Category Archives: Guns

Filibuster For Murder.

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Monday, Sen. Mitch McConnell announced that he will join 14 other Teapublican senators to filibuster the gun safety bill. He apparently timed his announcement to coincide with President Obama’s Newtown speech calling for gun control.

Nothing could better demonstrate the minority leader’s disdain for the president, Democrats and the majority of Americans.

Depending on which poll you choose to believe, 73% – 90% of Americans are in favor of universal background checks. Could the will of the people be any more clear? The majority of Americans do not want to see another Newtown; another Aurora; another Tucson; another Virginia Tech; another Columbine.

But those tragedies are of no real concern to Mitch and his Teapublican followers. Apparently, the only thing that matters to them is their ideology. So they must continue to stand in the way of common sense and progress.

Not even the murders of six-year-old children and the future of public safety can change that.

The United States Of Crazy!

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A recent survey by Public Policy Polling found that 13 percent of Americans actually think President Obama is the antichrist. An additional 13 percent are unsure.

The same survey found that 37 percent of Americans believe global warming is a hoax, while another 12 percent are unsure. The survey also found that 28 percent of Americans believe in the New World Order conspiracy. (The Black Helicopters are coming! The Black Helicopters are coming!). Yet another 25 percent think it’s possible,

If that news isn’t depressing enough, a 2011 Fox News poll found that 24 percent of voters believe our president is not even an American citizen. A stunning 72 percent of Tea Party Republicans and 63 percent of all Republicans thought there was cause to wonder about his birthplace!

Further, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll shows that 32 percent of Americans would favor a constitutional amendment making Christianity the official religion of the United States. An even larger 34 percent would favor establishing Christianity as the official religion of their state. Even though the First Amendment of the Constitution clearly states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” these people seem to believe the Founders intended the US to be a Christian nation.

They apparently assume the Founders simply meant that there should be no establishment of any specific denomination of Christianity despite the fact that some of the Founders were deists and atheists. Many of these same clairvoyants have convinced themselves that the Founders also intended for individual Americans to own all forms of armament ranging from assault weapons to howitzers.

Except for the large numbers of crackpots, none of this is particularly surprising. The US is home to all sorts of crazy.

There are significant numbers of Americans who believe in unfounded conspiracies, such as the Agenda 21 conspiracy, the “truther” conspiracy, the Roswell conspiracy, the FDR-allowed-Pearl-Harbor-to-happen conspiracy, the Obama-is-going-to-take-your-guns conspiracy, the Obama-is-converting-the-US-to-sharia-law conspiracy, etc.

On a more positive note, a new Marist College poll found that 60 percent of Americans think the laws governing firearms sales should be more strict. (After all, who would want to put guns in the hands of the conspiracy nuts.)  59 percent favor a ban on assault weapons with only 37 percent opposing the idea. And 87 percent favor background checks.

Let’s hope those background checks include screenings for nut jobs!

The NRA’s Circular Argument.

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As Congress debated the assault weapons ban in 1994, the NRA offered universal background checks as an alternative. Following the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, the NRA again called for universal background checks. But now that we’re once again looking for solutions to gun violence, the NRA leadership is adamantly opposed to universal background checks!

Their reasoning? Background checks don’t work.

They rightly claim that universal background checks will not work because the database is incomplete; that some states have not supplied necessary data on felons and those with mental health issues. What they neglect to mention is that NRA supporters have blocked the sharing of data.

The NRA leaders also claim that there are hundreds of gun laws on the books that are currently not being enforced. Again, they are correct…but only because an NRA-backed Republican, former Congressman Todd Tiahrt, attached amendments to appropriations bills in 2003 and 2004 limiting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. These amendments prohibit the creation of a national registry of firearms. They require data from background checks to be destroyed within 24 hours. They prohibit the ATFE from releasing any data on gun violence, except in aggregate. They even limit the use of tracing data to suspend a gun dealer’s license.

Worse yet, the ATFE has not had a permanent director since 2006 because NRA-endorsed Republican senators have refused to confirm presidential nominations. Even worse, the ATFE has too little money and far too few agents to do its job. Only a tiny fraction of the nearly 51,000 retail gun dealers can be inspected each year.

Things are further complicated by sequestration. Cuts to Medicaid and mental health care will likely result in even more Jared Loughners and Adam Lanzas being able to purchase guns.

This situation is completely untenable and the NRA knows it because the NRA created it to prevent any realistic limitation on gun sales. The NRA refuses to agree to universal background checks because they are incomplete and unenforceable. And the reason they are incomplete and unenforceable is because of the NRA and its lackeys in Congress!

