GOP Congress backs immigration reform to garner votes…opposes gun control to hold on to votes

It’s all about “ME,” and by that I mean a dysfunctional Congress thinking only about what it takes to get reelected.  When it means turning on a huge new voting population like Hispanics, they are now rushing in to enlist this group in hopes of holding on to their jobs in 2014, and maybe adding a few seats in heavily Latino districts.  But when it comes to curbing gun violence through the passage of reasonable gun control legislation that will save innocent lives, the votes evaporate under the cloud of Wayne LaPierre and his National Rifle Assn. (NRA).

And it isn’t just Republicans.  There are turncoat Democrats representing conservative to moderate districts who walk the fence and vote with the right just to stay in office.  The primary example is Dems who refuse to back the President’s gun control legislation because of the gun bubbas they represent.  Much of this group is likely to be against immigration reform but if their district has a sizable Hispanic population, the typical politician will no doubt find a way to justify a vote in favor just to stay competitive.  I say throw ‘em all out.

As an example of a classic flip-flop, there was Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain who championed immigration reform prior to the 2008 election.  But in his run for President, in a time where the Tea Party still had a firm grip on the GOP, he turned against the issue to please his Arizona and national constituents.  As it turned out it worked, at least as far as turning off the Latino vote.  Obama received 67% nationally, 56% in McCain’s home state of Arizona compared to McCain’s 31% and 41% respectively.  Overall, Obama 52.9%, McCain 45.7%.

In a recent CNN/ORC International survey, 53% want the main focus of the immigration issue focused on allowing undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship.  This is a change from 2011 when 55% said the main focus should be on deportation.  With a wishy-washy American public, is Congress making its decisions based on the current direction taken on immigration reform?  If so, why don’t these blockheads listen to this same constituency when it says in a CBS News poll following the Sandy Hook massacre that 59% favorstricter gun control?

It’s clear why.  Because of the intimidation of LaPierre’s NRA and the fear he instills in Congress that he will get them fired if they don’t back his brand of gun control.  Once again, looking out for number one over passing common sense gun control legislation that could save thousands of lives.  And there’s a connection between the Hispanic vote and gun control. A November 2011 poll by Mayors Against Illegal Guns found that 69 percent of Latino voters support stricter laws on gun sales.  Hispanics for gun control in 2014 could be a formidable force.

After the Romney disaster with Hispanics, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said: "I think you are seeing a lot of movement from our party on these issues.  A lot of it, I tell you, was tone. You know, it wasn't necessarily the policy on immigration, it was what is coming out of your mouth."  I’m not sure just how to interpret this but it sounds suspiciously like an approach to Latinos of ‘we will tolerate you for your vote but don’t expect too much from the GOP in the way of change on immigration issues.’  That’s just my take.

John Feinblatt, chief adviser for policy and strategic planning to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, says our “antiquated immigration laws” are still meant for the black and white TV era.  Adding, even China provides generous stipends and other perks to lure the best scientists and engineers to its country.  Further, while “Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore and Chile offer visas and other incentives to attract entrepreneurs to their countries, we make it nearly impossible for most entrepreneurs to come here.”  There’s more but you get the idea.

And gun control is just one more example illustrating the mental retardation of the United States on issues clearly beneficial to Americans living a better life.  But in Congress you will jeopardize your career in politics if you cross Wayne LaPierre and his NRA.  FormerArizona Sen. Dennis DeConcini, a Democrat, championed legislation against assault weapons in 1989 after the Stockton, CA shooting of school children.  It passed in the Senate, failed in the House.  DeConcini, in Arizona, was almost recalled.  What else would you expect from this state?

The 2014 elections will be interesting from several standpoints.  A lot depends on what happens to gun control and Immigration reform legislation in the next several months.  Even more will be decided on how the GOP Congress of “NO” will work with the President on the programs he laid out in his State of the Union message.  Obama’s win was a mandate but he is still hampered by a Republican led House and a bare majority in the Senate.  And so far the conservatives have shown few signs of cooperation.  How long will the American public put up with this?

The 2nd Amendment is ripe for new interpretation…again

Alan Singer is a social studies educator at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York and the editor of Social Science Docket (a joint publication of the New York and New Jersey Councils for Social Studies).  Apparently he has done his homework on the 2^nd Amendment in research for an article in the Huff Post titled, “Does the U.S. Constitution Prevent Gun Control?”  The answer to this question is a resounding “Yes” if asked of the gun nuts and their head fanatic Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA).

