There’s nothing much more insufferable than Samantha Bee and her band of merry pranksters who smugly mug for the camera in dogged pursuit of skewering anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders. But hey, even a blind cable “news” show squirrel finds the occasional acorn of truth. Which is how we choose to explain the fact that Allana Harkin has managed to finger the real culprit responsible for the fact that there are currently no smart guns for sale anywhere in the United States (hint: it’s not the NRA).

Then again, this won’t help those biometric gun lock designers. . . That Fingerprint Sensor on Your Phone Is Not as Safe as You Think – “New findings published Monday by researchers at New York University and Michigan State University suggest that smartphones can easily be fooled by fake fingerprints digitally composed of many common features found in human prints. In computer simulations, the researchers from the universities were able to develop a set of artificial “MasterPrints” that could match real prints similar to those used by phones as much as 65 percent of the time.”

What, no mention of allowing students to carry and eliminating gun-free zones? . . . Ohio State beefs up response plans after car-and-knife attack – “Ohio State University is beefing up its emergency alert system and streamlining the way officials communicate in a crisis after a November car-and-knife attack exposed some flaws in the text-message procedure. Some campus contractors and visitors weren’t aware of campuswide “Buckeye Alerts” to seek shelter during the attack that wounded more than a dozen people, according to the report obtained by The Associated Press through an open records request.”

The NRA vs. the Old Gray Hag. Hey Dana! Future topics: Howell Raines’ tenure (Jayson Blair in particular). Walter Duranty. Warren St. John. Pinch Sulzberger’s moose. But you probably know all of those. Have fun!

Ruger Now Shipping Complete AR Lower Receivers – The AR-Lower Elite – Ruger announces the release of the AR-Lower Elite, a fully assembled, full-featured modern sporting rifle lower receiver. Featuring the Ruger® Elite 452™ AR-Trigger, Magpul® MOE® SL stock and Magpul® MOE® grip, the AR-Lower Elite is a premium platform for those wishing to assemble their own modern sporting rifle. The AR-Lower Elite is built from the same hard-coat anodized, CNC-machined, 7075-T6 forged lower receiver as the Ruger® AR-556®. This lower receiver ships with an upgraded trigger and furniture, and is fully assembled to include the pivot and takedown pins, bolt catch, magazine release, trigger guard, mil-spec buffer tube, buffer and spring. The addition of a complete, mil-spec upper receiver assembly of the consumer’s choice will complete this custom modern sporting rifle.

Speaking of which . . . Bill allowing guns on college campuses draws opposition in House hearing – “Child care centers, public universities and churches would no longer be “gun-free zones” for Missourians with concealed carry permits under a proposed House bill. ‘Is this for show or is this for real?’ Rep. Jon Carpenter, D-Kansas City, asked during a Missouri House General Laws committee hearing on Monday. ‘I want individuals to be able to choose whether or not they carry a gun to protect themselves and others if the need were to arise,’ Rep. Jered Taylor, R-Nixa, responded. At the center of the debate was one question: Do more guns make people more or less safe?”

Bollards…big ones . . . Police: Thieves ram truck through Zephyrhills gun store – “Police in Florida say thieves rammed a truck into a Florida gun shop to steal firearms and ammunition. The Zephyrhills Police Department posted surveillance video on its Facebook page that shows the blue truck smashing through the front of Sunshine State Armory early Sunday. … The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to the suspects’ arrests.”

Answer: whenever it helps further the anti-gun narrative . . . When is the NRA complicit? San Bernardino school shooting comes after Republicans move to relax gun restrictions – “Returning to Columbine and Sandy Hook, you might recall how defenders of gun rights, specifically the National Rifle Association and its bought and paid for bidders in the Republican congressional caucus, invariably pointed to mental illness as the sole inciting factor in those and other gun massacres. Any excuse to deflect from the reality that firearms, unlike cars or other favorite false equivalences of gun advocates, are designed for one purpose and one purpose alone: to inflict harm or death upon living organisms — too often human beings.”

It’s a miracle they both survived . . . Texas couple claims they were shot by Mexican Marines while shopping –   “Eduardo (Aleman) says that his brother and sister-in-law were driving back to Texas after visiting Trevino and grocery shopping. That’s when the family says that the couple drove upon a military blockade. Moments later, a barrage of bullets came down from above, according to Trevino. But in a written response, the Mexican Marines denied those claims, saying that they were not at the location where the shooting happened, but were responding to three other shootings across town.”

