More Like This

We need more guys like Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson. 

In his letter, Robinson says he takes exception to "the handful of public servants who have suggested that they would reject enforcement of any 'unconstitutional mandates' specifically related to the Second Amendment. 

"The rhetoric of the few ... has been interpreted by many who believe that a person in a position of authority might be able to determine the constitutionality of an issue." 

Yep.

Monumentally Extraordinary

This recent cover story in the Christian Science Monitor on gun owners is absolutely fantastic. It's an extensive look at the inside of America's gun culture. People that own guns are not what they seem to be.

A 30-something suburban aerospace engineer with studs in both ears, a fashionable haircut, and business-casual attire, Brinley says his right to buy and shoot AR-15s should never be curtailed, as bills in Congress now propose. But,by the same token, he acknowledges there are fundamental problems with America's gun regulation system, citing holes in the background-check process and cross checks with mental-health records. That puts him at odds with the NRA's stated positions.

"OK, it's ridiculous to ban 10, 20, or 30-round magazines, but I'm not really sure who really needs a 100-round magazine," he says about a proposal to limit purchases of 10-round magazines.

Finally. This is a great example of what I mean when I say that Sandy Hook has changed this country. Further...

Yet other polls find vast common ground on gun control among those demographic divides. Last year, a poll by GOP pollster Frank Luntz found that 74 percent of NRA members supported more comprehensive background checks for gun purchasers – a reform that University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato says is the most likely to become law. 

After what happened in Newtown, Melvin Clark Jr., a National Guard veteran and gun instructor in Boston, finds himself slipping a bit into that divide. An NRA member, he still turns to the Constitution as his ultimate guide. "A lot of people make the argument that our Framers ... could not have imagined the advancements in firearms, and I agree. They were brilliant, but they could not see the future," says Mr. Clark. "But if you were to ask them if Americans should be armed as well as any British soldier, what might they say?"

Perhaps it's time I rethought my views on gun rights people:)

Both Irrational and Offensive

Here is a piece from the Good Reads section of the Christian Science Monitor.

The Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut brought a deluge of media attention to gun control. One useful perspective came from the Lexington’s Notebook column in The Economist magazine. Britain’s gun-related homicide rate is drastically lower than that of the United States not only because guns are harder to purchase, but because ammunition is scarce, the writer points out. In one recent incident in a crime-plagued British neighborhood, for example, “the gang had had to make its own bullets, which did not work well....”

In one recent year England and Wales experienced 39 fatalities from crimes involving firearms; the US had 12,000. In Britain, “The firearms-ownership rules are onerous, involving hours of paperwork. You must provide a referee who has to answer nosy questions about the applicant’s mental state, home life (including family or domestic tensions) and their attitude towards guns. In addition to criminal-record checks, the police talk to applicants’ family doctors and ask about any histories of alcohol or drug abuse or personality disorders.” 

Some US gun owners argue that they might need firearms to fight a tyrannical government. But “I don’t think America is remotely close to becoming a tyranny, and to suggest that it is is both irrational and a bit offensive to people who actually do live under tyrannical rule,” the writer responds.

Yes, it is irrational and very offensive. I'm reminded of the older, Hungarian gentlemen from my gym who chided Doctor Sean and Pastor Ed who gave them his piece of mind about communism.

Self Defense Shootings Are Rare

A recent piece in my local paper shows just how rare self defense shootings are these days in Minnesota.

Even though a record number of Minnesotans have permits to carry firearms, only a tiny number ever have pulled the trigger in self-defense. Five instances of justifiable use of a firearm by a permit holder have been reported to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) since 2003, although some recent self-defense shootings haven’t been counted.

And the other side of the story that gun rights folks don't like to talk about?

The annual BCA gun reports also show that permit holders have been convicted of 124 crimes using a firearm since 2003. Gun control advocates say the rarity of justifiable uses points to a need to more tightly restrict access to firearms. 

“I think it does undermine the argument that there’s a tremendous need for self-defense, to carry weapons,” said Jennifer Green, an associate professor and director of human rights litigation with the University of Minnesota Law School. “It shows that we may still have some problems as to who is carrying guns.”

Hmm...let me see if I can guess the response on this one...

Fuck you! Don't take my gun, Hitler!!

More Climate Change Facts

Here are more facts for the bubble boys and girls that read this blog. Is it ever possible for people on the right to accept that humans have caused climate change?

Another Domino Falls

After the election I thought that the GOP would shift its stand on immigration in order to garner more Latino votes. But instead of throwing nativists under the bus, Republicans are blowing off anti-gay evangelicals and Mormons. 

As the first Republican senator to endorse gay marriage, Rob Portman's announcement has added another prominent convert for equal marriage rights for all. It turns out Portman's son is gay.

