Self-proclaimed vampire brings out Seattle SWAT

My guess is that the girls won’t be swooning over this cat.

This seems unbelievable to me:

A Montana superintendent of schools said his replica black powder muzzleloader accidentally fired off a round while he was showing the weapon to a class.

The superintendent was giving a demonstration with a replica of a Civil War era gun. how on earth do you forget you loaded that sort of thing?

Then there’s this from the story:

The administrator said he dismissed the class after the students calmed down and immediately called the school board and the parents of the students to explain and apologize for the incident.

“None of them were upset with me,” he said of the parents. He said one father laughed until he cried during their phone conversation.

If you call me to tell me that you negligently discharged a firearm in my kid’s class, I’m not going to laugh.

Pentagon gunman sought ‘truth’ about 9/11

Wacko. From California. With guns.

Heh:

Now, I’ve been to innumerable “Truther” rallies over the last 8 years, and can say with some confidence that about 98% of folks who think 9/11 was a hoax are left-wingers, or at the very least fit in very comfortably in the left-wing milieu, since the impetus behind Truthism is to undermine the basis for Bush’s “War on Terror,” an impetus which is also a cornerstone of modern Leftist thought as well.

So far, however, I’ve noticed a deafening quietude on the left-leaning blogs about this guy’s affiliations and belief systems. Those brave enough to troll leftist comments sections have noted mumblings therein that the guy was probably a secret “teabagger,” despite all evidence to the contrary.

Firing over marksmanship program protested: Supporters want former blind training center director reinstated

The program, conducted in a wooded ravine behind the Oakland Drive facility beginning last September, was canceled in November and [Christine] Boone was fired Feb. 4 for allowing firearms on state property.

“It’s a safety-work-rule violation, a serious work-rule violation,” Mario Morrow, director of communications for the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth, said last week of Boones’ firing.

Big brouhaha over New Dorp boy’s tiny toy gun

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A 9-year-old New Dorp boy earlier today learned there is no wiggle room in the Department of Education’s “no toy gun” policy — even if the toy gun is just two inches long.

Patrick Timoney, a fourth-grader at PS 52, South Beach, was nearly suspended after playing with LEGOs during his lunch period because one of the action figures was carrying at toy machine gun.

He and his friends had planned a playdate with their respective toys, and were sitting around the cafeteria table when the principal walked in and saw the action figure carrying the fake gun.

While the action figure was a standard LEGO policeman figure, the brand of the gun could not be determined.

The brand of the gun could not be determined? Um, it’s not a gun.

It’s not even one of those life-sized replicas. It is one of those tiny things for Lego action figures. Similar to this:

The principal told the parents that she considered the little piece of plastic suspension-worthy, but a call to a security administrator resulted in only the little piece of plastic being confiscated and given to the boy’s parents.

A message left for Principal Evelyn Matroianni was not returned. However, Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the DOE, said there is a no-tolerance policy when it comes to fake guns because they are considered harmful to the school community.

If someone put this in a movie about public schools it would be dismissed as a fiction. (Hat tip to the reader who sent this in.)

UPDATE: Comment on the NY Firearms board about the uncertainty over the brand of gun:

What about the year of manufacture, lots of potential laws broken here, hard to tell from the pic, but if that thing is not pre-ban, the student is looking at some felonies for sure.

Hilarious.

Here’s a curious argument against private weapon ownership in the comments section of a news item about open carry in Michigan:

bewise wrote:
I think only police, FBI, CIA, and whoever has to deal with secret documents or big amount of money, should be armed, and no body else. The reason I say that is based on a personal experience in Europe. I could have killed someone who kept half of the money from my job that he liked a lot, but saying that he was very short in money. We had not made a written contract, so he was taking advantage of that. He owned me 8,500 Euros. Over the hot debate I could have sent him to meet with Saint Peter, and I would have spent the rest of my life in jail. I know that you will bring me thousands of counter arguments, but still, I will not be convinced.

