant stated “Firearm law violations. Seize everything.” What kind of warrant is that? The 4th amendment is pretty damn clear -

… and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

“Seize Everything” certainly doesn’t look like they were particularly describing the things to be seized.

I fear that we are in for some dark times to come.

Joe Huffman has an update, apparently the ATF agent in charge is no stranger to the gun community.

The War on Guns is running a guest editorial today. It makes some very good points and comparisons which I hadn’t thought about before.

The crucial question in the colonists’ minds, wrote John Dickerson in 1768, was ‘not, what evil HAS ACTUALLY ATTENDED particular measures — but what evil, in the nature of things, IS LIKELY TO ATTEND them.’ Because ‘nations, in general, are not apt to THINK until they FEEL, . . .therefore nations in general have lost their liberty.’ But not the Americans, as the Abbe Raynal observed. They were “an ‘enlightened people’ who knew their rights and the limits of power and who, unlike any people before them, aimed to think before they felt.”

He is making the comparison with the American Revolution and the lack of action by the German people when Hitler came to power. The Germans felt the impact of real, physical tyranny. The Founding Fathers anticipated the arrival of it and took action before it could irreversibly take hold.

At what point are we now? I am not sure, but we may be closer to the tipping point than any of us expect.

Ever had the feeling someone was watching you? Maybe you just tossed a wad of gum into the gutter or crushed out a cigarette. Well now you won’t have to wonder if you’ve been seen. Authorities have installed talking cameras in a park in England. Their goal is to ‘curb anti-socail behavior’.

All I can say is that George Orwell’s view of the future continues to come true. A bit slower than 1984, but still on target.

I’ve just finished adding a RSS feed to GunBloggers.com, the feed is for the top 10 linked stories from the member sites. You can subscribe to it here.

GunBloggers uses the web.py framework, so it was simply a matter of creating a new class just for the top stories, and a new template to wrap the data in the RSS feed XML format.

I’ve been meaning to welcome a few new blogs to the GunBloggers Community. Hailing from the middle of the country we have Joe’s Crabby Shack who’s tagline reads - ‘Where 4 out of 5 Freedom Fiends and Second Amendment junkies come to get the skinny on the Nebraska Legislature’. Joe first came to my attention during coverage of the Westroads Mall shooting, with his concise local coverage and posting from a reader who was there.

Next up is The Firearm Blog, who focuses on firearm technology instead of politics. The articles range from gun reviews like this one on a black powder AR-15 to this video of a MG shooting down a RC airplane.

The most recent addition is New Jovian Thunderbolt, I came across this one when this article on using headspace gauges was link to by another GunBlogger member. This is another site with many gun review articles like this one on survival guns.

Here comes another story from Colorado. SWAT officers invade a home, with guns drawn, to drag an 11 year old off to see the doctor. Add this one to my list in a previous post and we are seeing an increasing use of police to ‘enforce’ the government’s views on parenting. Do parents have any rights left? Are we just baby sitters for the Nanny State, serving at their whim?

On Saturday a homeowner shot a burglar when he surprised the scumbag in his home. Here is the local news story on the incident. It is wrong in so many ways that I thought we’d analyze it:

A Kent man who shot and killed a suspected intruder inside his home Saturday was armed with his own handgun when he walked in the door and found the stranger inside his home, police said.

Who else’s gun would he have? Its pretty hard to ‘take a gun away’ from someone else when you don’t have one yourself.

A man and woman came home to their condo on Kent’s East Hill at 6 p.m. Saturday to find another man inside. The 28-year-old homeowner used his own gun to shoot the suspected intruder, said Kent police spokesman Paul Petersen.

Suspected intruder? He caught the guy robbing his home — there is no suspected about it!

It’s unknown why the homeowner had a handgun, Petersen said.

Why? Its pretty damn obvious why! To protect himself against murders and thieves. Its a good thing he did, isn’t it? Otherwise you might have another unsolved murder to solve.

Police aren’t releasing the homeowners’ names. The dead man, believed in his mid-20s, has not been identified.

Neighbors reported four to five gunshots, but there were no witnesses other than the homeowners, Petersen said.

After the man was shot, he ran through a broken sliding-glass door and died in the backyard. He was carrying a bag that contained some stolen property from the couple’s home, Petersen said.