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38 COMMENTS

  1. Does anybody actually think Samantha Bee is funny? OK, maybe compared to Amy Schumer, but compared to anyone else on earth?

    • Who? And again, who?

      No, seriously, the underside of my rock is getting tented for termites…

    • Bee reminds me of my dysfunctional older sister who over acts all the time. She moved to NYC, married a millionaire and is living the good life. I keep expecting to see her on her own tv show doing the same kind of stichk as Bee, who is, by the way, funny except she reminds me of my sister.

    • Just returned from a Mexican vacation. Didn’t see one armed guard on the main highways, unlike 5 years ago. We never felt unsafe.

      • I’m glad you felt safe, but feel compelled to wonder how safe you really were…?

        • “Judging by results, which is all that counts in the real world, 100% safe.”

          There is a big difference between not suffering the consequences of your actions, and being safe from them.

      • You’ve seen everything to be seen in the US? So compelling need to wallow in a 3rd world cesspool?

    • Tourist destinations know how to keep tourists away from danger, away from reality and isolated in a dream world. They learned it from Walt Disney.

    • I go quite often, and all along both sides of the border. There are still very unsafe places, but it is getting better.

  3. This being the digest, here is a *very* interesting article on the possibility of a SCOTUS vacancy that may happen far sooner than later.

    Give it a look, it’s an interesting read:

    https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-11/supreme-court-retirement-talk-focuses-on-pivotal-justice-kennedy

    If that goes down as soon as they think it might, that is great news for the California Peruta concealed-carry case.

    That will cost them *dearly* for slow-walking the Peruta case via the ‘en banc’ process since they were convinced the HildaBeast would be stocking SCOTUS with good little Progressives.

    It seems to me we may not need nationwide reciprocity legislation if SCOTUS rules carry outside the home is bona-fide constitutional right and is incorporated under the 14th to apply to all the states.

    Or am I (likely, knowing me) missing something obvious on that?

    (And as someone mentioned recently, we may reap the bonus of Ginsburg saying fuck it and throwing in the towel, adding even more conservatives to the court…)

    • Peruta comes down to two things: 1) will the Court grant cert; and 2) if it does, how will it frame the issue to be decided? Remember, the Peruta plaintiffs framed their issue on appeal as to whether there was a right to carry outside the home, and if there was, that the State had to grant some method that allowed the People to do so, whether shall issue concealed carry or open carry. As many here know, California is a “may issue” state which for many in the large urban counties is virtual “no issue”, while open carry in urban areas is prohibited to all but LEO and armed security guards. The Ninth Circuit panel originally agreed that the California “may issue” law violated the Second Amendment, but then when the case was taken en banc, the ultimate decision completely reframed the issue to one which the Court could answer in the negative, whether there was a right to concealed carry. The Court specifically declined to answer whether there was a right to open carry outside the home, contending (in flagrant disregard of all of the extensive briefings) that the issue was not before it.

      So again, what issue will the Supreme Court decide? A general question of a right to carry, or a specific question as a right to concealed carry (in a state where open carry is prohibited)?

      • As you are well aware, IANAL, and I hoped someone like you could shed light on the *likelihood* of SCOTUS granting cert if Kennedy was out of the way and replaced by a justice that believes the 2A means what it says.

        In your opinion, with a justice like Diane Sykes replacing Kennedy, do you think SCOTUS will take a swing at Peruta?

        • Unless and until Kennedy officially announces that says he’s leaving, I think the chances of cert being granted on Peruta are slim to none. Neither the conservative nor liberal blocs on the Court know which way he’d go on that case, and so neither side wants to risk the result (which would be either a significant expansion of Heller/MacDonald or a significant retreat from it). The conservative block in particular is more likely going to be willing to wait until they know they have a solid five-vote majority (which the odds are that they will have in the next couple of years), and *then* take up some cases that dramatically expand Heller/MacDonald.

          The pro-2A members of the court could, theoretically, keep relisting the Peruta cert petition for a while to see what happens with Kennedy (especially if there’s some backchannel communications between Kennedy and Gorsuch about Kennedy leaving at the end of this term), and then grant cert at the end of the term so that it’s heard in the fall. But all of that assumes that Kennedy is going to leave at the end of the present term (early July). While there are a lot of rumors and circumstantial evidence that he might be planning to do so (and like most of you, I certainly hope he does), there are also plenty of indications to the contrary (especially given that by being the swing vote, he’s perhaps the most powerful judge in the country, and all indications are that he likes having that power).

