A few things... I've offered my services for free to a couple of non-profit organizations. One of them is very happy with what I've done for them but that was a "from scratch" website. The other is a local AIDS support group. I re-designed their website and posted a "mock-up" of it (with a few, not nearly all) their pages on one of my un-used domains. I've had almost no contact or comments from them so at this point I'll re-claim that domain for my own purposes.

I've asked you folks about this in the past but I really want serious emails from you now. I want to use tarazet.com for one (only) of two possiblilities: For an "our pets" and all that stuff site, or for a site where I can RANT and curse about all the stuff I leave out here because Alphecca isn't the place to do that. A penny for your thoughts. I will finally try to install Movable Type there this Sunday since Hosting Matters has posted their own instructions on how to do it and I can actually understand them.

Secondly, another blissful couple (see a few posts ago) over at one of my favorite blogs, Across The Atlantic says that all the cool bloggers are posting photos of their "blog space" and here's theirs. Well! Here's mine:

That's my kitchen table! (Like most lame single guys, I eat on the couch while watching TV.) The iMac is my work-horse where I do all my blogging, as well as everything else. The lap-top on the right is my "spell-check" thing. A very old program that is superb and I've never found anything better. But it only runs in tired-old PC DOS. What the hell, I bought that computer for $15. at a yard-sale. The old PC on the left is just left on, running another DOS program called SKYGLOBE, one of the best freebies star-charts I've ever seen.

On the chair at the very far right, covered with foam, is my Ederol MIDI keyboard. Soon, I will torture you all with my "music." Notice my cool wireless infra-red mouse. It's from Logitech and is much smaller (I have small hands) than the big bulky crap that MicroShit makes. The scroll-wheel is of course, a must. Because of the "flash" you can't really see the poster behind all of this but it's a strange "Florida" scene with palm trees and a row of phonebooths behind a building. I don't know; it looks warm.

So now you know what my blog-space looks like. Anyway, I guess this concludes another week here at Alphecca. As usual I take the weekends off so I'll see you all back here -- same bat-channel -- on Monday with my Weekly Check on the Bias. Thanks to all of you who are kind enough to visit, email, and link to me. I really do appreciate it. Have a great weekend everyone. Eat chocolate ice cream, hug your lover and kids and give a big smooch to your dogs and cats.

Thanks for stopping by!

Alphecca (which I guess means me) is known for checking on bias in the media. I concentrate on gun-bias but there are plenty of others out there doing the same for other areas of our lives such as Highway 99 who examines the bias exhibited by CNN regarding the arrest of alleged Iraqi spy Susan Lindauer. Excellent report!

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The Beagle Express has an interesting post about the so-called "gun show loophole" and a comment he received about his original post. I have written a lot about this, but JT makes this all REAL LIFE by discussing the fact that he thinks he saw an actual "straw purchase." He includes a response from a gunshow promoter who wishes the ATF would set up a table at gunshows. Read the whole thing, of course because it's fascinating stuff.

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Don at Anger Management is facing the same crossroads that many bloggers who have been at it for awhile do. I should and will just tell you to head over there and start reading. But for those who need road-signs, he started out as a serious writer of Ayn Rand's "Objectivism" he gradually shifted to humor, and brilliant at that. Always one of my favorites, he's now trying to focus his efforts (posts) and has reached some decisions. I wish him well and I will certainly continue to read him.

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And lastly but not... If it's Friday, it must be the WizBang always challenging Weekend Caption Contest. So is that tot puking on the Prez or what? By the way, it's also Eat An Animal For PETA Day this coming Monday. Heck, I celebrate that every day!

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Wait! One more... I neglected yesterday to point out that Les Jones has his Thursday Gun Links Up. He also has lots of other cool stuff and posts so you might just want to start reading from the top.

Aside from the left and various liberal apologists for the terrorist murderers, the bombings in Madrid yesterday ought to serve as a terrible reminder that the war against terror -- what I call mutantism -- is far from nearly won. Unfortunately, this world is filled with scum and garbage that is incapable of taking part in a civilized society.

Most nations seem to prefer to hide their heads in the sand and pretend that nothing is wrong, that nothing is threatening them. Sort of like a young boy who covers his hears and cries, "nah nah nah, I can't hear you."

After Sept. 11th, Tony Blair of Great Britian had the courage to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Bush. Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar also, immediately had the courage to join Bush in saying, "No, we're not going to take this lying down." A few other, smaller countries also joined the coalition but Spain and England were the most important players.

Now, the mutantists have struck their revenge against the Spanish people for (most of) their and Aznar's vision that simply pretending that there is no danger doesn't make it so and that terror MUST be confronted head-on where it spawns and dwells. Isreal learned this half-a-century ago. It doesn't matter which band of murderers was responsible, they all are, really. There is no "well some are less worse than others." They all must be sought out and eliminated, rooted out like rabid animals and destroyed as such.

