Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg Insists Colorado's Second Largest City Doesn't Have Roads In Rolling Stone Interview

Gosh- where would anybody POSSIBLY get the farfetched idea that gun-control advocates are wealthy, out-of-touch, super-liberal busybody east coast elitists who hold vast swaths of the United States outside of Manhattan in utter contempt and disdain?

I mean, how could someone ever jump to such an absurd conclusion?

At least until somebody like former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg opens his mouth in a Rolling Stone interview.

The former New York City mayor said he was “sorry” about the recalls of two Democratic state senators last year over the state legislature’s passage of gun control laws, but said the districts in the recall races were so “rural” that “I don’t think there’s roads.”

“In Colorado, we got a law passed. The NRA went after two or three state senators in a part of Colorado where I don’t think there’s roads,” said Mr. Bloomberg in the interview with Rolling Stone published online this week.

“It’s as far rural as you can get,” said Mr. Bloomberg. “And, yes, they lost recall elections. I’m sorry for that. We tried to help ‘em. But the bottom line is, the law is on the books, and being enforced. You can get depressed about the progress, but on the other hand, you’re saving a lot of lives.”

The districts in question for last year's recall campaigns were in Colorado Springs and Pueblo- Colorado's second and seventh largest cities, respectively. State Senate president John Morse of Colorado's 11th State Senate district in El Paso county and state senator Angela Giron of the 3rd state senate district in Pueblo county- both Democrats- were successfully recalled by voters in their district just months after passing stricter gun control laws that limited magazine size and required a background check for all transfers of firearms [even among neighbors and relatives- NANESB!].

While no Manhattan, Colorado Springs is Colorado's 2nd largest city and is located some 75 miles south of Denver on Interstate 25. The city of roughly 400,000 is home to the United States Air Force Academy, the US Army's Ft Carson, the US Olympic Training Center and the Colorado Springs Sky Soxx- the Rockies AAA affiliate.

A little further south on I-25, Pueblo was once a key steel producing town and to this day remains an important rail town- not only for the southern terminus of the Joint Line which was once shared by the Rio Grande and Santa Fe, but also the FRA's Transportation Technology Center in which track, ballast, carbodies, rail, freight cars and locomotives undergo testing before being put into service.

The September 2013 recall election was the first of its kind in the state of Colorado and the threat of a 3rd recall against democrat state senator Evie Hudak of suburban Denver forced her to resign in November 2013 so that the Democrats could appoint her replacement instead of the party risking its slim majority in the Colorado state senate on a recall election.

Hudak also gained the ire of gun owners and rape survivors when she told rape victim Amanda Collins, who was testifying before the Colorado state senate in support of concealed carry on campus, that a gun wouldn't have spared Collins from her ordeal and she most likely would've been disarmed and killed by her rapist.

Bloomberg's comments in the Rolling Stone article titled Michael Bloomberg Isn't Afraid of the NRA that briefly disappeared [Rolling Stone claimed the article wasn't due to be published until a few days later- NANESB!].

More damning is that the article comes a few days after Democrat governor John Hickenlooper- who signed the sweeping gun control bill into law last year- met with Colorado's sheriffs last month, claiming that his office was in no way influenced by Bloomberg's gun control campaign. Initially, 55 of Colorado's 64 county sheriffs sued the Hickenlooper administration on the grounds that the magazine limit was unconstitutional and other provisions in the state laws were unenforceable- however, that suit was thrown out in November 2013 after a judge ruled the sheriffs couldn't sue the state while in office. Still, the judge left an opening for the sheriffs who were term limited to file suit against the state individually upon entering their final term.

As for Bloomberg's comments, both governor Hickenlooper and US Sen Mark Udall sought to distance themselves from the former mayor's comments while their Republican opponents jumped on Bloomberg's comments to portray the incumbents as more in touch with wealthy billionaire New York liberals than Coloradans.

In addition to gun control, Bloomberg also sought to limit the size sodas that are available in New York restaurants, citing health and obesity concerns. However, last year a 4-judge panel at the appeals court lever deemed the restrictions on soda sales was unconstitutional and struck it down last year.

Blue State Graft Watch- California State Senator Who Authored Gun Control Laws Arrested on Charges of Weapons Trafficking, Ties to Organized Crime

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New York Governor Cuomo- Conservatives Have "No Place in New York"

It's not surprising that Governor Andy Cuomo feels this way- it is a little surprising that Cuomo would be this brash and up-front about his disdain for some of his fellow New Yorkers in an election year.


In an interview with Syracuse PBS affiliate on Friday, Cuomo stated that conservatives have "no place in the state of New York, because that's not who New Yorkers are".

The Republican Party candidates are running against the SAFE Act — it was voted for by moderate Republicans who run the Senate! Their problem is not me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves. Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.

If they’re moderate Republicans like in the Senate right now, who control the Senate — moderate Republicans have a place in their state.

Shortly after the remarks were made public, Cuomo backtracked and his supporters claimed that his remarks were merely 'taken out of context', instead. Some supporters highlighted Cuomo's qualifier of 'extreme' and pointed out the Governor's praise of 'Moderate' Republicans who have more or less rubber-stamped some or all of Cuomo's agenda. Cuomo attempted to walk back his statements by saying that New Yorkers prefer moderate politicians of either party running for office only a few weeks after avowed socialist and Sandinista supporter Bill DeBlasio was sworn in as mayor of New York City.

By 'anti-gay', Cuomo is apparently referring to anybody who held similar views on same-sex marriage as Pope Francis or President Obama prior to his 2012 re-election campaign. Meanwhile, the NY SAFE Act, a hastily written and almost confiscatory gun law rushed through a closed-door session of the New York state assembly in the immediate aftermath of the December 2012 Newtown, CT school shootings has proven extremely unpopular upstate. Opponents point out the law does nothing to deter crime and makes criminals out of law-abiding citizens who own previously legal firearms while prompting manufacturers and businesses to move out of state because of the increased restrictions.

Another issue that has residents upstate irate at the son of Democratic former governor Mario Cuomo is fracking. New York's Southern Tier sits atop the Marcellus Shale natural gas formation- in fact, the formation is named after the village of Marcellus outside of Syracuse. However, while there has been drilling activity in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, Cuomo has dragged his feet on the issue since his 2010 election. Although drilling for natural gas could give the Empire State's economy a shot in the arm- particularly the economically hard-hit Southern Tier- hardline environmentalists and celebrity activists such as Yoko Ono or actor Mark Ruffalo seem to have the ear of Gov Cuomo's office, regaling his staff with liberally embellished horror stories of artificial earthquakes and tap water bursting into flames due to fracking. As the celebrities, environmentalists and wealthy Manhattan progressives do there utmost to ensure that no drilling takes place in New York, upstate counties atop the Marcellus Shale have unemployment rates of around 8%. To his credit, Cuomo floated a compromise where drilling would be confined mostly to the Southern Tier counties of Broome, Chemung, Tioga, Steuben and Chenango but that was quickly overruled by environmentalists. While the Governor and state officials have made no official decision on fracking, observers believe Cuomo and other Democrats are waiting for a more politically opportune time after the 2014 election to make an unpopular decision.

Meanwhile, as landowners in the Southern Tier have been hit with a double whammy of an economy that's been in decline since the 1970s and some of the highest property taxes in the USA, Governor Cuomo has been fundraising in Hollywood- for his re-election bid as governor of New York.

Between the push for same-sex marriage, gun control and abortion while obstructing a surefire means of reviving the Southern Tier's long suffering economy for political expediency, Cuomo's actions as governor have made it abundantly clear that he believes conservatives (or even moderates who disagree with him) have no place in New York. his statements in Friday's PBS interview simply made it official.

[Hat tip- Lonely Conservative; The Mental Recession

Happy New Year's From Not Another New England Sports Blog!

Well, here we are bidding farewell to 2013- some of us went from having a hard time believing that baseball or football season was already here to counting down as that ginormous crystal ball gets set to drop from Times Square.