Wacky Wayne says the 2^nd Amendment is sacred and an absolutist part of the Constitution that cannot be touched by gun control advocates.  Having been proven wrong on this several times already, this lunatic continues to rant and rave about gun owner rights in spite of the killings by firearms happening on a daily basis.  This sick ideology of rights over life itself is beginning to turn off a newly savvy American public.  LaPierre has used fear to make his point for years in the American Congress, NRA membership and the general population. 

 

 

President Obama has proposed new gun control regulations that range from universal background checks to banning assault rifles.  New York State passed their own law placing an immediate ban on semi-automatic rifles and pistols, shotguns, and other firearms with military-style features, requiring universal background checks prior to the sale of all guns and ammunition, making it easier for officials to confiscate firearms from the mentally ill, and increases penalties for gun-related crimes.  Singer ponders whether the law will survive.

In a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, they ruled that in the 2008 decision on District of Columbia v. Heller that the 2^nd Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home and within federal enclaves.  The key here is “in the home” which doesn’t rule out but definitely leaves the door open to curbing the carrying of concealed weapons.  Yes, this is a separate issue but it does illustrate a potential crack in the 2^nd Amendment that proves non-absolutism. 

Wayne LaPierre has accused the President of “undermining 2^nd Amendment constitutional principles.”  Alan Singer counters with just how the apparently divine Amendment—at least to the gun nuts—could be in trouble.  He cites the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court which leans to a “textualist” interpretation of the Constitution.  Textualism is defined by Wikipedia as follows:

A formalist theory of statutory interpretation, holding that a statute's ordinary meaning should govern its interpretation, as opposed to inquiries into non-textual sources such as the intention of the legislature {or forefathers/my words} in passing the law, the problem it was intended to remedy, or substantive questions of the justice and rectitude of the law. 

Singer says, “In general I find most ‘textualist’ arguments forwarded by the Supreme Court's right-wing activists to be self-justifying contorted attempts to discover constitutional support for positions they already hold.”  An interesting observation when you consider Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the most conservative, has said that stricter gun laws could be possible under the 2^nd Amendment.  This probably sent head NRA gun nut, Wayne LaPierre, gyrating into outer space but aroused the passions of all gun control advocates.

And it is here where Singer analyzes the Constitution in relation to the right of the people in connection with individual rights.  He says, “An examination of the Constitution shows a very clear and precise distinction between the term ‘people’ and ‘person’ or "persons.’"  Further, that America functions as a whole, not individually by states nor individual persons.  True, individuals do elect our lawmakers both local, statewide and nationally, but these same individuals acting separately can legally be limited. 

In the view of a textualist, “the right of the ‘people’ is a general statement of principle not a specific or individual right.”  Singer draws support from the Fourth amendment in its collective right of the people to be secure in their homes, papers, effects, etc., the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures.  However, with probable cause, identifying the place to be searched, the persons (individual), things can be searched and seized with the proper warrant.  It just proves that there is no absolutist finality in this or the 2^nd Amendment.

In conclusion, singer quotes the 2^nd: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." 

It is clearly referring to the collective “people,” in other words the country has a right to defend itself, he claims.  He does add, “there is no specific prohibition on limiting the access of individual ‘persons’ to dangerous weapons.”  Even so, this interpretation of the 2^nd Amendment “provides an opportunity for even the most conservative Supreme Court Justices to support significant new gun restrictions approved by elected officials in local, state, and federal governments.  We can only hope for the best.        

 

Stopping illegal weapons trafficking could put big dent in gun violence

Gun trafficking is closely related to straw buyers.  The latter is defined as an illegal firearm purchase where the actual buyer of the gun, being unable to pass the required federal background check or desiring to not have his or her name associated with the transaction, uses a proxy buyer who can pass the required background check to purchase the firearm for him/her.  You can see a list of those prohibited to purchase a gun here.  It is illegal to sell to these people but in many cases it is even done through a small number of corrupt federal firearms dealers. 

According to the Brady Campaign, only 1 % of gun dealers account for almost 60 % of crime guns recovered by police.  But 94% of licensed dealers approached by undercover stings at gun shows in Ohio, Tennessee and Nevada sold to individuals who appeared to be criminals or straw purchasers.  34% of crime guns recovered in 1999 (last year data available, had been purchased from a new gun dealer within the last 3 years, indicating to the ATF that the guns had been trafficked.  40% of all U.S. gun sales are without background checks.