There's an old saw: "A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged." These days, it should be: "A gay marriage proponent is a conservative whose child comes out." People like Portman are becoming legion, including Dick Cheney and Paul Singer, a wealthy Wall Street hedge fund manager whose gay son got married in Massachusetts.

This must be particularly galling for evangelical and Mormon opponents of gay marriage, because they basically handed George Bush the election in 2004, when court decisions allowing gay marriage brought opponents out in droves. In return Bush gave us the Iraq war debacle and the worst recession since the Depression.

Opposition of gay marriage is just another one of those "principled" moral stands that conservatives love to take, only to reverse themselves when it turns out to personally affect them and those they love. Like the recently reelected Tennessee Republican congressman Scott DesJarlais, who publicly opposes abortion, yet he urged both his wife and his mistress to have abortions. I guess we can add "a pro-choicer is a Republican congressman who knocks up his mistress" to the list of truisms.

Republicans should always have supported gay marriage, contraception coverage and abortion rights: they're the ones who keep saying that the government should stop messing with people's lives. What could be more private and personal than who you marry and whether you have children?

Great...

Bend man shot by wife's gun improving

A Bend woman was cited on assault and reckless endangering charges Thursday after a loaded .22-caliber Derringer pistol fell out of her pocket during a visit to McDonald’s and it fired, striking her husband in the abdomen police said. He remained hospitalized Friday, but had improved to fair condition.

And the answer is...MORE GUNS!!!

Amen

Oh Really?

I have been saving a lot of posts about guns and a recent discussion in comments has led me to the decision to put them all up over the course of the next few days. It's going to be a deluge, folks, so get ready!

First up is this little statistic.

You know, Judy, the reality is -- and it's a terrible reality -- since Robert Kennedy died in the Ambassador Hotel on June 4, 1968, more Americans have died from gunfire than died in … all the wars of this country's history, from the Revolutionary through the Civil War, World War I, World War II, in those 43 years. ... I mean, guns are a problem. And I think they still have to be confronted.

Is Shields correct?

Total Number of Americans killed in all of our wars: 1,171,177

Total Number of Americans killed by firearms since 1968: 1,384,171

My question is this...how many more bodies from gun deaths do we need to have to achieve the significance that this image has garnered?

Ryan's lies

Here is a link to get the facts straight about Paul Ryan's budget. I feel its important for folks who comment on this to read this. 

Too Controversial?

Nick Hanauer has come up again in some various conversation I have had and I remembered that I wanted to put his TED talk (repressed for a while because it was deemed "too controversial") up here for all to see. Since when is income inequality controversial?

It's also nice to see the complete destruction, soundly and succinctly backed up with evidence, of the Right's vision of how the economy works. I guess the rich aren't job creators after all.

This Would Be Why

Here is a great reason why we need to have universal background checks.

She was denied a permit to purchase a weapon by her hometown police department in Eden Valley, south of St. Cloud, because background checks turned up a history of violating restraining orders. She went on an Internet site and arranged for the private purchase of a 9-millimeter handgun and ammunition. 

The sale required no background check. 

On Feb. 12, 2012, she went to the home of an ex-boyfriend, Bret Struck, in Brooklyn Center, whom she had stalked for eight years. She killed him, firing every round that came with the gun, and is now in prison for 40 years.

The law did what is was supposed to do but it wasn't enough. Who sold her this gun? More importantly, the answer from the gun rights folks is, "Oh, well. Better that than an American Hitler taking over in my fevered, paranoid fantasies." Remember Jon Stewart?

Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present.

No Outboard Motor!

We certainly shouldn't take lightly the threat from North Korea of late but I can't help but chuckle at this photo.

This is Kim Jong Un inspecting an army unit in their preparations for war...in the Pleistocene? I love how all those guys are pushing the boat.

And I think this photo should replace this one as what results from communism.

Still Going on about Legitimate Rape

In an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Phil Gingrey, a Republican member of the House, repudiated himself on two fronts: women's reproduction and magazine size limits.

Gingrey made national headlines when he tried to justify what Todd Akin said about "legitimate" rape a couple of months ago. At that time Gingrey agreed with Akin that there's some kind of magical defense against conception after rape. Now Gingrey, who's co-chair of the GOP Doctors Caucus, says:

“Whereas Todd said the panic would cause a body to shut down and prevent ovulation, more recent data suggests just the opposite is probably true,” the physician-congressman said. Adrenaline is more likely to spur ovulation, he said.

“So you learn,” Gingrey said.

Unfortunately, Gingrey didn't learn much. Even now he's still talking about "legitimate" rape:

Rape is rape. If it’s rape, it’s legitimate. I certainly regret very much weighing in on that issue, which was something that was already pretty much roundly condemned and criticized. I felt so badly about it, because my profession is treating women.  

