With 24 hour news available on cable and at web sites, I rarely hit upon some story that shocks me; for any lengthy period of time anyway. I mean some event happens and I have the opportunity to read seven 'takes' on it within a couple hours. You know, the usual suspects are consulted.

Follow up takes time. How many here have read, I mean really read, the 9/11 report? I know I get lazy and read different 'takes' on the report.  So I read 30 pages of summaries of the report rather than the 1000 page report.

I have little doubt that Ducky (OGD ) for instance, has read the health care bill that passed both houses of Congress.  I did not. And exactly how long was the bill that the President just signed amending that HCR legislation?

But follow up also used to be a primary function of newspapers.  Some reporter would take the time to walk the streets and follow up on a story that was a month or two old.

I came across a little item in Yahoo News. Can you imagine writing an essay in the tenth grade or in some lower division college course and citing Yahoo News as one of your sources forty years ago? Hahaha

Two of the many massacres that have occurred this year, happened at the Pentagon and  in a Las Vegas courthouse. I would never have guessed from whence the weapons came  that were used in these shootings.

Law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that both guns were once seized in criminal cases in Memphis. The officials described how the weapons made their separate ways from an evidence vault to gun dealers and to the shooters.

That is right. The weapons were supplied by the Memphis Department of Public Safety.

Police departments gather guns from felons all the time. They will invest in sweeps throughout the most dangerous neighborhoods in their cities in an attempt to get the guns off the streets.

Everyone should know that police departments all over the country take the time to have 'gun dumpings'. You ask the public to bring in their guns with a 'no questions asked' policy. All that the police hope for is the opportunity to get the damn guns off the streets. And whether the NRA likes it or not, statistics do demonstrate that the more guns taken off of the streets of our urban centers, the fewer crimes committed and the fewer deaths reported.

The use of guns that once were in police custody and were later involved in attacks on police officers highlights a little-known divide in gun policy in the United States: Many cities and states destroy guns gathered in criminal probes, but others sell or trade the weapons in order to get other guns or buy equipment such as bulletproof vests.

In fact, on the day of the Pentagon shooting, March 4, the Tennessee governor signed legislation revising state law on confiscated guns. Before, law enforcement agencies in the state had the option of destroying a gun. Under the new version, agencies can only destroy a gun if it's inoperable or unsafe.

Kentucky has a similar law, but it's not clear how many other states have laws specifically designed to promote the police sale or trade of confiscated weapons.

A nationwide review by The Associated Press in December found that over the previous two years, 24 states -- mostly in the South and West, where gun-rights advocates are particularly strong -- have passed 47 new laws loosening gun restrictions. Gun rights groups are making a greater effort to pass favorable legislation in state capitals.

So Tennessee and Kentucky have decided that they would rather make a couple bucks off of the weapons they find on the street without considering how much money it costs to acquire the guns in the first place or the money it costs to treat gun shot victims.

I don't know.  There are hundreds of police dramas demonstrating that drugs, cash and guns are taken illegally from the police storage rooms. I have no doubt that these types of activities take place in real life. Whenever human beings are involved in an activity, stuff happens.

But my God; for a state to take the position through legislation that all confiscated arms should be resold on the market, something is amiss. And what kind of 'fences' are used to dump the product?

That's really all I have today. In an era of hate; in an era of private militias; in an era of  heated conflict we as a nation do not need more weapons of mass destruction. And these are weapons of mass destruction in terms of the number of deaths and the number of injuries they cause in this nation every year.