Very clearly, if this guy thinks that he would have killed a man over a money dispute (in a situation where he apparently didn’t take responsibility to bother with a written contract) he should not carry a gun.

But just because you think you’d exercise very bad judgment and commit murder doesn’t mean anything about anyone else. You think you are incapable of carrying a gun? If you really think so, I agree with you. You ARE probably incapable of carrying a gun.

That doesn’t say anything about me or anyone else, though.

It would be interesting to know if this individual grew up in Europe or in the US.

Just yesterday I posted a story about a Washington state ex-felon who is going to prison because his wife owns guns and he’s not allowed to “possess” firearms.

Now a federal court has ruled that the state cannot bar incarcerated felons from voting.

Can vote while in prison but can’t live with someone who has a gun years after getting out?

The ruling is going to be appealed.

Bremerton man faces prison sentence for wife’s guns

Luke T. Groves was convicted of a felony in 1990. In 2008, he called police after his home was broken into. His wife owns two guns (and owned them since before they were married, I understand) so the guy goes to prison for being a felon in possession of guns. 31 to 41 months.

This is brilliant:

During closing arguments, Deputy Prosecutor Giovanna Mosca painted a simple picture for jurors: Groves had the guns in his “dominion and control,” and that was enough for a conviction.

Mosca used a metaphor to make her case: When you rent a movie or check out a book from the library, “you don’t own it, but you possess it,” she said.

But Groves didn’t “rent” the guns or “check out” the guns, did he? His wife did.

I will admit that I guess I didn’t realize this worked like this. The comments are full of people saying things to the effect of “c’mon, everyone knows felons can’t have guns” and even some who defend him say “he didn’t hurt anyone, he only wanted to protect his family.” Neither of these have any bearing on the case.

What matters is if guns owned by his wife were “possessed” by him. Apparently, the fact that he knew where they were made a big difference. If she had hid the guns from him, would he still have been in possession of them?

It’s not said whether the guns were secured, only that he led police to them and that they were in the couple’s bedroom.

I certainly am in favor of making people follow the rules. If the rules are bad, get the rules changed. Don’t break them.

But I’m not sure I’m buying the idea that a man who committed a crime when he was 17 can marry a gun owner when he’s 31 and she has to get rid of her guns. If that’s accurate (and it apparently is) I think it needs to be looked at again.

The story is short on details that may affect my opinion. Besides not telling us how the guns were stored, it doesn’t tell us what plea bargain he turned down and what evidence he wanted to use that was not allowed.

They plan to appeal the ruling.

Suspect in machete attack regrets girl’s survival

Having “wanted to kill someone for a long time,” Christopher Gribble picked a house at random and used a machete to kill a woman sleeping in her bed. The woman’s daughter, 11, was also attacked and left for dead. The killer expressed disappointment that the girl survived “because now she has to live with this.”

The killer claims to be disappointed that he didn’t feel any emotion after killing the woman.

Three others invaded the home with Gribble. They cut the house’s power before entering. The woman’s husband was away, though I don’t think the invaders knew that. They just picked a house and went for it.

According to ESPN:

Multiple sources told ESPN.com that an argument commenced during a card game on the team’s overnight flight back to Washington from Phoenix on Dec. 19 and escalated into a heated exchange between Arenas and Crittenton. The Wizards had Dec. 20 off, but sources say hostilities between the two Wizards guards resumed Dec. 21 in the locker room on a practice day.

Sources say that Arenas, in response to what was said on the flight, placed the three guns on a chair near Crittenton’s locker stall and invited him to pick one before practice on Dec. 21. Sources said that Crittenton subsequently let Arenas know that he had his own gun.

Though that’s a lot different than earlier reports that “they drew guns on each other,” it still shows an incredible amount of poor judgment.

I haven’t seen whether these were DC-legal guns. Plus NBA rules forbid guns in locker rooms.