AND PROBABLY NOT BECAUSE HE WANTS BETTER PRICE ON A KIMBER 1911: Joe Scarborough Is Enraged That Gun Manufacturers Make Money.

THE TRUMP 2020 TRAIN GATHERS MOMENTUM: Black Lives Matter Students Shut Down the ACLU’s Campus Free Speech Event Because ‘Liberalism Is White Supremacy:’ “The revolution will not uphold the Constitution.”

It’s almost like they’re commie agitators, rather than peaceful civil rights supporters. But any students involved in this sort of thing should be suspended or expelled.

COVERING THE IMPORTANT STORIES: “Pauley Perrette confirmed she is leaving ‘NCIS.’ The 48-year-old confirmed rumors she is exiting the CBS series after 16 years. She played forensic scientist Abby Sciuto.”

“THREE UNITED STATES ARMY SPECIAL FORCES WERE KILLED AND TWO WERE WOUNDED ON WEDNESDAY IN AN AMBUSH IN NIGER while on a training mission with troops from that nation in northwestern Africa, American military officials said…All five American soldiers were Green Berets, said two United States military officials. The attack took place 120 miles north of Niamey, the capital of Niger, near the border with Mali, where militants with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, an affiliate of Al Qaeda, have conducted cross-border raids. Niger’s troops were also believed to have suffered casualties, but details were not immediately known.”

THE DAWN OF THE SPACE AGE: “The world changed profoundly sixty years ago today. On October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I into a low earth orbit, and the space age began. It was a huge propaganda coup for the USSR. Indeed it was nothing but a propaganda coup as Sputnik did no science at all. Its radio merely beeped about once a second, a signal specifically designed to be picked up by any ham radio operator. Still millions went out at night to watch it pass overhead during its brief life. Its radio ran out of battery power after three weeks, and it burned up on January 4th, 1958…But, along with the microprocessor, it created the world in which we now live.”

Read the whole thing.

LAS VEGAS STRIP SHOOTER TARGETED AVIATION FUEL TANKS, SOURCE SAYS: “The bullets left holes, but did not penetrate the two circular white tanks, sparing the nearby Route 91 Harvest country music festival from a potentially massive explosion, the source said Wednesday…Paddock, a 64-year-old Mesquite resident, had broken two windows in his 32nd-floor suite — one in line with the concert site and the other with a direct view of the fuel tanks, the source said. The bases of private aircraft operators are close to the tanks.”

Related: Vegas shooter must have had ‘help at some point’: authorities.

AT AMAZON, Gadgets From The Future.

HISTORY: Bump-Stock Device Received ATF Green Light During Obama Administration.

LAYERS OF EDITORS AND FACT-CHECKERS! CHECK OUT THE CORRECTION TO THIS POLITICO PIECE:

Other than that, the story was accurate. Well, probably not, actually, but . . .

INEZ FELTSCHER: Michelle Obama Says Conservative Women Don’t Have Their Own Voices: Imagining that women on the Right are mere sock puppets for their husbands, sons, and fathers is a crucial illusion for an ideology that has constructed a political paradigm entirely upon identity.

THE 21ST CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: Goat Yoga, Meet the Zoning Board.

Ayn Rand didn’t write The Return of the Primitive as a how-to guide.

JOHN RINGO: A Theory On Las Vegas.

WELL, 1-IN-2 WOMEN ARE ALREADY HAVING SEX WITH ONE, IF VIBRATORS COUNT: Poll: One in four men would consider having sex with a robot.

WE LIVE IN A WORLD THAT DOESN’T HAVE MUCH GOOD TO SAY ABOUT HUSBANDS. AND YET: Husband killed while protecting wife on their anniversary. And yes, this is a different husband than the one I reported on the other day.

HERO: Unarmed Security Guard Took On Las Vegas Killer Stephen Paddock: Jesus Campos found the mass murderer’s location — and drew his fire away from concertgoers — before cops or SWAT arrived. As the article says, he was a “good guy without a gun.” Would’ve been nice if he’d had one, though.

NFL KICKS OFF ANNUAL BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH IN STYLE: Cam Newton says ‘it’s funny’ to be questioned about pass routes by ‘a female’ reporter.

“With a raised fist, Cam Newton takes NFL’s protest conversation in different direction,” USA Today reported on Monday. Cam is sure enhancing the NFL’s brand this week.

ALL FIVE LIVING EX-PRESIDENTS WILL ATTEND HURRICANE RELIEF CONCERT AT TEXAS A&M.

As Iowahawk tweets, “You haven’t lived till you’ve seen a Jimmy Carter 15 minute bass solo.”

