Oh shit

By Capt. Fogg

Not again.

Two students were shot at a Los Angeles high school today because some idiot put a cocked and locked pistol in his backpack and it went off when he dropped his pack on a table. One could call it an accident, but you'd at least have to put the word in italics.

There's no resemblance to the Tucson shooting, although the student obviously illegally possessed the gun, illegally concealed it, and illegally brought it into a school, even if he wasn't out to shoot anyone at that particular moment. I'll bet there will be more calls to make it even more illegal, but more than likely he was a gang member, so illegality isn't a deterrent any more than it is to a psychotic. It may have earned him some status, in fact.

It may surprise some people, but we have a maze of gun control laws and they aren't doing a good enough job with this kind of crime and these kinds of criminals: gang members, psychotics, and sociopaths -- a tiny but deadly element.

But without knowing just how the kid got the gun, I can only speculate about what went wrong and can't talk about what to do, other than to do a better job with the metal detectors. There's a gun-show loophole. There are hard-to-control private transfers, some legal, some not, and some guns are stolen. Even though nothing short of a 24-hour curfew and a police state with no civil rights will stop such crimes, it's time we stopped being comfortable with more and more "gun control" bills based on twisted descriptions, laden with straw arguments, and riddled with loopholes. It's time for -- no, please don't laugh -- some bipartisan and rational reconsideration.

It's also time to remember that in a huge country, with a growing population, crime can be on the decline and still appear to be on the rise.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Rendell, Giuliani call for "early detection system" for mental illness and guns

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill:

Two high-profile politicians [yesterday] called for sweeping reforms to the nation's mental health system that would prevent individuals deemed ill from legally purchasing firearms.

Had numerous concerns about alleged gunman Jared Lee Loughner’s mental status placed him on a list restricting his ability to buy a gun, his Jan. 8 rampage might have been prevented, said former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, and Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell, a Democrat.

During a "Face the Nation" appearance, Rendell called for an "early detection system" designed to keep mentally unstable individuals from buying guns. 

Basically, if you've attended more than one Tea Party event (because you could have attended one just by accident) or if you're a Tea Party-backed candidate for the GOP, you shouldn't be able to buy a gun. Period.

I'm kidding... of course. (Ahem.)

Actually, in a country that refuses to do anything about guns and gun violence, this was an admirable display of bipartisan support for a rational response to the Arizona shooting. Giuliani, once something of a moderate but now a Republican hard-liner, even talked about the country's "inability to deal with mental illness."

I would just note that while there does need to be a "rational debate" on gun control, as Rendell said, as well as a serious effort to address mental illness, the Arizona shooting -- an assassination attempt on a politician -- wasn't just about some lone crazy guy getting hold of a semi-automatic pistol with a high-capacity ammunition clip. It was also about the right's culture of violence, both in rhetoric and in ideology, and about the extent to which that culture has come to shape American politics and define conservatism.

As I wrote last week, while it certainly appears to be the case that the (alleged) killer, Jared Lee Loughner, is "deranged" (to use a loaded and hardly clinical term), as well as that he was not a card-carrying member of the Tea Party or GOP, it is wrong, I think to treat him as a detached loner who acted in a vacuum of his own derangement. To do that is to ignore context, to ignore the bigger picture, the "national climate."

In other words, there may be no direct connection between conservatism and the shooting, but that does not necessarily mean that what Loughner did (or, rather, is charged with doing) may be detached entirely from the broader, right-wing political context that may very well have informed his thinking, or his derangement, to some degree.

Republicans should man up and back stiffer gun laws

By Nicholas Wilbur

Bang. Bang. Bang.

That's the sound of Democratic Party leaders smashing their heads against the wall after House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that, in light of the Tucson shooting of 20 people, including a member of his own branch of Congress, he will not be supporting any bill that would expand federal gun regulations.

The doomed fate of any gun-restriction bill is as disappointing as it is expected.

Disappointing because a recent poll shows that more Americans support increased gun restrictions, and because authorities in Tucson say the gun used in the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) – a 9-mm semi-automatic Glock with a 31-round clip – would have been illegal six years ago under President Clinton's assault weapons ban of 1994.

Expected because the power of the gun lobby in Washington, combined with historic GOP backlash against any legislation that smells of Second Amendment infringement, effectively killed any Democratic hopes of reauthorizing the ban in 2008, four years after the bill's 10-year sunset clause expired.

Faced with a Republican-controlled and Tea Party-influenced House of Representatives, Democrats have resorted to tepidly backing a Republican-proposed and severely gutted version of the 1994 bill: a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines, or clips.

The argument for such a ban is simple but not overwhelmingly popular: nobody but a mass murderer hoping to gun down a parking lot full of civilians needs 31 bullets in a semi-automatic weapon for protection, Democrats say. While true, this argument hasn't convinced opponents, and it won't get legislation passed.