My tears, sympathies, prayers go out to the people of Spain for their loss and violation. Spain and it's leaders are a courageous people who understand the evil we all face and the steps needed to fight it.

What a stark contrast to France and Germany and for that matter, John Kerry, all of whom have their hands over their ears and eyes.

Why, when it's launched by a Democrat, of course! For four months at least we've had Frenchie and the rest of the Democratic field daily attacking President Bush with all sorts of wild and truly nasty allegations and innuendo. He knew ahead of time about 9/11. He caused the recession. He was AWOL from the National Guard. He outed a CIA agent. He went to war without just cause and on and on. And the press gave them a free ride, putting up their sound-bites on the nightly news. And worse, when Bush puts up a positive ad touting his steady leadership, they accuse him of politicizing 9/11.

Now, finally, the Bush campaign is fighting back. They've started airing ads criticizing John Frenchie Kerry's voting record and suddenly everyone's crying ATTACK ADS. This morning on the Today Show they reported on Bush's attack ads and how this -- suddenly -- indicated that the next eight months of the campaign were going to be rough. Even the Washington Post gets into the act with (in a supposed news story, not an editorial) this:

These opening salvos in what promises to be a long and vituperative air war came as senior Republican lawmakers launched an assault, coordinated with the Bush campaign, on Kerry's tax proposals as well as his overheard comment Wednesday that Republicans are a "crooked . . . lying group."

As if "tax proposals" are somehow not open to critique or that a senator characterizing the President as a "crooked lyer" is perfectly fine and anyone who doesn't like it is just "attacking!" Here's a quote:

The senator from Massachusetts rejected their demands for an apology for the remark, firing back instead against what he called "a Republican attack squad that specializes in trying to destroy people."

What astounding hypocrisy. What chutzpah! Hey Dems! If you can't stand the heat, get out of the 'effing kitchen.

This is how campaigns are fought these days. Actually as any student of history knows, this is how they've always been fought. Just read some of the ads and statements from newspapers from the turn-of-the-last-century. There were allegations of murder, illegitimate children, graft, etc. The difference I think is that what was once confined to the editorial pages or to pundits on radio and TV, has now spilled onto the front page -- now major media really is showing it's (mostly) liberal bias by not-so-subtley presenting the Democratic material as criticism and Republican material as "an assault" as the news story quoted above pretty much proves.

About the only thing I can agree with is that we're all in for a very long eight months. I rather prefer what some other countries do, limiting all campaigning to just two months before the election.

I suspect I'll be renting a lot of DVDs rather than watch broadcast TV over the coming months.

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By the way, here's a good op-ed by Howard Kurtz on media bias as it relates to the gay marriage coverage. It's titled, When Left Is Right and Right Is Wrong. Rather sums it up.

There are just nuptials all over the place. Of course we had the recent marriage of Jay Solo and Accidental Jedi. There's bliss abounding as they watch TV together or drive to work.

Now Elephant Rants has confirmed that the girlfriend is now the fiance. They're painting walls together.

And of course Spoons is thisclose to the big day and wishes he and his fiance could register for guns and ammo.

Meanwhile, I [scrambling around -- "damn, where's that tiny fucking violin..."] am still single and available. It takes a little longer for Spring Fever to reach Vermont...

Like most large international conglomerates, Alphecca has a special machine that allows our researchers to visit alternate universes to observe how things are where those things might be... Oh, I don't know, different from here. You can observe the first voyage here. In any event, we don't use the machine much because the "D" batteries that power it cost so much. But last night...

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The scene recorded by our scientists comes from the living room of Mr. and Mrs. Schmuttle in Scruboak, Kentucky as they watch the NBC Evening News featuring anchorwoman Katie Couric:

Couric: In tonight's "close-up" we have a report on how gays and lesbians are refusing to marry. During a press conference in Washington today, President Jeb Bush's Press Secretary Jerry Falwell said he was dismayed that very few same-sex couples were opting to tie-the-knot.
[video]

Falwell: Homosexuals need to be encouraged to legally marry. If they continue to live in sin it sends a terrible message to our children that the institution of marriage is irrelevent. The foundation of our nation is the married family unit and by not participating, homosexuals are making a mockery of that.

Couric: Joining us now is New York Times executive editor Andrew Sullivan, who happens to be gay. Mr. Sullivan, you have been quite vocal on your editorial page in your rejection of the idea of gay and lesbian people getting married. Why?

