Arizona now selling guns on the street…and other stupid stuff

It’s my state and I love it but Arizona does have the largest gang of nincompoops in the country running the state government, and that’s all the way from the Governor down to the Republican legislature.  Jan Brewer, the finger waggin’ Gov. who has been in office since 2003 still does not have a clue about what she is doing.  I have to admit she has lucked into some good decisions—one was the sales tax measure to help Arizona’s economy—but stupid moves like denying qualified illegal immigrants driver licenses is more indicative of her style of bungling government.

Jan Brewer

She is supported by the biggest bunch of incompetent Republican state legislators ever assembled in one state, a clique of gun loving cowboys and cowgirls that have succeeded in passing the loosest gun control measures in the country and which have made Arizona a laughing stock.  The latest example is the reaction to a voluntary gun buyback program organized by Tucson’s vice mayor, Steve Kozachik, at the time a Republican.  When the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) had been successful in quelling any gun control since Jared Loughner’s Tucson gun massacre, Kozachik jumped into action.

In the two weeks leading up to the gun buyback, Kozachik received threats and was referred to as “Hitler,” just because he wanted to take back firearms from people who no longer felt comfortable with them in their house.  Sounds simple enough, and they were given in return a $50 gift card.  As an example of the program’s success, $10,000 in gift cards was distributed during the event.  Kozachik was a Republican at the time but switched parties one week after the buyback.  His contention is that there are some in the GOP who want to do right but the party is still being led by the GOP far right.

During Kozachik’s gun buyback program success, the NRA couldn’t stand the heat so in defiance of Kozachik, a group of gun nuts set up a “cash for guns” firearms flea market close by and right on the boundary of the police department where the buyback was taking place.  Kozachik comments, “In Arizona, it is legal for a person to walk up to another on a street corner, hand him cash for a firearm and simply walk off with it, with no need for a background check into his psychological or criminal history.”  And that’s exactly what this brazen bunch of gun worshippers did.

In talking further about his change from Republican to Democrat, Kozachik said, “It is that rigid ideology that is driving the party into irrelevancy.”

But Arizona’s gun culture could also mean that when the Obama/Biden gun control laws start going on the books, it could be the hardest hit of all the states.  A state law has already been proposed in Arizona saying it does not have to comply with any federal laws it chooses not to.  That’s my state, but I still love it. Charles Heller, co-founder of the Tucson-based Arizona Citizens Defense League, another gang of radical gun nuts, resurrected the now cliché 2^nd Amendment argument making a bizarre comment:

“The idea of the Second Amendment was so we could shoot the cops and the soldiers ... who are trying to overthrow the U.S. Constitution.”  It’s like these people are on another planet.    

 

Dennis Wagner, in the ArizonaRepublic, says, “The National Rifle Association does not maintain a ranking list for states, but its website shows Arizona conforming to nearly every NRA barometer for Second Amendment support.”  Arizona also gets an “F” in firearms safety regulation by The California-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “Out of 50 states, Arizona came in 49th behind only South Dakota,” said Lindsay Nichols, an attorney who worked on the report card. “It has some of the weakest gun laws in the country.”

The Brady Campaign gives Arizona a “0” score, last along with Utah and Alaska, for firearms safety provisions.

One can only try and imagine what goes through the minds of such a group of nitwit state legislators who pass these laws and the bonehead Governor who signs them into law.  The term double-digit IQs comes to mind.

Arizona Sec. of State Ken Bennett tied in with conspiracy theorist Joseph Farah

I live in Arizona where Republican lunatics run the state, supported by a lot more of their ilk that vote for them.  We have some of the stupidest laws in the country that only a demented bunch of legislators led by an even more demented governor would pass.  This includes almost every gun law in the state, anti-immigration law, SB-1070, a birther bill that at least the Gov had enough sense to veto, and a list much too long to include here.  But you get the idea.



Joseph Farah with G Gordon Liddy



It seems that Arizona Sec. of State, Ken Bennett, wasn’t happy with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio getting all the attention in demanding President Obama’s birth certificate, so he decided, prodded by the Surprise, Arizona tea party gang of (let’s see, what’s another word for lunatic, oh yes) wackos, to demand proof from Hawaii of Obama’s birth, or he would keep him off the November ballot.  I did a blog post on this back in May you can see here.

And then in a recent turn of events, local KPHO-TV investigative reporter, Morgan Lowe, ties old Kenny into a conspiracy theorist, Joseph Farah, who was the official prod of those poor souls in the Surprise TP, who promptly crawled on Kenny’s back.  Farah writes in the conservative media and is the guy who said Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh “…had ties to a Middle Eastern terrorist group and that TWA Flight 800 was brought down by missiles and that the U.S. government covered it up.”

KPHO-TV reporter Morgan Lowe

I was watching the report on KPHO with a friend who is also a staunch progressive like me and I mentioned the earlier blog post, above, and the fact that Ken Bennett had threatened to keep Barack Obama off the ballot in November.  My friend went ballistic questioning whether this idiot could actually do that.  I said yes, but felt the negative reaction, maybe even a court case, would remedy the situation.  But the impact on this voter was painfully obvious.

I explained to my friend, who is an avid voter, that this is the problem for most progressives in Arizona; they don’t get out and vote, and that is why we have fruitcakes running the state.  There is a question here of a conflict of interest since Bennett is Mitt Romney’s Arizona campaign chairman.  Morgan Lowe spoke to State Rep. Chad Campbell, a Democrat, who told him, “He is pandering to a very small fringe group of people and he's really putting their interests in front of the interests of the state of Arizona.”

Reporter Lowe sent a number of questions to Ken Bennett’s office to help clarify the Sec. of State’s positions on all these issues, which you can see in the above KPHO link.  He did not receive an answer.