As if all of this isn’t bad enough, the NRA has written and backed ever more permissive gun laws across the nation. In states like Arizona, any non-felon can walk into a gun shop and buy enough guns to arm a militia. The straw buyer can then walk across the street and re-sell those guns to a crime organization without restriction. If the police or ATFE agents arrest the straw buyer, the US attorney is unable to press charges because no laws were broken.

The laws may not have been broken. But the system is.

The GOP’s Continuing Attack On Voters, Workers, Women And The Constitution.

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Still stinging from its losses in the 2012 election, the Grand Old Party is becoming a Grand Old Pain In The Ass.  Not just for Democrats…for everyone.

While opposing a bill that would raise the minimum wage, the GOP is attacking labor unions across the nation and successfully ending defined benefit pension plans.  Now the GOP is pushing a bill that would loosen the rules for overtime, allowing corporations to overwork and underpay employees.

Famously, the Ryan budget, which was passed by the House, would drastically cut Medicaid, repeal Obamacare and turn Medicare into vouchers.

Although 94 percent of Americans want comprehensive background checks for anyone purchasing a firearm, Teapublican senators are threatening to filibuster any bill that would limit the sale of guns.

In states across the nation, the GOP is pushing a variety of voter suppression laws through state legislatures under the guise of preventing voter ID fraud, a problem that has been proven to be non-existent.   After gerrymandering districts to all but guarantee a Teapublican-controlled House far into the future, the GOP now senses a way to control presidential elections by changing the Electoral College.  The idea is to end the “winner-take-all” approach to electoral votes for states and, instead, award each electoral vote district-by-Teapublican-controlled-district.

If successful, this would almost certainly ensure an endless reign of GOP presidents.

In North Dakota, Arkansas and elsewhere, GOP legislatures are attempting to make abortion illegal. (Of course, the bills will not actually end abortion.  They’ll just drive it underground, making doctors and patients criminals.)  Under the guise of religious freedom, they also want to eliminate contraceptives from health insurance plans and block sex education in public schools.

In Arizona and numerous states of the Old South, a variety of so-called nullification bills have been introduced in the state legislatures.  If passed, these bills would ostensibly give the states power to ignore any federal law the GOP deems unconstitutional.  (Of course, this power is reserved for the Supreme Court and the bills are in direct defiance of the Constitution’s federal supremacy clause.)

Finally, a bill introduced by North Carolina Teapublicans will allow the GOP-controlled state legislature to name an official state religion in defiance of the Constitution’s establishment clause.

Does anyone else get the feeling that the GOP would be happier if our Constitution didn’t exist?

Apocalyptic Politics.

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Many Americans seem convinced that the Apocalypse is upon us.  Remember Y2K? Remember Nostradamus?  Remember the Mayan calendar?

There have been dead-enders around as long as I can remember.  Usually, they were part of some wacko religious cult that had bet its future on the book of Revelation.  But, in recent years, the dead-enders have become mainstream, especially after the election of our first president of African-American heritage.

Fueled by Teapublicans and the right-wing media, we are constantly told to be afraid…be very afraid.  Unless we do as they say and accept their ideology, we will suffer the consequences of a failed, bankrupt state and, quite likely, the wrath of God.  (You know, the God who personally created America by taking land from the natives and giving it to God-fearing Christians.)

All of this is disturbing enough.  But our media seem to have bought into these fear tactics in the same way they bought into the Bush administration’s lies leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

As a result, we’re exposed to Teapublican and Christian evangelical fear-mongering at nearly every turn.  Fire-and-brimstone pastors preach fear from the pulpit and tell their flocks that they will go to hell if they support Democrats.  Hate mongers such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Mark Levin spew apocalyptic nonsense daily.  And the gun manufacturers’ lobby, otherwise known as the National Rifle Association, tells you that your neighbors are out to get you and your government is coming to take your guns.

To make matters worse, mainstream cable channels offer studies in paranoia such as Doomsday Preppers.  Even the movie studios have gotten into the act with a never-ending series of disaster movies.  And, in the most egregious example, the History Channel recently produced a TV series on the Bible, casting an Obama look-alike as Satan!

The clear message is that we will all perish and go to hell unless we all become right-wing Christian Teapublicans who bow to multinational corporations, turn our backs on the poor, ignore the rights of women, show intolerance to minorities, and worship at the altar of intolerance and greed.