There is no federal law against buying a gun from a dealer today and selling it to someone else tomorrow.  The Federal Observer says, “Although the maximum federal penalty for participating in a straw purchase is a 10-year prison term, in practice sentencing guidelines call for only 2 to 2 1/2 years' imprisonment for someone caught providing as many as a dozen guns to a convicted felon. That's half the mandatory (5-year) minimum for possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine.”  Some gun control advocates favor limiting purchases to one handgun per month.

Continuing, “The so-called straw purchase of guns is ‘the most significant factor in gun trafficking, without any question,’ said Jack Killorin, director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' Atlanta field division.  As an example, in a straw purchase, the two shotguns and a rifle used in the 1999 Columbine High School carnage were bought by Dylan Klebold’s 18-year-old girlfriend.  Klebold was too young at age 17.  According to Bureau of Justice statistics, 40% of criminals obtain firearms from friends or family.

Sen. Kristen Killibrand introduces gun trafficking law:

From the Brady Campaign’s first report of Gun Industry Watch, Without A Trace, it exposes how the gun lobby, working with the Bush Administration and its allies in Congress, had protected corrupt gun dealers by systematically blocking the release of information identifying the gun dealers responsible for selling most of the crime guns recovered in America.  The Action Council’s Fact Sheet on gun victims provides more startling answers to why the government is so constrained in efforts to curb gun violence:

Until 2002, the ATF released aggregate crime gun trace reports to local police departments, researchers, policymakers and public safety advocates.  Then Congress voted to restrict police access to crime gun trace data and cut off public access altogether. These restrictions, known as the Tiahrt Amendments (named for the Kansas Congressman who sponsored the bill), have passed in every Department of Justice budget since 2003, despite the fact that prominent law enforcement associations oppose them as a serious threat to public safety.

The ATF, the sole government agency charged with enforcing federal gun laws, has operated without a permanent director since the Bush Administration, and operates with just 1,800 agents to monitor approximately 77,000 gun dealers. Given these constraints, it would take ATF 22 years to inspect all federally licensed gun dealers. Even if the ATF had the manpower to inspect most gun dealers, federal law limits the agency to a single unannounced inspection of a dealer in any 12-month period. Congress has made it increasingly difficult for the ATF to revoke licenses of crooked gun dealers.        

It is impossible for law enforcement to know the whereabouts of millions of firearms in circulation today because Federal law explicitly bars the ATF from establishing a database of retail firearms sales, and private gun sellers are not required to keep a paper trail of transactions. Prior to 2001, federal authorities maintained criminal background check records for up to six months. Under President Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft reversed this policy and ordered the destruction of all criminal background check records within 24 hours. Even though the General Accounting Office found that destroying these records endangers public safety, the policy remains in effect.

Thirdway.org says, “In 9 of 10 gun crimes, the gun was not used by the original purchaser.  Felons and gun runners exploit the unregulated private market—the denial rate has plummeted to 1.53% despite the fact that the background check system is far better today than 15 years ago.  And 92% of background checks are completed within minutes.”  So what’s the problem?  With the combination of universal background checks and sending people like Klebold’s girlfriend to prison for 20 years could at least put a dent in gun violence.

And now to counter this gun insanity, 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans have taken the first bipartisan step toward new gun restrictions by introducing a bill in the House of Representatives to crack down on gun trafficking to criminals.  Carolyn Maloney, New York Democrat, along with Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the other Democrat, and Republicans Patrick Meehan of Pennsylvania and Scott Rigell of Virginia.  The bill would strengthen penalties on "straw purchasers," who buy guns for those who are barred by law from buying their own weapons.

Reuters quotes Cummings re. The Gun Trafficking Prevention Act of 2012, "We have a message for our colleagues in the House.  This bill simply makes sense. Law enforcement officials have asked for it. It will make a significant difference in combating gun crime. And it will not affect the rights of a single legitimate gun owner."  I can just hear the head gun nut of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA), Wayne LaPierre, right now.  He has a message for Cummings, and promptly trots out the NRA’s clichéd, stagnant and tiring stand on an out-of-date 2^nd Amendment.  Pathetic.

Arizona gun nuts or…bring on the clowns

When you live in the state of Arizona and regularly experience the insanity of a Republican state legislature led by a correspondingly moonstruck governor, it is hard to reconcile that these apparently unbalanced individuals are running your state.  I grew up in the South and went through the States’ Rights movement and actually participated in a Dixiecrat rally in 1948.  I thought these people were crazy then, and I think the states’ rights fanatics in Arizona are equally insane.  And there are many who will agree with me.



