Round Rock, Texas:

Police in an Austin suburb arrested a man on Thursday who allegedly walked into a bank, demanded money from a teller and then sat down and read a magazine.

Paul Wendell Gunn, 61, surrendered to police about an hour after he went to the bank and demanded an undisclosed amount of money, said Round Rock police spokesman Eric Poteet.

After the teller gave Gunn the money, he sat down on a couch inside the bank and started reading while everyone else evacuated, Poteet said in Thursday's online edition of the Austin American-Statesman.

Authorities closed off the area around the bank, which is only a half-block from the police station, until Gunn surrendered, Austin television station KVUE reported.

Gunn never used a weapon, and no one was injured, police said.

(A snide comment probably no one will get).

Sidney, Nebraska:

A judge said a 5-foot-1 man convicted of sexually assaulting a child was too small to survive in prison, and gave him 10 years of probation instead.

His crimes deserved a long sentence, District Judge Kristine Cecava said, but she worried that Richard W. Thompson, 50, would be especially imperiled by prison dangers.

"You are a sex offender, and you did it to a child," she said.

But, she said, "That doesn't make you a hunter. You do not fit in that category."

I don't like to use this kind of language, but...bullshit.

Throw him in prison and let him learn what it's like to be the smallest, weakest, and most helpless person for a change.  The punishment should fit the crime.

And then the judge says:

"I truly hope that my bet on you being OK out in society is not misplaced."

And when it is misplaced, who is going to be the one to pay the price?

Philadelphia Inquirer:

As police in Philadelphia struggle to stop a scourge of shootings, some New Jersey engineers say they are closing in on a 'smart' solution: a gun that can be fired only by its owner.

The prototype, developed at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, has pressure sensors embedded in the gun handle that recognize a person's unique grip.

The team says a commercial model is up to five years away, but if it works, it will trigger a singular - and controversial - state law. Within three years, all handguns sold in New Jersey would have to be personalized, with this or some other recognition technology.

Michael Recce, who dreamed up the grip-recognition concept in 1999, said the only obstacles are time and money.

'It's an engineering problem, not a scientific problem,' he said.

However long it takes, it's safe to say the university has embarked on a product-development quest like no other - wading into a contentious issue on the fault line between red and blue America.

Various smart-gun efforts have flamed out in the past, amid vocal skepticism by the National Rifle Association. Many gun owners chafe at the notion of any restrictions on their Second Amendment right to bear arms, and warn that any such modifications would make guns more expensive.

Gun-control advocates, meanwhile, are split, with some warning that personalized firearms would give owners a false sense of security.

Most see New Jersey's 2002 law as a commonsense safety measure, but they are starting to run out of patience.

'These guns should have been developed 20 years ago,' said Bryan Miller, executive director of Ceasefire New Jersey.

Duke University economist Philip J. Cook estimates that if all handguns were personalized, more than 4,000 lives would be saved each year from fewer murders, accidents and teen suicides.

Though the New Jersey law exempts law enforcement, police might also benefit from the technology. According to FBI statistics, as many as one in six officers killed each year is slain with his or her weapon.

And there's the punch line.  Of course law enforcement is exempt.  We all know they're the only ones never to have any firearms-related mishaps.

Some changes to the blog tonight.  There's a couple of new filthy lucre items in the sidebar.  I'm trying to stick with things that are appropriate for the general topic of this blog.

New links and banners are prominently displayed in the header because they don't fit well in the sidebar.  They will stay there for sure through Memorial Day.  These are worthy causes that I don't get any monetary gain from, and in fact have donated to.  Please check out the Texas Military Families Foundation and donate if you can.

We hit one of those lulls at my place of employment and are out of work until at least June 1 (I didn't go in today, either).  Possibly even up to June 5.  I'm looking for a new job, although these occasional lulls are way down the list of reasons.  This is the longest downtime we've had in well over a year.

And I hope to take the kids out for some .22 shooting this weekend.

So in a few days I'll be posting my "top stats" for May.  Most readers probably won't care about it, but sometimes things turn up that are kind of fascinating.

I'll just make an early mention that my post from last March about the Walther P-22 is going to break 1,000 page views today (that's all page views from March through May combined).  However, I think it's going to be unseated as the top post for the month of May.  We'll see.

My gun reviews seem to have the most staying power and popularity of anything I do.  I guess I should do more of them.

The jury convicted him anyway, but this was his attorney's argument:

Mr. Lee's attorney, Mike Garrett, said Mr. Lee's actions were in self-defense. He said Mr. Lee went to the Cook Street home to confront his cousin about marijuana taken from Mr. Lee's car, but that he didn't intend to kill him.

"If Mr. Lee planned to go in there and harm Mr. Butts, why didn't he have a bullet in the chamber?" Mr. Garrett said in closing arguments Wednesday. The gun's safety switch "was in the safe position," he said.

And yet...

Police said Mr. Lee shot his 30-year-old cousin, Dexter Butts, also of Harlem, in the hip Jan. 3, 2005, at a friend's home in the 100 block of Cook Street after an argument.

Mr. Butts was taken to Medical College of Georgia Hospital, where he died because the bullet severed his femoral artery.

Like I said, he was convicted anyway, and sentenced to life in prison.  The attorney apparently thought the jury were all stupid.  He should be thrown off the bench for such a ludicrous argument.

I have discovered that someone thinks this blog is "cute".

That is not the description I would have preferred, but I guess it's better than the last time.

And on this topic, I think I might try running some ads or something and see if I can make just enough to defray the blog costs.  Any suggestions or warnings are welcome.