BREAKING NEWS FROM 1155 B.C.: Scientists Confirm That Pharaoh Ramesses III Was Murdered. “According to the team’s report in the British Medical Journal, Pharaoh Ramesses III was likely killed by conspirators during an attempted coup around 1155 B.C., confirming reports found in an ancient text known as the Judicial Papyrus of Turin.”

MAYBE “RESPONSIBLE GUN OWNERSHIP” SHOULD START WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: ATF’s Personal Weapon Found At Mexican Beauty Queen Murder Scene. The agent also appears to have falsified several Form 4473s, the form used for background checks when purchasing guns. “‘Lying on a Form 4473 is a felony and can be punished by up to five years in prison,’ Grassley’s letter states. The Senator also points out that’s the same alleged violation that suspects in ATF’s Fast and Furious operation were arrested for.”

BOB OWENS: Flashback to 1994: The Assault Weapons Ban: How Silly Was It? Revisiting the comically incompetent law which President Obama wishes to reinstate. The ban was intended, and was received as, a statement of naked power by one American culture over another.

Related: David Steinberg: Air Marshals, Armed Teachers, and Gun-Free Zones: Are You Consistent?

I KNOW I HAVEN’T: Don’t get too excited about Professor Loomis. “Professor Loomis’ vivid tweets are not actionable threats. That is to say, they aren’t ‘true threats’ outside the protection of the First Amendment.”

That’s right. They’re just hate-filled “eliminationist rhetoric” of the sort that lefties are always accusing people on the right of, but seem to engage in rather a lot themselves. Not a firing offense, but certainly worthy of widespread mockery.

Related thoughts from Joshua Trevino: “One could hardly defend Loomis and his record on the merits. Nevertheless, one can note that this might not be, well, justice. My only interactions with the man revealed him to be offensive and somewhat dim: he loathes Texas, is a rather pedestrian academic-left radical, and seems to have problems moderating his tone online. These are bad things. (And, reversing the ideological direction, it is not wholly unlike myself.) But they are not the whole man: and they don’t rise to the level, in my book, of wanting to render him bereft and ruined. . . .He earned his opprobrium, but not his destruction.”

UPDATE: Badger Pundit writes: “Nice post on Loomis. Especially classy after the Crooked Timber profs accused you of being the ‘witch hunt’ ringleader. The Crooked Timber profs aren’t exactly open to explaining what the heck is the ACADEMIC FREEDOM interest they’re defending (as Loomis’s tweets were part of his private life, i.e., not related to his academic field.)”

Ringleader? I never even mentioned his name, and I came to the story after lots of other people. But I’m used to bogus charges from the Crooked Timber gang. Which is why I hadn’t seen that, since I no longer read them.

But hey, if you want to argue that “head on a stick” isn’t any sort of eliminationist rhetoric, well, duly noted. (But if it was just a metaphor, what about the subsequent reference to settling for imprisonment for life? Is that some colorful metaphor that I’ve somehow missed?) Anyway, I’m sure that if someone makes a similar statement about Barack Obama, the Crooked Timber folks will rush to defend the colorful metaphor involved. Though certainly Sarah Palin was pilloried for metaphors that were far less colorful.

UPDATE: Free speech academics rally around academic who wanted to shut down NRA free speech. “I don’t think Loomis should be fired, but that doesn’t mean he should be free from criticism. And he certainly is not a hero of anything. He’s just a guy who wanted to deprive others of the rights he claims for himself.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here: “Again, we see no attempt to silence; in fact, the ‘right-wing witch hunt’ arose from little more than (metaphorically) holding up a megaphone to Loomis’ existing speech.”

Plus, how Crooked Timber sanitized Loomis. “It turns out, by the way, that Crooked Timber also misled by omission. Everyone knows that the expression ‘head on a stick’ is a metaphor, and that is how Crooked Timber defended Loomis. But see here for some of his truly vile comments. Crooked Timber quoted none of these.””

WHY PEOPLE LIKE the AR-15. “Before the AR-15 rifle made its way onto the market gun owners needed to buy a different gun for each caliber and application. . . . With an AR-15, gun owners don’t need a qualified gunsmith to modify or customize their gun. The average shooter can order the parts online and perform the work themselves with little more than a screwdriver, a wrench and a hammer.”