Nowhere in this article do they call the burglar what he is. They call him a ’suspected intruder’, and only at the end mention that he was carrying a bag with stolen items. Isn’t that the definition of burgling? I have a problem with the PI ‘reporter’ who wrote this, as well as with the Kent Police spokesman who wonders why the guy had a gun?

Happy Bill of Rights Day Everyone!

Lets start off the day with the Bill of Rights Institutes’ interesting facts:

• The Bill of Rights was ratified December 15, 1791.
• Congress adopted twelve amendments, of which only ten were ratified by the states by 1791.
• Over 200 years later, one more of the original twelve, concerning compensation for Congress was ratified on May 7, 1992, becoming the Twenty-Seventh Amendment.
• James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights and was inspired, in part, by the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason.
• The Bill of Rights initially applied only to the federal government; however, the Supreme Court, through the Fourteenth Amendment, has incorporated some portions to apply to the states.
• Only 17 amendments have been ratified since the adoption of the Bill of Rights.

The National Archives Bill of Rights site should already be in your bookmarks. You have read it lately, haven’t you? While you are at it, have you read it to your kids?

No Looking Backwards reprints the Bill of Rights. , The War On Guns tries to find a better word than Happy. The Other Side of Kim also reprints them. The Ready Line also wishes everyone a Happy Bill of Rights Day.

And then we have Tim Lynch’s post over at Cato @ Liberty - He goes through the amendments and covers how nearly every one is being violated by our current government.

It’s a depressing snapshot, to be sure, but I submit that the Framers of the Constitution would not have been surprised by the relentless attempts by government to expand its sphere of control. The Framers themselves would often refer to written constitutions as mere ”parchment barriers” or what we would describe as ”paper tigers.” They nevertheless concluded that putting safeguards down on paper was better than having nothing at all. And lest we forget, that’s what millions of people around the world have — nothing at all.

And to top it off, go buy a bunch of Pocket Constitutions and give them to your friends and family for Christmas. Don’t forget the kids, our founding documents are surprisingly easy to read and understand — that is as long as you’re not a Lawyer, pointy-headed intellectual, or liberal activist.

Well, the anti-gunner’s no-gun signs did their job — they disarmed the good guys and allowed a scumbag to wreak havoc at will.

Here is what one 1st hand witness to the shooting has to say:

Either way though, I could have drawn and taken a clean shot. However, in both cases, regardless of the laws, I am not allowed to carry a gun at all in Westroads Mall. If the laws did not oppress my rights, I would carry a gun most places (except work). I would certainly have had it in the mall as mall shootings have been on my mind since the incident at a mall involving a shotgun back in February.

Read the full account over at Joe’s Crabby Shack

What do I take away from this incident? That my right to defend myself takes precedence over anyone elses ‘property rights’ when they try to deprive me of the ability to save my own life from criminals bent on killing me and my family. I shall carry when and where I please and you shall be none the wiser — unless I am forced to defend myself.

Not in Port Orchard you don’t.

The big news around these parts today was a visit from the lunatics from the Westboro Baptist Church to harass the grieving family of SFC Johnny Walls. If these sleazy carpet baggers thought they could come into our town and subject the family of a fallen soldier to their vile hate with impunity they got a surprise today.

I started out at the local WalMart, buying a 4×5 flag to wave, everyone there seemed to know where I was headed and kept asking if I was going to the protest — My reply was “I’m not protesting anything, I’m there to support the family”. I arrived at the corner of Lund Ave and Bethel road at about 1pm. There were already about 100 people on 2 of the corners. The lunatics were over on the opposite corner, totally surrounded by supporters and Kitsap County Deputies.

The size of the crowd quickly swelled with people carrying signs, banners and flags. I estimated that the number of people was at least 300. They were surrounded by people with signs that said things like “Social Parasite”, “We are here for SFC Walls, You are here for yourselves” and “Thank God for SFC Walls”. I think it got to be too much for them to handle, they tried to move off down the road, and then the cops escorted them across the street and back to their cars. A good thing, because one of them was dragging an American Flag though the dirt which didn’t go over too well with a passerby at the Rite Aid — the deputies prevented him from causing a scene as far as I could tell.

As they were leaving the Patriot Guard Riders made a pass through on their way to the SFC Walls’ funeral.

I prefer to think of this as a support rally for SFC Johnny Walls and his family. I was there to show the screwballs that they are vastly out numbered by people who support our troops and their families and to show the family that the community supports them and thanks them for making the ultimate sacrifice — the loss of a son. I hope that our presence there gave some solace to his family in their time of grief.

