For all you reloaders it appears the primer market is beginning to ease up again.  Our 14 month famine has first eased in both large and small rifle primers.  The pistol varieties are still hard to come by, but shipments appear to be coming in more often at retailers.  Retailers have even started lowering their prices to pre-shortage levels!  So go check out your local shop or online retailer and see what they have in stock.  You may be surprised.

I hate to be a bearer of bad news, but … it’s not true.  Yep.  I just doesn’t work that way.  Lets take a look …

Being a little skeptical I tried the effect on another bodyscan image.

Top: A bodyscan image off the internet with inverted image on right.
Bottom: Purported naked bodyscan hot chick with inverted image on right.

Awesome naked chick, but nothing overexposed there except for some pixels in the guys image.  What gives?!

Now check out the posture of the woman.  In the color image the woman has her legs spread and arms to the side.  The naked body scan has her arms outstreatched and heels together.  I can give that up to the necessity of having to take an image outside of the scanner, but here’s the really kicker.  Look at the belt and butt gun of the woman and man.

They are identical.

Someone obviously “Photochopped” the gun and belt from the guys image onto some naked woman’s image and posted it on the internet as a real body scan.  Awesome!  Enjoy the pron you sick bastards.

So for all you disappointed formerly eager TSA applicants and horny air travelers out there I just have to say that you can still wink, nod and blow kisses to your hot screener, but it will only get you a lengthy interview instead of a …

Following up on the McDonald vs. Chicago case.  There is a good Op-Ed in the Washington Post arguing for using the Privileges and Immunities clause of the 14th amendment to incorporate the 2A.

If the court now “incorporates” the Second Amendment right via the “due process” guarantee, that will be progress because it will enlarge the sphere of protected liberty. And even Justice Antonin Scalia, who recognizes that “substantive due process” is intellectual applesauce, thinks it is too late to repudiate 137 years of the stuff. Still, three points argue for using the “privileges or immunities” scythe against the two gun ordinances.

First, protecting the individual’s right to keep and bear arms for self-defense was frequently mentioned by those who drafted and ratified the 14th Amendment, the purpose of which was to protect former slaves and their advocates from being disarmed by state and local governments determined to assault their security and limit their autonomy.

Second, the central tenet of American political philosophy is that government is instituted not to bestow rights but to protect preexisting rights, aka natural rights — those essential to the flourishing of our natures. In its 2008 decision, the court affirmed that the Second Amendment did not grant a right to keep and bear arms, it “codified a pre-existing right.”

Third, “privileges or immunities” are all those rights that, at the time the 14th Amendment was ratified, were understood to be central to Americans’ enjoyment of the blessings of liberty.

Liberals might hope and conservatives might fear that a revivified “privileges or immunities” clause wielded by liberal justices would breed many new “positive rights” — to welfare, health care, etc. But conservatives know that “substantive due process” already has such a pernicious potential. And they believe that if — a huge caveat — it remained tethered to the intent of its 19th-century authors, the “privileges or immunities” clause would be useful protection against the statism of the states.

We’ve talked about the Open Carry initiative here a few times.  In response to this movement gun control advocates have asked private companies to ban firearms in their stores.  Starbucks responded to the requests by saying they will follow the laws that apply in their store locations and allow open carry if permitted.  Dr. Ignatius Piazza of Front Sight fame has taken notice and offered a free 4-day firearms training course to any Starbuck’s employee.

To thank the Starbucks’ organization for setting a stellar example of proper corporate policy, I will provide a $2,000 bonus to every Starbucks’ employee in the form of a Front Sight Four Day Defensive Handgun Course.

A nice gesture, but considering they just asked to be left out of the firearms rights debate Iggy may have put them right in the middle of it.  Oh well.  A little media whoring to promote your brand never hurt anyone, did it.

I wonder if he knows how many Starbucks store there are, let alone employees?  Just in case here are the Wikistats …

16,635 stores in 49 countries

128,898 employees in 2009

Giuseppe Zanotti “Bullet” Thong Sandals

Here is Starbuck’s statement, issued today:

Mar 03, 2010
Starbucks Position on Open Carry Gun Laws

SEATTLE, March 03, 2010 – We recognize that there is significant and genuine passion surrounding the issue of open carry weapons laws. Advocacy groups from both sides of this issue have chosen to use Starbucks as a way to draw attention to their positions.

While we deeply respect the views of all our customers, Starbucks long-standing approach to this issue remains unchanged. We comply with local laws and statutes in all the communities we serve. In this case, 43 of the 50 U.S. states have open carry weapon laws. Where these laws don’t exist, we comply with laws that prohibit the open carrying of weapons. The political, policy and legal debates around these issues belong in the legislatures and courts, not in our stores.

