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This is Fascinating on Several Levels

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SayUncle linked to this story in the Kentucky Post online edition:

NKU Awarded Grant For Patrol Rifles

Web Produced: Jessica Noll
Email: [email protected]
Last Update: 2/25 4:13 pm

FRANKFORT, Ky. –Northern Kentucky University has been awarded $10,660 from the state Law Enforcement Protection Program (LEPP) to purchase patrol rifles, Gov. Steve Beshear announced Thursday.

Under the LEPP, administered by the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security (KOHS), appropriate agencies can seek financial help for certain defensive items essential in the course of their duties.

“These funds will help ensure that our law enforcement will not be out-gunned and increase security on campus,” state Sen. Katie Kratz Stine, of Southgate, said.

In conjunction with the Kentucky State Police (KSP), KOHS derives income from sales of confiscated weapons.

KSP conducts periodic auctions – only to federally licensed firearms dealers – which generate dollars for the LEPP initiative. The KOHS then assesses needs, and after prioritization, provides whatever funds are available in the acquisition of body armor, weapons, ammunition and electronic or muscular disruption technical devices often referred to as tasers.

“Although statewide appeals for financial support always exceed resources, we place the highest priority on personal safety of our law enforcement officers,” Thomas L. Preston, KOHS executive director, said.

“Decisions about other aspects of this program are based on several factors including absolute need for monetary assistance combined with overall effectiveness in combating crime through our grants,” he explained.

LEPP support goes to police agencies of cities, counties, charter counties, unified counties, urban-counties and consolidated local governments, sheriff’s departments and public university police departments.

First off, a college was just given a grant by the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security to buy EVIL BLACK RIFLES. These are the rifles that the Brady Campaign swears

…are equipped with combat hardware. Combat features like high-capacity ammunition magazines, pistol grips, folding stocks, and bayonets, which are not found on sporting guns, are designed specifically to facilitate the killing of human beings in battle.

These combat features include:
  • A large-capacity ammunition magazine which enables the shooter to continuously fire dozens of rounds without reloading. Many assault weapons come equipped with large ammunition magazines allowing more than 50 bullets to be fired without reloading. Standard hunting rifles are usually equipped with no more than 3 or 4-shot magazines;
  • A folding stock which facilitates maximum concealability and mobility in close combat (which comes at the expense of the accuracy desired in a hunting weapon);
  • A pistol grip which facilitates spray-fire from the hip without losing control. A pistol grip also facilitates one-handed shooting;
  • A barrel shroud which enables the shooter to shoot many rounds because it cools the barrel, preventing overheating. It also allows the shooter to grasp the barrel area to stabilize the weapon, without incurring serious burns, during rapid fire; (I thought that was the shoulder thing that goes up? No?)
  • A threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor which allows the shooter to remain concealed when shooting at night, an advantage in combat but unnecessary for hunting or sporting purposes. In addition, the flash suppressor is useful for providing stability during rapid fire;
  • A threaded barrel designed to accommodate a silencer which allows an assassin to shoot without making noise;
  • A barrel mount designed to accommodate a bayonet which allows someone to stab a person at close quarters in battle.

What on EARTH does a COLLEGE need with weapons like THESE?!?!

As an aside, the Brady Campaign ranks Kentucky very low on its Gun Laws Scorecard, giving it a mere two (2) points because in Kentucky “Colleges are not forced to allow firearms on campus.”

Unless they’re in the hands of Only Ones law-enforcement personnel.

Which brings up the second fascinating point of this story, the fact that the University feels a need for these “patrol rifles” stating that they “will help ensure that our law enforcement will not be out-gunned and increase security on campus”.

Out-gunned?

Out-gunned by whom? Isn’t NKU a “gun-free zone”? Aren’t there signs posted to let potential bad-guys know that they aren’t allowed to bring a gun onto campus? I mean, the Brady Campaign gave Kentucky a measly TWO POINTS because that’s the ONLY restrictive gun law that Kentucky appears to have on the books! Who are the campus cops so afraid of that they need these spray-firing bullet hoses designed only “to kill large numbers of human beings quickly and efficiently”? And then filet them with the bayonet?

The third fascinating point is that the money to purchase these engines of destruction came “from sales of confiscated weapons.” It seems that the Kentucky State Police periodically auction off – “only to federally licensed firearms dealers” – the firearms they confiscate from bad guys. In Brady parlance, these guns go “back on the street!” Horrors! You mean they don’t get melted down and turned into anti-gun sculptures?

Huh. No wonder Paul Helmke and Josh Sugarmann are sad pandas.

And now the National Shooting Sports Foundation is out educating the public (and what little of the media that will pay attention) about these newfangled “Modern Sporting Rifles”.

What is the world coming to?

Its senses, one would hope.