As far as sports go, 2013 was a pretty good year. Obviously, the Red Sox won the World Series and the Bruins advanced to the Stanley Cup during a strike-shortened NHL season, only to collapse to the Blackhawks in a matter of seconds.

As far as domestic and international politics go, the year 2013 was one to forget. A landmark sporting event in the capital of my home state was targeted by Islamic terrorists, killing three people and injuring hundreds. In their haste to assign blame for the Boston Marathon bombings, a number of pundits almost gleefully accused the Tea Party or setting up IEDs at the Boston Marathon finish line before two Chechen brothers killed an MIT Campus Policeman in an ambush, carjacked a motorist and shot it out with Eastern Massachusetts law enforcement in the predawn hours in Watertown, MA. One brother was killed and the other was arrested after he was discovered hiding on a boat in somebody's backyard nearly a full day later.

Just the west on I-90, New York governor Mario Cuomo and his cohorts in the New York State Assembly crammed through the SAFE Act, a sort of Holy Grail for the gun control crowd that was written and passed so hastily that lawmakers forgot to exempt NY State law enforcement from its provisions. No doubt gun control groups like Mayors Against Illegal Guns will continue to tout the NY SAFE Act as 'common sense gun safety laws' [such as the theoretical prohibition of owning a 10-round magazine, later amended to allow ownership, but only loading no more than 7 rounds at a time- NANESB!]. States such as Connecticut, Maryland and Colorado also passed similar gun control measures, but lawmakers supportive of the new gun laws in Colorado have already paid a political price, with two state Senators being recalled in a first-of-its-kind campaign and a third resigning from office rather than face recall herself.

In October, President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid forced a government shutdown when the Democrats refused to entertain even the most tepid and watered down requests from the Republicans to delay the implementation of 0bamacare. Within weeks of the shutdown, there was the disastrous rollout of the healthcare.gov website and millions of Americans who previously had health insurance would have their policies cancelled because they no longer complied with 0bamacare regulations. Although the White House claims that the website is fixed, enrollment numbers are still well below even the most modest projections from HHS. Ironically, only a few weeks after the government shutdown, President Obama began a series of unilateral changes to his signature law- similar to what some GOP officials had asked for during the shutdown- that some experts pointed out were well beyond the constitutional authority granted a sitting President.

On the rails, the Bakken Oil boom appeared to be renewing the fortunes of New England-based railways until a runaway Montreal, Maine & Atlantic train wiped out the heart of the village of Lac Megantic, Quebec in July. At least 47 people were killed that night and the MM&A had to file for bankruptcy. The line is looking for a buyer and has yet to re-open.

2013 was also the end of shortline holding company Rail America after being purchased outright by Genesee & Wyoming, putting all of Rail America's considerable holdings under the GWI umbrella.

So all in all, 2013 was a pretty eventful year. but I'm not too sad to see it in the rearview. Here's hoping that I'll have far less to complain about in 2014.

White House, Democrats Announce New 'Berate Your Family' Charm Offensive For the Holidays

If you're travelling to visit loved ones this Thanksgiving or Hanukkah, the Democrats and Obama Administration have made it clear that they would like you to incessantly pester your loved ones about the merits of 0bamacare (or gun control) in an attempt to sugarcoat the flailing 0bamacare rollout.

From Obama's own website which shockingly, actually works:

This holiday season, millions of Americans have a chance to get quality, affordable health insurance—many for the first time. If you have family members who are uninsured, you can play a big part in helping them find coverage that works for them. It might not always seem like it, but your family listens to you. So have the talk.

He's actually encouraging people to print up these lying points and to, I don't know, recite them at Thanksgiving dinner? This sort of flies in the face of his reassuring back-patting and confidence in you being your family's healthcare policy expert if you have to rely on pathetic propaganda you printed up. It's got pretty colors and paint-by-number instructions, so maybe this shit will fly over at the kids' table, but I wouldn't be so quick to try this in front of adults. Hungry and varying degrees of intoxicated adults who just want to watch football and be left alone.

If you can't catch the Chris Hayes "how to talk to conservatives about Obamacare at Thanksgiving dinner" special, don't worry, the same thing has already been printed in a number of newspapers and magazines across the country. From WaPo: A guide to surviving Obamacare debates at Thanksgiving.

That's the part of the health-care law that isn't working. But in some states that built their own insurance marketplaces, Obamacare is working--and the health law is meeting enrollment projections. California, for example, has signed up 80,000 people for coverage and Washington has enrolled nearly 12,000. These examples are limited, but the suggest that the problem isn't with demand but a technical one. We won't know whether this is true everywhere, though, until HealthCare.gov is fixed.

[What they neglect to mention is that an estimated 900,000 people in California have lost their individual health insurance policies under 0bamacare, so even if the 80,000 figure is accurate the ratio of those who lost their insurance plans still vastly outnumbers the enrolled under California's 0bamacare exchange- NANESB!]

Yeah, go with that.

Next up, Huffington Post, who is not even trying to hide what side of this debate they're on: Here's Every Argument You'll Need To Win Your Obamacare Debate This Thanksgiving.

We've all got a crazy uncle we love. He might not even technically be an uncle -- it's not something the family likes to get into -- but he's there at Thanksgiving every year just the same, getting heavy handed with the 1.5-liter wine bottle, insisting on calling the dog "bitch," starting with off-color jokes that made people uncomfortable even before the country "evolved" and finishing with a tea party-inspired screed about the Kenyan in the White House. We'll call him Uncle Hank.
...
Those plans were terrible anyway -- high deductibles, no hospital coverage, dropped you if you got sick, etc. It wasn't insurance if you actually needed it. Cite an example from a family member here who's gotten screwed by an insurer. Shouldn't be hard to find.

Your plan sucks Uncle Hank, you dumb slack-jawed hick. Get over it.

Slate jumps in as well. They're not content with just bringing up Obamacare, they actually want you to fight about it: How To Pick a Fight With Your Relatives This Thanksgiving

2) Getting Started. First off, you should wait until everyone's seated at the table before you try to get things started. That way you have a captive audience that has to watch the fireworks, and everyone is settled in for a nice long time. Getting the topic of conversation to politics shouldn't be too hard. Stick to short, sarcastic, tendentious remarks to get things going. "I'm thankful for all that free stuff Obama gave me." Once you've engaged the enemy, it won't take much effort to pivot to whatever particular subject you feel most comfortable with. A good Thanksgiving skirmish will scamper from topic to topic wildly and without warning, but it's best to begin by digging into one particularly contentious subject to get tempers flared.

"Get in their faces". I remember someone saying that once.

There are others out there, even in local papers like the Denver Post and the Pittsburgh Courier. I'm sure there will be more before Thursday. But what if you don't feel like talking about Obamacare, what with the steady, embarrassing and collapsing failure and all? Well don't you worry one bit, because there are other liberal causes you can awkwardly bring up as well! Michael Bloomberg wants you to start talking about gun control, for instance.

Lovely people, aren't they? And of course, all coincidental.

Perhaps completely unrelated, the White House had a closed-door meeting with select journalists from the Washington Post, MNSBC, the Huffington Post and Mother Jones last week, reportedly to coordinate damage control over the 0bamacare rollout. The media has also been attempting to find positive stories about the 0bamacare experience in the wake of last week's meetings.

Despite the happy talk by some media outlets, a number of state-run 0bamacare exchanges had only a fraction of the anticipated number of enrollees- in some cases falling well short of projected 'worst case scenario' numbers.

[Hat tip- Ace of Spades; Weasel Zippers]

Two Colorado State Senators Recalled Over Gun Control Support

Two Colorado state lawmakers, including the President of the state Senate, were recalled from office in a first-of-its kind special election last week.

State Senator Angela Giron of Pueblo and state senate president John Morse of Colorado Springs had supported Colorado's sweeping gun control laws which had passed in a legislative session earlier this year, angering many Coloradans and forcing some businesses to move out of state. By Morse's own admission, he ignored his own constituents opposed to the gun control laws claiming he was receiving hate mail and threatening correspondence from them. Vice President Joe Biden and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg also reportedly lobbied Colorado state lawmakers to pass a landmark bill in the wake of the 2012 Aurora movie theater killings.