Sullivan: Katie, what we have here is just another attempt by the conservative and religious elements in America attempting to define gay people as being no different than anyone else and to force us to accept the ancient social constructs that have bound heterosexuals for centuries. As a gay man, as an Islamic man, I reject any attempts to straight-arm us into the notion that gays and lesbians "are just like anyone else" and that we should simply blend in with the minority Judeo-Christian crowd.

Couric: But don't you think -- as Vice President Santorum recently said on Meet the Press -- that homosexuals ought to be assuming their rightful place in married society and enjoying the same rights and privileges that heterosexuals do?

Sullivan: We don't WANT to be like heterosexuals. Our sexuality sets us apart. Katie, I don't look in the mirror each morning and think, oh, I'm a writer and editor. I think, Oh! I'm gay!

Couric: Well thank you for joining us. [Turning to the camera] In other news, the quite liberal city of San Francisco is continuing to defy California law by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples...

Mr. Schmuttle: I'll tell ya, honey, these gay people are making a mockery of our marriage by not agreeing to get married. If it's good enough for us it should be good enough for them.

Mrs. Schmuttle: I know dear, I just thank Allah that our son Blaine decided to marry his boyfriend...

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And now, back to our regularly scheduled universe...

Yeah well, I don't really know what an "etude" is or how to put the little thingie over the first letter but...

Hey! Persnickety is back and among other things, making predictions about the November election. And he's right of course. Kerry's already trying to retread the old Florida 2000 tire...

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Last week I gave my thoughts about the Bush commercials and the hysteria from the left because they mentioned 9/11. Apparently they aren't the only ones. David Kaspar reports that the German media are marching in lock-step with the American leftists and Kerry. *Sigh.*

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I love linking to bloggers such as the Hobbesian Conservative who so deftly takes Kerry apart.

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Turning to subjects more dear to my heart, Suman, the Kolkata Libertarian has been giving his muzzleloader a workout once again. Now, a picture and description of the gun would be welcome. I admire Suman for putting in the time to master it. I have two handguns I've wrestled with for a few years to try to master. Practice makes perfect, or at least a lot of noise...

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As with Jason, I watched former NYC Mayor Rudolph Guliani on NBC's Meet the Press this past Sunday. He was great in his support, and the reasons for it, for President Bush. It's really too bad that Guliani is so anti-2A. Anyway, Jason gives a respectable summery of his comments.

By the way, I thought Guliani was excellent at defending the Bush campaign's brief use of 9/11 images in the ads.

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You know, anti-Americans such as John Kerry and the leftist media love to blather on about how we didn't find WMD's and had no right to go into Iraq. Never mind that Hussein was a mass murderer of his subjects. So what happens when you corner one of these types? Roger Simon has a report about one of them. I guess that since John Pilger thinks the Iraqi people should have been left to deal with Saddam on their own, so too the Jews in German prison camps should have been left to deal with Hitler on their own. Yah. The "left" is disgusting and horrible. They are not capable of rational thought.

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Update 3/11 comment received about Rudolph Guliani:

Giuliani was not always quite so anti-2A, and there lies a tale.

The evolution of his views on gun control is an interesting story, and offers much insight into the gun control issue. I had hoped that this story would someday be told elsewhere, but since that has yet to happen or I have yet to find it, I will try to tell the story myself.

When Rudy Giuliani was first elected Mayor of NYC it was big national news, for he was a "conservative" Republican in a liberal Democratic city. Of course, Giuliani was one of the most liberal elected officials in the Republican Party, conservative only by NYC standards, especially in comparison to the ultra-liberal David Dinkins, his predecessor as Mayor.

Once elected, Giuliani gave many interviews in which he added details to positions outlined in his campaign. When asked about gun control, he said that he believed that all gunowners in the US should be licensed.

What happened next seemed to genuinely surprise Mayor Giuliani. Many of the Democrats who had opposed his election now praised him for his gun control stance. Attorney General Janet Reno gave a speech lauding Giuliani, and President Clinton invited him to the White House. Rudy was delighted by all the adulation.

Soon, in another interview, he was again asked about gun control. When told that even many NYC gunowners opposed his idea, Giuliani said that they should get behind his plan, because the national licensing system he envisioned would be easier than the NYC licensing with which they already had to comply. He was asked if an easier national licensing system might result in more licensed gunowners in NYC. Giuliani said that it would not be a problem, because the additional gunowners would be screened and trained, and would therefore only be "good guys."

A strange thing then happened. Moderate gunowners in NYC and elsewhere sat up and took notice. Might Rudy Giuliani be that very rare species, a reasonable gun control advocate with whom gunowners might work?

Poor Rudy Giuliani! He had unknowingly attacked not one but two sacred cows of gun control. All his new Democrat friends now denounced his new statements on gun control! What had he done wrong?

