“The fact that we put forward a piece of legislation to prevent the sale and use and transfer of assault weapons and have a Philadelphia police officer assaulted on the streets with one, I think makes it pretty clear to anyone who is confused about this issue that there’s no reason for any citizen, any person other than in law enforcement or in the military to have such a weapon. There’s no legitimate argument by the NRA, they need to get in the real world where the rest of us live and come to grips with these kinds of issues. They owe an apology to the family for their staunch opposition over many, many years blocking legislative support for these kinds of matters.“

To read more about the gun control aspect of the cop killing, click here.

Pittsburgh State Rep. Dan Frankel has introduced an assault-weapons ban in Harrisburg every year since the federal ban expired, but his bill has never even made it out of committee.

“The pro-gun community has been very effective in creating fear among legislators,” Frankel said. “Plenty of my colleagues say to me, ‘Dan, you’re right on this, but I just can’t support it, because it will create political problems for me.’ “

• Since it is Cinco de Mayo, why don’t hop in the time traveler and go back to 2004, when Johnny traveled to Mexico to do some pinniped consulting and had a run in with the police shortly after arriving. Mexican women were not interested in JGT, but there was a sea lion that seemed to take a liking to him.
• Hung out with Kerri-Lee and D-Mac on Friday and we got some somewhat amusing video of D-Mac and Kerri-Lee tooling around on the computer. Today on KL’s blog, I ask a few more Mexico related questions. See how ya do. I have some great video of yesterday’s goat races, and I will be editing tonight and posting manana.
• Thinking about doing a piece in the paper this week about Jersey drivers. Whether you think that Jersey drivers are awful, or if you think they are unfairly stereotyped, please shoot me an email and give me your thoughts on the topic.

The small peninsula that nobody has ever heard of where I grew up was featured in the New York Times today. Dave Burden, the kayak shop owner, is a buddy of mine (he beat me at Scramble last week.) They didn’t check out my town, Nassawadox, because well, there’s nothing to see there.