Romney view(s) on gun control illustrate his flip-flop style in tackling serious issues

Mitt Romney on gun control

In 1994 running against Ted Kennedy for Massachusetts’ Senate seat, Mitt Romney said, “I don’t line up with the NRA” on gun control.  By 2008 he had completely reversed himself stating that if he became President, he would support the 2^nd Amendment and vigorously defend the rights of Americans to defend their homes.  This was also at odds with the fact that early in his political career he was supportive of many gun control laws, particularly the Brady Act.

Today the GOP candidate is opposed to any further gun control legislation.  He called Trayvon Martin’s shooting “a tragedy” and said there should be a “thorough investigation.”  To my knowledge he didn’t mention the “stand your ground” law, nor did he comment on whether it was good or bad legislation.  It would seem to me the perfect opportunity for President Obama to come out in full force to repeal all these laws and challenge Romney to his positio

Mitt Romney on gun control 4 years ago:

In his 1994 Senate bid, Romney defied the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) by saying that he favored strong gun laws and did not “line up with the NRA.”  But in considering a run for the presidency in 2006, he signed up for a lifetime membership in the NRA.  He even praised the group for “doing good things” and confirmed “supporting the right to bear arms.”  When asked in 2007 if he was still in favor of the Brady Bill he was vague and referenced his term as Governor.

Romney said that he signed the assault weapons ban as Massachusetts’ governor exclaiming that it was a “weapon of such lethality” and poses grave risk to law enforcement.  This didn’t get him any accolades from the NRA but then that may well be put aside when he addresses the gun lobbying group at its annual meeting Friday the 13^th in St. Louis, MO. 

This after the recent Trayvon Martin shooting and the earlier massacre in Tucson, AZ, injuring former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords and killing six.  This when the nation is still reeling from mass school shootings and a potential hate crime that left 3 dead and two injured in Tulsa, OK.  I am running a documented count of shootings across the U.S. which I started in March and will publish monthly.

While campaigning, Romney tells potential voters that we have all the gun control laws we need and about a month ago let the world know he owns two shotguns.  Not a handgun, mind you, just two shotguns and he actually doesn’t even own them.  In an interview with the Boston Globe he bragged of being a hunter and having a gun of his own.  He was corrected by the interviewer who said isn’t that your son’s gun?  Romney responded, “Um, well, yes, but so what?

The man is an enigma unto himself, making it repeatedly clear that he is swayed by the issue at hand and will switch in whatever direction necessary that will benefit his candidacy.  By the way, this isn’t Romney’s first appearance before the NRA.  He addressed them in 2008 and 2009 and sent a video message for the 2011 annual meeting.  Since charges against Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, have been made, will this come up at the NRA’s meeting?

And finally, the dreaded link with Barack Obama in his views on gun control.  Yes, says former presidential candidate Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney does share many of President Obama’s views on guns.  He also included the issues of health care and energy policy in this forum.  Santorum sums up Romney’s apparent nomination by saying, the party shouldn’t nominate a moderate with this little contrast with the President.  But it sure looks like they will.

The NRA’s sinister roll outside gun rights lobbying

Think the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) only concerns itself with the right for anyone to buy a gun, no matter what their background is, and carry it anywhere in the U.S. they want to?  Think again.  This duplicitous organization, in its crusade to convince a bunch of brain-washed gun worshippers the 2^nd Amendment gives them the right to do anything they choose with firearms, has an underlying reason for constantly appealing to members’ pocketbooks.

The NRA does hit up its members for donations that these gun chumps easily give up to keep them armed to the hilt, but there is a method in their madness.  The NRA wants to go big time in the lobbying of conservative causes.



Grover Norquist

 They are hooked up with one of the most ultra-conservative lobbying groups in the country, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), who dreams up legislation that is pro-business and anti-consumer, then takes it to dim-witted, mostly GOP state legislators throughout the U.S. who often pass the legislation verbatim.  A good example is the “stand your ground” law that is responsible for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida by George Zimmerman.