Arizona State Legislature at work

The Blog For Arizona chides Arizona’s citizenry of gun nuts in attempting to pass legislation to close the loophole in allowing law enforcement to destroy guns not wanted by their owners by saying, “They seek to make the secular sacred by force of state law. In doing so they seek to use the power of "Big Brother" government to trample the rights of individuals to do with their private property as they see fit, which these groups comically pretend to defend.”  BFA asks if Arizona is on the verge of making “idolatrous gun worship the state religion?”

I thought it already was.

“These people are truly insane,” says the BFA, quoting Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik as follows:

"This bill clearly illustrates that some people don't view guns like toasters. When it comes to guns, it's as though they hold some magical or sacred designation in their lives," Kozachik said. "They go around proclaiming to be for private property, but civil liberties are out the window when it comes to guns. I guess the message is, we can't do what we want with our property in this state if that property is a firearm."

Then another state legislative lunatic, Rep. Steve Smith, a Republican naturally, wants to make it illegal for any public servant to enforce "any act, law, statute, rule or regulation'' of the federal government relating to personal firearms or accessories as long as they remain inside Arizona.  The problem with this, as even confirmed by a National Rifle Assn. (NRA) board member, is that it is putting federally licensed firearms dealers smack in the middle of a fight between the loonies in Arizona and the federal government.  If passed, will probably end up in a court battle.

But it took Bloomberg to change Arizona’s designation from Valley of the Sun to “Valley of the Gun.”  Arizona leads the nation in licensees to manufacture firearms.  Add that to the loosest gun laws in the U.S. and you have a potential powder keg.  They are calling it the “Insurrectionist Ideology,” which is what the current gun culture is all about.  Bloomberg quotes one of the top gun control advocates today:

“It plays into this insurrectionist ideology that is at the core of the gun-rights movement: If the government is going to shackle me, I’ll become my own gunmaker, my own gun dealer,” said Ladd Everitt, communications director for the Washington-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “There has been a really strong resurgence in this type of mentality that started when Obama was elected president.”

 Bloomberg calls this country an “American Arsenal,” and rightfully so considering the approximately 300 million firearms owned by U.S. citizens which breaks down to an average of about 2.5 guns per household.  However, since the concentration of gun ownership is confined to one-third of all households, the family arsenal is even bigger.  Additional alarming figures are 10.8 million guns were sold in 2011, and in just January of 2013, there were 2,495,440 FBI NCIS background checks, the prelude to gun ownership.

And if you remember Tea Party-backed State Sen. Ron Gould, the head Arizona gun worshipper who ran for Congress and lost, well another crackpot gun nut has taken his place in the name of Sen. Kelli Ward, who mirrors Smith’s legislation, above, in the Senate.  In many other states in this country these people would be labeled certifiable and committed.  Ward’s legislation goes so far that Blog For Arizona says she would change the 2^nd Amendment as follows:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Wayne LaPierre, the head gun worshipper at the NRA, would be proud of her.

NRA’s enemies list should make NRA the #1 enemy of the American public

Here’s an example of the mentality of some members in this group of gun nuts.  A National Rifle Assn. (NRA) member wears a shirt with the words, “If you know how many guns you own…you don’t own enough,” printed on the back.  It is the typical thinking prevalent of a minority in this organization of gun worshippers led by head fanatic, Wayne LaPierre.  It is also the kind of thinking that has dumped 300 million firearms on American streets making it the most gun-loving culture in all similar developed countries.  It’s an absurdity that is killing U.S. citizens.

Wacky Wayne LaPierre

 In its own covert way, the NRA has worked furiously over the years to poison the minds of the American people, and intimidate a cowardly Congress into thinking like wacky Wayne LaPierre wants them to.  You see, this misfit can’t hold on to his million-dollar annual salary unless he continues to sell more and more guns to increase the profits of his primary sponsors, the gun manufacturers.  If you doubt this there were 10.8 million guns sold in the U.S. in 2011, and there have already been 2.5 million FBI NICS background checks in January of 2013.

And in one of their most blatant lunacies, the NRA has come up with an “NRA Enemies List,” consisting of 500 names that gun owners are supposed to hate.  People like George Clooney, C. Everett Koop and the American Medical Assn.  Others include AARP, American Bar Assn., Children’s Defense Fund, U.S. League of Women Voters, the Episcopal and Methodist Churches, the U.S. Catholic Conference and the YMCA.  Any individual looking at this list without concluding the NRA is a gang of wackos is simply not from this planet.

