MIKE BLOOMBERG’S ANTI-GUN FRIENDS SEEM A SHADY LOT: Anti-Gun Pennsylvania Mayor Drunkenly Seeks Oral Sex — at Gunpoint. “According to the man, Schiliro, who was intoxicated, asked repeatedly whether he could perform oral sex on him. . . . According to court records, Schiliro waved three handguns during the encounter.” He was a member of Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns group, many of whom seem to have had problems with the law.

In fact, Mayors Against Illegal Guns members are 45 times more likely to commit crimes than Florida permit holders. And in view of other recent developments, that number may be on the low side. . . .

BLUE ON BLUE: Mayor Bloomberg Tees Off, Hints Gov. Cuomo Partly To Blame For Albany Circus: Hizzoner Says Corruption Born From Desire To Rush Bills Through Legislature.

Too rich. But then, maybe Mikey has been reading my columns.

RICH LOWRY: The Great Gun-Control Fizzle.

Related: WaPo: NRA tactics erode post-Newtown support for gun-control measures. Hey, I thought the NRA was a bunch of washed-up, impotent old white men. But the truth is that the NRA’s views were always closer to the public’s than the gun-controllers’ were. Also — and there’s a lesson in this — they weren’t afraid to fight the media spin head-on.

NEWS OF THE OBVIOUS: MSNBC Is Kindergarten for Bored, Angry Unemployed People.

PAPER TIGRESS: Why Hillary Is Less Inevitable Than You Think. I can remember the last time she was inevitable.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: How Mr. Selfridge Created The Modern Economy.

When the British drama “Mr. Selfridge” debuted on PBS this week, American viewers saw two things rarely on display in contemporary popular culture: a businessman hero and, more remarkably, a version of commercial history that includes not just manufacturing but shopping.

The show, which is also streamed on PBS.org, stars Jeremy Piven as Harry Gordon Selfridge, the American-born founder of the London department store. In the first episode, he arrives in 1909, determined to shake up U.K. retailing with the techniques that made him a success as a partner at Chicago’s Marshall Field’s: showmanship, tons of advertising, and displays that let customers easily handle the merchandise. In the second, he puts perfumes and powder on display right by the store’s front door and introduces an affordable house fragrance concocted with new chemical processes.

Ambitions that an American drama might treat as self- centered greed become, in a British context, a bold strike against class privilege. . . .

If these shows’ entrepreneurial heroes are unusual, it’s their focus on retailing that fills the real cultural lacuna. Not even Ayn Rand deigned to celebrate shopping. None of her heroes were department store magnates.

Yet like railroads and telegraphs, the department stores of the late 19th and early 20th century were socially and economically transformative institutions.

Very true. Read the whole thing.

AT AMAZON, the spring sale on Men’s Clothing.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Will Demographics Doom the Dems’ Demagoguery on Entitlements?

ACTUAL JOURNALISM: Jake Tapper: Shouldn’t Obama and Bloomberg maybe learn the basics about guns before trying to regulate them? “Such is the media’s groupthink on gun control that even minor skepticism of the sort Tapper displays here is news coming from a non-Fox cable outfit.”

MAYBE IT’S A MISTAKE TO FOCUS ON HOLLYWOOD WHEN TALKING ABOUT INFLUENCING THE CULTURE: “Duck Dynasty must make liberals’ heads explode. It is now the most popular ‘non-scripted’ show currently on television. Its Season 3 premiere had 8.6 million viewers and a massive 4.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which as you might know, is quite popular with the advertisers. At the same time, each episode ends with the entire family at the dinner table where they pray before eating.”

THIS SOUNDS A BIT CATTY, NO? “Let’s be clear, nobody looks like Harris at her age (48) without effort.”

Ann Althouse comments: “I can’t help but be reminded of how easily all the supposed feminists let Bill Clinton evade serious criticism.”

That was so obvious that even Maureen Dowd noticed when the Democratic Party, and its feminist wing, became little more than a “groper’s support group.”

PREPARING FOR THE APOCALYPSE: Getcher Roman Lorica Segmentata right here. My friends and I made these — hand-riveted — back when I was in high school. I wish I still had mine.

Also, “Battle Ready” chain mail. “This armor will protect the body from swords, knives, daggers, impacts, and projectiles. It is real and ready for combat.”

UPDATE: A reader emails: “I’d like to point out that the chainmail you linked to today is vastly overrated in protective capability. Those galvanized steel rings are butted, not riveted, so they’ll come apart under force. Additionally, any serious high-velocity projectile will just turn little wire rings like this into shrapnel. If you want chainmail with any sort of real protective capacity you’ll need low aspect ratio spring stainless rings or riveted rings, but no chainmail is bulletproof.”

Yes, traditional chainmail was riveted, which is what made it so labor-intensive. I remember talking to an armorer at a renaissance faire who told me he put about 1000 hours into a mail shirt.

JONAH GOLDBERG: Is Disability The New Welfare?

PHOTOS: 30 Incredible Once In A Lifetime Shots.

EMILY ESFAHANI SMITH: Find A Man, Graduate Tomorrow. “That is precisely why my mother’s advice five years ago stopped me in my tracks. If she, a strong, career-oriented feminist—who, with my dad, sacrificed a great deal for me to go to college—was telling me to pay more attention to my romantic life, then what did she know that I didn’t?”

The advice: “You’re in college. You’re at Dartmouth. There will never be a better time to meet someone. I’m sure there are many interesting boys around. If you don’t find one before you graduate, you might not find one at all—so start looking.”

GLOBAL WARMING: Was it just a beautiful dream after all? “I’ve grown old waiting for the promised global warming. I was 35 when predictions of a looming ice age were supplanted by warmmongering. Now I’m 68, and there’s still no sign of warmer weather. . . . A generation and a half into climate change, née global warming, you can’t point to a single place on earth where the weather is noticeably different from what it was in 1979.”

That’s not true. This year in Knoxville has been notably colder and yukkier than 1979.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 4 Brainiacs Every Woman Should Date. “If you’ve been passing over the nerds in your life, you may be missing out on The One.”

THOUGHTS ON HOW Colorado is flushing jobs for gun control.

Hey, Magpul, Outdoor Channel — and Beretta, who’s leaving Maryland for the same reason — head right on down to Tennessee. We want you, and our gun laws are civilized.

UPDATE: Reader Mark Winburne suggests that Colt (Hartford, CT) and Sturm & Ruger (Southport, CT) might want to move to Tennessee, too. Works for me. Come on down!

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Don’t More Women Talk About Masturbation? I dunno, seems like these days they never shut up about it. Or maybe that’s just Jenny McCarthy.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: You Are a Terrible Investor and You Should Stop That. These days, I think “terrible investor” just means “not a crony or privy to insider information.”

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW (CONT’D): 3-D printer builds synthetic tissues.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Spring Outlet Event.

IT’S POTEMKIN VILLAGES ALL THE WAY DOWN: Democratic front group hyped as hunters by media in gun-control fight.

See also this piece by Mark Tapscott.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 24,000 U.S. Women Become Infertile Every Year From Undiagnosed STIs.

WOMEN: Powder your eggs for home storage! “Just add water and sperm – any romance should be provided separately. In future, women who want to safeguard their fertility may be able to store their eggs at home as a powder. To revive them for an attempt at having a baby, all they would need to do is empty the sachet, add water, fertilise with sperm and implant the embryo.”