The Democrats' idealism is noble, and their efforts might be regarded as irreproachable if it weren't for the constraints of political pragmatism and the Speaker's perfunctory refusal to even entertain such an idea.

Rest assured, Democrats. There is another way.

When Republicans spin the rhetoric surrounding a controversial issue, it's called "framing the argument." When Democrats do it, it has no name because they don't have much of a track record of ever having effectively done it. Now is their chance.

Republicans love their country. They love their Constitution. They love their guns. And they love to entertain thoughts that one day they will be able exercise their patriotism and give their double-action Smith & Wesson some real action and defend of their homeland against Commie terrorists who want to invade their homes and burn the Stars and Stripes swaying in the Midwestern winds on their lawn.

This is fine. These beliefs are admirable. But what ever happened to excellence, discipline, and self-responsibility, the core values of American conservatism?

Republicans, of all people, should be the last to lean on the government in order to uphold a law that allows 31 rounds in the clip of a semi-automatic weapon. To rely on government bailouts for this kind of social assistance is antithetical to the most basic tenets of conservatism, and it should be utterly insulting to the true patriots of this country to ask the government to essentially subsidize ­– via legalization – the unskilled and un-sharp-shooting of those who claim to stand for individual liberties in the ongoing battle against socialism, treason, and terrorism.

Republicans are not lazy, deranged, sissy stoners who require 31 rounds of ammunition to protect themselves, their families, their country.

Republicans are masterful marksmen – whether in war, in politics, or in defending property lines – who can etch themselves into the history books of American Independence with a single shot (or possibly two, for those who hold the double-tap method of execution in high esteem).

It's time Republicans put an end to the excessive government handouts that serve no other purpose than to give unqualified, unskilled, undisciplined, and generally unexceptional Americans an undeserved sense of machismo. It's time they back a law that separates the boys from the men. It's time these faux Republicans MAN UP and start proving their patriotism.

(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.)

The set up for the low down

By Carl

You know that queasy feeling you got yesterday when you read this story? 

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that cities and states must abide by the 2nd Amendment, strengthening the rights of gun owners and opening courthouse doors nationwide for gun rights advocates to argue that restrictions on firearms are unconstitutional.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices said the right to have a handgun for self-defense is "fundamental from an American perspective [and] applies equally to the federal government and the states."

Embrace your nausea. There's more here than meets the eye.

Essentially, what the Court ruled is that Constitutional rights trump states' rights or een individual rights. "Libertarians" may mark this as a good thing, but I do not. See, the Second Amendment prescribes that, in order to ensure your God-given inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you have to buy a gun.

I'm betting that's not what the Founders intended. This might be the only enumerated right that requires a citizen to do something in order to enforce it. A truly libertarian position would be that an individual's right to privacy is far more important than the constitutionality of a manufactured good.

This is a glaring distinction that so-called "glibertarians" (e.g. people who read and masturbated to Ayn Rand books) fail to grasp and it's really a simple concept: no man is free if for that freedom he is requred to carry a weapon.

But hold that thought for another time. Here's the really scary part.

This decision opens the door for the Court to decide that individual state laws are unconstitutional. Should Roe V. Wade for example be overturned, there is no check on the Court to decide that New York's abortion law violates the Constitution. Or New Jersey's. Or California. Should a consitutional challenge to the gay marriage ban fail in SCOTUS, that would open the door to overturning Hawaiian law, Iowan law, and would also prevent any number of states from recognizing homosexual marriages.

It wouldn't stop there. Your state doesn't have a death penalty? Too bad. You might be forced to get in line with the totalitarians. Our laws would revert to the lowest common denominator of a moron state like Alabama or Mississippi.

Medical marijuana? Nope. Speed limit of 55? Gone, mostly because the federal government mandates it in exchange for highway funds, so all it will take is some yahoo from Montana to overturn that necessary and safer speed limit, and your state won't be able to do a thing about it. Property rights? Eminent domain will encroach and absorb as many properties as it deems necessary, because the SCOTUS has already ruled it's perfectly constitutional to appropriate your land and turn it over to a developer.

Are we sure we want to walk this path when it's taken so long and we've worked so hard to bring even a shred of progressivism to the nation?

(Cross-posted from Simply Left Behind.) 

Yesterday in SCOTUS

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It was a mixed day, not surprising given the 4-4-1 divide (with Kennedy as the swing vote). The good news:

The Raw Story

The US Supreme Court declined Monday to hear an appeal by the Vatican in a landmark case that opens the way for priests in the United States to stand trial for pedophilia.

Allowing a federal appeals court ruling to stand, the decision means Vatican officials including theoretically Pope Benedict XVI could face questioning under oath related to a litany of child sex abuse cases.

The Supreme Court effectively confirmed the decision of an appellate court to lift the Vatican's immunity in the case of an alleged pedophile priest in the northwestern state of Oregon.

The New York Times

A public law school did not violate the First Amendment by withdrawing recognition from a Christian student group that excluded gay students, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a 5-to-4 decision.