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Also, markdowns on Duracell Coppertop Batteries. All sizes.

GALLUP: Americans Not So Jazzed About Gun Control. “Americans are most likely to say that an increased police presence at schools, increased government spending on mental health screening and treatment, and decreased depiction of gun violence in entertainment venues would be effective in preventing mass shootings at schools. Americans rate the potential effectiveness of a ban on assault and semi-automatic guns as fourth on a list of six actions Gallup asked about.”

21ST CENTURY HEALTH: Iodine Deficiency – An Old Epidemic Is Back. It doesn’t help to put iodine in salt, if people quit using salt.

SHEILA JACKSON LEE: Turn In Your Guns. Also, if you have a gun, you’re not “part of America.”

Related: Disgraceful: Obama Invokes Newtown Massacre to Pressure Republicans to Go Along with His Tax Hikes. Grace is not his strong suit.

THIS ISN’T HOW I EXPECTED THE 21ST CENTURY TO TURN OUT: J.J. Gould: Slavery’s Global Comeback. “Buying and selling people into forced labor is bigger than ever. . . . there are likely more slaves in the world today than there have been at any other time in human history. For some quick perspective on that point: Over the entire 350 years of the transatlantic slave trade, 13.5 million people were taken out of Africa, meaning there are twice as many enslaved right now as there had been in that whole 350-year span.”

JOE BIDEN IN 2008: If Obama “tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem.”

JOE MANCHIN WALKBACK: “I’m So Proud Of The NRA.” “West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who suggested earlier in the week that the time had come for some gun control restrictions, said on Wednesday that he’s ‘not supporting a ban on anything’ and he repeatedly defended and praised the NRA.” He’s been hearing from a lot of constituents.

IT’S SUNNY AND 60 IN KNOXVILLE TODAY. #WINNING! Down to -50C: Russians freeze to death as strongest-in-decades winter hits. “Russia is enduring its harshest winter in over 70 years, with temperatures plunging as low as -50 degrees Celsius. Dozens of people have already died, and almost 150 have been hospitalized. ­The country has not witnessed such a long cold spell since 1938, meteorologists said, with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees lower than the seasonal norm all over Russia.”

Hey, has Fallen Angels been translated into Russian?

READER GAIL RAMPKE EMAILS: “The problem with attacks on the NRA is that leftist politicians either don’t know (or pretend not to know) what the NRA actually *is*. This NRA member is a 60 year old female chemist. They never get that – that we’re not some insane, isolatable sub-set. We’re America.” America’s largest and oldest civil rights organization. Naturally, it’s going to be demonized by those who oppose civil rights.

UPDATE: Who’s buying guns now? Women and Democrats! The gun-control people are being washed away by a demographic tide.

#WARONWOMEN: “The party of Patrick Moran wants to keep women defenseless.” We need trash-can control.

PROTESTING religion in school.

It did start as a sex cult.

TRACY QUAN: Good cop, bad cop: the Clintons take sides on America’s drug war. “Now that governing is safely behind him, Clinton tells us how his policies have failed.”

VIDEO: Students’ Mistletoe Kissing Prank Makes for Adorable Christmas Fun.

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DOPPELGANGERS: Photographer creates amazing portraits of STRANGERS who look the double of each other. “At first glance, it’s an elegant set of portraits of twins – but look more closely and the secret is revealed. None of the individuals captured by photographer Francois Brunelle are related by blood, their faces just have strikingly similar characteristics.”

JUST A REMINDER: When you hear about how many murders the U.S. has, bear in mind that most of them are criminals killing other criminals. “The notion that these (murders) are random bolts of lightning, which is the commonly held image, is not the reality.”

TREASURY’S GM BUYBACK MEANS RED INK FOR TAXPAYERS. Well, that goes for most everything this administration touches. . . .

TOSHIO NISHI: The New Japanese Nationalism.

RON FOURNIER ON BENGHAZI: Obama, Clinton: Buck stops at your desks, no? According to a State Department spokesperson, Hillary was unable to comment as she was at the podiatrist’s having a corn filed down.