I’m a bit miffed – I offered the four original members some pretty serious money for a reunion performance back in 2007 when our late-lamented hourly show kicked off its three year run on satellite radio.

REPORT: GENERAL KELLY PULLED OFF AIR FORCE ONE FLIGHT TO LAS VEGAS, MAY RESIGN THIS WEEK.

FUNNY HOW THE MSM MEMORY HOLED THAT STORY, HUH? Wait, Did Everybody Just Forget About the Orlando Massacre?

Republicans largely oppose gun control because they think it violates the Constitution, is ineffective, and would be nearly impossible to enforce. They don’t oppose it because they think it would be too harsh on white guys.

But because the DNC-MSM views everything through the prism of race (ahem), they assume that the other side does as well.

ONCE-STARVING AFRICANS ARE NOW GETTING FAT, and the New York Times is ON IT.

AT AMAZON, save on Office Supplies.

Plus, bestsellers in Tools and Hardware.

I BLAME THE RUSSIANS: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us: The world’s most powerful information gatekeepers neglected their duties in Las Vegas. Again. “In the crucial early hours after the Las Vegas mass shooting, it happened again: Hoaxes, completely unverified rumors, failed witch hunts, and blatant falsehoods spread across the internet. But they did not do so by themselves: They used the infrastructure that Google and Facebook and YouTube have built to achieve wide distribution. These companies are the most powerful information gatekeepers that the world has ever known, and yet they refuse to take responsibility for their active role in damaging the quality of information reaching the public.”

I used to feel differently, but after everything I’ve heard about “fake news,” Russian election-meddling, etc., the conclusion is unavoidable: To protect national security, President Trump must nationalize Google, Facebook, and Twitter, and place them under close control by the Executive Branch. It’s the logical response to everything I’ve been hearing since he was elected.

THE MEDIA DOESN’T UNDERSTAND GUNS — AND DOESN’T WANT TO:

Kimmel chastised Paul Ryan and the GOP Congress (again) for not enforcing laws about guns that literally do not exist. These include the so called “gunshow loophole,” an online background check loophole and allowing mentally ill individuals (a move supported by the ACLU) from purchasing firearms. All of these claims have been debunked and yet are ignored by fact-checkers at mainstream outlets and cable news pundits. Stephen Paddock did not have a criminal background, prior record and no evaluations of suspect mental health. So what then?

New York Times Magazine’s Ana Marie Cox tweeted “Man, imagine if the right believed in unfettered access to the ballot box as much as they believed in the right to own guns.” Her sudden support of background checks and voter ID laws (two things needed to purchase a firearm in America) are a welcome surprise.

Politico reporter Dan Diamond tweeted out an email announcement from The American College of Physicians calling for a ban on all automatic and semiautomatic weapons. What Diamond did not reveal is a ban on semiautomatic weapons would include most handguns. I’m not sure members of media know this fact, and more importantly, have demonstrated zero willingness to learn. But sure, let’s put them in charge of the health care debate.

And this is where the credibility chasm exists in media as they continue to parrot Democrat narratives on guns. As the sun rose on Vegas the morning after, and before Americans could grasp the facts of what had happened, Democrat leaders including Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer and their celebrity Hollywood base were already pointing fingers and placing blame without facts and without knowledge.

Law-abiding, gun-owning Americans will not be lectured to about a national tragedy they had nothing to do with, and they certainly won’t be lectured by elitists in media who refuse to understand even a basic grasp or terminology about a sacred constitutional right.

Regarding that last paragraph, as David Marcus asks at the Federalist, “Why Are White People Culpable For Stephen Paddock But Not Arabs For Islamic Terrorism?”

MARK RIPPETOE: Your First Days in the Gym.

VIRGINIA POSTREL ON breaking the plastic surgery taboo.

Why must public figures pretend that “aging gracefully” means accepting whatever nature doles out? Why can’t cosmetic surgery be as morally neutral as makeup or hair dye? Why do we surround cosmetic surgery with obfuscations and outright lies?

When aging stars pretend that their youthful faces are merely the product of good personal habits, they aren’t downplaying the importance of appearance or encouraging people to focus on more important things. They’re doing exactly the opposite — asserting their superiority to the aging plebes whose chins droop and foreheads crease. Fonda does have excellent posture, but no 80-year-old has a neck like that without the medical intervention she acknowledges but so many others deny.

Plus, what Megyn Kelly didn’t get about the Today Show: “She naively assumed she could hijack what amounted to a video press release with a legitimate reportorial inquiry.”