The NRA actually brought this proposed law to ALEC, who first got it passed in Florida and subsequently 20+ other states.  But the bullets hit the fan this past week when four of ALEC’s corporate sponsors dumped them, no doubt over the “stand your ground” law and the Trayvon Martin killing.  The companies were Coca Cola, Pepsico, Kraft and Intuit and according to some there may be more. 

Thanks to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), ALEC is finally being exposed for the conspiracy it is.  You can see all the action at their site ALEC Exposed.

The CMD has also documented the NRA’s participation in other conservative legislation that has nothing to do with gun rights.  NRA lobbyist Tara Mica was instrumental in developing and coordinating the bill for voter ID that inhibits voting by the poor, ethnic groups and minorities.  Mica was also responsible for participating in the preparation of the model legislation that eventually became Arizona’s anti-immigration law, SB-1070. 

The question the NRA members might want to ask themselves at this point is just how much of their membership dues are being used for this non-gun lobbying.  Unless a majority of the enrollment are bigots who also are in favor of this same philosophy,

Karl Malone



Josh Horwitz, head of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV), says the NRA's role with ALEC cements his view that the NRA is really a base for the conservative movement.  Further, "People think the NRA is just a gun group. It's really not," he commented.  You might want to click on CSGV’s website, “Meet the NRA.org,” where you can check out the group, particularly its leadership.  People like: 

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, and David Keene, former chairman of the American Conservative Union, Robert Brown, creator of Soldier of Fortune magazine, rock guitarist Ted Nugent, former NBA star Karl Malone, Chuck Norris, Oliver North and Tom Selleck.



Tom Selleck

 Robert Spitzer, a political scientist at the State University of New York at Cortland and at Cornell University, who has studied and written about the NRA for decades, talks of other non-gun issues in which the NRA has become involved.  As an example, the NRA fought hard against campaign finance reform in the days of McCain-Feingold. "They were taking a very much free-enterprise, government-hands-off-the-campaign-process (approach),"

Finally, Spitzer said that the NRA has its work cut out for it, because gun ownership is on the decline in America.  Now that’s the best news we’ve had in a long time.

The ALEC conspiracy broadens

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been called a “bill churning mill” primarily due to the fact that, of the nearly 1,000 bills it presents to state lawmakers each year, 20 percent become law.  Some of them verbatim, right out of ALEC’s factory.  Marvin Meadors writing for the Huff Post likens it to the “evil law firm” in the movie The Devil’s Advocate, a 1997 film in which a lawyer finds out his new boss is Lucifer himself.

I can see how the Koch brothers, David and Charles, would be considered the devil reincarnated by consumers because everything these two concoct ends up flying in the face of the average American citizen.  Things like the “stand your ground” laws (Castle Doctrine), voter id laws, voucher programs for private schools that dilute public education, anti environmental bills, anti-immigration legislation, anti-worker laws, and the list goes on.

But the Koch brothers aren’t in this alone; their cronies are some of the largest corporations in the U.S., all of which depend on the very consumers ALEC laws are designed to oppose.  Companies like Wal-Mart, Kraft, State Farm, Exxon/Mobil, Verizon, AT&T, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, not to mention Koch Industries and there are more.  These back-stabbers are joined by over 2,000 of your state legislators who pretty much do just what ALEC tells them to.

And then there is the National Rifle Assn., which brought the “stand your ground” law to ALEC, who along with the NRA got it passed in Florida in 2005, which then went on to another twenty-something states.  It is the basis on which George Zimmerman shot and killed black teen ager Trayvon Martin in Florida recently, and the possible answer to why justifiable homicides are increasing at an alarming rate in the states that have passed this law.    

ALEC was actually founded by conservative Paul Weyrich, also the founder of the Heritage Foundation to defy liberal think tanks.  He was one of the earliest to marry conservatives to evangelicals, joining Jerry Falwell to found the Moral Majority.  Weyrich actually said: “I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people.”  He continues, “As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

His underlying meaning, above, becomes quite clear when you consider the voter-id laws that ALEC is proposing under the guise of stopping voter fraud that are actually meant to discourage voting by the poor and ethnic minorities. 