          Bottom line: Kennedy is notoriously unpredictable, so trying to guess what he’ll do is a fool’s errand.

      • “armed security guards” Do the guards have to be “on the job”?

        Seems like I could stand up a LLC security firm in CA, and “employ”, for a fee, citizens in order to grant them the ability to carry openly?

        If they are going to make carve outs for members of special clubs, perhaps I can just join that club, purely for the benefits. Can’t beat’em, join’em?

        • As a mental exercise, it’s interesting.
          In reality, you could never get such a “company” off the ground, as you defined it.
          Far too many regulations regarding training, payment of “employees,”, etc.

    • This is curious, an official China military website has just announced China will attack North Korea if the NorComs cross China’s ‘bottom line’. That bottom line appears to be conducting another nuclear test or threatening the security of northern China by flooding them with refugees.

      Here’s the Zero Hedge article, and below that is the Google cache of the original China article, now pulled:

      http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-11/china-threatens-bomb-north-koreas-nuclear-facilities-if-it-crosses-beijings-bottom-l

      http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1iKYl9EZJQQJ:english.chinamil.com.cn/view/2017-04/07/content_7554618.htm+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

      Things might get ‘interesting’ in the near future…

    • We’re assuming that Kennedy is the pivotal vote. Could be Roberts given that he, not Kennedy, betrayed America on Obamacare.

  4. Re the Ruger complete lower … I get it, but it seems like it’d take all the fun out of it.

    Then again, how many of you also have enough spares to put together a complete lower or three? You know, the box by the holster box?

  5. Stop using their language.

    It’s not a “…bill allowing guns on college campuses…” it’s a “rollback of the ban on peacefully carrying a your own gun on college campuses.”

    I know it’s a quote. Never quote something that wrong, unless to mock it. Never at the top of the piece. Too many people never read past the headline.

    The question is not “should we allow”, it’s “why are we prohibiting?” Something like this…

    TITLE: Why not lighten up on people who aren’t the problem?

    ” is considering legislation to undo their pointless prohibition on licensed concealed carriers being able to bring their own guns with them on collrge campuses.

    Dems, predictably, are misrepresenting the legislation, and object to the substance anyway. This is how you get gems like: “… bill allowing guns on college campuses…”, which is exactly backwards.

    “Motivating this legislation is the fact that guns are already “allowed” on college campuses, and all manner of other declared “gun free zones” for anyone willing to skirt the law. Like, for instance, the perps in the latest “school shooting”, by which they mean “shooting on grounds of a school.” (A school was neither the shooter, nor the shot.) By which is meant “a shooting in a zone already declared ‘gun free.'”

    Guns were already banned there.

    “Its no surprise the school gun ban didn’t stop them. These perps were already “banned” by several gun-specific laws, not counting general laws against assault and murder … none of which stopped them, either.

    The question here is why continue to impose this restriction on a vetted, and statistically less violent than average population… they aren’t the problem. Dropping this restriction on concealed carriers might give law enforcement, and protection officers on campuses more time to protect from, or dare we hope prevent, shooting up schools by known crazies n thugs who couldn’t get a concealed carry license anyway. This last guy couldn’t legally own or even hold a gun, which didn’t stop him. Apparently law enforcement and campus protection didn’t either. Maybe they were too busy stopping concealed carriers.

    If a law does no good, why not repeal it, and ar least get rid of some overhead.

  6. “When is the NRA complicit? San Bernardino school shooting comes after Republicans move to relax gun restrictions”

    What an absolutely moronic article. No matter what “moves” the Republicans have made in the US Congress (the targeted move was the roll back of the SSA rule reporting all persons with conservators to NICS as “prohibited persons” without a hearing and without due process) California state law hasn’t changed one bit. Here we have a teacher and her estranged (husband I believe) and a run of the mill domestic violence incident with the sad shooting of two disabled children, apparently unintentionally. What does the Social Security rule have to do with this? Nothing. There is no evidence that either were under a SSA conservatorship. The author conflates the SSA rule with “mental illness,” demonstrating that he knows absolutely nothing about the rule or the people who were subject to it. It would have nothing to prevent this shooting even if we assume (and there is no reason that we should despite the author’s contention that this can be inferred from the shooter’s suicide) that the shooter was “mentally ill.” Such incidents happen with some regularity in the US, and without any diagnosis of “mental illness” sufficient to preclude a person from purchasing a firearm. Talk about false equivalencies!