The case, involving a clash between religious freedom and antidiscrimination principles, divided along familiar ideological lines, with the court's four more liberal members and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in the majority.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said it was constitutionally permissible for public institutions of higher education to require recognized student groups to accept all students who wished to participate in them.

The bad news:

The Washington Post

The Second Amendment provides Americans a fundamental right to bear arms that cannot be violated by state and local governments, the Supreme Court ruled Monday in a long-sought victory for gun rights advocates.

The 5 to 4 decision does not strike down any gun-control laws, nor does it elaborate on what kind of laws would offend the Constitution. One justice predicted that an "avalanche" of lawsuits would be filed across the country asking federal judges to define the boundaries of gun ownership and government regulation.

But Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who wrote the opinion for the court's dominant conservatives, said: "It is clear that the Framers... counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty."

For a deeper look at the gun-rights case, see Jack Balkin and Scott Lemieux. Unfortunately, it seems to have been the right decision, legally speaking, even if it won't mean much. As Balkin notes, "[t]he vast majority of states already have guarantees of a right to bear arms."

I would just add that the ongoing Second Amendment debate in the U.S. is ridiculous. Yes, Alito is right, the Framers added "the right to keep and bear arms" to the Constitution," and may have considered that right to be "fundamental," but basing public policy in 2010 on what the Framers thought was important in 1787, right after a bloody war of independence and when the country was young and insecure, is simply the wrong way to go about addressing contemporary issues and problems. As Melissa McEwan puts it:

And that's still relevant 200 years later, despite the fact that the Framers, as ingenuous as they were, did not envision a country of 300 million+ people where almost everyone is literate and almost every adult can vote. Nor did they imagine handguns, which didn't fucking exist.

For more, see Echidne (linked by Melissa), whose anger and frustration I share (even if they the issue isn't as immediate for me, as I live in Canada, which has, compared to the U.S., strong gun laws in place):

My first thought on reading this is that desperate unemployed people can't get jobs or help from the local government but their right to be armed is honored! That makes for a really happy society in which to live.

My second thought was the one I always have when reading about the Second Amendment, which is to try to stretch my poor brain to make the leap from "well-regulated militia" to Bob-can-have-a-rifle-in-his-pants.

And so on...

What a mad, mad, mad world it is.

But at least there was a firm ruling against anti-gay bigotry, and at least Catholic sex abusers can be held accountable in courts of law for what they've done.

A mixed day indeed, even as Americans continue to arm themselves towards Armageddon.

Lindsey Graham likes his terrorists packing heat

By Creature

In Graham's world not all constitutional rights are created equal.

Kind of a blast.

By Capt. Fogg


Amongst the most common criticisms of President Barack Obama published in my local papers are that he has an "agenda" for taking away our guns. The few howlers offering any proof of this nefarious plan depend mostly on the fact that Obama is a Democrat and on redacted quotes from Rahm Emanuel or references to obviously incendiary articles with titles like "Rahm Emanuel to disarm America" and calling him things like "a Zionist gun-grabbing Communist."

Even if we're to discount the Skinhead origin of much of this and ignore the supercharged, nitrous injected hyperbole so common to apoplectic extremists intent on portraying everyone else as extremely angry, we need to remember one thing: Rahm Emanuel is not the President of the United States, and has no authority in any way related to being able to do anything about Gun laws. That's the job of Congress and this congress seems unlikely to consider any such thing even if the President suggested it -- and he certainly hasn't. The Courts have ruled on the side of allowing private citizens to own and carry firearms, most of the legislators elected in the last election are pro-gun and that seems to be that.

Of course, just like the Tea people, out there howling about a tax increase they didn't get and death panels we've had all along and about taking back the country they never owned from the majority without any recognition of the blazing, neon lit irony -- my fellow gun owners and second amendment supporters are about, as I write this, to mount an armed protest against the gun-grabbing liberal commietyrantmarxistafrican, are unaware or are unwilling to be aware that Obama signed into law last year a bill making that demonstration legal by finally allowing firearms to be carried in National Parks. Thanks, Pres. As a Liberal, I approve of that.

I don't know whether it's too much of a strain on people from Stormfront to pass beyond the shoddy "democrats grab guns, Obama is a Democrat, he will grab guns" syllogism and into the world of real events. It doesn't matter however, since the supply of things real and imagined will always allow the kind of Storm and Stress they need. indeed, anything you can say about Obama becomes a credo despite, or perhaps because it's demonstrably wrong and without factual support. For those of us able do discern elitist things like irony however, it's a blast.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

The irreversible ratchet

By Capt. Fogg

The barber shop I frequent looks like something out of the old West, or at least a Hollywood version of it. Cowboy movie posters, ammunition boxes -- It has more old guns and shooting paraphernalia on display than most small gun shops and indeed Bob the barber is a licensed gun dealer.