But there is probably nothing more profound in ALEC’s privatization efforts than its crusade to turn America’s prisons into private enterprise.  Its model legislation has been responsible for an explosion in prison population.  Laws like “three strikes,” mandatory minimum sentencing laws, and “truth in sentencing” that does away with or limits parole.  As crime fell dramatically in the 1990s, the prison population grew by a half-million inmates, as just one example.     



Gov. Brewer fills private prisons



And where do we go for the most glaring examples of ALEC’s privatization of prisons?  Why Arizona of course.  I did a post on this in February, “Private prisons another example of big business exploiting states,” which related the conspiracy going on between Gov. Jan Brewer’s office, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Republican state legislators to bring in companies like Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), and guarantee to keep their cells filled for profit.

But there is a darker side that the state doesn’t talk about because it completely refutes Arizona’s original reason for going this route.  It was to save money, which it hasn’t.  A report released in February reveals that the state overpaid its private prisons by $10 million between 2008 and 2010.  And what they received in return was unacceptable including malfunctioning alarm systems, fences with holes in them, inept staffs plus other problems.

In total there were 157 serious security failings across five facilities.  There were some 28 riots, a figure that cannot be confirmed since the prison administration attempted to hide the evidence.  And just this past Tuesday, Arizona’s Dept. of Corrections awarded a $349 million three-year contract to privatize health care for inmates, costing $5 million more than the state paid in 2011.

These are your tax-paying dollars folks, and ALEC makes the U.S. Congress’ pork barrel politics look like kids stuff.  The question is not if, but rather when, ALEC will come up with a new state program to privatize.  How about parks?  Now that’s a possibility.  Fence them all in and charge admission.  But the state must find ways to force more people into the parks for maximum profit of let’s say a company like “Private Parks of America.”

Absurd?  Not at all.  And if progressives don’t get busy on both the national and state levels and dump these conservative lawmakers that worship big business, this country is in for a shock some day when corporations will occupy the White House and the Congress, not individuals.

BREAKING NEWS: Just announced that Coca Cola and Pepsico have severed their ties with ALEC due to pressure from special interest groups.  More on this later. 

“Stand your ground” gun laws have to go



Fla legislators love the NRA



Two good questions arise in a Wall Street Journal article that seem to challenge the “stand your ground laws in those states where it has been passed.  “For instance, does a rise in justifiable homicides reflect killings that otherwise wouldn't have happened? Or does it reflect the fact that more killings might naturally fall into the "justifiable" category, if a new law broadens that category?”  Tough questions and without more study will no doubt remain unanswered.

Up until the killing of Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman, the primary battle between gun control advocates and those for more gun rights has been to just let anyone who wants to own a weapon of their choice take it anywhere they wanted to.  So far, the gun worshippers have gotten their way.  Now it would seem that the NRA-backed gun bubbas would like to add an amendment: “If I kill someone, let me call it self defense.”

The alleged justifiable homicides almost doubled between 2000 and 2010, but distinguishing these events are some interesting factors.  Around 60 percent were strangers.  Firearms were used in 80 percent of the cases compared to 65 percent in non-justifiable cases.  The average age of victims in justifiable versus non-justifiable are about the same. 

Re. the race issue, in 75 percent of each type the victim and the killer were the same race.  On the other side, in these quasi justifiable cases, when the races are different, the victim is more often black.

So far there is only one common denominator in all the chaos of these laws and statistics and that is the fact that there is a proliferation of guns in the hands of literally anyone who wants them and these gun nuts are able to walk around with their firearms just about anywhere.  And that is not right.  George Zimmerman’s judgment was proven inadequate to own a handgun when he defied law enforcement by following Trayvon Martin, resulting in the black teen’s death.



