Shall we arm three-year-olds?

Note that the interview subjects here didn't realize that this was a satire. They didn't recognize comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

These gun nuts - these Republican politicians! - were actually serious about arming three- and four-year-olds. "Highly-trained preschoolers"? Really?

This is just an excerpt from the show. According to TPM, "Other politicians not shown in the Showtime clip, including former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, former Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore and former Maricopa County Sheriff (and presidential pardon recipient) Joe Arpaio, all report having been duped by Baron-Cohen."

Do... something!

But, of course, we won't, huh?

Fox News struggles with the Las Vegas shooting

I really don't want to be talking about the Las Vegas shooting, given how many times we've had this same discussion.

I'm tired of it all. We won't do anything. We know we won't do anything. We'll just wait until the next mass shooting and go through it all again. Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station even uses the same post he always uses for these recurring events.

So what's the point?

Of course, I could say the same thing about hypocrisy at Fox News, couldn't I? What's the point? We know that they're hypocrites. They're struggling a bit here since the killer was an older, apparently-wealthy white man, that's all.

I'm fed up, I really am. But Trevor Noah does a good job with this.

Another day, another mass shooting

If we didn't do anything after Sandy Hook, we sure as hell won't do anything now, huh? After all, every lunatic in America needs a way to kill large numbers of innocent people as quickly as possible, right?

Hell, it's worse than that. We can't have registration. We can't have researchers studying gun violence. We can't even have a simple way of determining who the murders were after-the-fact. Nothing is too extreme for the NRA and its enablers.

It's not 1968

(Eric Gay, AP)

As bad as the latest news as been, it's not 1968, as Jonathan Chait reminds us:

In his January 2008 speech following his defeat in the New Hampshire primary — the one will.i.am set to music — Barack Obama insisted, “We are not as divided as our politics suggest … we are one people, we are one nation.” That conviction, to say the least, has been sorely tested during Obama’s presidency. It has been especially strained during a presidential campaign in which Republicans nominated a race-baiting demagogue for president. And last night, when a gunman murdered police officers during a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas, it appeared to reach a kind of breaking point. In the feverish late-night heat, race-baiters at the New York Post, Breitbart, and Matt Drudge stoked a race war they clearly craved. It was 1968 again, more than a few observers said. Everything seemed to be coming apart.

But the old, tattered ideal of unity may be healthier than it seemed. The demonstration in Dallas was the very model of a functioning liberal society — a peaceful protest against police conducted under the protection of the police themselves. Even the most radical of the protesters deplored the shootings, and the police honored the right to protest.

Probing deeper, into more tender spots, one could even detect a formative consensus about the underlying cause of the protest: the routine violence by police against African-Americans. Videos of the murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile have not only galvanized African-Americans who have grown accustomed to the constant threat of police brutality, but they also shocked no small number of white Americans. ...

Among Republican leaders, the impulse to restore calm prevailed over the impulse to stoke racial hysteria. Paul Ryan praised the values of peaceful protest. Newt Gingrich -- Newt Gingrich! -- conceded, "It's more dangerous to be black in America. You’re substantially more likely to be in a situation where police don’t respect you." Even Donald Trump obliquely, and with a characteristically shaky command of the facts, conceded the need for some solution to police abuse: “The senseless, tragic deaths of two motorists in Louisiana and Minnesota reminds us how much more needs to be done.” Whatever Trump actually believed — the identification of Trump’s real convictions always being more art than science — he at least felt compelled to make some nod toward the perception that the police had gone too far. It was not inspiring, it was not ideal, but it was also more than one would have gotten from, say, circa-1968 George Wallace.

That's not to say that we don't have our George Wallaces, even today. Former Congressman Joe Walsh (Republican, Illinois) tweeted "This is now war. Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after you."

Meanwhile, the organizers of that Dallas protest, those "black lives matter punks," condemned the shooting in unequivocal terms. It was a peaceful protest, as guaranteed by our Constitution. The shooter appears to have been a lone, heavily armed crazy. We've certainly seen enough of those, haven't we? Is the fact that this one was black really significant in any way?

A reader at TPM describes 1968 this way. I remember it. I was still a teenager, far more concerned about myself than about the world at large, but I remember it. Despite the absolute hysterics about our first black president, we've progressed since then. Indeed, the fact that we elected a black president is a pretty good indication of that.