Nah. Too much to ask.

UPDATE, 3/3: Over at The Ultimate Answer to Kings, Joel points out one more fascinating point that I completely missed:

. . . my personal favorite is this:

“Although statewide appeals for financial support always exceed resources, we place the highest priority on personal safety of our law enforcement officers,” Thomas L. Preston, KOHS executive director, said.

See, there’s not a single word in the whole piece about student safety.

Excellent point. And thanks for catching that.

I Bet He was a Closet Teabagger

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I Bet He was a Closet Teabagger!

Isn’t this interesting:

The Strange World Of Dr. Anthrax

After the Department of Justice last month formally closed its probe of the 2001 anthrax attacks, the FBI released the first batch of documents detailing the years-long investigation that ended with officials concluding that Bruce Ivins, a government scientist who committed suicide in July 2008, was responsible for the mailings that killed five victims. The records, released pursuant to Freedom of Information Act requests, portray Ivins as becoming increasingly unhinged as it became clear that he was the principal target of the FBI’s “Amerithrax” probe. Additionally, the memos–a selection of which you’ll find on the following pages–reveal how agents examined every aspect of Ivins’s life, monitored his e-mails, searched his trash, and were even surveilling his Maryland home at the exact time he was inside overdosing. Despite being an FBI target, Ivins was often forthcoming about the details of his strange obsessions and private life. For example, as seen below, when agents executed search warrants in late-2007, an FBI supervisor asked Ivins if he was worried about those raids. Ivins said he was, noting that he did things a “middle age man should not do,” adding that his actions would “not be acceptable to most people.” He then noted that agents searching his basement would find a “bag of material that he uses to ‘cross-dress,'” according to an interview report.

And:

Ivins wrote that “Dick Cheney scares me. The Patriot Act is so unconstitutional it’s not even funny.” He added, “I’m voting for Obama!”

Yup, another member of “the Base!” I can’t wait for the New York Times’ Paul Krugman to opine!

UPDATE: Reader “el coronado” comments:

what’s most interesting to me about the FBI “closure” of the matter by blaming everyhting on the dead guy, ivins – dead men can’t defend themselves, and besides, he was an odd duck – is the timing of that annoucement. teh WSJ published a devastating obliteration of the FBI’s “case” against ivins on 25 january of this year, written by edward jay epstein. here are the huglughts:

1) the anthrax in question waa aerosolized by means of attaching the spores to silicon, “according to the US armed forces institute of pathology. (…) if so, then somehow silicon was *added* [my emph.] to the anthrax. but ivins, no matter how weird he may have been, ***had neither the set of skills nor the means*** to attach silicon to anthrax spores.” {again, my emph.]
2) “at a minimum, such a process would require highly specialized equipment that did not exist anywhere in ivins’s lab – or, for that matter, anywhere at (where he worked).”
3) the FBI was oddly releuctant to inform congress of the precise percentage of silicon contained in the anthrax used in the attacks. this was apparantly because…
4) (finally) “according to the FBI lab, 1.4% of the powder in the leahy letter was silicon. ‘this is a shcokingly high proportion’, explained stuart jacobson, an expert in small particle chemistry.’it is a number one would expect from a deliberate weaponization of anthrax.'”
5) the FBI stuck to their story: hadda be ivins. maybe he did it at home! so, “to back up their theory, the FBI contacted scientists at the lawrence livermore national labs to conduct experiments in which anthrax is accidentally absorbed from a media heavily laced with silicon. [the results of those tests) effectively blew the FBI’s theory out of the water. the livermore scientists had tried 56 times to replicate the high silicon content without any success. (…) they never came close. most results were an *order of magnitude lower* [me again] with some as low as .001%.(!)”
6) therefore, “since ivins had neither the equipment or skills to weaponize anthrax with silicon, the some other party MUST HAVE done it.”

the FBI later responded in a WSJ letter to the editor in which they argued, paraphrased, “huh-UHHH!!!!”. they offered no other details.

and now, a mere month later, the “case” is “closed”. so who do we believe here? a large federal bureaucracy well-known for its belief that maintaining its image supercedes all other priorities, including “truth” and “law enforcement”? or a man respected worldwide as a meticulous and accurate researcher? and if you choose to believe the FBI is lying, as i do, for whatever reason, what else might they have lied about? hm…..think, think…..coughhoriuchicough….

Interesting . . .

As commenter “TheSiliconGraybeard” notes,

There seems to be an attitude that shows up in law enforcement, something along the lines of “we got somebody for it”. It sometimes doesn’t seem quite so important that they got the right somebody, just that they got a warm body arrested and/or jailed.

I’ve noted that in this blog. We don’t have a “justice” system, we have a legal system, and the metric seems to be “did we get a conviction or at least close the case?” So if the WSJ is correct, it would appear that the FBI hounded a not-very-stable man into suicide, and then said “HE DID IT!”