Where the 2nd Amend. was designed for



In my opinion, the 2^nd Amendment was meant by its drafters to protect individuals in their homes.  Conversely, as a militia then, or for today’s law enforcement and military, the purpose was to arm them for anywhere they were needed to protect the citizenry.  Protection of the homestead was the definition of the “Castle Doctrine” for several years until the gun-crazy gang decided they wanted to play Wyatt Earp.  Retreat was the law before this “stand your ground” crap.

Fla. legislator on his "stand your ground" law

According to the WSJ, one of the reasons reports of the U.S. homicide rate is in decline is the fact that it is voluntary for states to report the data, and police agencies across the country aren’t consistent in their reporting.  I did a post earlier this week, “48 dead from 49 shootings across U. S. in March alone,” where the title speaks for itself.  Actually, there was a slight increase in homicides from 2000-2010, but slight decline when adjusted for population.



GOP delivers for the NRA



Now when you look at justified killings over the same period, justifiable rose by 85 percent.  And most of these occurred after 2005 when Florida and 16 other states passed their first “stand your ground law.”  Coincidence?  The NRA would argue yes.  Sane individuals would see the figures as representing a law that all of a sudden provided these gun addicts a legal excuse to blast away.  And they would have probably continued to get away with it if not for George Zimmerman.

I am not suggesting that gun owners use the “stand your ground” law for a reason to either shoot or actually kill someone.  These people have been so brain-washed by the National Rifle Assn. that they are convinced they must push for the right to display their weapons before the world, fighting for literally any way to do this, and to stand firm against any move to control the violence caused by all these loose weapons on the street.  Pathetic!

48 dead from 49 shootings across U. S. in March alone…See timeline below

When will the American public understand that guns do kill people and that it is the proliferation of these weapons throughout the country that is causing the deaths of our family, friends and neighbors?  Not until these same people say no to the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) and similar gun rights groups and put them in their place.  And that would be as provocateurs of the death and violence that has taken place since these organizations have diluted gun laws nationwide.

It is that simple.  Looking back at Columbine, then Virginia Tech, followed by the Loughner massacre in Tucson, AZ that almost took former Rep. Gabby Giffords life and left her with years of rehabilitation, the T.J. Lane mass shooting in Chardon, OH, it isn’t hard to see how we have easily arrived at the point where no one seems to know just what to do about the recent shooting of the black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. 

We don’t know whether to blame it on George Zimmerman, the lax gun laws of Florida and other states like it, the NRA, the U.S. Congress, or an apathetic public that has allowed congressional and state legislators, who are gun worshippers, to give the NRA and their cronies a free-reign.

NRA "gun control"

Well, it’s all of the above.  Nobody listens to the gun control advocates who have been predicting increased violence for years if gun laws continue to loosen.  As an example, 29 states have the ‘Stand Your Ground” law and 4 more are considering it.  Yes, statistics do indicate some violence is going down across the country, but you can’t prove it by the above figures.  One of these reported deaths was a 3-year-old who shot himself with a family gun he found in their car.

If you have the patience, and the guts, to learn more about what is going on in gun-crazy America, take the time to read the following documentation of the 49 shootings that left 48 dead in just this past March.