Sure, there are racists who gleefully predict a race war. Yes, there are lunatics in our country. And, of course, they're all armed to the teeth, thanks to the NRA, hysterical gun nuts, and cowardly politicians. But sane people still make up the majority in our country.

If you don't know how bad it's been, it's always easy to think that the current day is the worst ever. Indeed, I have people tell me that - people eager to predict the Christian end times, people woefully ignorant of history. It's not true.

The problem these days is that random lunatics can do more damage than ever, thanks to the ever-increasing availability of military grade weapons (and the capability of those weapons to kill large numbers of people). That's a problem we haven't been willing to address.

It's not just guns, either. As our technology improves, the ability of small numbers of people to kill vast quantities of other people also increases. There's always the possibility of truly horrendous acts of terrorism.

Unfortunately, it's not a problem that will ever be completely solved. At best, we can only try to minimize the incidents. Don't get me wrong. We should definitely be doing that. But we won't ever be 100% successful, no matter what we do.

But random lunatics aren't going to destroy our country. We have to do that. And despite everything - despite Donald Trump, despite Joe Walsh and the people like him, despite the hysteria on the right - I'm confident that we're going to survive 2016 just like we survived 1968.

There are people who want violence. There are people who push violence. And there are people who will use violence for their own political advantage. But that's not America. Most of us are better than that.

Protecting your family with a gun

PZ Myers puts this so well that I'm just going to post what he said:

Christy Sheats posted this on her facebook page last March.

It would be horribly tragic if my ability to protect myself or my family were to be taken away, but that’s exactly what Democrats are determined to do by banning semi-automatic handguns.

You know exactly where this is going, right? Sheats is dead, shot by the police after she refused to drop that handgun, after she’d used it to murder her 17 and 22 year old daughters.

I think the tragedy is that no one took her guns away before she killed two people with them.

Sorry about the depressing story. But we can't keep ignoring things like this.

Seth Meyers: gun control and the 2nd Amendment

Trevor Noah addresses the Orlando shooting

These events are so sickening that I hate to talk about them at all, or even think about them. But what's especially sickening is that we never do anything about it.

Well, if a grade school could be shot up without America actually trying to do something about it, what would get us to take action?

Here's another perspective:



And re. that last video, check out what these Christian pastors say about the Orlando attack:

After 49 people were gunned down in an Orlando gay nightclub in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, pastors in California and Arizona praised the gunman for massacring “perverted predators” and “pedophiles.”

In Sacramento, Pastor Roger Jimenez of Verity Baptist Church said the killer succeeded in making Orlando safer.

“Are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today?” Jimenez said in a sermon originally posted on YouTube. “Um no, I think that’s great! I think that helps society. I think Orlando, Florida is a little safer tonight.”

In the sermon, delivered just hours after the rampage on Sunday morning, Jimenez also said, “I wish the government would round them all up, put them up against a wall, put a firing squad in front of them and blow their brains out.”

Tempe, Arizona preacher Steven Anderson also rushed to praise the “good news” that “there are 50 less pedophiles in this world.” ...

"The bad news is that a lot of the homos in the bar are still alive, so they're going to continue to molest children and recruit children into their filthy homosexual lifestyle," he said, adding the attack would be used to attack Christians and push gun control.

Maybe Republicans would like to ban all Christians from entering America?

Trevor Noah: the NRA endorses Trump

Yesterday, I showed you the video clip of Seth Meyers covering this same issue. Today, it's Trevor Noah. I thought the similarities and the differences were interesting.

And both are quite funny, of course. Donald Trump is the gift that just keeps on giving, for comedians.

Carrying a gun to defend yourself

From TPM, it's the latest shooting incident. (Well, almost certainly not, huh? After all, it's been four days already.)

A man arrested for accidentally shooting a woman at a Washington state movie theater on Friday reportedly told police that he was armed because he feared mass shootings. ...

Gallion's firearm discharged during the film, striking a 40-year-old woman sitting in front of him in the shoulder. She was sent to a nearby hospital and was in stable condition as of Saturday.

The Seattle Times reported that Gallion’s explanations for how exactly the gun went off varied significantly. His father, Donald Gallion, told police that his son said the gun had fallen from his pocket and gone off. But Gallion himself told the arresting officer that another movie attendee had reached for his crotch, causing him to accidentally fire the weapon. He then told a different officer at the police station that a man had been bothering him and that the gun accidentally went off during their altercation, according to the newspaper.

What's noteworthy about this? Well, nothing, really. It happens all the time.

