Looks like a smart move to me.  She's the governor of Alaska, has NRA cred, offers the Drill Here, Drill Now perspective from someone actually living in Alaska who may be able to moderate McCain's position on ANWR, and will be very tempting to Hillary-feminist voters.  She's young, attractive, and has a reputation for "maverick" ethical reform that matches McCain's without McCain's RINO issue.  Obama can't attack her for her "youth and inexperience" because Obama's only two years older than Palin and actually has less executive experience.

Picking Palin is an unconventional tactic.  It exposes Obama's selection of Joe Biden as evidence that while we may "hope" for "change", in an Obama administration we'd just be getting more of the same socialism.

Plus she can probably beat Obama at basketball.

Beldar's been flogging Palin for a while.  I bet he's tickled.

SayUncle pointed to a gun safety class in school.  On its face I don't see anything to complain about, aside perhaps from the scary photo of a kid brandishing a fake gun.  But near the bottom of the article was this tidbit:

During the 30-minute program, students learned safety tips about guns and what to do if they find a firearm. A short video featuring Eddie Eagle, the Germantown police fire safety mascot, was also shown.

For those who don't know, Eddie Eagle is the National Rifle Association's gun-safety mascot.  Now for all I know, maybe the local police and fire safety mascot is also an eagle named Eddie... but I think the odds are pretty low.

I guess the reporter is so fixated on the idea that the evil NRA doesn't care about the safety of the children that he ignores actual evidence to the contrary.  It would probably do him good to actually watch the video.

That's the bill for the Heller case, according to ScotusBlog.  That's a big number and it should put into perspective a lot of the people eager to take whatever random criminal defendent happens to be in trouble with the law all the way to the Supreme Court.  Do you think your average upstanding citizen wrongfully accused can afford to spend nearly 4 million dollars defending the 2nd Amendment?  No.  Do you think that Heller would have won with second-rate lawyers constrained by funding?  Possibly -- but I wouldn't like the odds.

The anti-gun side will almost by definition have the force and funding of government behind it.  That means we'll be at a disadvantage in court unless we carefully pick the cases we champion.  That's why we have cases filed in Chicago and California challenging the gun control laws there.  There are organizations and individuals backing those lawsuits that can fund them all the way to the Supreme Court, using carefully crafted cases to attack the foundational flaws in gun control laws. 

... about a hunter who checked into a hotel with his firearm (securely cased and unloaded) and was arrested because Democrats with a security detail happened to be staying at the hotel at the same time.  I found it from Bitter.  The full story from here or here.

This should be really worrisome.  Simplying staying with a firearm at the same hotel as someone with a bodyguard is not cause for suspicion, much less arrest.  And the hotel clerk called the police based only on seeing a rifle case.  So far, it sounds like the man was arrested while police investigate his explanation, and they may charge him with unlawfully carrying two handguns in his luggage.  The fact is, he doesn't need an explanation for lawfully carrying firearms in the normal course of his business. 

This is a simple case of overreaction, and it should concern anyone who has ever considered travelling with a firearm, whether for an African safari or just staying a few nights in a hunting lodge.  There's no way to predict whether you'll be sharing your hotel with a celebrity or politician, after all.

If they don't charge him after investigating his explanation, I wonder if he has a case for false arrest?

UPDATE: Note that this fellow isn't the only one who got arrested with firearms around the convention.  The other group of people are much less sympathetic.  I may not like Obama as a candidate but he needs to be defeated with the ballot box.  The struggle for Liberty is one of hearts and minds.

... does the 2nd Amendment cover these?

"To have somebody that I consider a friend, have been with dozens of times, shared meals with, treated as a friend, to have her be an employee, a subcontracted spy for the NRA, is just mind-boggling. It's so venal," Miller said. "In the battle of ideas with the gun lobby, we're at a constant disadvantage because we're honest."

From a story about the NRA's alleged "spy" within gun control organizations.  I don't think that "honest" means what Miller thinks it means.  Why?  Well, let's plug in the wayback machine and take a look at what the Violence Policy Center has to say about their "assault weapons" strategy:

Assault weapons -- just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms -- are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons -- anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun -- can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.

Honest, hmm?  Right.

Some of you may have heard about a juror who was dismissed from his jury for asking the judge to specify where in the Constitution the federal government's authority to ban drugs was.  (Background at the Volokh Conspiracy) The judge produced a 40-page memorandum explaining his decision to strike that juror from the jury after deliberations have begun.  The juror doesn't get quite the same platform but still tells his side of the story.

It's shameful that the long and mostly proud tradition of jury nullification as a check on government abuse has been reduced to the point where a juror must lie about his reasons for refusing to convict in order for his decision to stand. 

Jury nullification has never been the easiest right to exercise.  The case from which the principle was derived required the jurors to endure lengthy imprisonment during their "deliberations" before the government accepted their verdict.  In this case the government didn't even have to do that; they simply swapped in an alternate juror who rendered the approved verdict.

The defendent in this case should already be writing his appeal.  And we had best hope he wins, however disreputable he may be as an individual.  Otherwise jury nullification as a practical restraint on government power is in dire jeopardy.

SaysUncle linked to a thoughtful piece on the nexus between police abuse and overregulation.  "Impossible missions" to impose the will of a slim majority upon a large minority are doomed to failure.  Prohibition and the war on online gambling are cited as examples -- as is the possibility of a true "war on guns" looking more like a low-grade civil war than law enforcement.  In light of the recent controversy over Mike Vanderboegh's letter, I'd like to use this article as an example of how to do it right.  We're a long way from nationwide "gun prohibition" and it's important to make that clear.  

... over at The Smallest Minority.  The police did an armed raid on a Maryland gun owner merely because he bought ammunition in a caliber that he is not registered as owning a weapon for.  This is, quite simply, harrassment -- and every single gun control policy is designed to enable exactly this sort of bullshit.  To make gun owners vulnerable to intimidation tactics.  To make them question the legal risk of owning a gun.  To discourage where they cannot, yet, prohibit. 

Don't they have anything better to do -- like chasing real criminals?

The person this happened to needs to find a lawyer and sue.  We have to make it expensive for the police to pull these police-state stunts.

Sure, they passed laws about this a while ago.  Handguns are verboten in Australia.  But there are still some pretty wild parts of the country, and when you put a human out in the wilderness, they need tools to survive.  But the government is so sure of their gun-banning policies that they will put lives at risk by confiscating handguns from people who need them.

People in that situation know their needs better than the government does, and they won't turn in their guns just for the asking.

This is why we fight registration laws.  When you have such a law, it just gives the government a list of who has a gun they can confiscate.