I'm Baaaaack!

And suffering from severe Internet withdrawal. I'm trying to catch up on all my reading, and I have a serious jones to write something long and pithy, but that will have to wait until I get my honeydo's done.

(Hey, if Nigel can do it, so can I.)

In the mean time, I can strongly recommend that you go read The Real Moral of the Story over at Feces Flinging Monkey.

Acidman survived his bionic, uh, appendage surgery and has been posting profligately - entertaining, as usual.

Kim du Toit's Reader Mail - specifically the letter from "refugee," is outstanding. I'll hopefully have a post up concerning that letter soon.

Steven Den Beste writes about the UN's report that America is nearing a 1:1 ratio of guns per capita. I wanted to comment, but he and Kim du Toit and Jeff at Alphecca have done a bang-up job. Hmm. Maybe I'll work it into my "long and pithy" piece.

Publicola has a great post and a link to a story about 5th grader's deciding whether guns in schools were a good thing or not. He's also got a pretty withering comment about a JoinTogether press release concerning the UN's Small Arms Agreement.

And finally, for now, Hell in a Handbasket has an excellent post up on "Why we shoot" that was linked to by several people. That's a must-read. Money quote:

Every so often you see an item in the newspaper about some nutbag who shoots up a bunch of innocent and unarmed people. Talk to someone like me and they'll tell you that they wish they had been there. We wish we were in the same room with the nutter, the guy who has a weapon and is desperate to hurt people.

By any reasonable criteria this is completely insane. We're fantasizing about putting ourselves in harm's way, about allowing someone to shoot at us! This is hardly a sound strategy to a long and healthy life.

This isn't because we want to kill someone and the nutbag shooter provides a chance to do it in a legal way. Instead we want to stop the violence before some innocent person dies.

Oh, one more thing: Jack over at The Commentary has responded with a textbook example of the "don't trust my fellow man" argument. That's going to rate a response soon, too.

More later. I promise!