But this is what the gun nuts in the Republican Party want. They want everyone in a movie theater or a restaurant or even a church to be carrying a gun, in the irrational fear of mass shootings, terrorism, or... I don't know, alien abduction?

At least a few of those fearful idiots will also be drunk or bored or angry or depressed or just careless. And when the rest of them hear a gunshot, what then? Heck, what if it is the mass shooting they've all been made to fear?

The thing about gun fights at point-blank range is that you need to be the first person to pull the trigger, not the second. So you'll have all of these people with their steel courage, pulling their Precious and pointing it at all of the other hysterical people who are pointing guns at them. How are they going to tell which one's the 'bad guy with a gun'?

Heck, maybe the initial gunshot was just a stupid accident, like this one. They happen all the time. But when you desperately fear mass shootings, and you've got a gun to 'protect yourself,' are you really going to wait until the stranger across the room shoots you before using that gun on him?

Maybe you will. Maybe you're exceptional. And maybe you're never drunk or bored or angry or depressed or careless. But remember, the NRA wants everyone in that theater to be carrying a gun. Is everyone going to be perfect?

This is the insanity of ordinary citizens carrying deadly weapons everywhere they go. It's bad enough that the police have them. The police do, after all, shoot people by accident (or the wrong people deliberately), leave their guns in bathrooms, and do the same sorts of dumb things we all do, despite all their training. Well, they're human.

The NRA pushes irrational fear because the NRA works for gun and ammo manufacturers who make money from irrational fear. Republican politicians push irrational fear, because that gets them votes from the ignorant, the gullible, and the easily scared. None of them are doing it for you.

Are you really going to feel safer when everyone around you is carrying a gun? I've known people I wouldn't trust with sharp scissors. Typically, though, they were the people most eager to get a concealed-carry permit.

Personally, I fear idiots with guns far more than I fear criminals with guns - mostly because there are a lot more idiots than criminals in America. And when every idiot has a gun, the criminals will have absolutely no problem getting them, as well. Heck, we're pretty much there already.

Dr. Mary Anne Franks: fighting fundamentalism

This is a great talk, it really is - very perceptive and thought-provoking. It's not just about religious fundamentalism, either. Indeed, she seems to hit all of the hot-button topics.

Weirdly, the video has nearly as many down-votes as up-votes. Dr. Franks seems to be someone who gets her share of internet hate.

I have to wonder if they even listened to her talk, though. Even if I didn't agree with her (though I certainly do), I'd find it well-argued and interesting, and certainly nothing to get bent out of shape about.

Ah, but those hot-button issues - guns, race, internet harassment, abortion, etc.  Just the mention of them gets some people bent out of shape, huh?

Marco Rubio vs ISIS

This is the guy who's going to fight ISIS when they invade Florida. Yeah, think about that.

Marco Rubio bought a handgun on Christmas Eve,... because, you know, what would Jesus do? And what else are you going to do on Christmas Eve anyway, right?

And when asked about it, he explained how he's going to be the "last line of defense" when ISIS invades:

"In fact, if ISIS were to visit us or our communities at any moment, the last line of defense between ISIS and my family is the ability I have to protect my family from them..."

Yeah, just Marco Rubio, his pistol, and his bottle of water, standing off the ISIS hordes. Oh, it would make a great movie, wouldn't it?

Of course, it would be a fantasy movie - and a comedy, too. I mean,... seriously? But this is why so many of these Barney Fifes buy their guns. It makes them feel macho. It makes them feel manly. And they imagine defending their loved ones from people who would do them harm.

That's all quite understandable, except that it's their own gun that's far more likely to do harm to their loved ones. If you have your gun unloaded and locked up, what good will it do you when ISIS kicks down your door? But if not, you're really putting your family at risk.

And the idea that ISIS could be held off with Marco Rubio's pistol is just ludicrous. It's pure fantasy. It's confusing action movie heroes with yourself. It's confusing movie fantasy with reality.

This is a guy who wants to be President of the United States, yet he's that out of touch with reality. This is the guy who rarely attends votes in the Senate - after all, he's only being paid $174,000 a year to do his job, so why should he bother actually doing it? - where he might actually accomplish something to,... you know, actually affect ISIS.

Ludicrous fantasies like this wouldn't be a problem - well, if he weren't running for President of the United States, at least - except that they have real-world consequences. Guns put innocent people at risk. That's just a fact.

Marco Rubio may think he's Jason Bourne, John McClane, and Rambo all rolled into one, but the reality is quite different. Didn't we have enough of fantasy-based presidents with George W. Bush?