I guess it MUST’VE been one of us “cultists!”

Quote of the Day – Ann Colter Edition

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Quote of the Day – Ann Coulter Edition

“Isn’t food important? Why not “universal food coverage”? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us “free” food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the “food crisis” in America, and you’d be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.”—Ann Coulter

From John Hawkins’ new Self Help Quotes page.

OK, THAT’S Done

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I sat down this afternoon, put the latest issue of Vicious Circle on WinAmp, and plowed through the last of my .30 Carbine components. I ran out powder with 50 cases left to load. So now I’ve got the better part of 920 rounds of 110 grain .30 Carbine softpoints (950 total minus the thirty or so test rounds I fired) either loaded in magazines, or loose in a cardboard-lined .30 caliber ammo can.

A heavy .30 caliber ammo can.

I’ve got 1,000 155 grain Lapua Scenar .30 caliber bullets coming from Graf & Sons, and 500 M118 LR 7.62 cases waiting for half of ’em. I may be picking up another 500 cases from GI Brass if he still has those in stock next month. These go along with the 300 155 Scenar bullets and 300 Lapua .308 cases I already have, plus I’ve got a couple hundred 175 SMK’s. I managed to score about 10 lbs. of Reloder 15 a while back, and I’ve got a couple thousand CCI Large Rifle Benchrest primers, so I’m set there.

I’ve got 1250 .45ACP cases, and I’m planning on ordering a couple thousand Ranier Ballistic 200 grain .45 caliber hollowpoints from Midway next month, too. Primers I’ve got, but now I need to find an 8lb. jug of Unique. I’ve got maybe a pound left, which is about enough for 1,000 rounds, but then I’m out.

I’m short of .223 brass, but I’ve got 1,200 75 grain Hornady HPBT Match bullets, plenty of Varget, and a couple thousand CCI #41 military small rifle primers. I’ve got about 600 loaded rounds, so fresh brass can wait until April, I think. Scharch is carrying Lake City, new unprimed and uncrimped brass for $200/1000 which is a helluva deal. I may not be able to wait.

I haven’t played with my .38 Super much since I got it, but I have 200 147 grain Gold Dots, and I think I may pick up 500 Ranier Ballistics 147 grainers when they become available. Brass is available locally, and I’ve got a couple hundred already. Don’t know about powder for this one yet, and from what I’ve read, small rifle primers are advised.

In short, I have a LOT of reloading to do, and then I need to take some trips to the range. I think I’m almost set for the rest of the year, anyway.

Damn it’s nice to be working again.

Quote of the Day – International Edition

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Quote of the Day – International Edition

This isn’t the QotD, but it’s the lead-in:

When soldiers from any other army, even our allies, entered a town, the people hid in the cellars. When Americans came in, even into German towns, it meant smiles, chocolate bars and C-rations. — Stephen Ambrose

Here’s another:

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home… to live our own lives in peace. — Secretary of State Colin Powell

Today’s QotD comes from Maj. Said Rahim Hakmal of the Afghan National Army, discussing what he says by radio to members of the Taliban:

“The Taliban will say things like why do you side with the Americans? Why do you sell out your country? You love Obama more than Afghanistan.”

Hakmal said the standard response goes something like, “The Americans are here to help our country function again. They don’t want to stay. They want to help, then leave. You should help, too.”

Then the shooting starts.

They don’t want to stay. They want to help, then leave.

Damned straight.

Eric S. Raymond put it well once:

I was traveling in Europe a few years back, and some Euroleftie began blathering in my presence about America’s desire to rule the world. “Nonsense,” I told him. “You’ve misunderstood the American character. We’re instinctive isolationists at bottom. We don’t want to rule the world — we want to be able to ignore it.”

Rights, Again.

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Former co-worker Mr. Bill, the Obama supporter who, after the fact, rejected liberalism, sent me an email today:

Sorry to bother, but have been running a few thoughts through my brain recently and wanted to run them by you. I have been thinking about ‘rights’ and what they really are. Given you are probably the most versed in such subjects of all those I know, I thought you might be willing to discuss your thoughts with me.

To begin with, what is a right? Miriam-Webster defines a right as something a person can make a just claim to. So… what can we make a just claim to? I first started looking at this from an American standpoint, but realized I had to move past that. As American’s are rights are only as good as they are recognized by others… which means the list gets really short of what actually are rights. Given that we as a human must have just claim to them, that would imply that all others would agree to that claim. Which means a right is subject to the crowd by which the claim is made. Which means, at least in my mind, that as the crowd increases the likeliness that they will all agree to your claim is less likely.

