Until this week, Utah had 24 state symbols, from tree (the blue spruce) to insect (the honeybee) to even cooking pot (the Dutch oven).
Now it’s added an official state firearm — the John M. Browning-designed M1911 pistol, becoming the first state in the nation to have one, according to the state legislator who sponsored the law.

Gov. Gary Herbert signed the new symbol into law this week, making Utah the first state to do such a thing.  How cool is that!?!!

Pennsylvania lawmakers apparently tried this before, but sadly the measure eventually failed. Maybe they can try again this year, considering the change of it’s political colors in 2010.

Bill would require all S.D. citizens to buy a gun

Five South Dakota lawmakers have introduced legislation that would require any adult 21 or older to buy a firearm “sufficient to provide for their ordinary self-defense.”

The bill, which would take effect Jan. 1, 2012, would give people six months to acquire a firearm after turning 21. The provision does not apply to people who are barred from owning a firearm.

Nor does the measure specify what type of firearm. Instead, residents would pick one “suitable to their temperament, physical capacity, and preference.”

The measure is known as an act “to provide for an individual mandate to adult citizens to provide for the self defense of themselves and others.”

Rep. Hal Wick, R-Sioux Falls, is sponsoring the bill and knows it will be killed. But he said he is introducing it to prove a point that the federal health care reform mandate passed last year is unconstitutional.

“Do I or the other cosponsors believe that the State of South Dakota can require citizens to buy firearms? Of course not. But at the same time, we do not believe the federal government can order every citizen to buy health insurance,” he said.

Woman uses gun to scare off robber at Izzy’s in Hazel Dell

h/t – Anything about guns, on Facebook.

Just a shame I can’t vote in AZ. :-/

Code Monkey can, though!

From Topless Robot, The RPC (Rocket Propelled Chainsaw):

The rocket chainsaw launcher. Tell me it wouldn’t be worth getting eaten alive by the living dead if you got to fire this thing into a crowd of them first. Hell, I’d be too busy cackling with delight to reload even if I had any extra ammo. Thanks to everyone who sent in the tip.

How cool is that!!?!

Texas Gov. Perry Shoots Coyote During Jog
Tuesday, 27 Apr 2010 06:55 PM

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has a message for wily coyotes out there: Don’t mess with my dog.

Perry says he needed just one shot from his laser-sighted pistol to take down a coyote that was menacing his dog during an early morning jog in an undeveloped area near Austin.

Perry told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he sometimes carries his pistol, loaded with hollow-point bullets, when he jogs on trails because he’s scared of snakes. He’d also seen coyotes in that area.

When the coyote came out of the brush toward his daughter’s Labrador retriever puppy on a February jog, he charged it and shot it with his .380 Ruger pistol.

Perry’s warning: “Don’t attack my dog or you might get shot … if you’re a coyote.”

The man just makes me Texas-proud!  (your humble blog host is a native son)

So the first thing I see when I step out of the plane into the terminal in Las Vegas was a bunch of slot machines… shocker, right?    and then this ad…. Love it!!

Never shot a full-auto Tommy gun, I’m so gonna have to do that! Might have to get a suit, bowler hat and cigar and do it Winston Churchill style, though. heh.

TABOR CITY, N.C.  — A sheriff says a North Carolina state senator shot one of two intruders at his home and hospital officials say the man is in fair condition.

Multiple media outlets reported that Columbus County Sheriff Chris Batten said that 74-year-old Sen. R.C. Soles of Tabor City shot Kyle Blackburn late Sunday afternoon.

A spokeswoman at Loris Community Hospital in South Carolina said Monday that Blackburn was in fair condition.

Batten says the shooting occurred when two men went to the senator’s house and tried to kick in his front door. No charges have been filed.

The sheriff’s office said the State Bureau of Investigation was handling the case. A call to an agency spokeswoman was not immediately returned. There was no answer at a number listed for Soles’ home.

The Democrat has been in the Senate 32 years.

Long time Anti-Gun Advocate State Senator R.C. Soles, 74, shot one of two intruders at his home just outside Tabor City, N.C. about 5 p.m. Sunday, the prosecutor for the politician’s home county said.

The victim, Kyle Blackburn, was taken to a South Carolina hospital, but the injuries were not reported to be life-threatening, according to Rex Gore, district attorney for Columbus, Bladen and Brunswick counties…

The State Bureau of Investigation and Columbus County Sheriff’s Department are investigating the shooting, Gore said. Soles, who was not arrested, declined to discuss the incident Sunday evening.

“I am not in a position to talk to you,” Soles said by telephone. “I’m right in the middle of an investigation.”

The Senator, who has made a career of being against gun ownership for the general public, didn’t hesitate to defend himself with his own gun when he believed he was in immediate danger and he was the victim.

In typical hypocritical liberal fashion, the “Do As I Say And Not As I Do” Anti-Gun Activist Lawmaker picked up his gun and took action in what apparently was a self-defense shooting. Why hypocritical you may ask? It is because his long legislative record shows that the actions that he took to protect his family, his own response to a dangerous life threatening situation, are actions that he feels ordinary citizens should not have if they were faced with an identical situation.

It has prompted some to ask if the Senator believes his life and personal safety is more valuable than yours or mine.
But, this is to be expected from those who believe they can run our lives, raise our kids, and protect our families better than we can.