So anyway, there I am waiting my turn along with one deputy and the rest of my disreputable contemporaries and reading American Rifleman -- and the first thing I see is an article by Wayne LaPierre of the NRA telling us that the "irreversible ratchet" of gun control has been turned back in Canada after their gun registration policy has cost a fortune and produced no measurable results. Why am I laughing? It's because that "camel's nose" and "irreversible ratchet" argument has been used to death since I can remember to counter any gun control laws at all, reasonable and unreasonable. It's because all I hear from NRA sources is that Obama is a gun grabber and he's so close to grabbing your guns that you'd better stock up on ammo and bury it in the back yard because here we go down the slippery slope to disarmed totalitarianism. Catalogues are selling books on just how to do that and ammunition prices are sky high, along with the prices of military surplus waterproof containers. Shops can't keep AK-47s on the racks.

Then if one looks at the news and realizes that under the current administration gun rights have been expanded to allow concealed carry in the national parks, as they are in most state parks and nearly everywhere else, that the last bastion of handgun banning, Chicago, Illinois, may be about to fall and that 309 members of Congress and a majority of Americans approve -- one has a hard time believing that there is a nationwide confiscation program being planned or that any gun control measures are by nature irreversible. Nearly all the states now issue concealed carry permits while crime continues to decline, so if that policy of citing the slippery slope fallacy has been debunked, where is the apology for all the fear mongering? were they wrong? Did the will of the majority actually prevail over the evil gun grabbing liberals just like it's supposed to?

No, the ratchet works both ways, the camel isn't interested in your tent and the slope wasn't so slippery after all. Do I suspect that the worst thing that could happen to the NRA would be a definitive affirmation of the second amendment of the individual's right to keep and bear arms and a legislative branch inclined to go along with them? Does a redneck shoot in the woods?

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Wild Wild West

By Capt. Fogg

If you see someone standing on your front lawn taking pictures of your house, and you stick your head out the door to ask what the hell he's doing, maybe you'd better find out if he's a Republican first.

Robert Lutes, a resident of Boise, Idaho suburb, Meridian, probably wishes he had done that. Asking the man on the lawn to tell him what it was about, his question was answered with a .357 magnum revolver pointed at him by the Republican Party chairman of Boise County, Charles McAffee, a "tea party" activist. No, it wasn't high noon, it was just before dinner time.

There is a controversy, of course, about whether Lutes was engaged in heated discussion or argument about his delinquent mortgage payments before McCaffee drew on him, but McCaffee, working for a collection agency used by Wells Fargo, says he pulled the gun on the unarmed homeowner to "de-escalate" the conflict. No, really.

I am unable to establish Idaho's policy on such use of a concealed weapon, but I know that in Florida it is illegal to display or "brandish" even a legally carried gun to gain advantage in or "de-escalate" a dispute or argument. Since McAffee was arrested for aggravated assault, I would assume a similarity in the laws. Again, I don't know if Idaho is a "castle doctrine" state, but I suspect it is, and under that philosophy Lutes would have been justified in shooting a Republican Party county chairman and tax protester like any other armed home invader.

The more civilized part of my nature is glad he didn't, but the little demon on my shoulder sort of wishes the idiot Mr. Teabags had been dealt a little bit of old-fashioned Republican justice.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Why gun laws must be made harsher

By Carl

GAO Cites Gun Sales to Those on Watch List:

People named on the government's terrorism watch list have successfully purchased firearms hundreds of times since 2004, government investigators reported yesterday. In one case, a known or suspected terrorist was able to obtain an explosives license, the Government Accountability Office reported.

U.S. lawmakers requested the audit to show how people on the watch list can be stopped from boarding airplanes but not from buying guns. Under federal law, licensed firearms dealers must request an FBI background check for each buyer but cannot legally stop a purchase solely because someone is on the watch list. The study found that people on the list purchased firearms 865 times in 963 attempts over a five-year period ending in February.

Now, the general portrait of a gun dealer is someone who is a very narrow patriot: guns are necessary in order to keep the tyranny of government at bay, but they would never be used unnecessarily.

Right?

Apparently, not even that much. Suddenly patriotism and homeland and personal security fall by the wayside when profit becomes the overriding concern.

Interesting how greed can trump enlightened self-interest, the very basis of capitalism, isn't it? Here we have numerous instances of a gun dealer selling guns or explosives to a bunch of people whom the government, the BUSH administration in most instances, deemed a threat to the security of the nation.

So it's not like we have a bunch of "militiamen" (domestic terrorists with an acceptably cretinic agenda) purchasing guns to keep BATF agents at bay. These are folks the FBI won't let get on an airplane.

These dealers are selling weapons to presumed terrorists with no place to go...meaning the odds jump that the same gun dealers may be dealing with the aftermath of their greed right in their own home towns.