The bill, which banned magazines with a capacity of 15 rounds or more and required a background check for any transfer of firearms between private parties, was heralded as a relatively rare triumph for gun control advocates outside the liberal bubbles of California or the northeast corridor. Critics said the bill would do nothing to reduce crime while most Colorado sheriffs said the law as it was written would be unenforceable.

While the results of the election do nothing to shift the balance of power in the Colorado state legislature, its worth pointing out that both Morse and Giron hailed from majority-Democrat districts that went for Obama during the 2012 campaign.

Gun control advocates have been downplaying the results of the Colorado recall since Morse and Giron conceded, claiming there was no backlash over their gun control votes or that there was widespread voter suppression dampening turnout. Despite Morse openly seeking help from Boston and San Francisco, gun control supporters complained of the National Rifle Association's involvement even though observers say outside groups like Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns or the DNC outspent the NRA by a nearly 5 to 1 margin.

Former Colorado Springs city councilman and defense contractor Bernie Herpin won the campaign for Morse's seat while former Pueblo, CO deputy police chief George Rivera won Giron's district in the September 10th balloting.

Colorado Democrats Facing Recall Over Gun Control Votes

In a first for the state of Colorado, State Senate president John Morse will face a recall after challengers submitted more than 10,000 signatures- more than enough to trigger a recall of a sitting state Senator under Colorado law.

The challenge was mounted by gun rights advocates after the Colorado Springs Democrat voted in favor of new gun control measures that were signed into law by Gov John Hickenlooper earlier this year.

Secretary of State Scott Gessler said the El Paso Freedom Defense Committee had gathered 10,137 valid signatures, well in excess of the 7,178 needed to qualify for the recall ballot. The recall committee submitted more than 16,000 signatures two weeks ago.

The recall has drawn national attention as a referendum on gun control in the aftermath of two mass shootings last year in Connecticut and Colorado.

Mr. Morse, a Colorado Springs Democrat, released a statement Monday on his Facebook page asking for out-of-state help from those in traditionally liberal cities to help fight the recall effort.

“We can get phone lists to you and things like that and have you help from Boston, Massachusetts, or San Francisco, California,” said Mr. Morse in a video message. “So thanks for all that you’ve done and thanks for all that you’re going to do as we move forward to take on this tiger.”

Mr. Morse has 15 days to challenge the signatures, but if his protest fails, the governor will be charged with setting a recall election date between 45 and 75 days from the end of the protest period.

Mr. Morse could also avoid a recall fight by resigning his seat, which would permit a Democratic vacancy committee to appoint a successor. Democrats control both houses of the state Legislature.

While Morse may be the highest ranking Democrat to face recall due to the state's new gun laws, he isn't alone. Organizers have turned in what they hope will be enough signatures to mount a challenge against another Democrat- state Senator Angela Giron from Pueblo.

Shortly before the deadline, a number of people holding signs supporting Giron were videotaped receiving cash from an individual circulating among the crowd before talking to Giron herself. The Giron campaign denied any knowledge of the payments or the individual and accused the recall petitioners of a 'setup'. However after video was played on an NBC affiliate in Denver, the money man was identified as 72 year old Gerald Rosenblatt of Colorado Springs- and a donor to Giron's group, Pueblo United for Angela.

Colorado was one of the few states outside the northeast to enact new gun control laws in the wake of the Sandy Hook school massacre in Newtown, CT or the Aurora, CO theater shooting. Shortly after its passage, most of Colorado's county sheriff's filed a lawsuit seeking to block the laws from going into effect saying many of the provisions are unenforceable and enforcing compliance would divert money and manpower that was sorely lacking.

Montana Senator Max Baucus Announces He Won't Seek Re-Election in 2014

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) announced that he planned on retiring rather than seek re-election next year. Baucus, who has represented Big Sky country in the Senate since 1978, making him one of the longest-serving Senators currently in office.

In 2009 and 2010, Baucus played a key role in authoring Obamacare. Despite an opaque process and widespread opposition from the public, Obamacare narrowly passed a Democrat-held House and Senate in 2010. However, Baucus himself described the Affordable Care act as a "huge train wreck coming down" during a budgetary hearing with the Health and Human Services chief earlier this month.

"I just see a huge train wreck coming down," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., told Obama's health care chief during a routine budget hearing that suddenly turned tense.

Baucus is the first top Democrat to publicly voice fears about the rollout of the new health care law, designed to bring coverage to some 30 million uninsured Americans through a mix of government programs and tax credits for private insurance that start next year.

Normally low-key and supportive, Baucus challenged Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at Wednesday's hearing.

He said he's "very concerned" that new health insurance marketplaces for consumers and small businesses will not open on time in every state, and that if they do, they might just flop because residents don't have the information they need to make choices.

"The administration's public information campaign on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act deserves a failing grade," he told Sebelius. "You need to fix this."

Responding to Baucus, Sebelius pointedly noted that Republicans in Congress last year blocked funding for carrying out the health care law, and she had to resort to raiding other departmental funds that were legally available to her.

The administration is asking for $1.5 billion in next year's budget, and Republicans don't seem willing to grant that either.

Last week, Baucus was one of five Democrat Sentaors to vote against legislation authored by West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey that would mandate background checks for all private firearms transfers. The bill, which required 60 votes to pass, fell short by four votes in the Democrat-held senate earlier this month.

President Obama spent considerable political capital attempting to get any sort of gun control passed in the wake of the Newtown, CT school massacre. However, Baucus represents a state with a high number of gun owners and there were concerns from gun owner's rights groups that the Toomey-Manchin bill would establish the framework for a nationwide gun registry and criminalize hunters and relatives borrowing guns. The defeat in the Senate spurred a press conference by petulant Obama where he denounced the Senate's 'shameful' vote while flanked by families from Newtown. Veiled threats about ending the political careers came from gun-control groups after the vote, but an ad buy in Montana from Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns wouldn't have affected Baucus in Montana. The senior senator from Montana had an A+ rating from the NRA.

Montana Republicans have been bracing for a tough campaign against the entrenched Baucus in 2014. However, now the list of candidates for either side has been thrown into flux. One possible name for the Democrats is former governor Brian Schweizer, who unsuccessfully ran for US Senate in 2000.

Increased Demand for Guns and Ammunition Spark Jobs Bonanza in Firearms Industry

Looks like I was wrong- President Obama and the Democrats actually CAN take credit for creating some private sector jobs.

With the White House and Democrat-controlled Senate promising to take action on gun control- including a proposed "assault weapons" ban- civilians have been stocking up on guns, ammunition and parts for the last several months. Coupled with the recent Department of Homeland Security purchase of 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition, the increased demand has created a shortages and backlogs. In fact, the massive bulk purchase by the DHS has left local police departments across the country scrambling to find ammunition and paying more and waiting longer for the ones that do manage to find any.

The brisk sales has also had the unintended consequence of creating a significant jobs boom for gun manufacturers throughout the USA.

Mike Weddle, head of maintenance at Dynamic Research Technologies, an ammunition manufacturer in Albany, Mo., says he is adding 10 new hires to his staff of 35. DRT's machine operators make between $10 and $17 an hour -- a healthy paycheck in a region where it's tough to find a job and the cost of living is relatively low.

DRT currently cranks out 80,000 bullets per shift and operates two shifts per day. But that's not enough to meet demand. So Weddle is adding a third manufacturing shift and building an additional facility.

"Demand picked up a year ago -- it quadrupled," he said. "It just went crazy." He says .223 caliber ammo, which is for semiautomatic rifles, is particularly difficult to keep in stock.

DRT is a tiny part of an industry that employs about 240,000 nationwide, according to an estimate from Brian Rafn, who follows the gun industry for Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. And like DRT, many of the giants in the business of making guns and ammo are also expanding.

"Sturm, Ruger and Smith & Wesson have both added manufacturing capacity, which includes labor and shifts, in the past year," said Wedbush Securities analyst Rommel Dionisio.