Moving past the abstract version of a right, I turned to American Rights. Obviously we have the constitution and the Bill of Rights that clearly defines our rights. However, I would argue that, as it was the government that gave us these ‘rights’ that they could then take them away at will. That for an American to truly have a right to something, even in America, that he/she must have the just claim that his/her fellow Americans agree and support. I could claim I have a right to all the fresh water in the country, but I doubt that many would agree with me… thus I don’t have a right to the water. However, let’s look at what is defined… I have the right to bare arms. For the most part, my fellow Americans would agree I have the right, but yet there would be those that disagree. Some of those people might even own a business and refuse my right to bear my arms in their establishment. With mere ownership and difference of opinion, they have stripped me of my right. So if the right can be taken away, then how is it really a right so much as just a privilege granted to me by those that would agree with me?

I know you have addressed these issues to great extent on your blog, but I am not sure you covered this outlook. If in fact the ‘rights’ we are granted by the constitution and the bill of rights are not really rights, but rather privileges… then what expectation can an American have of those privileges simply being taken away at the whim of anyone (or even the government that first granted them) taking them away? And, what recourse would one have against those that resend such privileges? If I grant you the privilege of drinking alcohol in my house, but then change my mind and want you to stop… as it is my house, don’t I get to make that decision?

Your thoughts?

Here’s my response:

Bill:
Actually, the multiple essays on the sidebar under “The ‘Rights’ Discussion” are all about precisely what you’re asking. I strongly suggest that you sit down and read them in detail. The point of the original “What is a ‘Right’?” essay was that your “Rights” aren’t enforceable if your culture does not support them. If you want to keep your rights, you must fight for them and keep them active in the hearts and minds of your fellow citizens.
The six-part exchange I had with mathematics professor Dr. Danny Cline explored the concept of the “realness” of rights, but my slant on it was that the concept of rights isn’t a stand-alone thing. I concurred with Ayn Rand that what the concept of “Rights” does is codify ones freedom of action within a society. From a practical standpoint, your rights define what you can do (or others can do to you) without fear of sanction. I don’t know if you read last night’s post on our withering Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search, but that’s an example of what you’re talking about.
I am in agreement with Rand on another point – there really is only one, fundamental right: the right to ones own life. All other “real” rights are corollaries to that single right, but how broad those rights are and how well they are protected is fundamentally dependent on the culture in which one lives. Ours is the first (and to my knowledge still the only) culture founded on the concept that the purpose of government is the protection of the rights of individuals, and that failure to live up to that responsibility is grounds to replace that government. Prior to (and to be honest, subsequent to also) the founding of the United States, the purpose of government has always been understood to be maintenance of the power structure that formed said government, and to hell with the rights of the people. The idea that the rights of the individual are the single most important factor in a culture is – truly – revolutionary.
As to your example of a business owner restricting your right to bear arms in his establishment, that’s simply a conflict of rights – his property rights versus your right to self-protection. It’s an interesting conflict, since he (apparently) doesn’t also accept simultaneous responsibility for your protection when he denies you the possession of the tools you’ve chosen for that duty, but you have the choice not to give him your business, or even go into competition against him. Your right has not actually been taken, but it has been limited. No one has ever said that rights are unlimited – “Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.” What our Bill of Rights was supposed to do was place significant limits on what limitations government could put on our rights, because government is a monopoly – we cannot choose another government or start up one of our own without getting rid of the one under which we currently live. Unfortunately, people are people, and as the various courts have proven over time, we’re more than willing to “constitutionalize our personal preferences” when it suits us. This is why, IMHO, education is the battleground it is – if the populace is ignorant, it’s much easier to lead them around by the nose – ergo, the best place to undermine a culture is the schools, followed by the media.
Hope this helps.

Quote of the Day – Brave New World Edition

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Quote of the Day – Brave New World Edition

From a commenter at Instapundit, this pretty much sums it up for me:

We’re about to become a less wealthy version of the Philippines…NASA can dream all it wants (though, it’s clear from Obama, that he could care less what they dream about), but after the first year of the Obama administration, I’m pretty sure we’ll do well to afford public sewage systems. I love the optimism behind these posts…but seriously. We have a generation of hard times ahead of us, even if we get rid of this monstrous political class we now have. I used to dream of going to space. Since Obama took over, I dream of not dying of consumption in a state run hospital when I’m 60.

And I’m about to turn 48.

Quote of the Day – Politics and Media Edition

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Quote of the Day – Politics and Media Edition

the Obama administration could find itself in the uncomfortable position of reconsidering its vows

I bet that’s been programmed in as a keyboard shortcut by the tech support departments of the media companies of the world by now. Ctrl-Alt-O.

Posted by: bgates February 24, 2010 at 11:48 AM

That’s from the comments to Tom Maguire’s JustOneMinute post One Of Obama’s Great Achievements May Be Unraveling.

The snark is strong in this one.