Since Timmy Kaine vetoed legislation that would have allowed gun owners with concealed handgun permits to carry in restaurants licensed to serve alcohol provided they don’t drink themselves, those of us who carry must carry openly in such establishments (unless of course we’re members of the privileged caste, such as Commonwealth Attorneys).

Interestingly, during the Virginia Senate debate on the bill to allow concealed carry in restaurants, Dick Saslaw claimed:

In most urban areas, you walk into a restaurant with a gun on your hip, they’re going to tell you to get out…You’re not going to get any meal or any drink.

The Post article also noted:

Saslaw said in an interview that he and his wife dine out “all the time” and that they have

I just read about the negligent firearm discharge by a commercial airline pilot, then I ran across this video which demonstrates the combination of holster and padlock design which led to the event.

I’ve embedded the video below; it’s short and well worth watching. Apparently TSA bureaucrats have managed to develop a way to secure a firearm that is both ridiculously inconvenient and frightfully unsafe. The Federal Flight Deck Officer program, which TSA administers, requires pilots who would be armed to keep their guns locked and unusable when not in the cockpit with the cockpit doors secured. Moreover, the TSA prescribes a specific holster, and a specific lock attached to the holster.

There’s a procurement order from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) making the rounds on the gun boards which is sufficiently egregious as to piss off citizens across the political spectrum. I first learned of it from this arfcom post dated 19-March, but there are now angry threads on other Internet gun boards and at least a few left-liberal forums as well.

Apparently, the ATF have a unit dedicated to asset forfeiture, which is the tough-on-crime practice of seizing the assets of citizens if government agents suspect said assets were acquired with the proceeds of illegal activities.

Every year for the last 13 years, the Virginia Citizen’s Defense League (VCDL) has worked with the Virginia General Assembly to pass legislation fixing Virginia’s ridiculous ban on concealed carry in restaurants that serve alcohol. Alot of the Virginia media completely misunderstand the issue and indulge in all manner of hyperbole and theatrics.

First, some background: In Virginia, there exists no law prohibiting a law-abiding citizen from carrying a gun openly, in public.

It seems the journalism profession allows itself a few exemptions to its self-imposed integrity requirement, such that journalists covering exempt subjects are free to misinterpret, misconstrue, and misinform without consequence. From my observation, two broad categories which enjoy this exemption are technology (computers, the Internet, hard science, mathematics, maybe to some extent medicine) and guns.

Back in 1995 I could understand the MSM’s inability to properly grok the Internet. However, it’s 2008 and they’re still getting it wrong. Don’t believe me?

A while back Fairfax county denied my CHP application because I refused to provide proof that I live in Fairfax County, notwithstanding the clear language of Virginia state law which does not permit counties to bolt on additional requirements for carry permits.

There are few cliches more often repeated in the gun community than the British gun control experience. It’s as though the British gun bans are part of a fiendishly clever NRA plot to prove the fallacy of gun control. Just when you think the Brits can’t get more absurdly clueless about the nature of human violence, they do.

The latest bit of foolishness is years old by now, but it came up again recently and I couldn’t resist remarking upon it.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (formerly Handgun Control, Inc back when such terms actually focus grouped well) released their 2007 state-by-state scorecard reporting on the degree of each state’s commitment to disarm law-abiding citizens. Though this list is put out by a rabidly anti-gun organization, those of us who oppose gun control efforts also use it as a measure of each state’s support or disdain for second amendment rights.

Lately the Democratic presidential candidates are making a great deal of noise about their commitment to renew the “Assault Weapons Ban”, for either the children or police officers depending upon the venue. On the Republican side, candidates Romney and Guiliani are having trouble with the conservative base for, among other things, past support for state and federal bans on “assault weapons”.

Thanks in no small part to the tireless efforts of the VCDL, Senator Marsh’s bill to close the freedom loophole failed to muster enough committee votes to go to the full Senate. The House bill has been defeated already. Timmy Kaine and friends will have to find some other way to abridge the freedoms of law-abiding Virginians (or at least wait until next year to try again).

Article describing the carnage here