Rexburg, Idaho must be an interesting place:

Law enforcement agencies depend on citizens in the community to be their eyes and ears. But officials in this southeastern Idaho town aren't sure how to respond to reports of skimpy bikinis, lost TV remotes, menacing squirrels, and a report of a neighbor's shrub trespassing.

"You try to help, you don't want to seem uncaring," said Randy Lewis, a captain with the Rexburg Police Department.

Those kinds of calls come in daily to the police, including one where Lewis ended up using a lasso to capture a hissing badger running loose in an apartment.

"What a mistake," he said. "It about drug me off."

That line just kills me.  I've been laughing about it for about 30 minutes now.

A citizen panel has decided that Oregon legislators shouldn't work drunk:

Oregon legislators and staff members should not be drunk while performing their official duties, a citizen panel says.

The Public Commission on the Oregon Legislature adopted that recommendation Monday, although the panel decided to leave it to House and Senate leaders to draft rules against intoxication and possible penalties.

"We were uncomfortable acting as a nanny," said Kerry Tymchuk, a commission member and state director for U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore.

Personally, I would be happy if legislators everywhere could somehow manage not to work while stupid.

I guess they're okay acting as nanny for the common folk.  They just get uncomfortable acting as nannies for their obvious superiors.

Operation: Noble Duty now has a website.  Check it out for info on this worthy cause.

This project has been created mostly to help support the Texas Military Family Foundation.

You'll be seeing a graphic and permanent link go up soon on this blog.

The Times and Democrat:

One of the “rogue gun dealers” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg singled out in a lawsuit filed by the city last week has said he and his employees have done nothing wrong.

“We haven’t done anything illegal here,” said Chan Holman, owner of Woody’s Pawn and Jewelry. “We’ve been in business for 35 years, and it’s an embarrassment to myself, my employees and our families.

“Gennie (Fields), my fiancee, and myself have worked very hard over the past 10 years to build this business, to change the perception of a pawnshop, and negative publicity like this just crushes any positive headway that we’ve made.”

Accused of violating federal gun sale laws, Woody’s is one of the 15 pawnshops in five states and two in South Carolina named in the lawsuit. The remaining businesses are located in Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

If the purchaser lies and gives someone the gun, then it's technically illegal, right?  And how will the dealer know the purchaser is lying?  A Vulcan mind-meld?

Holman, who had not been served with the lawsuit as of Friday afternoon, said his shop is regulated and audited quarterly by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives because of the high volume of gun sales at the store.

“We have to send a quarterly report on firearms acquired and sold,” he said. “If I was doing anything illegal, I would not still be open for business.”

[...]

“I can’t control what people do with them when they leave this store,” Holman said. “I sell between 50 and 100 handguns a month, and I would never jeopardize my business with anything illegal, with selling firearms.

[...]


Woody’s Pawn and Jewelry’s long-time attorney, Charles Williams, said he believes the case against the 15 pawnshops is illegitimate.

He said making it the pawnshop owner’s responsibility for what happens after the purchase of a gun is tantamount to suing a private citizen for selling his or her gun to someone, who in turn sold it to someone else who ultimately committed a crime.

“If he sold it legally and didn’t violate the law, I don’t see a case,” Williams said. “I just think it’s political. I think Bloomberg’s trying to get publicity.”

He said the guns have merely been traced back to Woody’s and other pawnshops, but there’s no telling how many hands those guns passed through along the way and, for all anyone knows, those initial sales were legal.

“If they want to sue him, they need to come to South Carolina to sue him,” Williams said. “I think gun laws, in my opinion, aren’t very good. Anybody who wants a gun can get a gun.”

Williams said he has spoken with Holman but declined to comment on what was discussed.

“The whole issue is gun control,” he said. “That’s what it all boils down to.”

You'll note that although the names of the 15 gunshops are known, this particular shop mentioned had not been served as of last Friday (when the interview occurred).  What's taking Bloomie so long?  Still trying to find some legal standing for NYC to sue someone out of state?

Crossposted to The Gun Blogs

According to the bandwidth rules, this blog should have gone offline last night.  As of this writing, it hasn't.  If it goes offline sometime today, I'll bring it back tonight.

For this month, I am paying for extra bandwidth to keep it open because I have promised to participate in some Memorial Day blogging activities.  After this month, I'll probably just let it go offline when it hits the limit, and spend the last few days of the month doing other things.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

At first, gun owners just got tired of waiting.

While authorities in St. Louis and St. Louis County didn't start issuing concealed carry permits for more than a year after the Legislature authorized them in 2004, some eager firearms enthusiasts used the reciprocity provision of the new law to take their applications to other states.

Now it appears there is more to it than haste, as uncounted others have followed the same path. Some gun proponents say other places offer a better deal.

"We found permits in other states were cheaper, lasted longer and were honored by more states," said Mike Anderson, who lives in Jefferson County and can legally carry a gun in Missouri on his Utah permit. "I don't see any motivation at all for getting a Missouri permit."

Read the whole thing.  It has lots of interesting little details about Missouri's concealed handgun law.