• March 6, Jacksonville, FL, 2 dead when fired teacher kills school head, then himself.
• March 7, Tulsa County, OK, 3 hospitalized after being shot in Courthouse Plaza.
• March 8, Pittsburgh, PA, 2 dead, 7 hurt at psychiatric hospital.
• March 9, Montesano, WA, Officer shot, Judge stabbed at Grays Harbor County Courthouse.
• March 12, Las Vegas, NV, 5 shot at a resort casino parking structure which was thought to be gsng-related.
• March 12, Lamoine, ME, 1 dead, 3 injured in weekend shooting.
• March 13, Sanford, FL, Trayvon Martin is shot and killed by watch captain George Zimmerman, supposedly in self-defense.
• March 13, Gallup, NM, 2 killed, a father and son, 2 wounded, in total of 4 shootings within two hours.
• March 14, Little Rock, AR, 1 dead, shot by 9-year-old sister while parents away from their apartment.  The girl was autistic.
• March 14, Phoenix, AZ, 1 dead, 1 wounded at an apartment complex.
• March 14, Tacoma, WA, 3-year-old dead after shooting himself with gun he found in family car.
• March 14, Jefferson County, TX, 1 dead, at least two injured at Texas courthouse.
• March 14, Houston, TX, 1 killed at rave party where from 300 to 600 teens were crowded into a house.
• March 16, Glendale, AZ, 3 dead in apparent murder/suicide, two were man’s young sons.
• March 18, Fayetteville, NC, 1 highschooler dead in nightclub gang fight.
• March 18, Fayetteville, NC, less than an hour from above, 1 dead at another club shooting in the parking lot.
• March 18, Chicago, IL, 5 dead, 12 wounded, in attacks across the Chicago metro-area.
• March 18, Indianapolis, IN, 5 teens shot in downtown Indianapolis, some injuries believed to be life-threatening.
• March 18, Bourbon, MO, 4 dead including woman and three children at a campground resort.  Could be murder/suicide.
• March 18, Oak Hill, WV, 3 dead including two women found in a home.  Shooter was 83-year-old man.
• March 19, Lacey, WA, 1 dead, 2 wounded in Seattle suburb, requiring eight schools to go on lockdown.
• March 20, Gilbert, AZ, 1 wounded, a 12-year-old girl shot by her 10-year-old brother.  Father a police officer, but gun owner unknown.
• March 20, Newport, RI, 1 dead 1 injured, in shooting and stabbing, an assault according to police.
• March 21, Avondale, OH, 4-year-old wounded when walking home from a cookout.
• March 21, Avondale, OH, 1 wounded in aggravated robbery.
• March 23, Ypsilanti, MI, 3 wounded during apparent attempted narcotics sale resulting from argument over price of pills.
• March 23, Burlington, IA, 1 man dead, 1 woman wounded in head who then shot boyfriend in the head several times in a fight killing him, all over their relationship.
• March 24, Oakland, CA, 1 boy dead in shooting going to a house party.
• March 24, Oakland, CA, 1 man dead, 1 woman seriously wounded.
• March 24, Rogue Valley, OR, 1 dead, wife murdered by her husband with 10-year-old son at home.
• March 24, Rogue Valley, OR, 1 dead in White City shooting.
• March 25, Starkville, MS, 1 dead at Mississippi State U. in his campus room.
• March 26, Decatur, GA, 1 teen shot to death by apartment security guards.  The investigation is on-going.
• March 30, Lake Charles, LA, 1 dead, 1 wounded in shooting where drugs were involved.
• March 30, Lake Charles, LA, 1 wounded in another drug deal gone bad.
• March 30, Batesville, MS, 2 dead, at least 3 wounded in an apartment complex, apparently gang-related.
• March 30, Phoenix, AZ, 1 dead at apartment complex.
• March 30, Chicago, IL, 1 dead, 5 wounded at a convenience store.
• March 31, Chicago, IL, 2 dead, 11 wounded, including the nephew (wounded) of Miami heat star Dwyane Wade.
• March 31, Prince Georges County, VA, 3 wounded in Hyattsville in residential area.
• March 31, Miami, FL, 2 dead, 12 injured in mass shooting during a funeral.  Wounded included a 5-year-old girl.

If you have survived this far, I won’t keep you any longer except to say, I’ve been telling you so.   

Gun sales surge while shootings continue to occur on a daily basis



Zimmerman's weapon of choice
9mm semi-automatic



It took the death of Trevon Martin in Florida for those of us who are sane to begin questioning insane gun laws like Florida’s “stand your ground” legislation that allowed George Zimmerman to shoot and ask questions later.  Of course there was no answer, since the round from Zimmerman’s Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm semi-automatic pistol found its way into the black teen’s chest and killed him.  No doubt this has already prompted another run on handguns…just in case.