Worse, I can almost imagine that some greedy bastard went one step further, and told his other customers that "them terrists is loadin' up on guns, so kin Ah sells ya this here semi-auto unner th table?" I certainly hope I'm wrong, but my guess with respect to the inherent greed of humanity is I'm right. We'd sell our countrymen out for a bowl of soup, and now, I'm betting, we'd sell our neighbors out, too.

You can blame the loophole in the law, and the temptation to do so is pretty strong. After all, if you can't legally stop someone from buying a gun, then you're just following orders, right? But let's face facts: it's very easy to just say no.

And they cannot. It is apparent that not only should this loophole be shut tight, but that gun dealers should face increasingly stronger punishment for lapses in judgement. A gun is intended to harm. Period. In many instances, I have no problem with that, but we ought to limit the sale of weapons to only those instances as much as possible and since we've given loopholes of all sizes to gun dealers to slip through, then it's only fair that when they do screw up, it ought to cost them a lot more than just a few bucks.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Buy 'em while you can!

by Capt. Fogg

So I leave the dim coolness of the ophthalmologist's office and emerge into the Florida Noonday blaze and gain an immediate appreciation of how a vampire feels when he can't make it back to his coffin before the sun rises. Even with my darkest sunglasses on, my dilated pupils won't allow me to drive so I decide to get a haircut at Bob's, where you can look at his massive collection of old guns, antique ammunition signs and cowboy paraphernalia while you and the good old boys get your hair length reduced.

Even after an hour, I still can't see well enough to drive, so I go across the street to the gun shop looking to chat with the proprietor who, up to now, has been almost as lonely as the Maytag repairman would be if the claims were true, and willing to pass the time talking about outdoorsy things. Of course since Obama the Antichrist was elected, things are different at gun shops and the place was full of people and almost devoid of those non-automatic, civilian versions of military weapons that the more hysterical of us like to call "assault weapons."

The conversation was lively and as gun shop conversations have been of late, all about "that man" and the certainty of his rabid opposition to all forms of weaponry in private hands.

"I don't know" said the creepy guy, using a magnifying glass to inspect a nickel plated double barrel derringer chambered for .45 long colt and 410 shotgun shells.

"I just change channels when that guy comes on" says he. " I can't stand to listen to him."

"Well it's all on his web site." says the Deputy Sheriff, lovingly examining a monstrous, long barelled Smith &Wesson .460 SVR Magnum revolver with green laser sight and bipod. "Jesus, there's nothing in Africa you couldn't take down with this one."

"You've read it?" asks the store owner. "No, but his whole gun policy is on his web site. I just can't stand to read it, but I'm telling you if we're supposed to knock on doors looking foreveryone's guns, it ain't gonna happen. I mean he's talking about making lists of all registered guns and there is no gun registration in Florida in the first place. You just know the crime rate's gonna skyrocket."

"I guess the ATF has the authority to come in here and look at my books though" says the owner, let's call him Joe.

"Yeah, but I'll just tell them I sold them all privately or at a gun show and I don't have any guns any more" says creepy guy with a creepy, conspiratorial grin.

"Well it's all on his web site" says the Deppity. "He's going to bring back the Brady bill and the assault rifle ban and all the rest. It's on the web site."

It's not, actually. I looked and what it does say is that Obama believes the second amendment conveys an individual right, that he is concerned with the impediments to hunting and fishing and is determined to increase access and provide incentives to open more land to those uses and that he will protect the rights of law abiding citizens to own, transport and use guns. Of course that's not enough for the NRA and a lot of other people, but it's not wholesale confiscation and it's not the rabid, hysterical and diabolical plan to disarm the general public that theDeppity says it is.

Anyway I asked if he had sold all the AK's he had on the racks last Summer and he said he had, and I asked if was getting any more and he said yes, but he wouldn't say when because it would be a mob scene if word got out, but it should be soon and they would all be gone within hours.

Pasted on the glass counter where bowie knives and ear muffs and safety glasses were displayed was a cartoon of a car plastered with Obama stickers. The driver was saying to a questioner: "No, I don't, but I own a gun shop."

For some people, business has never been better.

Cross posted from Human Voices

Bill Clinton 2.0

By Creature

Every time I invest even the slightest bit of hope in a politician I usually end up disappointed.

Barack Obama has proved no different.

With Obama's support for the flawed FISA bill still stuck in my craw, he's managed to add so many issues to my list of disappointments that my head, it spins. From his faith-based pander, his boggling rejection of a "mental distress" exception for late-term abortions, to his partial embrace of the death penalty and gun laws, it's clear we have the makings of a conservative in blue-covered clothing.

Welcome to Bill Clinton 2.0.

That being said, while I'm not quite ready to crawl into the comfy news-blackout-bunker I created after Bill disappointed me to no end in the 90s -- leading to me not only abstaining from voting in 1996, but then voting for Ralph Nader in 2000 -- I am ready to fluff the pillows, stock up on Three's Company DVDs, and prepare for my descent back into that information-free bunker. Well, either that or scream like hell and hold Obama's feet to the fire for as long as I must. But, honestly, I'm kind of tired of the screaming.