Caleb Ogilvie, a concealed-carry instructor who works at Cabot Gun & Ammo in Cabot, Ark., said that employees at a nearby Remington plant in Lonoke are telling him that "they're running full swing up there, running 24-7."

Ironically, companies like Smith & Wesson, Colt, Mossberg and Ruger are headquartered in New England states where residents can't legally own some of the firearms those companies make. This has not gone unnoticed by officials in Mississipi and Texas who say they would gladly welcome the northern-based companies should they decide to move south. Colorado-based ammunition manufacturer Magpul has said their move out of Colorado is underway after Gov Hickenlooper signed a raft of gun control bills into law earlier this month.

Meanwhile, the northern Idaho town of Potlatch is attempting to do follow suit with some help from the Idaho department of commerce, Potlatch corp [NYSE- PCH] which owns property that housed one of their paper mills until 1981 and regional utility Avista [NYSE- AVA].

The move by PNW Arms was like a signal flare to business and political leaders in the town of 800 people, who were in the process of trying to determine what industry would be best to pursue.

"We were in the middle of doing our marketing plan at the time and decided that firearms is the niche we would recommend," said Gary White of Kennewick, Wash., a business marketing consultant who is helping develop the town's pitch to gun makers.

Potlatch, they decided, would go from timber town to gun town. It would try to lure firearms and ammunition makers, and plans also called for hunting-themed housing and retail development.

"It will help draw some out-of-towners and out-of-staters," Mayor David Brown said.

Potlatch went public in April with its come-hither pitch to gun makers.

"We've had two nibbles already and we haven't even tried," Swanson said.

Swanson acknowledged that gun manufacturers would not be welcomed everywhere. Even in Latah County, they might face opposition 15 miles away in liberal Moscow, where the University of Idaho is based.

"In Potlatch, they would be welcomed with open arms," Swanson said. "I have not heard a single person in Potlatch saying, 'We don't want them here.'"

White agreed: "If we proposed this in Seattle or Portland, I'm sure it would be entirely different. For Potlatch, Idaho, this makes absolute sense."

Busy State Highway 6 serves as the main street through the town, and the small business community actually has trouble finding workers, said Dale Spring, owner of Dale's Wagon Wheel Bar & Grill.

Spring wonders where the workers would come from for any new firearms factory. "There's no labor force," he said.

Many Potlatch residents work at the universities, or at one of the thriving private sector employers in the Moscow-Pullman area, he said.

Local economic development leaders believe good-paying jobs will draw workers.

The lure for manufacturers is the former lumber mill site, of which 26 acres is set aside for firearms and related companies, White said. The mill site is currently without buildings, but has nearby utilities, is flat and the town has plenty of water and sewer capacity, Swanson said.

Nationally, there has been a big jump in the popularity of target shooting, largely the result of a slew of television programs on that subject, White said. They expect Potlatch's plan to appeal to some of those people, he said.

The marketing effort is funded by Potlatch Corp, which still owns the mill site, by local utility Avista, and by local city and county governments.

There are relatively few publicly traded gun companies, but shares of Smith & Wesson [NASDAQ- SWHC] have gone up 7.85% since the beginning of 2013 and shares of Ruger [NYSE- RGR] are up more than 13% in the same timeframe.

California Sen. Diane Feinstein- No "Assault Weapons" For Veterans, Refers to PTSD as "New"

Congratulations, California- you continue to pick some real winners there.

Feinstein said she wants to make sure that veterans “who are incapacitated for one reason or another mentally don’t have access” to semi-automatic weapons.

Feinstein, at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee last Friday, was discussing an amendment to her gun control bill that would exempt retired military from the so-called “assault weapons” ban:

“The problem with expanding this (exemption) is that, you know, with the advent of PTSD, which I think is a new phenomenon as a product of the Iraq War, it’s not clear how the seller or transferrer of a firearm covered by this bill would verify that an individual was a member, or a veteran, and that there was no impairment of that individual with respect to having a weapon like this. So you know, I would be happy to sit down with you again and see if we could work something out but I think we have to — if you’re going to do this, find a way that veterans who are incapacitated for one reason or another mentally don’t have access to this kind of weapon.”

Perhaps even more alarming is Feinstein's claim that PTSD was a new phenomenon limited to the Iraq War [OMG! Bush's fault!- NANESB!]. However. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder- which was known as Soldier's Heart after the Civil War or Shell Shock after the first World War- was formally recognized by the Committee of Reactive Disorders in 1980.

Also, if Sen Feinstein has such reservations about veterans of the US Military arming themselves, she should perhaps concern herself with veterans not only armed with firearms, but also the power of arrest- as thousands of returning veterans from the Iraq war have found work in local, state, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies nationwide over the past decade [Hmmm....interesting how she apparently left out Afghanistan- NANESB!].

And while nobody is advocating giving away guns to clearly disturbed individuals like Adam Lanza or Jared Loughner, one should also be careful in allowing the progressives in this nation to monopolize the narrative in regards to mental health. There have been serious "academic" attempts to get conservative opinions and outlooks classified as a mental disorder in recent years. In the latter days of the Soviet Union, government psychiatrists would have dissidents involuntarily committed to mental hospitals with vague diagnoses like 'sluggish schizophrenia' or 'philisophical intoxication' on a regular basis. The state-ordered confinement saved Communist Party officials the trouble of putting dissidents through a show trial that could potentially backfire on them- a practice that is seeing an ominous resurgence in Vladmir Putin's Russia.

Democrats Behaving Badly- Nevada State Lawmaker Arrested After Threatening Colleague With Gun

A Nevada state assemblyman has been jailed after allegedly threatening to shoot the speaker-elect over his committee assignments.

Assemblyman Steven Brooks, 40, of North Las Vegas made threats to harm a public official Saturday afternoon, police said in a news release Sunday morning. A source said he was arrested with a loaded gun after threatening to shoot Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick and witnesses who corroborated the allegation prompted police to begin searching for Brooks. About 5:30 p.m., Brooks was seen driving in the area of Carey Avenue and Mt. Hood Street, where he was taken into custody without incident during a traffic stop.

Another Democratic source with knowledge of the situation said Brooks publicly threatened to harm Kirkpatrick because he was unhappy with the committee assignments given to him by Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick was selected to lead the Assembly by the Democratic caucus, but she was expected to face divisions. Her caucus was split between her and Assemblyman William Horne, D-Las Vegas, after the presumed incoming speaker, Assemblyman Marcus Conklin, D-Las Vegas, lost his re-election bid. That threw the caucus into turmoil.

Brooks had told lobbyists and other lawmakers that he had expected to become chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, a powerful committee that oversees changes to the governor’s proposed budget. Assemblywoman Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas, was selected for the position.

Brooks was booked into Las Vegas City Jail on one count of intimidating a public officer by threat of physical violence.

North Las Vegas Police, citing the ongoing investigation, would not release further details.

Brooks was released on $100,000 bail on Monday and said he fully expected to return to the state capitol in Carson City this week when reached for comment by the Las Vegas Sun

Brooks, a Democrat, represents the 17th Assembly District in North Las Vegas. Speaker-elect Kirkpatrick- also a Democrat- represents the neighboring 1st Assembly district.

New York Newspaper Publishes Home Addresses of Gun Permit Holders in Lower Hudson River Valley

Under the guise of public disclosure, a White Plains, NY-based newspaper has published the names and home addresses of handgun permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties north of New York City, complete with an interactive map showing where they live.

The same publication- the White Plains Journal News- is also promising to publish additional addresses of permit holders in nearby Putnam county. The move has created a good deal of animosity among Empire State gun owners who say that the newspaper's publishing their names and home addresses online is a violation of their privacy. According to some of the comments left on the newspaper's website, many names that show up are out of date by at least a decade.