The “just in case” is for a lot of things like, naturally centered around more gun control, but primarily because gun worshippers are afraid that Barack Obama will cut loose in his second term with tougher controls over the purchase of weapons.  As well he should, but so far we have seen no indication of this kind of move, except, in a recent conversation with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev where the President made the following comments:



Obama and Medvedev



Obama asked Medvedev to let Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin know that he needed to “give me space” to deal with objections to the U.S.’s missile- defense plan.

“This is my last election, and after my election I have more flexibility,” Obama said to the Russian leader.

“I understand,” Medvedev replied in English, adding that he would “transmit this information to Vladimir.”

Although the above concerns a completely different issue, it was clear when Obama ran in 2008 that he had an interest at the time in some form of sane gun control.  Then, not only was he hit by the gun bubbas in Congress, but the NRA and the rest of the gun lobby attacked him repeatedly through its membership and a perpetual media campaign.  The idea was to whip the public into a frenzy that the new president wanted to take away their guns.  It worked.

Excellent video on "Stand your Ground" law, below:



Gun buyers overwhelmed the retail locations in 2011, prompting a record 16.4 million instant criminal background checks of potential owners, up 14.2 percent from 2010, according to the FBI.  Even though some were denied or the transaction wasn’t completed for some reason, others purchased multiple weapons. 

It was just last week that gun maker Sturm, Ruger & Co. announced the company was forced to temporarily suspend its acceptance of any new firearms orders due to a barrage of wholesale orders, already 1 million in 2012.



Reasonable gun control



It is obvious that most of the approximately 16 million new guns in 2011 went into responsible gun-owning households.  However, that’s one new gun per 20 individuals, almost 8 new guns per household.  To me these figures are ludicrous when you consider the fact that there are already millions of weapons out there in homes and on the street.  How many more do we need? 

Will the National Rifle Assn. be satisfied when the figure hits the billions, if it hasn’t already? 

MSNBC says, “Correlating state laws and gun sales is difficult, but in Utah and Texas — two states that have ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws" — pre-purchase background checks rose by 84.5 percent and 19.3 percent respectively in 2011.  In California and New York — two states that do not have ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws — background checks rose by 10.9 and 12.6 percent respectively, according to the FBI.” 

NRA spokeswoman Stephanie Samford said: “People are really just putting a premium on personal safety.”  With 8 new guns in a household, you can buy a lot of safety.  I wonder if that is really what it’s all about.

NRA pushed “stand your ground” law that may be responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death

The Florida law that is currently protecting watch captain George Zimmerman, termed “stand your ground,” was brought to the organization American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) by the National Rifle Assn.  ALEC, a national organization that fosters legislation primarily anti-consumer, has promoted the concept to states nationwide resulting in several laws passed similar to Florida’s. 

It is one of the bills supported by ALEC disproportionately impacting communities of color, according to the Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch.  The question is whether it prompted Zimmerman to take vigilante justice into his own hands resulting in action that he was not authorized to carry out.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a front for back-room closed-door sessions between big business and state legislatures to draft legislation that benefits business.  The center for Media and Democracy has been fighting this organization for some time now, and I have done two past articles you can see here and here.  One of the major problems with ALEC is its secrecy in bringing biased legislation to states that is often passed as presented.

This law, also known as the “Castle Doctrine,” changes state criminal justice and civil law codes by giving legal immunity to a person who uses deadly force if they reasonably believe it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to themselves or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.  It also bars the deceased's family from bringing a civil suit.  Additional information suggests Zimmerman acted as he did because the teen was black.

Florida Senator Durell Peadon introduced the law with NRA lobbyist, Marion Hammer, reportedly staring down legislators as they voted, according to CMD.  Afterwards Hammer presented the bill to ALEC where the NRA “boasted” it was “well-received,” after which all corporations and state legislators on the Task Force unanimously approved the bill as an ALEC model.  At last count, 25 states had the “stand your ground law.”