Now that would be a REAL apocalypse!

If I Were King.

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Ever think about what you might do if you were named King (or Queen) of the US for a day? I realize this is a somewhat narcissistic exercise, nevertheless, here’s what I would do:

1 – Cut the defense budget in half and use the leftover money to rebuild our antiquated and decaying infrastructure

2 – End the war on drugs by decriminalizing the use of illicit drugs

3 – Empty the prisons of those incarcerated for drug use and petty drug sales

4 – Prosecute those who have ordered or participated in war crimes

5 – Prosecute the bank executives who crashed our economy by stealing trillions from ordinary citizens

6 – Prosecute those who have created off-shore bank accounts for tax evasion

7 – Limit the number of Congressional lobbyists and ban campaign contributions

8 – Institute public financing for electoral campaigns

9 – Implement a national holiday for elections with mandatory voting

10 – Institute a tax on financial transactions

11 – Index federal income tax rates based on cost of living for each taxpayer’s permanent address

12 – End sales taxes on everything except luxury items

13 – End tax exemptions for more than one home

14 – Restore the FCC Fairness Doctrine requiring electronic media to operate in the public interest and withholding licenses to those who knowingly tell lies

15 – Create a single-payer national healthcare system

16 – Strengthen Social Security by removing the income cap for FICA deductions and means test Social Security recipients to prevent millionaires from receiving it

17 – Reduce the influence of multinational corporations on our State Dept.

18 – Require 2 years of service for all US citizens

19 – Ban semi-automatic weapons, high-capacity clips and military-style ammunition and offer federal buy-backs of banned guns and ammo

20 – Require universal background checks for all gun purchases

21 – Proclaim equality for all and increase penalties for any form of discrimination

22 – End tax exemptions for church property, except that used to perform charitable services, such as education, medicine, services for the poor, etc.

23 – End all corporate welfare, especially for those corporations who export jobs or pollute our environment

24 – Ban elected officials from working for government contractors as employees or lobbyists for a minimum of 10 years

25 – Require that corporate offices of government contractors be located in the US

I’m sure I’ll think of more. Of course, our nation is as likely to implement these ideas as it is to make me King for a day. Thanks for allowing me to indulge in my fantasies.

Are We Really So Different From Australia?

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In 1996, a madman used an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to kill 35 people and wound 21 more at an Australian tourist site.

The Port Arthur massacre led the newly-elected prime minister to implement new gun law proposals to ban most handguns, semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic shotguns, even pump-action shotguns. Guns are still available to competitive target shooters, farmers and ranchers and others who can demonstrate a need.

Since the Australian government could not legally seize private property, it instituted an aggressive buyback program that resulted in the destruction of hundreds of thousands of weapons. This in a country that has a gun culture nearly as ingrained as that in the United States.

The result of these new measures? According to former Prime Minister John Howard, gun murders in Australia have dropped as much as 89 percent since 1997! In addition, suicides have been dramatically reduced.

Interestingly, the Australian people still have access to the same movies and video games as Americans. There has been no significant difference in the way Australians treat mental illness. The only thing that changed is Australian’s access to guns.

Remember that the next time you hear NRA leaders and their Teapublican enablers blather on about how the only way to reduce gun violence is to increase the number of guns! 

What Does It Take To Make The NRA’s Enemies List?

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Although I have been a gun owner since my parents gave me a single-shot .22 rifle for my 13th birthday, I have been writing about the insanity of this nation’s gun culture for many years.

Yet I recently learned that I was left off the enemies list published by the National Rifle Association! Naturally, I was horrified!

What have I done to deserve such indifference? Haven’t I made it clear enough that I think the NRA leadership is a group of thugs and dim-wits? Must I do more to point out the unnecessary slaughter of innocents in this country? Must I send even more letters and emails to my elected officials asking for bans on military-style weapons, high-capacity magazines, and all semi-automatic weapons? Must I again point out the fallacy that guns are useful for self-defense? Must I call attention to the fact that, if we had universal background checks to ferret out criminals and the mentally unstable, Ted Nugent and many of the Tea Party members would be denied weapons?

Many of the people I know and admire have made the enemies list…writers, celebrities, corporate leaders, pastors, educators, union members…even cartoonists. Why not me?

Obviously, I lack the fame, power, money, air-time and printing ink to attract the attention of the NRA. But I’ll keep trying. 

Guns And Bibles.

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Or is it Bibles and guns? The two now seem so inexplicably linked it’s difficult to know.

