- Mayor Creates Downtown Retail Task Force; Will Try To Find New Location for Macy’s [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- 1110 Main’s Retail Legacy, From Foley’s Window Displays to Conveyer Belts Running Throughout the Store [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Trammell Crow Co. Likely To Break Ground on 20-Story Energy Center Three in Energy Corridor by End of January [Houston Business Journal]
- Round 2 of Hurricane Ike Disaster Recovery On Its Way [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Bruce Mozlan Quietly Opens Ruggles-Like Restaurant in Former Brownstone Cafe Spot [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Settlement Reached in Pearland-Sugar Land Police Statue Copycat Lawsuit [Glasstire]
- State Promptly Reverses TxDOT Decision To Stop Putting Directions to Gun Shows on Freeway Message Signs [Houston Chronicle]
- How Electronic Freeway Signs Help Ease Traffic [The Highwayman]
- Copperfield Residents Want To Disguise Cell Phone Tower at Lowery Elementary as a Tree [Cypress Creek Mirror]
- Residents of Indigo Lake Estates in Montgomery County Complain They’re Living Next to a Gun Range [abc13]
- Cold Weather Likely To Bring Predators, Nuisance Wildlife into Residential Areas, Warn Specialists [Cypress Creek Mirror]
- Mutual UFO Network Investigating Strange Lights over Cleveland Last Month [abc13]
- John D. ‘Jack’ O’Connell, Man Who Steered the Success of the Astrodome, Has Died [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Ceiling Collapses in Apartment near Kirby, South Loop After Tenant Constantly Ran Hot Water for Heat [Click2Houston]
Photo of abandoned house at Bingham and Elder: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Tell Macy’s to move into the former ‘Books A Million’ bookstore. It’s a better space than that pile of bricks building anyways.
In the category of ‘nuisance wildlife’ is the raccoon that is still trying to access my attic by tearing off a fascia board, even after I secured it with 3 inch screws. Persistent bugger.
@Chef- You need to live up to your name and cook up that little feller, “good eatin'”
Missing frothe Chron story on the gun show signs is any mention that gun shows are where you go to get a gun without any of those pesky checks or records designed to keep guns out of the hands of crazy and violent people who might go start a shooting spree at, say, a school. But hey, that’s bidness.
Shouldn’t those digital signs for the Gun Show just be made permanent? I mean, is there any time at all when the Gun Show is not going on in this city?
@John, that claim just isn’t true. If you buy from a licensed dealer at a gun show, you have undergo the NICS background check. If you buy from a private citizen at the gun show, there’s no check, just like any other occasion when you buy from a private citizen. BATF is at every show, and is very aware of what’s going on.
The “gun show loophole” does not exist.
Ross, is it then actually a private seller loophole? Shouldn’t these sales also be tracked, as with sales of land or automobiles?
@Rodrigo. No, not at the Federal level. Sales between private parties in the same state should be controlled by State rules. Some states require private party sales to go through dealers, some don’t. Keep in mind that the Feds don’t really track buyers. There’s a form (4473) to fill out, but it remains with the dealer, and there’s the NICS check process (waived for Texas CHL holders), which merely lets the dealer know whether you are prohibited from buying a firearm. By law, NICS check data can’t be kept very long.
There’s also the issue of how to define the term “gun show”. I’ve never seen a definition that wouldn’t make a group of a few friends getting together to talk, and maybe trade or sell firearms, a gun show.
@Ross- You so clearly point out that there are far too many loopholes; therefore, it is far simpler, logical, rational and reasonable to remove high caliber ammunition, excessively large magazines (anything over 5-10 rounds) and military type assault weapons from the equation. This does nothing to stomp on second amendment rights of possessing arms. If anyone has an intense desire to use the above mentioned weapons, join the military.
@kevpat, what is “high caliber ammunition”? The idiot in CT used a .223. That’s pretty small, far smaller than what I use on deer.
how do you enforce a large cap magazine ban when they can be made in a garage on simple machinery?
The so called “military style assault weapons” bans are really bans on appearance – there are many conventional looking firearms that are functionally identical.
We don’t live in a perfectly safe world. Removing the property of 99.999% of the population because of the actions of .001% is just stupid.
BTW, how’s that prohibition on certain chemical compounds and plants working out? Firearms are easier to smuggle and potentially far more profitable.
From Ross: “There’s also the issue of how to define the term “gun showâ€. ”
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Not really… **FLEX**
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:)
Given the gun-banning experiences of the UK and Australia, I am not sure how anybody can seriously suggest a gun ban will reduce violence.
The mania for guns, and not those for hunting — is it a reflection of how fearful and timid you are, or is it the natural outgrowth of the video games you used to play, or connected to a fantasy of being like an action-movie hero? I am genuinely curious. A hobby predicated on the keenness to shoot people seems strange to the small minority of us who don’t share it.
I never heard the men of my grandfather’s generation, or the one after, that fought in the war, talking about guns the way men do now; and for some reason I can’t imagine them doing so. Were they not as manly then?