John Avlon on CNN compares the list to Richard Nixon’s own list of adversaries, and laments that the NRA has, with this kind of action, sealed itself inside a bubble that completely divorces the group from American society.  It occurs to me that this is the only way Wayne LaPierre and his gang of gun bubbas can survive with all the killings of innocent lives the organization is responsible for.  Avlon deems the move, “…just the latest example of seriously bad judgment inside this once proud organization.  Judgment, of course, led by wacky Wayne.

86-year-old Singer Tony Bennett recently said, “I still haven’t gotten over Connecticut.  I’d like the assault weapons to go to war, not in our own country.  And I’d like assault weapons eliminated.  Thank you.”  Other celebrities on the NRA’s list include, Sandy Duncan, Marilu Henner, Ed Asner, Hal Linden, Bruce Springsteen, Albert Brooks, Jack Nicholson, Jerry Seinfeld and Oprah Winfrey.  Not a shabby bunch and I wonder how long it would take for a stream of public service TV spots from these folks to put the NRA on the run?

YOUNG TURKS COMPARE NRA TO SERIAL KILLERS:

Avlon quotes lyrics by U2: "Choose your enemies carefully, 'cause they will define you."  He adds, “The NRA, like too much of the conservative movement, has chosen its enemies indiscriminately and seems defined in opposition to most of modern America.”  Then explain to me how this pack of extremists not only survive but are able to dupe an American public and control a clueless Congress.  To heap more coals on the fire, LaPierre came out with the recent TV ad calling Obama an “elitist hypocrite” for using Secret Service to protect his children.

Hallmark Greeting Cards is on the NRA’s list of enemies.  Since this company is already being cited for lending their corporate support to gun control initiatives or taking a position supporting gun control, I would like to recommend that they come out with a special line of greeting cards to commemorate mass shooting incidents including Columbine, VA Tech, Tucson, the Sikh Temple, Aurora and Sandy Hook Elementary School.  The idea would be to share these memories with relatives and friends to keep gun control a public issue.

If Hallmark were willing, a small portion of the proceeds could go in the campaign to fight gun violence.  And I am aware the mass mayhem is only a small portion of the total problem of gun violence but it is the most visible in the public.  Anything to get the total point across.

Did God order the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre?

If not, at least “former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a religious conservative, suggested that because we are keeping God out of schools, the Deity chose not to stop the slaughter of these young innocents.”  Does that mean God wanted it to happen, since He did nothing to stop it?  Does it really mean that God took it upon Himself as the deity of the Christian faith to pave the way for Adam Lanza to slaughter 20 little children ages 6 and 7?  Does it mean that there is no hope in prayer and common sense to stop this in the future? 

Fundamentally, are we to believe that there is some connection between the violence in the world and a God that takes retribution for the misgivings of the human race?

Lawrence M. Krauss is director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, and he has a book, "A Universe from Nothing," that was published in January.  Krauss once debated Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the self-proclaimed spiritual guide to Michael Jackson.  Boteach doesn’t believe in evolution and on television was found, “…offering admonition to those who, with very good reason, may question a God who could willingly allow the slaughter of children.”  But in fact is this a good time to question your faith and deities? Krauss asks on CNN.

He wonders why it is that everyone expects, and the media promulgates, such a narrow version on grieving for the 20 children who God, in His infinite wisdom, decided to call home in a gun slaughter by a maniac.  I ask, is this just another step in the process of evolution in a country that worships guns more than human life and is escalating in this mode of violence much faster than any other developed nation?  It does not make any sense to Krauss that an intelligent God could just “rationally” act in such a way and still be worth praying to.  I agree.

And the author addresses one of my favorite issues.  Why do we need more than common humanity to bring ourselves together, whether it is helping another in a time of need or grieving, as in Sandy Hook and all the other needless gun murders that go on daily in America?  Contrary to some religious beliefs that the ability to love and forgive cannot be expressed fully without Christian faith, Krauss says, aside from being nonsense, “We can feel real connections, whether we are parents, or neighbors of families, or simply caring men and women.    

Wikipedia defines humanity as “a set of strengths focused on ‘tending and befriending others.’ The three strengths associated with humanity are love, kindness, and social intelligence. Humanity differs from justice in that there is a level of altruism towards individuals included in humanity more so than the fairness found in justice.”  Confucius defined humanity, or jen, as a “love of people” stating “if you want to make a stand, help others make a stand.”  And in no way am I trying to oversimplify the grief of the parents of Sandy Hook and other gun murders.