For example, many of the nation’s leading Bible-thumping states also have the largest percentage of gun ownership. And although I know of no studies on the subject, these same states would seem to rank high on a paranoia index.

It all seems intertwined.

Many churches quote the Bible to justify their hatred of gays, abortion rights activists, minorities and other faiths. When the government defends the civil rights of minorities and the right of women to control their own bodies, the faithful are given to paranoid delusions of an “attack on Christianity,” of a loss of “family values” and of a tyrannical government. That, in turn, leads to more gun ownership in order to fight the “jack-booted” (whatever that means) thugs who, according to the faithful, are coming to destroy their churches and take away their right to hate whoever they want.

All of this leads to despicable demonstrations such as those by the Westboro Baptist Church. Even worse it leads to violence against gays and minorities, and murders of abortion providers.

Hallelujah and pass the ammunition!

Although the faithful will be furious at my characterization, it has become reality. Moreover, such actions of the faithful are nothing new. Early Christians turned on the Jews who initially supported them (especially surprising given that Christ was a Jew). Christians fought Crusades against the Muslims. Catholics spawned the Inquisition to torture and murder anyone who displayed the slightest independence from Church teachings. Catholics also slaughtered the Cathars, Huguenots and more. Hitler claimed spiritual guidance as he exterminated Jews, Russians, Poles and Hungarians. And the Japanese believed that they were Divinely protected against all outsiders.

In our own nation’s history, the KKK toted Bibles and quoted scripture as they tortured, hung and burned African-Americans. Neo-Nazis have aligned themselves with “Christian” churches. So have many other militias and hate groups.

Even our once secular military has embraced Christianity to such an extent that it has trampled on the rights of soldiers who practice another religion or no religion at all. According to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, there have been numerous cases of religious discrimination at our military academies and at military bases around the world. The organization is understandably concerned about “a rapidly expanding and unconstitutional influence of religion over military operations and affairs that must (for both national security and service member civil and human rights) remain strictly and forever secular.”

I am not opposed to religion, but I am opposed to religious discrimination and Bible bullying. And I see absolutely no value in allowing religious zealots to push their beliefs at the end of a gun!

NRA Hypocrisy On Gun Laws.

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Since the massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, National Rifle Association leaders have spoken out against any form of gun control. Instead, they call for “enforcing the more than 20,000 gun laws already on the books.”

That’s interesting because the NRA and its Teapublican pawns in Congress have placed an increasing number of roadblocks in the way of those charged with enforcing the laws. They have continually discouraged mayors and city police from enforcing gun laws, saying that enforcement should be left to the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Yet Teapublican senators in the pockets of the NRA have refused to confirm the appointment of an ATF director since 2006. They have not confirmed appointments by either President Obama or former President Bush for fear that those appointments will be too aggressive in enforcing laws. As a result, the current Acting Director B. Todd Jones must commute to Washington from his post as US Attorney in Minnesota.

That’s right, Jones is splitting time between two full-time jobs!

Moreover, as the result of budget constraints, the ATF has not added to its staff of 2,500 agents…the number it had when it became a separate bureau in 1972. These 2,500 agents are charged with policing the more than 100,000 licensed gun dealers in the US in addition to enforcing alcohol and tobacco laws. If that isn’t daunting enough, thanks to Teapublicans, the ATF is forbidden by law to inspect a dealer more than once per year. Of course, that’s hardly an issue, since the bureau doesn’t have enough staff to inspect each dealer more than once every 17 years!

In addition, an NRA-written amendment sponsored by a Teapublican Congressman and inserted into a Congressional spending bill banned the ATF from requiring gun dealers to track their own inventory. The amendment also gave dealers the power to ignore police requests for assistance in tracking guns. It ended the oversight of used gun sales. It required the destruction of background check records within 24 hours of the purchase in order to protect the privacy of gun owners. It also banned the ATF from creating a national registry of gun transactions or even publishing statistics on crimes committed with guns!

Further, NRA bills passed by Teapublican-controlled state legislatures have so liberalized gun laws that it is virtually impossible for law enforcement to prosecute “straw buyers” who purchase guns on behalf of drug cartels, gangs and other criminals. That is what led to the frustration of ATF agents who resorted to the tactics at the heart of the Fast and Furious operation.

Police and the ATF know that one percent of the nation’s gun dealers sell the weapons involved in 57 percent of crimes. Yet they are powerless to do anything about it as the result of NRA-endorsed Teapublican obstruction. Remember that the next time there’s a mass shooting.

More important, remember that the next time you vote!