Huffington Post readers in search of a better understanding of gun ownership trends in America and the firearms industry can do better than to rely on a blog written by Josh Sugarmann of the extremist anti-gun Violence Policy Center.

Heck yeah, they can do better. The question is, could they do WORSE?

The bill was named in honor of 18-year-old Aaron Sullivan, who was shot and killed by a SKS 7.62-caliber rifle in Seattle in July. The legislation focuses on “military-style” assault weapons, which can fire rapidly and carry large magazines of ammunition.

The SKS? Large magazines of ammunition?

And I won’t even mention “7.62-caliber,” which would be the main armament of a World War 2 heavy cruiser.

Of course, corpses are newsworthy in our sensational culture, but when an armed citizen stops an attack, the heroism rates barely a blip on the national radar screen.

Well, for one thing, if people realized how often guns were used defensively, a lot of the anti-gun message would go down the toilet.

A constitutional right to own a gun does not carry a subsequent right to put others at risk, or to amass a personal armory with a lethal capacity beyond some hypothetical need for household defense.

Got that? The Seattle Times editorial staff thinks that A) household defense is “some hypothetical need” and B) the right guaranteed legally by the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution should be limited to the absolute bare minimum for personal safety.

I wonder if they believe that other “constitutional rights” should be so severely limited. Say, for instance, the one about freedom of the press from government abridgment. Should the 1st Amendment be interpreted to mean that the press does not have a capacity to print stories beyond some hypothetical need for household safety?

With the approval of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Sig Sauer gun company has released specific information about the model of pistol that Federal Air Marshals will soon be carrying – data that both current and former Air Marshals say puts the Marshals and air passengers at risk.

“This is the last thing you want to give to anyone who wants to carry out an act of terror,” said Frank Terreri, president of the Federal Air Marshal Agency, a trade group representing the Marshals. “Anyone who wants to take over a plane can be proactive and research that type of weapon, basically know everything about that weapon before going on the plane,” said Terreri. “You really don’t want to give that playbook out to your enemy.”

This isn’t some super-secret classified weapon we’re talking about here, it’s a Sig P250. Were they thinking that no one would ever know which off-the-shelf gun Air Marshals were carrying? Getting worked up over this is just plain silly.

On the other hand, there was some other “improperly-redacted” information that should not have been released involving how many bags are physically checked, weaknesses in the x-ray equipment, and what size of wire can be missed by screening machines. Letting that out could cause serious problems.

TSA says that that version of the manual was outdated. Sure it is. Now, anyway.

Hat tip to the reader who sent this in.

I added it to the blogroll.