And, before you play the I-told-you-so card, I still believe Barack Obama's centrism is still light years ahead of Hillary Clinton's -- though, at least with Clinton, my disappointment would have been better anticipated.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)

Simple minds

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Speaking at a fundraiser in Philadelphia Friday night, and referring to his campaign against McCain, Obama said this:

If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. We don't have a choice but to win.

No big deal, right? Well, not to the simple minds of the McCain campaign. Over at McCain's website, Michael Goldfarb, formerly of The Weekly Standard and now McCain's deputy communications director notes Obama's "long track record as a proponent of stringent gun-control regulations," and wonders about a possible flip-flop.

Is Goldfarb being facetious? Maybe. (But maybe not.)

But the even simpler minds elsewhere on the right are making much ado about Obama's comment. For example:

-- AJStrata suggests that Obama is "acting more like a young teenage boy on hormones than a statesman."

-- Tammy Bruce maintains that Obama was "threatening the other presidential candidate with gun violence."

-- At Gina Cobb's place, someone called "DemocracyRules" (an ironic pseudonym for such a right-wing hack) claims that Obama was declaring "jihad." (I'm not making this up. Seriously.)

-- At Michelle Malkin's place, someone called "see-dubya" proposes "it was just meaningless rhetoric" -- although liberal democrats must be "squeal[ing] in fright that Obama was advocating violence against his political opponents and ushering in a police state" -- yet also brings up Obama's opposition to "concealed carry laws." (Right, because clearly we liberal democrats now think he's a fascist.)

(For more crazy reaction, see Memeorandum.)

Even Ed Morrissey, one of the few genuinely bright lights in the conservative blogosphere (and who has anything but a simple mind), thinks that Obama was trying "to macho up" (by channelling Sean Connery from The Untouchables).

Joe Gandelman finds such responses to Obama's comment, including one from the RNC that was similar to what Goldfarb wrote, "predictable." And, like liberals like Steve Benen and Jeff Fecke, Joe understands the difference between the literal and the figurative -- as well as what Obama was getting at:

He's indicating that unlike past Democratic nominees — with the exception of Bill Clinton — he's not going to wait to respond to attacks nor is he going to not counter an aggressive campaign with a campaign calibrated to be tough enough or tougher to counter any Republican attack.

*****

So Obama's channeling Connery is by no means a rejection of a campaign of hope and change. It's embracing a campaign that is planning to stay on equal footing with the Republicans, rather than allowing itself to become a doormat.

The RNC, the McCain campaign, and these various right-wing nuts (Ed excepted; he's not a nut) would have us believe that Obama has effectively abandoned his promise of a "new politics" for America.

Uh, no. Wrong.

As Joe argues, Obama was just promising to fight a tough campaign. (And you need to be tough if you're going to beat the ratfuckers who run the Republican smear machine.)

Not that we should be surprised by these abysmally clueless responses from the RNC, the McCain campaign, and the right-wing nuthouse. They can't distinguish the literal from the figurative, after all, and they certainly don't seem to grasp the whole metaphor thing.

Not even when an obvious one beats them over their partisan little heads.

Amazingly laughable

By Carl


I wonder sometimes if these folks even know how to tie their own shoelaces:

SMYRNA, Ga., Dec. 5 — In Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s campaign to remove illegal guns from New York City’s streets, he sued 27 out-of-state gun dealerships last year over what he said were illegal sales. Most agreed to settle, while others chose to take their chances in court.

But here, in this town of 48,000 where Julia Roberts was born, the fight has become deeply personal. Jay Wallace, who owns Adventure Outdoors, one of the major gun distributors in the area and a defendant in one of the city’s lawsuits, is countersuing Mr. Bloomberg, alleging fraud, slander and libel. A well-known resident who has operated the business here for 31 years, Mr. Wallace has drummed up support with an online fund-raising campaign, a summertime rally that drew hundreds, and celebrity representation by a lawyer who is a former congressman, Bob Barr.

The Georgia courts have ruled that Mr. Wallace’s suit can proceed here, a decision Mr. Bloomberg’s lawyers have appealed in the hope of having it dismissed. Mr. Barr and his law partner, Ed Marger, said they expected some action on the matter within the next week.

(emphasis added)

Well, now, Mr.. Wallace, those are some serious charges! I can't imagine, then, that they aren't true, that you didn't behave within the bounds of the law!

Um. Oops.

Mr. Bloomberg announced the first federal lawsuit, against 15 dealerships, with great fanfare and emotion at a City Hall news conference in May 2006, calling the gun shops “rogue dealers,” “the worst of the worst” and “a scourge on our society,” according to court filings. The second suit, against 12 dealerships, was announced last December. John Feinblatt, the city’s criminal justice coordinator — who is also named in Mr. Wallace’s libel suit — accused the dealerships of having “New Yorkers’ blood on their hands.”[...]