The editorial board of the Journal News defended the decision to run the article and post the accompanying map on the website, saying the information was made available to the public by state law and multiple Freedom of Information act requests. The Dec22nd piece ran shortly after the Sandy Hook schoolhouse massacre just across the state line in Newtown, CT [solidifying many predictions from gun owners on how the atrocity would be leveraged against law-abiding gun owners by pro-gun control politicians and media figures- NANESB!]. It's also worth pointing out that all the names on the list had purchased their respective firearms in full compliance with New York state law, yet by the author's own admission the entire premise of the article was to 'warn' people about the very same law-abiding gun owners- maybe these 'journalists' can 'warn' the public about which homes have large collections of jewelry or coins next.

A number of gun owners have suggested a boycott of not only the Journal News and their advertisers, but other publications owned by Journal News' parent company- Gannett Co, Inc [NYSE- GCI]. An estimated 44,000 people in the three counties are said to have their names published- although there is no data available for rifles or shotguns. Within hours, some had reportedly retaliated against the Journal News by posting the name and home addresses and phone numbers of the editor, Gannett CEO and reporter online. A New York state senator has also proposed making permit information throughout the state available only to law enforcement officers carrying out an active investigation.

In March 2007, a columnist for Virginia's Roanoke Times published a list of names and addresses for concealed handgun carry permits in the New River valley, comparing permit holders to sex offenders. The Roanoke Times website took down the list within a matter of hours after receiving complaints. In 2011, an Associated Press reporter sought to obtain names and hometowns of Firearm Owner's Identification Card (FOID) by filing suit against the Illinois State Police. The state police pointed out that they sometimes receive Freedom of Information Act requests from inmates about the FOID status of corrections officers, their victims or retired policemen. In December 2011, a Peoria County Circuit Court judge ruled that the FOID information would be exempt from any Freedom of Information Act requests.

Horror in Connecticut as Gunman Murders 26, Including 20 Elementary School Students

Wow- "This is just awful" would be an understatement. Ordinarilly I scoff at such things, but after today I wonder if the Mayans had it right all along and everything is coming to an end shortly. I cannot fathom the mind of somebody twisted enough to even contemplate this, let alone actually carry it out. That said, I'm not giving the perpetrator a pass by claiming he was mentally derelict or anything along those lines.

Jessica Hill/AP Photo

A gunman identified as 20 year old Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother in their Newtown, CT home before driving to Sandy Hook Elementary school where she taught, murdering her entire class as well as members of the school staff.

The shooter, who sources identified as Adam Lanza, 20, shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, in the face at their home in Newtown, Conn., then went to nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School where she taught and gunned down her entire class, according to sources. Lanza was found dead inside the school, according to officials. Eighteen of the children and six more adults were dead at the school and two more children died later, according to Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance.

Vance would not confirm the shooter's name, and earlier in the day there were conflicting reports over the gunman's identity. Law enforcement sources told FoxNews.com the shooter was Adam Lanza. His brother, Ryan Lanza, 24, who was widely and erroneously reported to be the suspect, was questioned in Hoboken, N.J., but authorities said he was not involved. An FBI source tells Fox News that Ryan Lanza and the father, Peter Lanza, have both been cleared and are not longer being questioned.

"It is not a simplistic scene," Vance told reporters.

The guns used in the are said to have belonged to Nancy Lanza and reportedly include an AR-15 type semiautomatic rifle as well as two 9mm handguns- a Glock and a SigSauer. Although the media has said the horror in Newtown is sure to re-ignite the gun control debate, gun control groups say that Connecticut has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. The guns used in the massacre were said to have been legally obtained by Lanza's mother. Such laws did nothing to prevent an August 2010 mass killing when a recently fired worker at a Hartford beer distributor's warehouse returned and shot 8 of his former co-workers to death before shooting himself.

Early on, there were a number of conflicting reports regarding the shooting. Initially the shooter was identified as Ryan Lanza of Hoboken, NJ- Adam's older brother. Later, there were conflicing reports of possible accomplices and whether or not the AR-15 recovered at the scene had even been fired.

According to news reports, Lanza showed up at the main office wearing black garb and carrying three weapons and shot the principal with the entire school listening on in horror over the school intercom system. Some teachers attempted to shield their sudents from the homicidal gunman during his rampage. Telling her young pupils the gunshots they heard was hammering, one teacher ushered her students into the school's bathroom. Other teachers were able to lock the doors to their classrooms.

Authorities are witholding the names of the victims until all of the victim's families are notified.

Rare WWII Automatic Rifle Turned In At Connecticut Buyback

Think of it as Pawn Stars, only with guns and taking place in the decidedly less glamorous venue of Hartford, CT.

During a recent gun buyback, police in Hartford were surprised when a local woman turned in an extremely rare WWII Nazi-issued automatic rifle.

“It’s like finding the Babe Ruth of baseball cards. The rarity, it was made for such a very short period,” Officer John Cavanna, one of the two officers who discovered the gun, told ABC News.

Officer Lewis Crabtree added, “The chance to see a piece of history — this … is absolutely unbelievable.”

Cavanna and Crabtree are resident gun experts for the Hartford Police Department.

The woman found the weapon in a closet after her father, a World War II veteran, passed away. Her father had brought home the historic weapon, usually issued to SS troops, from Europe as a keepsake from the war.

She was unaware it is now valued between $20,000 to $25,000.

The Sturmgewehr 44, meaning “storm rifle,” dates back to 1944. Crabtree revealed it was the first “modern assault rifle ever made, eventually replaced by the AK 47 in 1947 by Russia, who copied the German design of the Sturmgewehr 44.”

And although every modern assault rifle is modeled after the Sturmgewehr 44, Crabtree understood how its significance could be overlooked.

“If you were to look at the gun and didn’t know anything about guns, you would think it was garbage,” Crabtree said.

In its current state, this Sturmgewehr 44 is inoperable. But in its prime, it would have held a 30-round magazine and shot 500 rounds per minute.

In case you were wondering how a rare WWII nazi rifle made its way to Colt's backyard, Officer Cavanna explained that during wartime, GIs were sometimes allowed to send trophies- such as samurai swords or Luger pistols captured from axis troops- to relatives back home. And apparently that is what the unidentified woman's father did with the Stg 44, where it spent decades in a Connecticut attic not doing much besides appreciating in value. The weapon currently sits in a police armory- had they accepted it as part of the buyback, Hartford police would have been obligated to destroy the rare weapon and the woman who turned it in would've only received a $100 WalMart gift card.

Although it offered a superior rate of fire to the bolt-action rifle issued to German troops at the time, manufacturing the Stg 44 proved to labor-intensive, something the reeling 3rd reich could ill afford so late in the conflict. Thus fewer than a half million Stg 44s were produced- compared to more than 6 million M1 carbines or some 14 million Mauser bolt-action 98K Karabiner- and the forerunner of the modern military assault rifle was only issued to a select few SS troops. After WWII, the Soviet Union incorporated many design features from the Stg 44 into what became the iconic AK-47. In fact, earlier this year rebel factions in Syria captured what they thought was a stockpile of 5000 AK-47s from the Syrian military- but the weapons turned out to be Stg 44s.

Blue State Graft Watch: Anti Gun Illinois State Senator Caught Trying to Board Plane With Pistol, Live Ammunition at O'Hare

I'm not sure if I could call this graft or just plain stupidity- or a combination of the two.

The Noisy Cricket, resplendent in all its .25 cal glory

An Illinois State Senator is free on $25,000 bail after his arrest at Chicago's O'Hare airport for attempting to bring a pistol and live ammunition on board a plane on Wednesday.

Donne Trotter, a 62 year old Chicago Democrat, claimed it was an innocent mistake and that he forgot to unload he pistol and magazine with live rounds from a garment bag after reportedly finishing up a shift as a security guard.

Curiously, few people were even aware that Trotter worked a second job as a securty guard or owned a gun until this week's arrest.

It all started on Wednesday morning at O'Hare, when Transportation Security Administration officers say they spotted a gun in Trotter's carry-on bag. [Trotter] said he forgot it was in his bag from the night before, when he told authorities that he had worked a security guard shift for a South Side company.

According to state records, All Points Security and Detective Company currently has more than 50 employees licensed under it to work as armed guards, among them Donne Trotter.