There is no context in which the adjective "legitimate" should ever be applied to the word "rape." Legitimate means "conforming to the law or rules." Since rape is illegal and immoral it can never be legitimate.  There can be legitimate claims of rape (as opposed to consensual sex that was later falsely claimed to be rape), but rape itself can never be legitimate.

Apparently, however, in the conservative mindset, just as there is justifiable murder there is justifiable — legitimate — rape. The phrase "legitimate rape" — ever-present in their minds? — just trips off their tongues.

Gingrey feels badly not because of what he said, but because saying it could hurt his chances of winning Saxby Chambliss's Senate seat next year. This is obvious from his other self-repudiation: endorsing the idea of listening to someone discuss magazine size limits.

In the uproar after Newtown Gingrey fell victim to common sense and said that he would be "willing to listen to the possibility” of imposing limits on magazine clips that now hold as many as 100 rounds. Now he says:

"I have come to the conclusion that [limiting clip capacity] clearly would be a mistake — that it would not solve the problem,” he said.

I agree that it would not solve the problem. It would merely reduce the carnage. Instead of shooting 58 people, Aurora shooter James Holmes might have only shot 29. Instead of killing 12 people he might have killed only six.

We accept partial solutions in other areas. All the intrusions of airport security checks, limiting shampoo bottle sizes, making us take off our shoes, and so on, will not completely solve the problem of terrorist attacks. We are spending literally hundreds of billions of dollars annually and inconveniencing millions of people on a daily basis to prevent an attack that killed one-tenth the number of people killed each year by guns. If terrorists were so intent on attacking us they'd simply adopt other tactics, such as attacks on railroads, road-side bombs and, yes, mass shootings with assault weapons loaded with 100-round magazines that the terrorists bought at gun shows without background checks.

All of us are forced to surrender our personal privacy every time we board a plane to reduce the likelihood of terrorist attacks that occur once every few years, yet gun owners can't be bothered to switch magazines more frequently while target shooting to help reduce the carnage of mass shootings at schools and malls that happen almost monthly?

The juxtaposition of these two issues illustrates how weird the conservative thought process is. The whole issue of "legitimate rape" came up because "pro-life" conservatives want to outlaw abortion in all contexts — even rape. Yet they want to keep weapons of mass murder in the hands of madmen who use those weapons to mow down those same innocent children who were saved from abortion.

Got Any Stories?

In the last 15 years, the juvenile detention rate has fallen 41 percent. A staggering drop, to be sure, but why? A recent article in my favorite news magazine sheds light on this welcome shift.

• A shift in thinking about the best ways to handle young people who break the law. 
• A sustained period of decreasing juvenile crime. 
• Fiscal pressures on state governments that have many people – including conservatives who, in the past, espoused tough-on-crime policies – clamoring for less-expensive alternatives to mass incarceration.

I'd say the reason for the second bullet point is the spread of smart phones and video games. And the third reason seems perfectly understandable given the belt tightening that has gone on at the state level. But the first one is the reason that intrigues me the most. Why? Because any time there is a shift in thinking on an issue, the situation invariably improves.

In my local community, I've seen this shift in action. A few years ago, we had some trouble with Somali youths. The police engaged the community rather than cracking skulls and created some programs geared towards their culture. They also created some community events specifically for younger immigrants to get excited about how much it is to live in America. These involved athletic events and, yes, a video game swap. The result? No more Somali youth problem.

I'd bet there are stories like this around the country. Got any?

Head in the sand

2012 was the warmest year on record, and out of 33,700 scientist, only 34 say humans are not the cause of global warming. It appears to me that all hands should be on deck, yet what are we really doing about it? The constant bitching in Washington DC about the budget and other foolish things have put our most pressing issue to the back-pages. I also think most citizens don't want to face reality. What a racket.

Gun Myth #10

Myth #10: We don't need more gun laws—we just need to enforce the ones we have.

Fact-check: Weak laws and loopholes backed by the gun lobby make it easier to get guns illegally.

• Around 40% of all legal gun sales involve private sellers and don't require background checks. 40% of prison inmates who used guns in their crimes got them this way.

• An investigation found 62% of online gun sellers were willing to sell to buyers who said they couldn't pass a background check.

• 20% of licensed California gun dealers agreed to sell handguns to researchers posing as illegal "straw" buyers.

• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has not had a permanent director for 6 years, due to an NRA-backed requirement that the Senate approve nominees.

This last myth is the most damning of all. It illustrates, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how completely full of shit they are when they say they want to "enforce existing laws." To put it simply, they don't and they're lying.

In looking back at all these myths, one has to wonder where they get the ass to behave in this fashion. With the number of households owning guns shrinking by the year, you would think they would be a little more humble and a lot more helpful. Doing the usual stomp down the hallway followed by the door slam and 'Fuck you, dad, I can do whatever I want" adolescent tantrum stands in direct opposition to solutions.