Giuliani had said that the national licensing system he envisioned would be easier than the NYC licensing system and would replace it. But all major gun control advocates actually oppose nationally uniform gun control. Their frequent claim that nationally uniform gun control is their goal is one of their biggest lies. Every national law they propose contains a provision that enables any state, county, or town to keep or add harsher gun laws or gun bans. Licensing in NYC would not become easier with this type of national law, and major gun control advocates vehemently oppose any national gun control that does not have this provision.

Also, Giuliani had said that more licensed gunowners would not be a problem, because the additional gunowners would be screened and trained, and would therefore only be "good guys." It is dogma among major gun control advocates that guns and gunowners are bad, bad, bad. Any system that results in more legal gunowners, no matter the screening and training, is therefore bad as well. One need only look at all the "studies" that they churn out showing that households with guns were "43 times" more likely to incur gunshot injury, and states with higher gun ownership had higher rates of juvenile shootings. If compliance with any gun control law is not difficult enough to drastically reduce the number of legal gunowners, gun control advocates will demand a harsher new law.

See Rudy backtrack! Stung by the criticism of his new Democrat friends, Giuliani said that he may have misspoken, and needed to re-think his gun control positions. Soon Mayor Giuliani had instead adopted all the "standard" gun control positions, and never again spoke extemporaneously on the subject, only repeating the usual scripted gun control platitudes for the rest of his term.

For one fleeting and hopeful moment, Rudy Giuliani had seemed to be a breath of fresh air, a reasonable gun control advocate with whom gunowners might work.

Despite the courage he showed in other areas, he had wimped out on gun control.

Gunowners who had followed this story now had even more reinforcement for their cynicism and their opposition to gun control in view of the true motives of gun control advocates.

Even NYC gunowners. No, especially NYC gunowners.

--Jay Fishman

I couldn't possibly make this stuff up folks... I'll admit I'm not terribly particular about what I put in my mouth (quiet, YOU!) so when I buy a bag of Ruffles Artificially Flavored Cheddar & Sour Cream Potato Crisps from the vending machine, I don't really think I'm just making a substitute for a healthy salad. And I've certainly railed against the "food police" scenario. But then... I looked at the package:

You know, maybe we do need some label laws to protect the idiots. I've magnified the pertinent parts of the label. First, read the list of "natural" ingredients on the left. Then, read the "endorsement" from a "fitness expert" on the right. Folks, I'm not some algae that actually thought I was buying something healthy or such. But someone out there, someone in Darwin's Waiting Room will read this shit as a way to "Ease into a healthier lifesytle" and actually believe it!

Maybe we really are a nation of idiots. After all, half the country wants John Kerry to be president...

Just cruising around...

My blogbrother Aubrey Turner reports that no matter how many precautions you take, your email address will spread around. Worms or worse can defeat the best "stated intentions" of companies. The company I work for has all sorts of filters in place but so much crap gets through anyway. Thank Ghod we're Apple based or I'm sure it would be worse and much more compromised. BTW, I am --of course-- a Mac user at home so I really don't worry much about viruses. But some day someone will (in spite of the "low ratings" target Apples as well for their evil deeds.

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My blogson Eric Scheie shows once again why he is a rapidly rising star in the blogosphere with this review of The Passion by Mel Gibson. Since I don't go to movies except at the drive-in during the Summer, I'll have to wait for the DVD release at the local rental-shop.

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Being a link whore an open minded guy, I really can't come down too hard on my blog scientist Jay Manifold for his solicitation of blog bribes. He's got a list of positions he's willing to change -- for the right price! Heh!

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Now, a brief preamble to this next link. A few weeks ago, I finally gave up on my 20-year-old VCR. I bought a DVD player (heck, for $49 bucks how could I NOT buy it?) Naturally, I'm renting DVDs like crazy to catch-up on all the movies I haven't seen for the past 12 years except for what shows up during the Summer at the Fairlee Drive-In.

Since I mostly rent comedies and horror/sci-fi, I stumbled across, firstly, a movie (I can't remember the name) about a Mars colony plagued by some sort of "red smog" that turns everyone into KISS members. It starred Ice Cube and while the movie was rather silly, he was great.

You know (well, I know) that I can watch an actor and some of his personality comes through the dialog and action. For instance, while I think that Johnny Depp is cute, he comes across as a cold-clam as a person. In the movie I mentioned above, Ice Cube is cute and he also (inspite of the circumstances) emanates "niceness" as a person. So this past weekend I rented the comedy Friday After Next and again, besides a pretty funny movie, Ice Cube just seems so damn nice. By the way, you'll love the cast and two of them come from (or ended up in, rather) the NBC sitcom The Tracy Morgan Show. I wouldn't mind meeting him...