Although many of the state licensees on this list appear to have law enforcement backgrounds, Trotter is not known for that. His bio and campaign disclosures do not list his employment as a security guard, and he has declined to answer any questions about the matter.

All Points has not responded to questions either and has offered no explanation, context or proof of Senator Trotter's actual employment.

Public records reveal the firm has had government contracts, including a $5 million deal to provide armed escorts for CTA cash collections.

The gun was identified as a .25 cal Beretta- a much more compact, small caliber pistol from the manufacturer of the military's M9 9mm sidearm [Just an observation on my part, but unless that was some sort of 'backup' piece, a .25 cal pistol is woefully underpowered for security or protective work of any kind- NANESB!]. During the bail hearing, prosecutors said that although Trotter had an Illinois state Firearms Owner Identification Card for the gun, the Beretta was not registered with the city of Chicago as required by municipal ordinance. The city of Chicago has among the strictest gun control laws in the nation for decades, but that has done nothing to stem the skyrocketing murder rate in the Windy City.

Trotter, who has been in office since 1988, voted against a measure that would allow Illinois residents to carry concealed weapons in 1995 and voted in favor of a ban on high capacity magazines in 2007.

At the end of November, Trotter joined a crowded field of candidates when he announced he would be running for Congress to replace Jesse Jackson Jr, who had announced his resignation amid a federal misconduct probe and after a months-long absence from Congress after checking himself into the Mayo clinic.

Belated Post-Debate Musings

Well, here it is a few days after the second (and second to last) of the 2012 Presidential Debates and lord knows most of the other places on my blogroll have already commented, but I figured I should weigh in before the third and final debate on Monday night.

I missed the first debate at Denver University earlier this month- partly because I typically work evenings and partly because I was becoming burned out on politics altogether [not because I think Mitt Romney is such a shoddy candidate, but because I find it hard to believe there are people out there willing to defend President Obama's record over these last 3 years- NANESB!].

Apparently I missed a doozy, though. Romney repeatedly hammered President Obama over his economic record while Obama looked disinterested and even asked the moderator Jim Lehrer to change the subject at one point. Since then, Romney has been surging in the polls and gaining ground or pulling away in a number of battleground states while Obama's high-profile supporters have been blaming everything from the high altitude in Denver to the notion that Obama was being 'nice' and pulling his punches.

There was also a debate last week between VP Joe Biden and Romeny's VP nominee Paul Ryan that seemed to de derailed by the Vice President's facial tics and wierd grinning at the most inappropriate times.

The second Presidential debate took place on Tuesday night at Hofstra University in Long Island. The town hall format for this debate was different from the first, with Obama and Romney taking questions from an audience in a Q and A session that was moderated by CNN's Candy Crowley. I missed the first part of the debate- and I was told after the fact I didn't miss much at the time- but I caught most of the second half on radio.

I caught the moment everybody [who was paying attention- NANESB!] was talking about after the fact. Fielding a question about last month's terrorist attacks in Libya. Almost as soon Romney pointed out that it took nearly 2 weeks for the White House to acknowledge the attacks were the result of a planned terrorist action, not a spontaneous demonstration over a YouTube video, Crowley jumped in and said that Romney was wrong and at the Presiden't urging, produced a transcript of a September 12th statement to the press in the Rose Garden of the White House before flying off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas. After the debate, Crowley later walked back her words and said the Romney's statement was in fact correct.

Ignoring the fact that either the President and his proxies were lying to the press about the first terrorist attack to have killed an American diplomat in more than 30 years or he was callous enough to jet off to a high-end Sin City fundraiser while our diplomatic mission in Benghazi was still burning, there was something else I noticed that seemed to be overlooked by others in light of Crowley's blatant attempt to run interference for Obama.

Referencing the theater shooting in Aurora, CO, a member of the audience asked both candidates about revisiting the assault-weapons ban, which had lapsed under George W Bush. Gov Romney gave a fairly lengthy answer that mentioned enforcing laws already already on the books, before bringing up the Department of Justice's Operation Fast and Furious gunwalking program. Romney basically took a minute or so to explain what exactly was Fast and Furious to the audience of undecided voters, but as soon as he started mentioning the Obama Administrations' role in the ATF's gunwalking program, Crowley interrupted the governor in an attempt to steer the discussion back towards domestic gun control policy [most likely the original intent of Fast & Furious, according to some- NANESB!].

Apparently taking a cue from Joe Biden, President Obama apparently decided to start smiling at REALLY inappropriate times before Crowley allowed him to speak. Obama's long and rambling answer sidestepped Fast and Furious altogether and instead talk about the need for more teachers and funding for community colleges.

This likely won't be the last we hear from Fast and Furious at the debates- the third and final debate is scheduled for Monday, October 22nd and is slated to revolve around foreign policy. While some feel that this may be a strong suit for the President, there is not only the matter of Fast and Furious, the Libya terrorist attacks as well as the proposed KeystoneXL pipeline from Canada, there's also President Obama's persistent refusal to meet with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, the continuing threat from Iran's nuclear program, an increasingly aggressive Russia and China and deteriorating situations in Pakistan, Yemen, Syria and Turkey

Busy Beltway Thursday- Supreme Court Upholds Key Obamacare Provision; House Finds Holder in Contempt

In a surprise ruling, the Supreme Court upheld President Obama's signature healthcare law on Thursday morning by a 5-4 margin. Chief Justice Roberts had ruled that the individual mandate in Obamacare was unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause. However, he ruled that the mandate could be considered a tax despite Obama and the Democrat's insistence that the mandate wasn't a tax when they were trying to sell the public on it back in 2009.

Via Scotusblog and Legal Insurrection:

“In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn’t comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.”

In even simpler terms, it's a tax for existing, basically. Using this ruling as precedent, there really would be nothing from stopping Congress from imposing a recurring annual 'Not Buying a Chevy Volt' surtax on any new vehicle purchased in the USA- including a Chevy Volt because only Volts with a certain VIN number are exempt.

While the decison may seem to vindicate Obama and the Democrats who supported it at first, the estimated $1.75 trillion pricetag means that the Democrats have passed the largest tax increase in American history durin a timeframe when the national unemployment rate was never less than 8.1%. The [rather tortured- NANESB!] definition of the mandate as a tax means that it can be struck down or eliminated in Congress with a simple majority instead of a supermajority. This also makes one wonder if the numerous Obamacare waivers the Administration passed out could be considered 'tax cuts for the rich'? Also, will any of the 800,000 or so illegal immigrants that he just gave totally-not-amnesty-amnesty to this month recieve waivers?

Reaction from both sides was immediate, with Obama taking the opportunity to hawk campaign t-shirts and reassure Americans how awesome his new tax was while reading from a prepared statement earlier today. At the same time, Presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney's campaign raised nearly $2 million dollars from online donations within hours of the Supreme Court's decision.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives went ahead with a scheduled vote to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over the ATF Fast & Furious gunwalking scandal on Thursday afternoon.

The vote follows a roughly 16-month investigation by the chamber’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into the failed gun-running sting known as Fast and Furious -- run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a division of the Justice Department led by Holder.

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., filed two subpoenas over that period requesting additional information. But he has more recently focused on information related to a February 2011 letter to Congress that falsely claimed the ATF was unaware the operation involved the underground sale of the assault weapons.

“Today, a bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for his continued refusal to produce relevant documents,” Issa said after the vote. “This was not the outcome I had sought and it could have been avoided had Attorney General Holder actually produced the subpoenaed documents he said he could provide.”

In December 2010, US Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed by heavily armed smugglers in a shootout near the US/Mexico border in Arizona- two of the weapons recovered at the scene were traced back to Fast & Furious. Attorney General Holder originally testified that no gunwalking took place under Fast & Furious before later admitting that ATF Field agents were ordered to allow more than 2000 firearms to be smuggled into Mexico by straw purchasers, losing track of all of them. In addition to Brian Terry's death, numerous guns from Fast and Furious have been turning up at hundreds of crime scenes in Mexico. Many on the House Government Oversight Panel requested more documents from Holder regarding gunwalking during often-contentious hearings, but in a move many saw as designed to shield Holder from further oversight scrutiny, President Obama invoked executive privelege on certain DOJ documents and correspondence.

