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McConnell shells out $30,000 for bronze cannon
By ROBERT BEHRE - The (Charleston) Post and Courier

CHARLESTON — Some middle-aged men blow big bucks on a sports car, a bass boat or a nice set of golf clubs, but the man who some consider the most powerful in South Carolina government had something else in mind.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell recently spent almost $30,000 on a reproduction of a bronze cannon, complete with a Palmetto engraving.

“Anybody will tell you a bronze gun has just got a different sound to it,” the Charleston Republican said. “I knew this gun would make noise, and it does. It is a loud, talking gun. ... It really splits the air.”

McConnell has been an enthusiastic Civil War re-enactor for years. He set aside his law career a decade ago to concentrate on running CSA Galleries, a sort of department store for all sorts of memorabilia from the Civil War (or War Between the States, depending on which side your ancestors fought).

18-year-old SC student accused of plotting to bomb school
BY JEFFREY COLLINS - Associated Press Writer

COLUMBIA, S.C. --
A high school senior collected enough supplies to carry out a bomb attack on his school and detailed the plot in a hate-filled diary that included maps of the building and admiring notations about the Columbine killers, authorities said Sunday.

Ryan Schallenberger, 18, was arrested Saturday after his parents called police when 10 pounds of ammonium nitrate were delivered to their home in Chesterfield and they discovered the journal, said the town's police chief, Randall Lear.

McConnell has been an enthusiastic Civil War re-enactor for years. He set aside his law career a decade ago to concentrate on running CSA Galleries, a sort of department store for all sorts of memorabilia from the Civil War (or War Between the States, depending on which side your ancestors fought).

gotribego26 wrote:

McConnell has been an enthusiastic Civil War re-enactor for years. He set aside his law career a decade ago to concentrate on running CSA Galleries, a sort of department store for all sorts of memorabilia from the Civil War (or War Between the States, depending on which side your ancestors fought).

I thought it was "The War of Northern Agression" if your ancestors fought for the CSA.

MOSCOW — A Moscow court on Monday sentenced a U.S. pastor to more than three years in prison for smuggling hunting ammunition into Russia.

Phillip Miles, from South Carolina, has been in custody since his arrest on Feb. 3. He was arrested several days after customs agents at a Moscow airport found a box of 20 rifle shells in his luggage.

The court sentenced him to serve three years and two months in prison, with the sentence calculated from his detention date.

Miles has said he brought the .300 caliber cartridges for a friend who had recently bought a Winchester rifle. He said he did not know bringing such ammunition into Russia was illegal.

Judge Olga Drozdova accepted in her 20-minute summation that Miles had brought the ammunition for a friend, "as they are both inveterate hunters."

The cartridges were not initially found as he flew into Moscow. They were detected a day later as airport security put his luggage through an X-ray machine while he was on his way to check in for a flight to Perm, a city in Siberia.

Miles was dressed in a gray jacket and clerical collar for his sentencing.

"I'm very disappointed. It's a strange sentence for one box of hunting bullets," he said as court bailiffs led him in handcuffs from the courtroom cage, where defendants in Russian criminal courts are held during trial.