Anyway, the other Glenn at Hi, I'm Black has started a "NOT WORK SAFE" blog called Not Work Safe. Oddly Enough! Lots of undressed women. But my question is, "Hey Glenn, how about something for those of us who play on my team? Expand your horizons... Or at least your audience's... And while you're at it, find a couple pix of Ice Cube for me... Or at least his phone number...

By the way, he has a poll up asking how often you read his blog. I hope it's often because he's one of the more interesting folks in the blogosphere.

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The always excellent Indigos Insights has several wonderful posts up. No perma-links that I can detect but you don't need them, just head over there and start scrolling and enjoying.

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Bill Quick is SO on the money about the California --Democratic -- state senator who wants to give children the right to vote. I might add that while this mutant senator thinks kids know about politics, every poll shows the opposite. But that won't stop him since tots in general tend to be "liberal" and so will contribute their 1/4 votes to the Democratic Party. Just more astounding hypocrisy from the left.

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John Kerry, the fake, phony, fraud lier and hypocrite running for president can't offer a single original, (or even un-original) idea on anything. So like any good liberal, he offers the same tired rhetoric...

Kathy at On The Third Hand reports that he is now bringing up the Florida Vote as a reason to vote for him. How tired. How pathetic. According to every single "re-count" by the liberal press, Bush won the Florida 2000 vote. And that gives the electoral college votes to him. Which legitimately gave him the win. If the whiny bastard liberals and other Democrats don't like the electoral college way of electing a president, they should call for a constitutional convention to change our nation's way of voting. Oh, I forgot, they don't believe in that sort of stuff judging by their bleating about Bush's call for a "marriage" amendment.

See folks, the hypocrites on the left want it both ways, as long as both ways agree with their agenda. *Sigh*

I received an email this morning from loyal Alphecca reader Jay Fishman, who mentions and then proceeds to fisk a column in Newsday. Since Jay has done all the heavy-lifting I thought I'd just print his letter in its entirety. His comments are in italic:

Pick up the Yellow Pages and go to "Guns." Call the first gun store you find. Ask what you'll need to purchase a semi-automatic military-style sniper rifle like the one used by John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo to kill 10 people during their 2002 Washington, D.C.-area murder spree.

"You have a driver's license?" said the man at the Long Island store I called yesterday to ask about buying the assault rifle known as the Bushmaster XM-15.

"Sure," I said, "but what else do I need to bring?"

I was thinking paperwork - perhaps to verify my clean criminal record, my relative sanity, the lack of any documented connections between myself and al-Qaida. "Nothing else," said the man. "Just money."

Uh-oh. I have a clean criminal record, am relatively sane (or at least fool most people), and there are no documented connections between myself and al-Qaida. But if I were to be asked for "paperwork" to prove any of those things, I would have none. I suppose that it's a good thing that I do not live in the world that Mr. Vitello imagines. (Vere are your papers?) I cannot tell if Mr. Vitello is so abysmally ignorant of the background check for just those things that the store must run with the National Instant Check System, or if he knows it but thinks that he will deceive a gullible readership.

Whether you find this surprising or not depends on how closely you have followed the gun-control debate of the past 10 years. In the midst of a series of mass murders in workplaces, Congress in 1994 imposed a 10-year ban on the sale of military style weapons under production at that time.

The Bushmaster, a version of the military's standard AK-47 rifle,

Now that's not right, is it? I guess that when you read and repeat too much gun control propaganda, it's easy to get confused.

AR's and AK's and Uzis, oh my!

was the kind of gun they had in mind: highly accurate, extremely deadly from almost a half-mile away.

Wow - 900 yard shots with a .223 - this guy knows his guns, huh?

But with a few modifications - a change of barrel size, a different bolt - the maker was able to legalize its product and keep selling it, despite the ban.

A law was passed banning guns with certain features, so gun makers...get this...removed those features from their guns! How unspeakably evil - whouda thunk it?

Richard Dyke, chairman of Bushmaster Firearms, the maker of this gun, did so well in fact that he had money left over to contribute to political campaigns. He has long been a big Republican fund-raiser in Maine, his home state. And in the 2000 presidential campaign, he was appointed as George W. Bush's state finance director.

(Knowing this much helps to understand why, when Malvo and Muhammad were killing people from 500 yards during that summer and fall, then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush saw the shootings not as a gun problem so much as a problem of "values.")

Now, the so-called assault weapons ban - weak and evadable as it is - is due to expire. This will make it possible for gunmakers to return their products to their full monty of killing power: more bullets per clip, more thrust per squeeze. The National Rifle Association has made the end of the ban one of its top priorities.