One school of thought out there is that the sole purpose of Fast & Furious was to create more anti-gun sentiment and pass additional gun control laws after saturating an already volatile Mexico with weapons that could be traced back to the USA. This was dismissed by some in the media as being the stuff off kooky black helicopter conspiracy tinfoil hat brigades. Yet nearly every Democrat on that spoke on the House floor Thursday took the opportunity to call for additional punitive gun control laws here in the USA, despite the fact that the DOJ orchestrated arms trafficking already violated several laws on the books.

After a lengthy and incoherent diatribe by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and a walkout by the Congressional Black Caucus, the measure to find Holder in contempt passed on the House floor by a 255-67 margin, with at least 17 Democrats breaking from their party to vote on their contempt vote.

Last week's vote in the House oversight committee to bring the contempt vote to the floor of the house passed along

Quickie Borderline Psychosis Update- Arms Sold to Mexican Police & Military Arming Cartels; Holder Appears Before House; DEA Laundering Drug Money?

Convoy of Mexican Federal Judicial Police Outside of Juarez

A CBS report has indicated that American firearms sold to the Mexican military and law enforcement in transactions approved by both the US State Department and Mexico's Secretariat of National Defense are ending up in the hands of drug cartels.

The problem of weapons legally sold to Mexico - then diverted to violent cartels - is becoming more urgent. That's because the U.S. has quietly authorized a massive escalation in the number of guns sold to Mexico through "direct commercial sales." It's a way foreign countries can acquire firearms faster and with less disclosure than going through the Pentagon.

Here's how it works: A foreign government fills out an application to buy weapons from private gun manufacturers in the U.S. Then the State Department decides whether to approve.

And it did approve 2,476 guns to be sold to Mexico in 2006. In 2009, that number was up nearly 10 times, to 18,709. The State Department has since stopped disclosing numbers of guns it approves, and wouldn't give CBS News figures for 2010 or 2011.

One weapon - an AR-15-type semi-automatic rifle - tells the story. In 2006, this same kind of rifle - tracked by serial number - is legally sold by a U.S. manufacturer to the Mexican military.

Three years later - it's found in a criminal stash in a region wracked by Mexican drug cartel violence.

That prompted a "sensitive" cable, uncovered by WikiLeaks, dated June 4, 2009, in which the U.S. State Department asked Mexico "how the AR-15" - meant only for the military or police - was "diverted" into criminal hands.

And, more importantly, where the other rifles from the same shipment went: "Please account for the current location of the 1,030 AR-15 type rifles," reads the cable.

There's no response in the record.

The State Department's Direct Commercial Sales program would be completely separate from the ATF's Operation 'Fast & Furious', where field agents were ordered to allow weapons obtained in the USA by straw purchasers to cross the border into Mexico, where they would later turn up at crime scenes.

However, corruption and incompetence on the part of Mexican officials seems to have been pivotal in organized crime obtaining military and police-issue weapons.

Two years before I even started this blog, in response to gun control advocates using the increasing violence in Mexico as an excuse to further restrict the rights of law-abiding gun owners in the USA, I stated that a significant number of arms from military and police armories in Mexico were likely among the missing and arming cartel enforcers as police armorers or military quartermasters looked the other way. Cartels like Los Zetas- consisting largely of deserters from Mexico's special forces units- have likely used their military backgrounds to cultivate connections with the international arms markets as well as the black market. The Zetas have demonstrated in recent years that they are able to clean out entire arms depots in Central America.

WASHINGTON D.C.- In a House Judiciary hearing this week, Attorney General Eric Holder admitted that weapons allowed to 'walk' into Mexico would likely be turning up at crime scenes on both sides of the border for years to come.

"Although the department has taken steps to ensure that such tactics are never used again, it is an unfortunate reality that we will continue to feel the effects of this flawed operation for years to come," he said. "Guns lost during this operation will continue to show up at crime scenes on both sides of the border."

Holder faced the ire of skeptical lawmakers who are demanding accountability. Wisconsin Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner told Holder Thursday that he considers impeachment on the table if Holder doesn't figure out who's responsible.

A day before the House Judiciary Hearings, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) had called for the resignation of resignation of Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer after recently disclosed e-mails showed that he was giving contradictory testimony before a previous Congressional committee.

Holder, for his part, vows that he won't be stepping down in the wake of Fast & Furious. Democrats in the House and Senate have also given the appearance of circling the wagons around Holder, using the Fast & Furious debacle to reiterate their calls for additional gun control laws or lavish praise on the Attorney General Holder for halting the ill-conceived program.

In fact, e-mails from ATF officials obtained by CBS news indicate that they were looking to use the gunwalking from Fast & Furious to make the case for stricter gun control regulations- particularly in border states.

The e-mails from July 2010 between the ATF's Phoenix office and the agency's headquarters discuss using the statistics from border states like Arizona to justify a regulation called 'Demand Letter 3', which would require licenced FFL dealers in California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas to report to the ATF any transaction in which more than one long gun bigger than .22 caliber was purchased.

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF's Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

"Bill - can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks."

The request for the demand letter came after the ATF encouraged liscenced dealers to go ahead with transactions to customers the dealer thought were suspect. The correspondence showed that the agency also sought to minimize or completely conceal their own role in facilitating straw purchasers obtaining the weapons.

DEA- A New York Times report last week alleges that the DEA is engaged in what some are saying is the money-laundering equivalent to Operation Fast & Furious.

Anonymous officials described an effort by U.S. agents to launder or smuggle "millions of dollars" in drug money in order to monitor the flow of cash to and from the cartels in Mexico. One official told the Times there was "close supervision." Another official said the Americans worked with Mexican agents on the investigation. Officials told the newspaper that the DEA tried to seize as much as they laundered, in part through arrests at pickup locations.

The article also described how officials had to obtain Justice Department clearance to launder more than $10 million at a time, something that was approved many times.

The DEA issued a statement Tuesday defending its operations.

"The DEA has well-established mechanisms for coordinating and approving activities associated with the fight against money laundering," the DEA said. "As a result of this cooperation, DEA has seized illicit transnational criminal organization money all around the world through our partnership with law enforcement."

The DEA said it had been working "collaboratively" with Mexico to fight money laundering "for years."

"As part of that collaboration, DEA works with Mexican authorities to gather and use information about these criminal organizations to counter the threats they pose to both of our countries," the DEA said, adding that the joint investigations "have led to important advances and detentions in each country. The cooperation between the United States and Mexico is based on principles of shared responsibility, mutual trust and respect for the jurisdiction of each country."

According to the New York Times article that ran on December 3rd, the DEA has successfully used similar tactics in other countries such as Colombia, but has only started to expand its use in Mexico over the past few years.

NY Mayor Bloomberg Donates $150,000 to Pro Gun Control Virginia Politicians- After NYPD Cops Nabbed In Gunrunning Sting

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has opened up his checkbook for six Democrats running for the state office in Virginia ahead of Old Dominion's November 8th elections for state Senate and House of Delegates.

Bloomberg has donated $25,000 apiece to the campaigns of six Democratic candidates for the Virginia state Senate who share his strict beliefs on gun control, officials told the Daily News Friday.

The deep-pocketed mayor, who drew the ire of the Virginia attorney general when he ran gun stings there five years ago, will travel to Old Dominion to campaign for the candidates next week, the officials said.

What happens in the Virginia Legislature will directly affect the public safety of New Yorkers, said John Feinblatt, the mayor s Criminal Justice Coordinator.

Bloomberg was slammed by Virginia's then-attorney general - and now governor - Bob McDonnell for the 2006 stings.

The announcement comes a few days after 8 current and former NYPD officers were arrested by the FBI in a gunrunning sting where the officers are accused of trafficking in stolen property and purchasing guns from an undercover FBI agent before filing off the serial numbers.

