While there are many things that I miss about living in New England – I am certainly not missing the idiotic “anti-crime” measures that the Massachusetts legislature attempts to pull off. I’m quite happy about the approach that the Minnesota legislature usually chooses to take.

I replied – “Because it’s the outcome that I had always hoped for – and the one that I expected to see…”

I’ve been an advocate of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms since the day that I read the Bill of Rights and truly felt as if I understood what it meant – I feel just as strongly about the other amendments and the rest of the Constitution as well.

Prior to 9/11, I was nearly a single issue voter – that issue was gun control. A candidate’s stance on this issue tended to embody for me what I perceived to be that candidate’s view on most of the Constitution – even though that wasn’t quite true in most of the cases.

Now that the core issue is decided, I’m looking forward to the next 20 years of court decisions dealing with individual and specific issues related to this ruling.

Oh, and to all of you who I’ve argued this issue with who were on the other side of the issue – I told you so.

Presented with a smile, but without comment…

When arson investigators in Houston needed help restoring a damaged surveillance tape to identify suspects in a fatal fire, they turned first to local experts and then to NASA. With no luck there, investigators appealed to the owner of one of the most advanced crime labs in the country: Target Corp.

Target experts fixed the tape and Houston authorities arrested their suspects, who were convicted. It was all in a day’s work for Target in its large and growing role as a high-tech partner to law enforcement agencies.

In the past few years, the retailer has taken a lead role in teaching government agencies how to fight crime by applying state-of-the-art technology used in its 1,400 stores. Target’s effort has touched local, state, federal and international agencies.

Besides running its forensics lab in Minneapolis, Target has helped coordinate national undercover investigations and worked with customs agencies on ways to make sure imported cargo is coming from reputable sources or hasn’t been tampered with. It has contributed money for prosecutor positions to combat repeat criminals, provided local police with remote-controlled video surveillance systems, and linked police and business radio systems to beef up neighborhood foot patrols in parts of several major cities. It has given management training to FBI and police leaders, and linked city, county and state databases to keep track of repeat offenders.

A man wanted in the slaying of a Pennsylvania couple and the possible abduction of their 14-year-old daughter fled from Indiana state troopers at speeds in excess of 90 mph, running other cars off a two-lane highway before he crashed and was captured today, police said.

And while I regret that they were wrong, they did exactly the right thing.

Smash and others have posted of this as well. There’s no option other than to shoot them in the head.

We can live in a fantasy world if we want – we can bury our heads in the sand like an Ostrich, or we can get serious about thinking about some of the issues we are going to face in the coming years.

Suicide bombers will be one of them.

At the time I took a DHS workshop earlier this year on suicide bombers, only one US police department had a use of force policy that allowed them to shoot a suspected suicide bomber. The United States Capitol Police.

Like it or not, it’s only a matter of time before we see someone participate in a suicide bombing here in the United States.. and we’d better be prepared for it – and the rapid paradigm changes that it will bring about in terms of law enforcement and private security.

PERHAPS THIS IS BECAUSE IT WAS ALWAYS A CROCK, but The New York Times notices that ending the assault weapons ban didn’t matter: Despite dire predictions that the streets would be awash in military-style guns, the expiration of the decade-long assault weapons ban last September has not set off a…

It’s always been a crock. As a criminal justice major in college, I knew it to be a crock then. It’s a crock now.

Ever read the Second Amendment? Gun control is not the way to go. NYC had major drops in crime without needing additional gun control.

It can be done.

So, based on that statement alone, in most years, I would not support Kerry simply because of comments like this:

Kerry said renewing the assault weapons ban would not interfere with the Second Amendment rights of gun owners.

Idiot.

Please have him go back and read the Second Amendment again.

Ten years after it was born out of the carnage of three California mass shootings, the federal assault weapons ban is fading out of existence Monday.

This is a horrible law – born out of emotion and reactionary thought rather than any criminological theory.

I am glad to see that it’s gone.

Now, on to more important things…

Thousands of cyclists rode through the streets of Manhattan last night in an anti-Republican, pro-environment display of bike power that ended in more than 100 arrests by the police after the ride blocked some streets.

Despite tension over police warnings to obey traffic laws against blocking traffic and running red lights, the cyclists – numbering 5,000, the police say – did just that in a meandering course that started at Union Square and wound its way to the West Side, Central Park, Midtown and the East Village.

As of 11 p.m., Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said that officers were still processing people who were detained, but that he expected more than 100 people to face charges, mainly for disorderly conduct.

The arrests, two days before the convention starts, seemed to herald a busy period for the police, who must patrol a stream of demonstrations large and small, several each day. The police on Thursday made 22-convention related arrests, more than three times the number during the entire Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Tomorrow is the huge anti-war march by United for Peace and Justice.

May we live in interesting times….