But it is clearly unfair to limit the grieving process to even Christians, Jews and Muslims.  There are those who do not believe in God, and many these days who are questioning their faith when another of their children, other relatives, friends, or just the man and woman on the street are gunned down by a maniac.  Is it not reasonable to expect this kind of reaction and not make it impossible for these folks to mourn in their own way?  Just as there is no absolutist answer to the 2^nd Amendment, there is also no absolutist approach to believing in a God.

Tying Hitler’s Holocaust to gun control advocated by NRA's Wayne LaPierre since 1994

On Fox News—where else?—Andrew Napolitano, a senior judicial analyst, said on Jan. 10, “If the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto had had the firepower and the ammunition that the Nazis did, some of Poland might have stayed free and more persons would have survived the Holocaust.”  Anthony Polonsky, a professor of Holocaust studies at Brandeis University, questions another comparison of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in which about 750 Jews took up arms, killed about 25 Nazis and briefly slowed the deportation of Jews to concentration camps.

 

Polonsky admits in a Religious Newsarticle by Lauren Markoe that “this uprising was the largest single Jewish revolt against the Nazis. But the Nazis killed thousands of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, and the 50,000 who survived were sent to concentration camps.”  Polonsky added, “The people who participated in it were killed.”  More comparisons by gun rights advocates over the years have used the Russian pogroms from the early 20^th century and also the American slavery movement after the Civil War.

 

Others have joined the chorus of lunatics, one such was John Rocker, former major league pitcher who wrote on WorldNetDaily.com about “the undeniable fact that the Holocaust would never have taken place had the Jewish citizenry of Hitler’s Germany had the right to bear arms and defend themselves with those arms.”  Rocker was also accused of being racist, homophobic, and sexist for comments he made about New York.  And then Jonathan E. Grant railed on about pro-gun control Jews using the Holocaust once again.

Cartoon video of NRA gun nut blasted on Holocaust theory:

 

There were others like Tea Party backed Samuel Wurzelbacher, “Joe the Plumber,” who related, “In 1939 Germany established gun control; from 1939 to 1945 6 million Jews, 7 million others, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated.”  And once again, Wurzelbacher is the same one who proposed in Prescott, AZ, that we should start shooting at the border to prevent illegal immigration.  All loosely connected (LaPierre, Napolitano, Rocker and Wurzelbacher) but each an extremist in his own way, and a threat to sanity.

 

On Piers Morgan Tonight, conspiracy peddler Alex Jones ranted on about how "Hitler took the guns, Stalin took the guns, Mao took the guns, Fidel Castro took the guns, Hugo Chávez took the guns, and I'm here to tell you, 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms.”  The “Hitler” approach dates back to “when opponents of a Chicago proposal to ban handguns invoked it in the largely Jewish suburb of Skokie by "reminding village residents that the Nazis disarmed the Jews as a preliminary to sending them to the gas chambers.”

 

A new pro-gun group called Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership in 1989 began arguing that the 1968 federal gun control bill once favored by the NRA's old guard "was lifted, almost in its entirety, from Nazi legislation."  It wasn’t.  And then in 1994 JPFO founder Aaron Zelman called on the NRA to take a shot at the alleged connection between gun control and the Holocaust.  Zelman made his case which you can read in a Mother Jones article by Gavin Aronsen.  Aronsen isn’t sure Zelman’s plea helped but comments:

“Whether or not the NRA was influenced by his advice, that same year its CEO, Wayne LaPierre, published Guns, Crime, and Freedom, in which he claimed, ‘In Germany, firearm registration helped lead to the holocaust,’ leaving citizens ‘defenseless against tyranny and the wanton slaughter of a whole segment of its population.’”  The following year, President George H.W. Bush famously resigned from the NRA after LaPierre attacked federal law enforcement officials as ‘jack-booted government thugs’ who wore ‘Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms.’”

Whatever conclusions one might draw from these conspiracy theories, it is clear they all originate within a sick gun culture with Wayne LaPierre and his band of gun worshippers always at the root of the problem.  Unless we get rid of wacky Wayne and his gang of gun nuts, mass shootings will continue, daily shootings will blossom even further with more and more guns on the street, and Americans will be forced to endure the tragedy of gun violence.  How many more little children ages 6 and 7 must be massacred to make this point clear?