Thrust per squeeze? I cannot find figures for "thrust per squeeze" in any of my gun and ammo catalogs. Does Mr. Vitello mean velocity or energy? Does Mr. Vitello think that the "so-called assault weapons ban" had anything to do with that?

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-Mineola), who is known among NRA-backers as that woman from Long Island who just won't shut up - just because her husband was killed and her son was wounded by a madman in 1993 with a legally purchased gun, she blames the NRA - has been working the hallways of Congress this week in an effort to bring to a vote a bill that would make the temporary ban permanent. Her bill would also tighten some of the restrictions on fire power. "The majority of people don't even know it's expiring," she said.

"Tighten some of the restrictions on fire power"? Ohh - ban more guns. That's outdated news, Mr. Vitello. Rep. McCarthy had proposed a bill that would ban lots more guns including many of the hunting rifles that she promised not to ban previously (there must be a word for that), but she has since abandoned that effort (for now) and recently proposed only a straight renewal of the old ban.

Her opponents include not only Bushmaster's maker and Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), the majority leader of the House, but the formidable lobbying apparatus of the NRA, which flexed its muscle Tuesday when it pulled its support from a Senate bill that would have attached McCarthy's ban to another measure.

The other measure, shamelessly named the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, would have protected the gun industry from lawsuits filed by shooting victims or their families. Several such suits have been brought already by families of the 10 D.C.-area sniper victims.

The NRA was so opposed to McCarthy's weapons ban, it was willing to scuttle the Lawful Commerce bill for now, and wait for another shot.

"The president himself says there are terrorist cells at work in this country," she said. "Do we want these people to be able to walk into any gun store?"

Gosh, no! Terrorists have been able to walk into any gun store, and because of that they have somehow done, er, all that stuff they did. If we renew McCarthy's weapons ban, terrorists won't be able to walk into any gun store anymore, because, well, they just won't!

Bush, during his 2000 presidential campaign, said he would support extending the assault weapons ban. But he hasn't lifted a finger to help bring it to a vote in the House or the Senate.

So, to review just this much: A weak ban on assault weapons is passed in 1994, despite which assault weapons sales flourish.

If "assault weapons sales flourish," how could the ban have accomplished all those wonderful things that it's supporters said it did? Oops - someone's fibbing again!

Bush says he will support the ban's extension, but doesn't seem to really mean it. Members of the Republican-controlled House and Senate keep the extension from coming up for a vote; in an election year, no one wants it on record that he or she voted for every American's right to shoot people's heads off from 500 yards.

As Marie Antoinette or someone similar once said, let them eat values.

So now it's down to 500 yards? I suppose that's progress, but news reports and trial testimony show that the longest shot from the Beltway Sniper was about 150 yards. Stretching the truth by three times or more is actually not bad for guys like Vitello. So how many banned assault weapons have even been used to "shoot people's heads off from 500 yards"? I would guess zero, but maybe Vitello thinks that I can't count higher. Say - now we are not talking about "assault weapons," we are talking about "sniper rifles," which I am sure that Vitello and McCarthy will want to ban next. Please - one gun ban at a time!

Thanks Jay.

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My friend Kevin at The Smallest Minority always has good Pro-2A stuff to read (so just go there and start doing so) and he also gave a righteous fisking to this sorry op-ed. Read it!

While Martha Stewart begins to plan her next TV show on the proper way to make license-plates, we here at Alphecca will continue our focus on the Second Amendment. For newcomers, the purpose of this weekly report is to examine some of the bias shown by the media in their liberal bias against guns, gun ownership, and the Second Amendment. Much of the material comes from the editorials, op-eds, and stories linked to by Yahoo! on their Gun Control Debate Page. Some come from the excellent round-up of links provided daily by Keep and Bear Arms. Others are ferreted out by myself or by many of my blog-friends.

The big news this past week was the defeat of the bill to grant gun makers and distributors limited immunity from frivolous lawsuits based on the mis-use by criminals of their legally made and sold products. Unfortunately, while the House passed a "clean bill" that only dealt with that issue, in the Senate, liberal Democrats tried to attach all of their pet gun-control amendments to the bill and finally, the sponsor, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig and the NRA decided that those amendments (I'll speak about them in a moment) contaminated the original bill and compromised the Second Amendment too much to allow the bill to pass, so they decided to "kill" the bill.

Most of the stories this week dealt with the vote in the Senate and the aftermath.

I know that many of you have just eaten breakfast and I hope this won't make you ill, but for this week's graphic...

Isn't that a cozy quartet! Chucky Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, and Edward Kennedy leaving the Senate after the vote. Go ahead and retch because these are the Democratic power brokers who killed this bill to protect an industry from the ravishes of greedy city mayors and their sponsors, the American Trial Lawyers Association (the largest contributor to the Democratic Party.)

