GUN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA planning a protest at Joe Manchin’s office.

THE PROBLEM, HOWARD, IS THAT WE DON’T TRUST YOU GUYS. And with reason. Which is why you can lead national bullying, but not a national debate.

UPDATE: Othering: MSNBC Host Chuck Todd on gun rights: “That’s a different America.” It’s the one the oikophobes hate.

NOW UNDERWAY: The 48 Hour Electronics Overstock Event.

RACISM: After Tim Scott Announcement – Cries of “Token Black” and “House Negro” Begin.

RESPONDING: Texas Gun Store Owner Offers Teachers Discount After Newtown Shooting.

DEATH THREATS AGAINST NRA ON TWITTER: “There is a certain irony in the fact that many liberals, purporting to be devastated by the Sandy Hook murders, are responding by calling for the murder of the National Rifle Association’s 4.3 million members. Well, to be fair, some of them just want to kill the organization’s officers.”

LOWER EDUCATION UPDATE: Teachers and the License Raj. “Requiring prospective teachers to take a rigorous ‘bar exam,’ as union chief Randi Weingarten proposes, is the wrong way to recruit and assess teachers.” Insiders always want barriers to entry.

JACOB SULLUM: How Do We Know an ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban Would Not Have Stopped Adam Lanza? Because It Didn’t. “The term assault weapon was invented by the anti-gun lobby as a way of blurring the distinction between military-style semiautomatics, which fire once per trigger pull, and selective-fire assault rifles, which can be set to fire continuously (a distinction that President Obama, who wants to bring back the ‘assault weapon’ ban, either does not grasp or deliberately obscures). Since that neologism has no meaning independent of the laws that define it, there is little sense in saying the laws should be changed to cover more ‘assault weapons.’ Guns are not ‘assault weapons’ until legislators arbitrarily decide they are.”

AT AMAZON, gift cards galore! You can send ’em electronically, but you can also get gift boxes and free one-day shipping.

Also, Top Holiday Deals in Toys & Games. With fresh “lightning deals” every hour.

CONVENIENTLY POST-ELECTION: U.S. panel delivers report assessing blame for Benghazi attack. It’s a State Department report on. . . the State Department, but it may contain something useful.

ST. LOUIS: County Police Chief Recommends Arming School Personnel.

HOW THE INTERNET affects people’s sex lives. Or does it, really?

WHILE OBAMA LECTURES US ON RESPONSIBILITY REGARDING GUNS: Brian Terry family sues ATF officials in Fast and Furious.

The family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is suing seven government employees and a gun shop and its owner for negligence and wrongful death.

The 72-page lawsuit filed last week claims the defendants “created, organized, implemented and/or participated in a plan – code named ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ – to facilitate the distribution of

dangerous firearms to violent criminals” and that they “knew or should have known that their actions would cause substantial injuries, significant harm, and even death to Mexican and American civilians and law enforcement, but were recklessly indifferent to the consequence of their actions.”

How about we start this “responsible gun ownership” stuff at the top?

SEEN ON FACEBOOK:

“What is the gun community going to do about this tragedy?”

“I dunno. What is the gay community going to do about Penn State?”

Ouch. But a fair response to unfair stigmatization. With the gay community, everyone would complain about smearing millions for the deviant and predatory behavior of a few.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse gets it.

Plus, from Dr. Weevil:

Wait, is garage mahal actually so stupid that he can fail to see a reductio ad absurdum right in front of his nose?

I’ll try once more to explain it.

InstaPundit thinks that it would be absurd and ridiculous to blame all gays for the minuscule percentage of gays who are serial rapists. His whole point depends on us seeing just how ridiculous that would be. He is trying to get morons like AF and garage mahal to understand that is equally ridiculous to blame all gun-owners for the minuscule percentage of gun-owners who commit mass murders. But some lefties are so in love with the idea of calling all gun-owners and NRA members and Republicans mass-murderers that they are unable to understand a simple analogical reductio ad absurdum.

Their hatred has overwhelmed whatever reason they possess. Which, on the evidence, was never that much.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More:

Which clearly shows who the real bigots are. The right did not blame homosexuality for Penn State, but the left cannot resist its bigotry against gun owning citizens defending their rights – rights guaranteed clearly in the text for 2 centuries.

It’s a bigotry borne of oikophobia.

IF I WERE IN CONGRESS, I’D INTRODUCE THIS JUST FOR FUN: Reader Jim Schuler writes: “What if we completely banned guns on all Federal grounds in DC? No one could have them, at all, no exceptions. Think of how safe and secure all our elected officials would feel in knowing that not even a police officer or secret service agent could get a gun near them!”

TODD ZYWICKI: Regulatory Decadence And Dodd-Frank. A review of David Skeel’s The New Financial Deal.

ENDING THE POLITICAL CONFLICT OVER CONTRACEPTION by making birth control non-prescription. In the abstract, I’d oppose this on medical grounds as I think the dangers of hormonal birth control — which is what he’s really talking about here — are underappreciated. But given that most doctors pass out birth control pills without any particular medical supervision, I think that in the real world the medical drawbacks of this approach are comparatively minor, and the benefits significant.

CAREER/RELATIONSHIP ADVICE: “There are very few jobs that are truly just taking care of people. And most of them pay very poorly, if at all. So you may as well do it for your own family, where the pay is not so important. It’s ridiculous that we don’t think of taking care of a family as a career path. That’s a good path for some people. Just like earning a shit-load of money is a good career path for other people. In fact, those two types of people should marry each other.”

WHY ARE SO MANY PEOPLE hating on SantaCon?

#NARRATIVE: Washington Post Fact Checker: No evidence right-to-carry laws increase crime. But Glenn Kessler still weasels.

SCIENCE: Women’s Idea of the Perfect Man Changes Drastically as They Age, Survey Says.

AT AMAZON, Top Holiday Deals in Camera, Photo & Video.

WHY JAPAN IS Obsessed With Kentucky Fried Chicken On Christmas.

GIRL TALK: I’m Paid Less Because I’m A Woman, But It’s Mostly My Fault:

A man is going to come home with the real bacon. Anything I did was just like extra credit.

I didn’t realize I unconsciously thought these things until I was a 28-year-old woman.

“You haven’t played your career out to its full potential because you didn’t have the stress of making as much money as possible,” my friend told me.

I rolled my eyes, but I realized he was right. First of all, it’s true that being a man who feels wholly responsible for providing for a family is as stressful as it is liberating. My father was fortunate, yet not. I’m sure he fought for raises twice as hard as I have because he really fucking had to. But I don’t have a wife and daughter, so all these years, when I have gone into work it has been with the understanding that I am so grateful to have a job at all, so excited to be in a workplace. I am less concerned with where my career is going or what my paycheck is.

The need to support a family focuses the mind wonderfully.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Optimal Bond Loads In Designing Molecular Machines.