At the same time, we have a security protocol for any threatening situation that might occur in our stores. Partners are trained to call law enforcement as situations arise. We will continuously review our procedures to ensure the highest safety guidelines are in place and we will continue to work closely with law enforcement.

We have examined this issue through the lens of partner (employee) and customer safety. Were we to adopt a policy different from local laws allowing open carry, we would be forced to require our partners to ask law abiding customers to leave our stores, putting our partners in an unfair and potentially unsafe position.

As the public debate continues, we are asking all interested parties to refrain from putting Starbucks or our partners into the middle of this divisive issue. As a company, we are extremely sensitive to the issue of gun violence in our society. Our Starbucks family knows all too well the dangers that exist when guns are used irresponsibly and illegally. Without minimizing this unfortunate reality, we believe that supporting local laws is the right way for us to ensure a safe environment for both partners and customers.

The LA Times has an article on the McDonald vs. Chicago SCOTUS hearing.  Like the Heller case two years ago there appears to be a consensus that the SCOTUS is going to rule in favor of the 2A right and incorporation by at least a 5-4 vote.  The question really lies in how the SCOTUS says it applies to the states or if it will leave that up to future cases.  The transcripts of today’s hearing suggest that the justices court will rule in favor and are just determining how much of the 2A will apply to the states and/or to what of level scrutiny any laws restricting the right will be held.

We still have to wait for a decision and that is 4 months away.  When it is delivered the most likely scenario is a favorable ruling that will leave restrictive gun laws open to challenge.  So hold off on writing your shopping list for that brand new AR-15 with all the tacticool accessories.  We still have a long road ahead that will hopefully involve challenges to  California’s handgun roster, AW ban, 50 BMG ban …

The transcripts of the McDonald vs. Chicago case which was argued this morning are up on the SCOTUS site.  Based on initial reports the Justices were not very receptive to the Privileges and Immunities argument by Alan Gura and seemed more receptive to the Due Process arguement by the NRA.  Initial analysis also indicates that the Justices may be resistant to opening a huge can of worms by accepting the Privileges and Immunities argument.  A victory for 2A rights and incorporation appears likely regardless of the argument the SCOTUS accepts, but will likely include language that allows states to restrict 2A rights on some level.

At issue:  does the Fourteenth Amendment provision of “incorporation” apply to states like it does for the  1st, 4th and other amendments.

Here is a copypasta from my post back in October:

Here is the short summary:  The Heller v DC ruling answered the question “is the right to bear arms” an individual or a collective freedom — it is an individual freedom.  So, as far as the Federal Government is concerned, it cannot pass laws that restrict an individual’s right.  But here is the catch:  The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written and applied to the Federal Government, not the states.   So, in the past, a state could have passed a law that restricted freedom of the press, but, the Federal government could not. — Washington DC is governed by the Federal Government so Heller v DC is the law of DC.

I said that “in the past” a state could pass such laws.  That changed with the 14th Amendment.  As part of the interpretation of  “XIV” is the idea of “incorporation” of certain laws against the states.  Over time, a very clear mandate has come down, for example, that the 1st and 4th Amendment very much apply to state laws, so, these days a state cannot pass a law that violates either of these amendments.

Chicago has a law that says you cannot own a handgun.  The question in McDonald v Chicago is whether the 14th Amendment provides for the incorporation of the 2nd Amendment against the states much like it does the 1st and the 4th.  The answer seems fairly obvious — why would only some amendments be affected and not others? But, it turns out that legally it is a phenomenally complicated matter involving different specific rights provided for by the 14th Amendment and how those rights get applied to state laws — is it a due process issue?  is it a  “privileges and immunities” issue?  What are the history of those issues, etc. etc. etc.   Ug!

Either way… It will probably be an interesting hour..

(from fox news)

**No, I do not believe that either Bush nor Obama is as bad as Hitler.  Not even close.  I am just pointing out that we were promised change and one thing that seemed to offend Americans was the erosion of civil liberties that occurred under Bush’s watch — enough that posters such as this were made… I am just pointing out, civil liberties haven’t gotten better yet.

The chance to live free and to make our own success are things we are losing (quite possibly have lost).  It seems a strong president with a will to change these things is what we need to reverse these paths — If we have that, it hasn’t been demonstrated yet .  Sadly, the legislature is too obsequious to special interests to ever make a change for the common good just because it is for the common good…