Kerry, the senator with the most "liberal" voting record in the senate, certainly surrounds himself with his "kin" and that should be a warning to all of you who might be pissed-off at G.W. Bush for various issues and are considering a protest vote. As the saying goes, you're known by the company you keep and you can see who Kerry hangs out with.

Stare at that photo for a moment and think about this: Is this the crowd you want making decisions for our country for the next four years?

So what happened? I'm not going to try to repeat all the great thoughts posted by so many better bloggers than myself (or even my own previous writings on the subject.) I promise to keep this short. The first amendment attached to the bill was:

...Designed to extend the "assault weapons" ban. This photo, from my friend Michael at Countertop Chronicles is of a Knights SR-47. A knock-off of the AK-47. It's a gun. Nothing more. And it fires just ONE bullet each time you pull the trigger. So does every single other semi-automatic gun in existence. And there-in lies the problem with the phony "assault weapons" bill and the amendment to extend it that liberals tried to attach to the original bill in this discussion.

The 19 gun "types" that Democrats have and want to continue to ban are just guns, and they function like any other gun. So these liberals put together a list of characteristics that they think make a firearm "assaultive." I'm not sure if that's a word but what the hell. These characteristics have to do with the cosmetics of the firearm. Things like the magazine, the grip, the stock and barrel, and so on.

I'm sorry I have to repeat myself but look folks, anything that is used to commit a crime is an "assault weapon" and how it operates or looks should have nothing to do with it. A baseball bat can be an "assault weapon." Should we ban them? End our national past-time? A kitchen knife can be an "assault weapon" when it's stuck into someone. Should we ban them? Maybe we should draw-up a list of knives that "look scary" and just ban those. After all, thousands of people are stabbed by these knives every year. Maybe chefs should have to obtain a license to use and register to own one of these knives. Catch my drift?...

The "assault weapons" ban was nothing but feel good legislation by the Clinton administration.

Here's the problem: If you ban some firearms because of their looks and then, Democrats find out that crime doesn't stop because of those bans, and since all other guns operate the exact same way, the natural course of such "Singapore and Saudi Arabian" loving control freaks will simply ADD more firearms to the list. And continue to do so until there are no legal guns left; and that is their goal.

The second major amendent to the bill:

A provision to close the so-called "gun show loop-hole" which deals with the very few "unlicensed" gun enthusiasts who rent tables at various gun shows. Since these few people aren't FFL dealers, they don't need to check with the Brady Bunch NICS instant check system when selling a firearm.

Truth in blogging requires me to state that I don't actually have a BIG problem with this amendment. At a REAL gun show, everyone should be doing the "instant check" and the federal government should provide an easy means for them to do so.

But here's the thing: What is the definition of a "gun show?"

If you listen to liberal lawmakers (and some misguided cops) you would have to include "any gathering" of people with firearms. This could mean a bunch of friends who get together at the firing range or in someone's living room and someone buys a gun from a friend.

If this amendment had been written to clearly state that a gun show is some large, organized and sponsored event at a public venue where people who make their living from trading in firearms sell to the general public etc, etc... Then I could go along with it. But Democrats want this measure to extend to any two people who bump into each other... And I will not go along with that anymore than I think someone selling a used couch through a local newspaper should have to obtain a federal tax ID for a commercial business and pay business taxes to their state.

So those are the two amendments that really (to use a NASCAR term) puked the deal. Here's how the major newspapers reported it:

New York Times:
Facing a tough re-election race in South Dakota, Mr. Daschle supported shielding gun manufacturers from lawsuits. Facing pressure from fellow Democrats, he also backed amending the bill to extend its ban on assault weapons and require background checks on customers at gun shows.

USA Today:
Democrats won close votes to extend a ban on military-style assault weapons for another decade and to require background checks at gun shows. But their victories were short-lived. Republicans, angry that the gun-control measures were attached to a bill immunizing the gun industry from liability lawsuits, scuttled the package after hearing from the 4-million-member National Rifle Association.

LA Times:
The bill was a top priority for the National Rifle Assn. But before the final vote, gun control advocates successfully proposed amendments to extend the federal ban on assault weapons and to tighten background checks for sales at gun shows.

Washington Post:
In a major reversal, Senate sponsors of legislation to shield the firearms industry from lawsuits yesterday abruptly killed their own bill after it was amended to renew an expiring ban on assault weapons and to require background checks for gun show purchases.

And in one of the most over-the-top spins on this, the Chicago Tribune:

In a dramatic victory for gun-control advocates, including Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, the Senate on Tuesday rejected a popular bill to protect gun manufacturers, wholesalers and dealers from liability lawsuits when guns are used in crimes.