In a sting operation, the city sent teams of private investigators, usually a man and a woman, to five states. Posing as gun buyers, they went to stores whose guns had been linked to more than 500 crimes in New York City from 1994 to 2001.

Bloomberg administration officials said the investigators caught 27 dealerships allowing so-called straw purchases, in which one person submits to the required federal background check for a gun that is clearly to be used by someone else.

So, um, Jay... can I call you Jay?... what part of "not following Federal law and doing a thorough background check of the person actually buying the gun" has slandered you, son?

Jay, I don't have to say it. Let me have one of your customers say it: “You set up in business saying that you’re a responsible citizen, and part of being a responsible citizen is looking out for other citizens,” he said. “When you’re granted a license and the right to do business you have to take the good with the bad, so you have to take that responsibility to heart.”That means following the law. Period. Those laws are there to protect the innocent and punish the guilty and, guess what?, YOU'RE GUILTY! So sit down, shut up and write the nice mayor a check.

I have no real problem with guns, to be completely honest here. I think guns in an urban setting are idiotic, but as someone who knows what rural America can be like, calling a cop and waiting a half hour before a patrol car shows up, I understand the need for guns out in the sticks.

So I don't stand fore-square against guns, just so we're clear. I don't think most Americans need them, however, and the fact that there are nearly as many Americans as guns is a noxious one to me. I don't think guns deter crime anymore than a good strong lock does. And I don't think arming the citizenry is going to do even one bit of good, since it merely encourages people to actually go out and use those guns.

After all, if you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail to you.

All that said, the underlying problem here is one of greed and discompassion for one's fellow man. If you don't care who the gun gets used on, you shouldn't be in the business of selling them. Period. End of story.

So, Mr. Wallace, close up your shop. There's ample evidence beyond this sting operation that your store is about as selective as a vending machine.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

MISS AMERICA 1944,82 -STOPS INTRUDER WITH HER HANDGUN

med Miss America 1944 stops intruder

Fri Apr 20, 8:16 PM ET

WAYNESBURG, Ky. -
Miss America 1944 has a talent that likely has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle's tires and stop an intruder.
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Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment.

Ramey said the man told her he would leave. "I said, 'Oh, no you won't,' and I shot their tires so they couldn't leave," Ramey said.

She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun.

"I didn't even think twice. I just went and did it," she said. "If they'd even dared come close to me, they'd be 6 feet under by now."

Ramey then flagged down a passing motorist, who called 911.

Curtis Parrish of Ohio was charged with misdemeanor trespassing, Deputy Dan Gilliam said. The man's hometown wasn't immediately available. Three other people were questioned but were not arrested.

After winning the pageant with her singing, dancing and comedic talents, Ramey sold war bonds and her picture was adorned on a B-17 that made missions over Germany in World War II, according to the Miss America Web site.

Ramey lived in Cincinnati for several years and was instrumental in helping rejuvenate Over-the-Rhine historic buildings. She returned to Kentucky in 1990 to live on her farm.

"I'm trying to live a quiet, peaceful life and stay out of trouble, and all it is, is one thing after another," she said.

Michelle Malkin is a dangerous idiot

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I can barely bring myself to post on this, mostly because I don't want to waste my time thinking about the mad, mad ravings of Michelle Malkin, but here goes:

As Heraclitus mentioned earlier, some conservatives are already responding to the Virginia Tech shootings with their typical brand of bloodthirsty insanity, and it should come as no surprise whatsoever that Malkin is leading the way. In this grotesque piece published at RealClearPolitics, she claims, with all attendant hyperbole, that "American colleges and universities have become coddle industries". Students are being protected "from hurtful (conservative) opinions" and "vigorous intellectual debate," while "Big Nanny administrators" are "allowing mob rule for approved leftist positions".

Now, I was rather critical of speech codes and the like when I was an undergraduate at Tufts -- and I wrote extensively on how higher eduction was giving way to social engineering and therapeutic soul-searching as an op-ed columnist for The Tufts Daily -- but this is patently ridiculous. It's the same old propaganda from the right, a self-serving assault on an imaginary PC paradise that exists only in their warped minds.

But my point here isn't to defend liberal education -- and institutions of American higher education -- from such ignorance and stupidity.

Malkin argues not just that students are not being taught how "to defend their beliefs" but that, rather more generally, "our higher institutions of learning stoke passivity and conflict-avoidance". And by this she means not just intellectual passivity but physical passivity as well. Which is to say, students are neither being taught how to stand up for themselves nor being allowed to stand up for themselves.

This brings us to the Virginia Tech shootings. Malkin asks: "What if just one student in one of those classrooms had been in lawful possession of a concealed weapon for the purpose of self-defense?" Yes, that's right, Malkin's twisted argument comes down to support for the possession of concealed weapons on college campuses: "Enough is enough, indeed. Enough of intellectual disarmament. Enough of physical disarmament. You want a safer campus? It begins with renewing a culture of self-defense -- mind, spirit and body. It begins with two words: Fight back."