Pictures can be seen at the LibertyNews Gallery and a couple of short videos on the LibertyNews YouTube page.

Joe Huffman’s post on Being treated like cattle has spurred me to collect some recent articles and break my posting silence. I am seriously questioning the direction that this country is taking. In Colorado we have a sleazy lawyer biding his time so he can steal 30% of the vacant lot a couple had bought to build their dream home on.

In Houston we have the cops testing out the use of UAVs for spying on its citizens. Then along comes the article about judges issuing warrants without probable cause for tracking cell phone locations.

We also have the government in Maryland forcing parents to have their kids immunized against their will and with the threat of jail (at the point of a gun). In Omaha a baby was ripped from its mother’s arms in order for the state to give it a blood test. It took them a week to get their child returned to them from the State mandated foster care.

To top this off I am finally convinced that our Democracy experiment in Iraq is doomed to eventual failure. Look at Pakistan, they can’t even hold their government together. Jerry Pournelle is right when he says we could have spent a fraction of the trillions that this war is costing us and had energy independence (Nuclear Reactors don’t need oil from unstable nations, nor does space based solar satellites.)

I feel like we’ve tipped over the edge and are sliding into the abyss. And I don’t see ANY presidential candidates who realize this.

A business in Reno, Nevada was flying a Mexican flag above an American flag. This is a violation of the law, flags of other countries may only be flown at equal or lower height than the American Flag. Jim Brossard hard about it on talk radio and decided something needed to be done. He pulled down the flags and cut the American Flag loose and took it, saying “They’re going to have to fight me for it if they want this flag”.

See Free Constitution blog for more info.

Good for Mr. Brossard! We need to see more action like this taken against these people who thing they can take over our country. We welcome immigrants with open arms, but they need to respect our culture instead of forcing theirs down our throats.

And why isn’t the Reno Federal prosecutor filing charges against this business owner? Why does this business still have a liquor license? Hell, a business license for that matter.

Ted Nugent talks to Texas Monthly Magazine about gun control. He has to be one of the most articulate pro-gun speakers that I have ever seen. No nonsense, straight to the point and not apologetic in any way.

“Gaggle of Numbnuts”

“I don’t like repeat offenders. I like dead offenders.”

“The 2nd Amendment IS my Concealed Weapon Permit”

With the way ammo prices continue to climb, and the difficulty in finding some of the better quality factory ammo, learning how to reload is probably a useful and economic skill to have. The Smallest Minority has an excellent post on the equipment and basic techniques for getting started reloading several pisol and rifle calibers.

Say Uncle is reporting that he received a note from Google AdWords that they wouldn’t run ads on his site because it was primarily about guns. BEcause of this I have disabled the adword sharing on GunBloggers.com — I don’t want to be responsible for someone’s ads getting pulled.

While I believe that Google is well within their rights to be as anti-gun as they want to be, I am disappointed that they are unable to make the distinction between legal and illegal activities. Makes you wonder just how Evil they could become…

It has been 6 years since terrorists attacked the WTC and Pentagon. They are still out there, and they are still trying to kill us. Never mind the political posturing that is going on as we approach another Presidential election. Just remember what really happened. What the barbaric muslim fanatics would like to see happen repeatedly.

Michelle Malkin has a good post (as always) with video and links.

And there is always LibertyNews WTC image archive.

Right wing Nut House brings us Liveblogging from the Continental Congress. Here are the events from July 2, 1776, and today’s events are being blogged here. It appears that there were some fireworks before they adjourned for the night. He reports that -

Update:Liveblogging today - “The declaration of American independence was approved unanimously in Congress just a few minutes ago.”

Great excitement! Mr. Ruttledge and Mr. Adams had a knock down, drag out shouting match over the slavery section I quoted above. Ruttledge feels personally insulted by the passage and threatens the unity of the Congress unless it is stricken from the declaration. Adams believes that we can’t ignore the issue of slavery. To do so makes us hypocrites in the eyes of the world.

What to do? Both men have a point. By condemning the slave trade, do you not also condemn those who buy the slaves? And how is it possible to claim our own country on the basis of freedom while keeping millions in bondage?

I sure hope that they can hold this together! It would be a disaster if we were to come this close.

Hat Tip to Michelle Malkin