See Al JaZeera video below of Former federal prosecutor Michael Wildes discussing the NRA's power and the need for improved gun safety and control laws:

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, a devoted ALEC alum, signed a bill into law in his state in 2011 with the key elements of the Castle Doctrine included.  On March 3 of this year, 20-year-old college student Bo Morrison was shot and killed by a homeowner in Slinger, Wisconsin as the young man hid from police after attending an underage drinking party.  Because of the Castle Doctrine, no charges will be filed in the shooting. Like Trayvon Martin, Morrison was black.



Trayvon Martin



Former U.S. attorney Kendall Coffey says the “stand your ground” law is “a license to kill,” noting that the number of justifiable homicides in Florida has tripled since the law was passed in 2005.  CMD says, “The Castle Doctrine and its ‘stand your ground’ provisions give license for people to engage in vigilantism without liability.  As such, the ALEC bill can put the decision to take a life in the hands of a person whose fears are motivated by prejudice and racial bias.

To my knowledge and at this writing, the NRA has made no official comment about the Trayvon Martin death, nor has it commented on the “stand your ground” law in relation to whether George Zimmerman acted correctly in his shooting of the black teen ager.  I read somewhere recently a headline that said, “George Zimmerman is the NRA.”  If that statement is correct, the Florida incident could well be the catalyst to more gun control in the future.

Read more here.

More…gun sense and nonsense

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas

Since my last post on this subject I have been banned by the liberal blog Daily Kos for my views on gun rights fanatics, and vilified by a number of the blog’s pathetic commenters who ban together to oust anyone who writes about gun control.  And they even brag about this.  Normally I would reply to comments as I do on this blog, but early on it was obvious to me that the scourge of gun nuts on DK did not deserve a reply. 

You can see what I am talking about here in one of my earlier Daily Kos articles on gun control re. challenging the 2^nd Amendment.  Just scroll down to the comments and you will see the idle chatter of a gang of misfits, much like the conversations I remember from my elementary school days.  Distressing if your IQ is in the triple digits.  Normal these days when you challenge gun rights fanatics.  But now on to more gun sense and nonsense.

ARIZONA/CALIFORNIA/NEW MEXICO/TEXAS: The multiple rifle reporting rule that covers these four border states was upheld by U.S. Judge Rosemary Collyer saying it was “sufficiently narrowly tailored” to be rational enough in applying only to the states involved.  The gun industry claims it will only ‘burden” law-abiding retailers and not curb drug cartel sales.  The NRA filed the appeal.  Dealers must report multiple sales of semiautomatic rifles to the same person within 5 days.

The semiautomatic weapons, specifically assault rifles, should be re-banned in this country now, and, anyway, who the hell would need more than one even if they remain legal?

MEXICO: Mexican President Felipe Calderon is convinced that the United States is the major source of guns that end up in the hands of the drug cartels.  He blames it on weak American gun laws that are a fact throughout this country recently.  He also claims that in the U.S. criminals in states with strong gun laws go to states with weak laws, like Arizona, for their weapons. 

The Brady Campaign says that these weak gun law states, also including Utah and Florida, “export” crime guns to other states at a rate of nine times higher than states with stronger laws.  So the problem isn’t just across the Mexican border, the same situation exists right here in the U.S.  Brady feels that trafficking within and outside the country can only be curbed with stronger federal gun laws.

FLORIDA: The NRA backed bill, HB155, barring health care providers from asking about or talking to patients and their families about guns, was passed and signed into law in 2011.  The measure was later overturned by a federal judge because it violated doctors’ free speech rights as well as other things.  A new bill has been introduced in the Florida House, no doubt a product of the NRA, to revise the language in HB155 to gain passage. 

The hilarity of this whole issue is that the NRA will go to any length to pass legislation that will make it easier for their member gun nuts to carry their weapons any place they choose, even to the hospital’s emergency room.

ARIZONA: It’s about time this state surfaced, since its mission is “no gun control, nowhere, nohow.”  Arizona has copied “don’t ask, don’t tell,” but it has nothing to do with gay rights.  Disgraced state Sen. Russell Pearce started the trend for lawmakers to bring their guns on the Senate floor until he was ousted in a recall election.  New Senate President Steve Pierce doesn’t necessarily welcome weapons on the floor; rather, he just doesn’t want to know they are there.