The investigation into the conspiracy began in 2009, when an FBI informant was introduced to one cop, William Masso of the 68th Precinct, "as a person who could 'fix' the [informant's] traffic tickets," according to court papers obtained by the Post. But a law-enforcement official tells the tabloid that the probe was "totally unrelated" to the NYPD ticket-fixing scandal currently under investigation by the Bronx DA, who is expected to charge 16 officers soon.

In this case, the officers are accused of buying inoperable weapons, including an M-4 assault rifle, from an undercover FBI agent. They then allegedly filed off the serial numbers so they couldn't be traced, and transported them over state lines. Masso allegedly told his conspirators that they should carry their police badges, and if they ran into trouble with non-corrupt cops, to say they were cops working off-duty "delivering items purchased at auction."

"The criminal complaint lays out a scheme of brazen misconduct that include the illegal transportation of stolen cigarettes and stolen slot machines, the illegal transportation firearms, and the illegal transportation of defaced firearms," FBI's Special Agent in Charge, Diego Rodriguez, said in a statement this morning. "All of these crimes were seemingly committed for one simple reason: money. For their participation in the various schemes—cigarettes, slot machines, guns—the defendants were paid handsomely."

Interestingly, while the news of crooked NYPD cops allegedly trafficking black market guns with the serial numbers filed off was the most dramatic accusation made against them, the cigarette smuggling scheme the accused were reportedly involved in was their most lucrative.

The demand for cheap cigarettes in New York—which has the nation's highest tax levy, $6.46 a pack in the city—has fueled a burgeoning underground market that costs the city about $200 million a year and the state $525 million, city, state and federal officials said.

"Over the past decade we have seen a marked increase in contraband cigarettes coming into the greater New York area," Joseph Green, a spokesman for the ATF's New York office, said Wednesday.

The cigarette-smuggling operation actually made the defendants more money: Undercover investigators paid the defendants about three times as much money—about $92,000—for moving cigarettes than for the guns, the complaint said.

And unlike the guns the defendants sold in the federal sting operation, some of the 2.4 million cigarettes they allegedly smuggled appear to have made their way into the New York market, the complaint suggests.

According to recorded conversations cited by federal prosecutors, Mr. Masso was long familiar with cigarette smuggling. He told undercover investigators that he used to acquire cigarettes from a woman who bought them from Native American reservations and put bogus tax stamps on the cigarette boxes, a criminal complaint said.

He allegedly told the informant that he made $5,000 a week on the scheme and ruminated about again finding the woman and getting a tax stamp.

By May of this year, Mr. Masso and the group of officers and civilians he recruited allegedly had participated in the smuggling and sale of more than $600,000 worth of cigarettes, moving them from Virginia and New Jersey into the New York City area, authorities said. In one case, a group broke into box trucks in Virginia and stole the cigarettes, authorities said.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg's felon-riddled gun control advocacy group has begun lobbying in earnest against national conceal-carry reciprocity legislation that has been working its way through Congress. Members of the organization claim the legislation would undercut state's rights, which is pretty interesting considering how much Bloomberg himself had attempted to influence firearms legislation in Virginia and Arizona.

Canada's Ruling Conservative Party Moves to Scrap Nation's Costly Long Gun Registry

Loathed by Canadian hunters, farmers and sportsmen while coveted by gun control advocates in both Canada and the USA, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Cabinet introduced legislation that would scrap Canada's costly and controversial long gun registry once and for all.

"Our government believes that the requirement to register long-guns has needlessly and unfairly targeted law-abiding Canadians, specifically law-abiding firearms owners, as criminals for simply owning a long-gun," said MP Hoeppner [Representing the Portage-Lisgar, MB riding; southwest of Winnipeg] who introduced a similar private member's bill in the last Parliament that was narrowly defeated.

"Furthermore, these lawabiding firearms owners have been burdened with red tape that the long-gun registry has caused."

Ms. Hoeppner said the Conservatives have "examined" all the evidence and that she can now say confidently that the nearly $2-billion registry has been "completely ineffective" and "completely wasteful."

The legislation introduced Tuesday will not have an impact on registration requirements for restricted and prohibited firearms.

Gun owners will also still be required to pass a police background check, a firearms safety course and they will have to comply with all safe storage and transportation requirements.

The recently introduced bill would also require that data accumulated in the long-gun registry be deleted so that the registry could not be reconstituted in any way shape or form by a future government. Interestingly, after more than a decade of ignoring cost overruns from building and maintaining the actual registry, many supporters of the long gun registry are claiming that deletion of the registry's files on Canadian gun owners would be an onerous and costly proposition. The RCMP, which is responsible for the database, refused to make public any cost estimates regarding the registry's scrapping and deletion.

The Quebec government has already announced their opposition to both the closure of the registry and the mandated deletion of the files within. While the bill would allow for individual provinces to set up their own gun registry scheme, it was also made clear that the provinces should expect no federal funding for such endeavors.

The registry was introduced in 1995 and was finally operational by 2001 before Canadian gun owners were given a deadline of Jan 1, 2003 to individually register their non-restricted firearms. Failure to register guns or renew a Possession and Acquisition License (PAL) by a gun owner could draw a fine, possible jail time or confiscation.

In 2006, an Orilla, ON web consultant who worked on an earlier version of the registry's website said that the database could be easily hacked and the make, model and serial numbers of registered guns along with the home address and phone number of their owners could be accessed by just about anybody with a computer and about a half hour to spare.

Many gun owners also expressed concerns that additional restrictions or a prohibition of firearms with certain characteristics would be put in place under Chretien's government that would outlaw nearly overnight guns that they had legally obtained and owned for years.

While many top-level police officials in Eastern Canada initially supported the registry as a law-enforcement tool, others remained skeptical of its effectiveness.

Dismantling the registry was something Harper had campaigned on in previous elections, but lacked a Conservative majority in parliment to pull it off, although a measure to kill the registry was narrowly defeated in 2010. But in May of this year, Harper won re-election and his Conservative party trounced the opposition.

Since 1977, civilian firearms in Canada have fallen into three categories- non-restricted, restricted and prohibited. Non restricted guns can are usually long guns that can range from antique single-shot rifles and shotguns to semiautomatic or large caliber rifles and carbines. Firearms in the restricted category include all handguns as well as long-guns with certain features such as a flash suppressor or pistol grip (yet are functionally similar to many long guns in the non-restricted category).

Guns in the Prohibited category include belt-fed or fully automatic weapons or sawn off shotguns or rifles that had been grandfathered in prior to the revised guidelines in 1977.

Even though I'm neither Canadian or a Canadian gun owner, I personally will be glad to see this costly, onerous boondoggle go away. About 10 years ago, gun control advocates in the USA were approvingly citing this program as something that should be implemented here.

They didn't seem to mind the fact that this scheme would put law-abiding gun owners under even more scrutiny from law enforcement while gang members and criminals (on either side of the border) would continue to murder, rob and rape with their decidedly unregistered guns that they either stole or got on the black market. This quote from an Ottawa Citizen article about reaction to this week's development is pretty telling:

Some Canadians are alarmed that registered firearms users such as Styles have legal access to such weapons, which are considered "civilianized" models of modern military-assault rifles. Although these high-powered rifles are seldom used in crimes in Canada, many gun-control advocates want them banned in the name of public safety.

There you have it. Even though these purportedly fearsome weapons rarely show up at crime scenes on either side of the border, we're supposed to believe that these noble-minded busybodies are trying to protect us from a public safety threat that hardly even exists.

Others have been far more shrill and vindictive, not the least bit hesitant to lump hundreds of thousands of law abiding citizens with a misogynist sociopath who went on a killing spree at Montreal's École Polytechnique in December 1989. And then telling anybody who resents the comparison to 'get over themselves'. As the National Post's Chris Selley pointed out, these are hardly the ingredients for a successful charm offensive.

Outbursts like those from the Montreal Gazette's Janet Bagnall seem to do nothing but remind people that issues like gun control or gun registration were never about public safety to begin with, but rather utilizing the mechanisms of government to control a segment of the population those like her find distasteful.