Malkin supports intellectual armament -- for conservatives only, of course; she is no proponent of the sort of liberal education that truly empowers us to turn our heads from the shadows on the cave walls to the light above -- but her explicit focus here is armament in the more literal sense. In response to a violent act, she wants college students to carry concealed weapons around campus and into classrooms -- and to use them. For her, as for others like her, more guns mean more safety. Do I even need to point out what's wrong with this line of thinking? Just imagine a college campus -- just imagine a society, Malkin's perfect world -- where everyone is carrying a concealed weapon. Would you trust your classmates? Would you feel safer? Would not any confrontation be occasion for a shooting?

This is truly one of the ugliest and most loathsome things I have ever read. I call Malkin a dangerous idiot, as I have others before her, but that epithet hardly does her justice. She spews reprehensible opinions into the public space, and I can only conclude from this that she herself is a reprehensible human being.

What else to call someone who advocates a culture of killing?

PENN & TELLER ON GUN CONTROL ! ! !

News called on account of tragedy

Guest post by Edward Copeland

Yes, the events on the Virginia Tech campus are tragic and landmark, so it would be unseemly to focus on other news events (if there were any other events out there being covered) or to turn the incident into some kind of political take. Still, it's admittedly a worthier topic for wall-to-wall coverage than Anna Nicole or the Imus controversy. (Guess all it took was a lone gunman to end that "national conversation on race." I think Harry Shearer had the best line about that, asking if the national conversation was the one we started after Hurricane Katrina or the one we started after the O.J. Simpson verdict.)

Yes, I am a cynic, so even though the scope of this tragedy is mindboggling, the hyperbole of the media always gets to me. Every time one of these mass killings occur, they express shock at what has occurred. How many times do these sort of things have to happen for people to stop acting as if they've never seen it before? I'm such a cynic, I'm only shocked that with the repressed anger in this country and the availability of weaponry that it doesn't happen more frequently.

Still, as awful as yesterday's events were, do they really merit non-stop blather? I heard an anchor on one of the cable news channels ask some insta-expert wheeled out for the occasion what it meant that the shooting happened early in the day when most tend to happen in late afternoon. Gee, I don't know – does it mean the killer was an early riser? Then I heard another talking head saying that this will be one of those days where people will always remember where they were when they heard. Really? Pop quiz – how many out there can tell me where they were when the previous recordholder for massacres (the Luby restaurant slayings in Killeen, Texas) happened? Can you even guess at what month or year that happened, let alone the date?

Tragic as this event is, it's not 9/11 or JFK's assassination. (As if to prove the point about not remembering dates, David Gregory kept saying that today was the anniversary of the Columbine massace until someone finally corrected him that it happened on April 20, not April 17.)

Of course, now we will enter the next phase of coverage. I've already heard people blaming video games when there has been no evidence yet that the shooter even played video games. I guess guns don't kill people (or eliminating seven-day waiting periods and limits on the numbers of rounds that can be placed in a magazine), playing Grand Theft Auto or Doom does. I've never played either game, but they are huge sellers and these massacres are not everyday occurrences, but never let a tragedy stop people from pursuing their own agendas. I wish I could find it but I read a great mock piece about people in Verona seeking to ban Romeo and Juliet when two star-crossed teen lovers committed suicide. People always want to blame something outside instead of looking at the fact that some people are just not right. Video games, Shakespeare, movies, Judas Priest or anything else do not cause these things. Mark David Chapman sat down and read Catcher in the Rye after killing John Lennon. Should we ban it?

Whether it's bigotry or violence, people would rather try to solve a problem through bans and banishment than by actively tackling the root causes. Back when Dennis Miller was funny, he used to have a great routine about how if anything Judas Priest has to say is going to set your kid off, something was going to get them eventually, ending with the sentiment, "You can't save everyone — just try not to be living next door to them when they go off."

We also will now have to endure the endless parade of talking heads and people seeking to be professional victims, looking to find 15 minutes of fame within the pool of blood. MSNBC spoke to the stepfather of one of the Columbine victims who said he didn't realize his stepson was one of the dead until the following morning when he read it in the paper. Really? I find that hard to believe unless he lived in another town and the boy's mother had also not been notified for some reason, but let's trot him out anyway just like Elizabeth Smart's creepy father comes out every time a little girl is abducted. I've already seen about three separate interviews with two students who were in the German classroom but survived, though one was slightly wounded in the arm. Yet, the young man who was wounded was still appearing on every interview in a suit and a tie, even with his arm in a sling. Call me crazy, but if I've been shot, I'm not dressing up to talk about it.

I hope no one finds this post too cold-hearted or harsh. I do genuinely feel for the friends and families of those unfortunate souls caught in the madman's line of fire, but the media's insistence on turning into a national circus (and a formulaic one at that) cheapens the entire horrific event.