Armed man fatally shot at Tennessee high school

BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. — An armed man was fatally shot by deputies Monday at an east Tennessee high school after he went inside and pointed a gun at the principal’s head, a sheriff said.

Well done, deputies!

But there’s another interesting tidbit:

[The gun man] Cowan entered the school with a .380-caliber semiautomatic and a .25-caliber handgun in his back pocket, Anderson said. The sheriff said that after Cowan grabbed the principal, Melanie Riden, and pointed the semiautomatic at her head, student resource officer Carolyn Gudger pulled her gun on Cowan and moved the principal to safety. [emphasis Murdoc's]

What sounds like a bit of a standoff followed, and deputies shot Cowan after he pointed his gun at Gudger.

Not only did an armed individual prevent a school attack, but the deputies didn’t seem to have trouble knowing who the good guys and the bad guys were. We keep being told that armed people in schools won’t help and will just make it tougher for the authorities to do their jobs.

More anti-gun researchers admit…That there is no gun show loophole.

UPDATE: They tried again and the bill passed. Terrible news.

Great news: California Senate rejects open-carry gun ban

The California Senate rejected a bill Monday that would have made it illegal to carry unloaded guns in public, but lawmakers will give the vote one more try.

Monday’s 20-16 vote fell one short of the majority needed, but the Senate will reconsider the measure Tuesday.

The bill, AB1934, was introduced after a series of demonstrations by gun-rights organizations during which they encouraged participants to openly carry unloaded weapons. California law lets gun owners carry a rifle or handgun in a holster if it is not loaded.

Via Instapundit, who writes

Okay, it’s a small thing. But it’s California.

I actually don’t think it’s a “small thing” at all. Though I’m not what you’d call an “open carry advocate” I do believe that the right to carry guns legally is a crucial one. The problem with open carry in California is not that it’s allowed, it’s that the gun must be unloaded. Defeating this bill maintains a bad staus quo, but it makes the fight for the legal allowance to carry loaded guns a possibility in the future. That would have been far more difficult had the legal allowance to carry even unloaded guns been revoked.

The stated reasoning behind the bill was that too many people call the police whenever they see a gun in public, and since they cannot tell whether a gun is loaded or unloaded they somehow have a right to be concerned.

This is my issue with that: If people called police because they saw black people driving fast in a car and couldn’t tell whether or not they had just robbed a convenience store, they’d be bigots. If people called police because they saw some Hispanics gathered on a street corner and couldn’t tell whether or not they were in the country legally, they’d be bigots. If people saw some Muslims talking to each other quietly and called the police because they couldn’t tell whether or not they were terrorists, they’d be bigots.

So why is it when someone sees a gun owner and calls police because they can’t tell whether or not the gun is loaded that they have a right to be concerned?

People just calling 911 out of the blue just because they saw some black people driving fast in a car, just because they saw some Mexican-looking people gathered on a street, or just because they saw some Muslim-looking folks conversing in whispers do not deserve to be taken seriously and should be held accountable. The same goes for people who call in the cops just because they saw someone with a gun on their hip.

Bill A1810, which would have required registration of long guns, was also rejected.

Not too long ago, those showing the Gadsden Flag were potential domestic terrorists. Now they’re Tea Party members.

Ariz. man battles neighbors over tea party-linked flag

The Gadsden flag is not on the approved list of the local homeowners’ association. Homeowners’ associations are an issue of their own, in Murdoc’s humble opinion.

When Murdoc was a kid, he had a stack of Gadsden flag stickers and after slapping a few on the red shelves in his bedroom, he saved the rest for special things. More recently, he had a rattlesnake “ribbon” magnet for his car, but some nice person borrowed it a while back and forgot to return it.

Plus, this bit cracks me up:

He notes that the banner, the Gadsden flag, has been widely used over the years and was even featured on the cover of a rock album. “Am I a Metallica fan because I’m using the flag?” he asked.

Over at Murdoc Online, I’ve displayed the “Don’t Tread On Me” First Navy Jack for years. When someone sent me a flag and I took it into work, a co-worker asked me if I was aware that Metallica had written a song called “Don’t Tread on Me” way back in 1990 or 1991.

For what it’s worth, the redesign of the GunPundit site puts the Gadsden flag in the header. Good thing my site isn’t part of any homeowners’ associations.

Head over to Murdoc Online and leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto by Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe.

Via Firearm Blog:

PDS Pistol by Rock River Arms

I’ve never really been sold on the 5.56/.223 “pistol” versions of carbines and rifles. I guess I can see where they (maybe) might have a use in the military or tactical environments. Even if I personally had a use for a rifle-caliber pistol, though, the buffer tube sticking out the back of the thing was a show stopper. At least this system by RRA gets rid of that and gives you something that is a little closer to a pistol.

For more info, see Rock River’s site.

There’s been a lot of new coverage of the 5-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and all the problems it caused in New Orleans. Like the original go-round, the plight of the areas where the hurricane actually hit got much less coverage. So go check out this post I wrote back at the time on Murdoc Online showing many photos of the effects of Katrina east of New Orleans.

Something else that must not be forgotten about Katrina and its aftermath was the eagerness with which the local New Orleans law enforcement agencies tried to confiscate legally-owned firearms. At a time when people were on their own more than ever, the police spent an awful lot of effort to disarm law-abiding citizens when they should have been protecting them.

If you have only a passing knowledge of those events, I heartily recommend reading The Great New Orleans Gun Grab by Gordon Hutchinson and Todd Masson.

A couple weeks ago I noted Chrysler’s Mopar RamBox Holster option for hunters.

Here’s an Afghan option available on Ford pick-ups.

I don’t think this will catch on the US.

Last week I linked to a story about how the sales of hundreds of thousands of M1 Garands and M1 Carbines in South Korea were being blocked by the US government. Like a lot of others, I suspected the reason was that it was just an easy way for the Obama administration to limit gun sales.

Now more info is out, and it looks like the real reason is that the guns were given to the Koreans as part of a Lend-Lease program, and therefore cannot be sold by them. (via Say Uncle)

If they are no longer needed, they should be returned. At which point they could be sold as surplus by the Civilian Marksmanship Program. That’s Murdoc’s vote. He’s not holding his breath, though.

We’ll probably pay the Koreans to destroy them.

BulkAmmo.com 5.56
More useful than six gallons of olive oil.

Bulk Ammo: Because buying a thousand rounds of 5.56 makes more sense than a three-gallon tub of mayonnaise. And you’ve still probably got seven cases of toilet paper left from Y2K.

The current headline deal is 900 rounds of Federal 5.56 FMJ on strippers in cardboard with spoons for $300.

Also, save $25 off your first order if you use the coupon code GrandOpening

They’ve also got an email newsletter, a Twitter feed, and a Facebook page to keep you up to date on the latest deals.