The bill had broad support in the Senate and was a priority for gun-rights groups, and President Bush had said he would sign it. But when the Senate added two gun-control amendments, supporters decided to kill the bill instead of accepting the amended version.

Now... After reading all of the national papers' take on this, here's how a smaller, local paper -- in an editorial! -- reported it. The (Ohio) Toledo Blade:

The measure started its run with 55 co-sponsors but was consigned to defeat after a bipartisan group of insurgents succeeded in amending it to renew the assault weapons ban, due to expire in September, and to require criminal background checks for people who buy firearms from private dealers at gun shows.

Keep in mind that the Toledo Blade editorial was very against the bill and supported the amendments, but at least they had the honesty to say: "require criminal background checks for people who buy firearms from private dealers at gun shows." "Private dealers." As opposed to the vast majority of FFL dealers who exhibit at gun shows. They added that all important qualifier and "explainer" that none of the national newspapers bothered with. Bias. An insidious thing.

So what happens next? The gun maker immunity bill is probably dead for this year. The "assault weapons" (notice how I always put it in quotes to indicate how phony it is?) bill expires in September. I predict that Democrats (stupidly, if past elections are any indication) will make an issue out of it then and try to make it a "wedge issue" to contrast them from Republicans. I'll be around and I'm sure I'll be blabbing about it...

Some of the editorials reporting on this past week's events were truly hysterical. And I don't mean that in the humorous sense...

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

For months, the National Rifle Association has lobbied hard for passage of a bill that would make the gun industry immune to civil lawsuits. The measure -- the NRA's top legislative priority -- had already passed the House, and this week was close to passage in the Senate as well, until NRA lobbyists stepped in at the last minute and ordered that the bill be killed.

Why the sudden change of heart? Because Democrats and moderate Republicans had succeeded in attaching two quite sensible, reasonable gun-safety measures to the bill. One amendment extended the 1994 ban on military-style assault weapons that's set to expire in September; the other closed a loophole that permitted people to buy firearms at gun shows without having to undergo instant background checks.

Liberals always throw around the phrase "sensible" and "reasonable" to somehow indicate that anyone who disagrees with them is irrational and just plain nuts.

Oddly enough though, the SF Gate (San Francisco Chronicle) had a well balanced report which said in part:

Even if the Senate had enacted the bill with the gun-control amendments, it faced a tortuous route to final passage. The House had easily passed the bill to give the gun industry unprecedented protection against negligence lawsuits last year, and House Republican majority leaders, all of them firm NRA allies, had vowed the assault-weapons ban would never come up for a vote.

Feinstein said she had Senate leaders' agreement that her amendment would not be sacrificed by a Republican-led House-Senate conference committee. That would have either killed the entire bill, or sent Bush a bill including her legislation.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said pro-gun- control senators were making mischief with the liability bill. "There are some in the Senate who are seeking to undermine that legislation with certain amendments. That's not the issue here. The issue here is about passing a meaningful piece of lawsuit reform,'' he said.

I have to admit something here: I have been writing this weekly report on bias against guns by major media for a year-and-a-half now and I certainly knock papers such as SF Gate and the LA Times. But I also have to admit that some of their writers occasionally pen a straight-forward news story with equal quotes from both sides.

That is in sharp contrast with the supposed leaders of the press world -- the New York Times and the Washington Post -- whose reporters (and editorialists) have NEVER published an objective story on firearms and the Second Amendment.

The New York Times is the most grievous, and it is just one reason that while other bloggers suck-up to them and put them on a pedestal, I have NEVER done so and in fact, I consider them an irrelevant paper other than for their influence over swooning liberals.

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As I write this Monday morning, KABA is out of commission for the moment which limits my material... but that just gives me more time to report on what some of my friends in the blogosphere are chatting about...

My friend Kevin at The Smallest Minority (that's us pro-2A folks, in case some of you haven't yet gotten it...) has a righteous fisking of an op-ed in the Washington Times (!) which reads like a screed against hunting. Good going Kevin!

Say Uncle is fisking everyone over media lies regarding the NRA and guns in general.

My pal Matt Rustler at Stop the Bleating reports on a positive editorial about guns and the mis-steps of the Democrats in the Seattle-Times.

Backroad Blog responds to Publicola with answers to various firearms questions about preferences, how you got started, etc. Rather interesting and I should probably answer these myself but Robert has given good, thoughful answers. Just another blog you should be checking out...

Another friend, Pervasive Light thinks he's found a pro-gun editorial in the New York Times. Kind of like the quest for evidence of life on Mars...

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Anyway, there's tons more, just randomly pick out the great folks on my blogroll. But it's 11:30 now and I always promise to put up this post in the AM so I'll sign-off and as always, I thank you all for stopping by.