Of course the NRA was there, lobbying for the new guns on campus bill, but there were no reports if these political suck-ups were armed.  This all happened only three days after the three students died in the Ohio school shooting.



Charlton Heston ranting NRA gun propaganda



MICHIGAN: Michigan has decided to boost its state’s revenue by encouraging youngsters under the age of ten to shoot a gun.  Another purpose for the young shooters program, says the state, is to teach kids how to hunt when they are young.  There is no age limit for hunting in Michigan, although some restriction apply.  The kids have to be supervised by a licensed adult, operating within arm’s length.  There was no mention of educational requirements other than mentoring.

I am going to go out on a limb here and hypothesize that the NRA is firmly behind this program in order to make sure that future membership rolls have adequate candidates.  Reminds me of the tobacco industry’s current concentration on luring young people to smoke.  That also kills people.

More…gun insanity…state by state

This is a continuation in my series to point out that there is gun insanity all over the country that needs to be corrected with sane gun control.  Of course, there seems never a better place to start than Arizona.  The events below have all occurred since the first day of 2012.

ARIZONA: a Maricopa County sheriff’s deputy was shot and killed while answering a burglary call in Phoenix.  The suspect was in his van with his pit bull when he jumped out of the van with his rifle, firing at the deputy, hitting him just below his bulletproof vest.  The officer was married with two young children.  The animal remained calm throughout and was taken to the Sheriff’s no-kill animal shelter.

TENNESSEE: In a Jackson nightclub shooting, one person died and 19 were injured at the Karma Lounge which is downtown.  It happened around 2 a.m. and police think there was more than one shooter using handguns to fire at the crowd.

ARIZONA: At the Forest National Monument near Tucson, some gun freaks used the state-protected Saguaro for target practice, first shooting off the arms then cutting the cactus off at the knees leaving the remains on the ground in the desert.  The BLM wants to ban recreational shooting in the Sonoran desert but the NRA is against it.  Naturally.  A rancher close by says it gets worse every year and fearing for his cattle’s safety, sold all but six of his 120 head.



VIRGINIA: A Dinwiddie Walmart worker shot and wounded his manager, then killed himself.  The 32-year-old shot at police when they approached him with a handgun.  The 40-year-old manager suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Just another kid on his way to school

WASHINGTON: An eight-year-old girl was in critical shape after being shot at her elementary school near Seattle.  A classmate was detained.  The boy, in the third grade, and who apparently shot the girl, was being questioned about a firearm that was found in a classroom. 

ARIZONA: In the Sunshine State, it makes no difference who or what you shoot at, as long as you are shooting.  A $2,500 reward has been offered for any information leading to the capture of the culprits that shot six burros dead just north of Phoenix.  The shootings occurred in the Bureau of Land Management’s Lake Pleasant Herd Management Area.  These animals are protected by law under the wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.

NEW YORK: Samyah Bailey was hit in the face with a bullet meant for someone else in this Staten Island apartment complex.  The 21-month-old child will survive but she has lost an eye.  Apparently some cowboy by the name of Damark King was attempting to settle a score and recklessly fired five rounds in the apartment courtyard.  Several guns were found in the area; Bailey was shot with a 9mm handgun.

NEVADA: This shooting at a Carson City IHOP is just one more example of why a national gun registry is needed.  Authorities are still trying to find out where Eduardo Sencion got the assault weapon from a Chinese company that has been banned since 1994.  Sencion opened fire killing four others before killing himself.  He also had a handgun and another assault rifle in his van; one an AK-47, the other a Romanian Colt .38 revolver.  

With the recent on-going proliferation of shootings throughout the U.S., it will be interesting to see just how long it takes the American public to turn a deaf ear to the garbage spewed by the National Rifle Assn. about how more guns are needed, and come to their senses demanding saner gun control.  Gun control advocates are not going away and there is plenty of recent evidence that we are making headway in our mission.