The Wandering Minstrel

I give you the PivotShot.

As a general rule, I’ve found any time someone begins a sentence with ‘Rest assured,’ they may as well be holding up their middle finger.

David Codrea — The War On Guns.

Read why he said that.

Mark Wahlberg and Danny Glover star in this action-packed thriller about a former Marine Corps sniper who leaves the military after a mission goes bad. After he is reluctantly pressed back into service, he is double-crossed again. With two bullets in him and the subject of a nationwide manhunt, The sniper begins his revenge, which will take down the most powerful people in the country.

I usually don’t get DVDs with Glover in them, but I had to make an exception for this one. Besides, Glover is the bad guy and the sniper gets his revenge.

Two thumbs up.

Bob Lee Swagger (Wahlberg), one of the world’s great marksmen and the son of a Congressional Medal of Honoree, is a loner living in the Rockies. He’s left the military, having been hung out to dry in a secret Ethiopian mission a few years before, when he’s recruited by a lisping colonel (Glover) to help find a way that the President of the US might be assassinated in one of three cities in the next two weeks. He does his work, but the shot is fired notwithstanding and Bob Lee is quickly the fall guy: wounded and hunted by thousands, he goes to ground and, aided by two unlikely allies, searches for the truth and for those who double-crossed him. All roads lead back to Ethiopia.

There was this interesting observation about the weapon used to fire at a helicopter in one of the scenes:

When Bob Lee is shooting at the helicopter with the M82 he manually cycles the bolt after every shot. Since the M82 is a semi automatic and is supposed to cycle itself this is often cited as a goof/factual error. In actuality he was firing blanks in a real (i.e. not a prop gun) –- a Barrett M82/M107. Because it’s an unaltered gun, the blanks aren’t powerful enough to cycle the action fully, so he had to manually cycle the gun after each shot.

Credit IMDB for the quoted content. Credit Amazon.com for the DVD jacket image.

MSNBC, the ratings cellar-dweller of network news outlets, parades a lineup of the most obtuse commentators - perhaps the worst of which is Chris Matthews. If the man is not completely ignorant, why would he make this remark?

“I want to see people disarmed. I want people disarmed in our major cities. How’s that for a plan? I don’t think we should all be armed, and I don’t think more guns is the answer. I think it’s wacky to say that the solution to armed robbery and killing in our streets in big cities is to put more arms in the streets.”

C’mon over to my house, Chris, and disarm me. Use force - break a window - yeah that would be good.

Mark Finkelstein, a NewsBusters contributing editor and host of Right Angle, wrote a short piece about Matthews’ obtuse remarks:

Matthews Machine-Guns 2nd Amendment: ‘I Want People Disarmed’

Living in the DC area, Chris Matthews has surely been stuck in traffic more than once behind someone sporting the classic NRA bumper sticker: “If Guns Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Guns.” Was Chris was listening too intently to NPR to consider the the truth of that pithy aphorism? You might think so, considering his anti-gun rant that seemed to assume that criminals, rather than law-abiding citizens, will obey restrictions on gun ownership.

On this evening’s Hardball, riffing off Mitt Romney’s Second Amendment defense during last night’s GOP debate, Chris took aim at National Review’s Deroy Murdock, a Giuliani backer.

I don’t know much about Bush nominee for BATFE Chief, Michael J. Sullivan, but it makes me nervous when an enemy of the second amendment, like Kerry, is for a speedy confirmation. Kerry has an F-rating from the NRA.

From the AP:

Bush’s choice to lead Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives seeks confirmation

Supporters of President Bush’s pick to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are renewing efforts to persuade Idaho’s Republican senators to drop their opposition.

Image: Michael J. Sullivan

The nomination of Michael J. Sullivan, the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, has been in limbo since mid-December when Sens. Larry Craig and Mike Crapo issued separate “holds,” a procedural move that blocks the Senate from considering a nominee. They cited concerns that the ATF has become overly aggressive in enforcing gun laws.

Sullivan met with Crapo and Craig before Congress adjourned in December to try to address their concerns. Lindsay Nothern, a spokesman for Crapo, said the senator has yet to receive answers from Sullivan to some of his questions. Craig and Crapo have sent follow-up questions and are awaiting responses, said Dan Whiting, a spokesman for Craig.

“We’ll continue to work with the Senate to address any of their issues or concerns,” Sullivan said Wednesday in Boston.

With Congress back from its holiday recess, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., reiterated his call for Craig and Crapo to back down, saying Sullivan deserved swift Senate confirmation.

“He’s the farthest thing from an ideologue that you could imagine,” Kerry said. “I share with the administration real concern that a decent and professional law enforcement officer’s nomination is in jeopardy.”

Hat Tip NRA-ILA.