I certainly hope that this would be the result if you or I got nailed in DC for committing the “crime” of possessing a handgun we didn’t even know we had, except that the authorities wouldn’t take so friggin’ law to recognize that there was no there there. Even if my hope is in vain, I can’t get myself too worked up over the fact that in this guy’s case, they actually did the right thing.

Iowahawk does the impossible, and provides a brilliant parody of the unparodiable.

The newly discovered earth-like planet is either 5 billion or 20 light years away, but who’s counting.

UPDATE: Somehow, this doesn’t deter Drudge from gloating over Barack Obama’s relatively minor computational error.

While we’re busy closing the gun show loophole, the crazy guy who’s been treated as an outpatient loophole and the everything-else-I-don’t-like-loophole, I suggest we close the popular music loophole to truth in advertising laws. I mean, seriously, if Ted Turner can add color to old movies to make scenes look like they really looked back then (newsflash: reality didn’t happen in black and white), how hard would it be to fix song lyrics to tell things like they really were rather than how some whiny artist pretended they were? In John Lennon’s case, all it would take is a minor pronoun substitution few listeners would even notice:

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if I can.

Loggins and Messina would need a little more work, but still doable:

Even though we ain’t got money…
Oh, psych! I’ve tons of it, honey!
Everything will bring return on equity
In the mornin’ when I rise
Bring a tear of joy to my eyes
Knowin’ our portfolio’ll be all right

Even Sheryl Crow could stay in business:

I’ve got a crummy job
It don’t pay near enough
To buy three Lear jets at once
Unless I mortgage one.

I’m gonna soak all the rich
Won’t be no one’s bitch except my own.
So just deal with it.
I’ve got more than one square
For my derrière, just not for yours.
Just kiddin’ yeah!

Not sure what the bigger news item is, the fact that Boris Yeltsin is dead, or the fact (?) that Vladimir Putin had nothing to do with it.

Carolyn McCarthy has no idea what barrel shrouds are, but she’s really sure they must be banned. Meanwhile, CNN takes the “guns don’t kill people, bullets kill people” tack, harassing Dick’s Sporting Goods for selling ammunition in accordance with Virginia law. Money quote:

“I hold a consumer permit myself, and it said on the form, if ever committed to a mental institute, and they should have turned him away,” said Jeffrey Lemley, a customer.

Don’t know about this Lemley guy, but the last time I tried to get a consumer permit, the form didn’t say anything about turning other people away. It did, however, say that I should be committed for being stupid enough to apply for a permit that does not exist.

Another gem that has circulated of late comes from Virginia Tech spokeshole Larry Hincker, who publicly gloated last year over the failure of a bill that would have spared most of Seung-Hui Cho’s victims. At the time, Mr. Hincker said:

I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.

By keeping Virginia Tech a gun-free zone shooting gallery, the policy did wonders to make everyone safe on that campus. Hincker may have been technically correct in one sense; after all, he never promised that the policy would make anyone be safe, only that it would make them feel that way. Still, after Monday’s bloodbath I can’t imagine it will even accomplish that. Then there’s that idiot from the ATF who lectured a class about how he was the only one in the room professional enough to handle a firearm, immediately before doing literally what most of us do only figuratively. And the list goes on, ad nauseam.

Gunnies have long cried “hypocrisy” whenever some gun control nut gets caught with a gun or concealed carry permit, arguing that no one should enjoy the freedoms they would deny to others. That’s a fair argument as far as it goes, but I think I have a better one: hypocrisy, schmypocrisy: inconsistent jerks are not a menace to society. Imbeciles with guns are. Chimps are more evolved than we are, and we don’t let them own guns, so why on earth would we let stupid humans own them? Show me a person dumb enough to buy into the arguments for gun control (the hard-core, gun-banning variety – background checks and waiting periods are another discussion for another day), and I’ll show you a person waaayyyy too stupid to know when, or maybe even how, to keep his booger hook off the bang switch.

UPDATE: More tardblogging here.

Well, totally upheld for now, though I understand Justices Thomas and Scalia have suggested it may not survive a Tenth Amendment challenge. It would be fun to see a second constitutional challenge prevail based on something actually contained in the … um … Constitution? This ends a 3 1/2 year debate between Patterico and me – and happily, we both lost.

Patterico, unsurprisingly, has more.

At some point, I’m sure I’ll have some deep political point to make about today’s tragedy, or at least some snarky comments about the administrators who (maybe) could have stopped it. Not now. There’s a time and place for everything, and this is neither.

Beyond that, all I have to say is R.I.P., victims of this senseless killing spree, and B.I.H., bastard who did it.

Eight years ago, DC employee David Howard got canned for saying “niggardly.” More recently, Don Imus lost his job for saying “nappy.” I’m starting to wonder if there’s something magical about the letter “n.” Has anyone ever lost a job for saying any other words that start with it?

Mike Nifong apologized, and so will I. If I’ve ever pissed you off, then to the extent I actually did anything to warrant you being pissed off, I apologize for that. To the extent I haven’t, I have a good friend at Home Depot who can get you a great deal on poundable sand.

Feel better now?