    • It’s Salon. Do you really expect them to frame it as “San Bernardino school shooting comes after California Democrats repeatedly tighten gun control noose on law-abiding citizens? ” Or maybe “San Bernardino school shooting comes after California fails to prosecute man with several arrests for violent crimes? “

  7. Well, now I know that I can live out the rest of my days without ever watching or listening to Bee again. Thanks, TTaG!

  8. The question shouldn’t be “Do more guns make us safer?”. The real question is “Does anyone actually believe we’re safer if only criminals have guns?!?!?”.

    • Lots of people seem to need to spend some serious time actually defining “crime” and “criminal.” The designation is far, far too loose and subjective these days. After all, it is now a “crime” to refuse to bake a cake or take pictures if certain special snowflakes have their little feewings hurt. According to the “government” in a lot of places, it is also “criminal” to braid hair or let kids sell lemonade on the corner… without their permission anyway.

      Real criminals are those who steal, coerce, defraud and actually harm other people. And the US government is the greatest collection of criminals the world has ever known. Oh yeah, they have lots of guns…

      • My point remains. If there’s a legally enforced “Gun Free” Zone, the only people who will have their guns will be those who do so against the law. If your options are A, bad guys with bad intention and good guys who ignore the law or B, bad guys with bad intentions and good guys who don’t have to break the law for self defense. Which option is better? That’s 100% the real question.

        • That’s certainly ONE of the questions. My point is that far, far too many gun owners, and 2A fanatics are totally happy to throw others under the bus because of mala prohibita “law,” calling everyone they don’t agree with some sort of “criminal” who shouldn’t have access to guns.

        • As for who “shouldn’t be allowed to own guns”, I think current Federal law preventing Felons isn’t something I’m going to fight against. Although, I have heard and understand the argument that a released felon has served his time and retains all other Constitutional rights, so why take only THIS one?

          Frankly, I WANT people who disagree with my politically to own guns. What fun it is to see liberals learning the joy of firearms. I want kids learning about gun safety and when that includes trips to the range, awesome! I want anti gunners to shoot a Ruger Mini 14 and an AR 15 so that they can see that zero defining features of the evil “assault rifle” actually make the gun more lethal.

          What I really want is for every person considering murder to be afraid their target or a bystander might end their life. That and I support the death penalty so that even if someone walks away after committing murder, they might still get put down.

          As for this article in particular, I think the only way to enforce a true “gun free” zone is to have metal detectors and armed guards. Every single place in America that doesn’t have those things should allow for citizens to legally concealed carry.

          I don’t carry where I’m legally prohibited. I do so knowing the “gun free” zone comes with a risk of attack regardless of what any sign says. I also know that my job requires I maintain a security clearance and any sort of gun infraction will cost me my job. I shouldn’t have to choose.

          I would agree with your definition of a criminal. Theft, coercion, assault, and libel are criminal acts. I might also add gross negligence such as going 90 in a 30 or shouting “fire” in a crowded theater.

          Forgive the novel

  9. I bet driving through a building like that is in The SWAT-Team-Technique-They-Don’t-Talk-About-Should-You-Consider-It-Too category. =P

  10. “Any excuse to deflect from the reality that firearms, unlike cars or other favorite false equivalences of gun advocates, are designed for one purpose and one purpose alone: to inflict harm or death upon living organisms — too often human beings.”

    Really? Then they are horribly bad at it. Given over 300 million in circulation, we have, what? 30,000 deaths (most self-inflicted) per year?
    If Bob’s car was that bad at performing its function, he’d be really pissed.If it only started .01% of the times he tried, I’m willing to bet he’d sue the car’s maker.
    Are these people really willing to believe that readers don’t spot the problem with this type of thinking?
    Do they really not understand that entire wars were fought without guns, indeed, entire civilizations were wiped out without guns?
    Sorry, stupid question; they don’t understand, because they assume everyone is as stupid as they are.

  11. I saw the Bill Nye poster on the wall and thought, “Oh…he’s a fool. OK” Made a lot of sense to me to find out that blowhard idiot is his idol.

  12. well its official now Mexico IS a failed nation

    time to get that wall built as fast as possible!!!

  13. Samantha Bee
    Shannon Watts
    Rosie O’ Donnell
    Three rich white women surrounded by big strong men with guns for private security.

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