PZ Myers puts it well:

There’s our problem in a nutshell. One of our presidential candidates thinks that ISIS/ISIL/Daesh is credibly going to invade Florida, that they’re going to break into his house, and that he’ll be able to fight them off with a pistol. That’s such a fantastically naive and childish vision of a sociopolitical conflict that it tells me he’s got an unrealistic view on how to handle a serious problem, and that what’s driving him is really an irrational fear.

Cry for our guns, not for our children?

That's typical Fox 'News,' isn't it? But why do we Americans stand for such things? According to the polls, 90% of us want universal background checks. That support is just as high even among gun owners! Why hasn't the Republican Party faded away like a bad dream by now?

We can't even shed a tear for children, murdered in their first-grade class? We can only cry for our guns, I suppose? Or are these people so obsessed with partisan political advantage that nothing Barack Obama does or says can escape their hysterical anger? How crazy can they get?

Meanwhile, in Oregon, heavily-armed men threatening gun violence have taken over government property, and they're not even kept from leaving the refuge on beer and pizza runs. Police are nowhere to be seen. Indeed, they haven't even shut off power to the buildings!

Of course, those are white Christian gun-nuts, so that's OK, right? I mean, it's not like some 12-year-old black kid with a toy gun. It took the police two seconds to shoot Tamir Rice.

In the 2014 Bundy standoff, armed men pointed guns at law enforcement officers. What happened then? Nothing. The authorities backed down. Cliven Bundy still has his cattle. They're still grazing illegally on public land. He still owes more than a million dollars in grazing fees and fines. No one was even charged with threatening the police.

They pointed guns - real guns, not toys - at law enforcement officers. With complete impunity. But if you're a white, Christian gun-nut, you can get away with anything, apparently.

So, is it that Barack Obama is black? Is it that we love our guns more than we love our children? Is it that Christian terrorists don't scare us, while Muslim terrorists do? (It's only been a couple of months since the right-wing Christian terrorist incident in Colorado. How often does Fox 'News' mention that?) Or is it all three?

I just don't understand my own country anymore. How can Republican politicians be taking political advantage of these things? Honestly, I can't even understand why the GOP still exists as a major political party in America. How stupid would you have to be to vote Republican these days?

___
PS. I haven't had internet access for a few days, which might explain the lack of posts here. Of course, I've been posting less and less anyway, and that's likely to continue - or even get worse. In fact, I can almost guarantee it.

Sorry. This has been fun, but I just don't feel like blogging right now. And the days seem to get shorter every year. Just thought I'd warn you,... again. Don't expect much (if you ever have).

Good guy with a gun

Get More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV Shows

Get More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV Shows

Of course, this was done for humor, but I have to wonder about people, every time I hear that 'good guy with a gun' crap.

The right-wing wants everyone to be armed. That way, when you hear gunshots, you pull your gun and run forward, just like everyone else. But then,... who do you shoot?

'Bad guys with guns' don't have 'bad guy' tattooed on their forehead, as far as I know. Do you just shoot the brown people or something? And if you're going to shoot everyone with a gun, you're going to be shooting other 'good guys with guns,' just like they'll be shooting you.

It just makes no sense whatsoever. Even if you see the 'bad guy' - and can identify him as a 'bad guy' - how do you know that there's just one of them? It's going to be a very stressful situation, you know. How about all the other people with guns, if gun-nut fantasies come true?

Keep in mind that you won't have a lot of time to think about it. You're going to be pointing your gun at other people, and they're going to be pointing a gun at you. The 'bad guy' might not even be there anymore. Or he might already have been shot by a 'good guy' who you mistake for a 'bad guy' when you see the shooting.

Even trained police officers make mistakes like this. All the time. Have you missed the entire Black Lives Matter controversy? What really happens when everyone carries a gun? Check out these GunFAIL compilations by David Waldman.

But there's yet another problem. Who is a 'good guy with a gun'? Isn't it someone who hasn't shot anyone else yet?

Dylann Roof was a 'good guy with a gun' until he killed nine people in a black church. Robert Dear was a 'good guy with a gun' before he shot up that Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado. The NRA would have hit the ceiling if anyone had tried to keep them from owning guns. You're not going to discriminate against conservative white men, are you?

Alex Kozak was a 'good guy with a gun' - and an "open-carry" promoter who carried his gun everywhere - before he shot Andrea Farrington three times in the back for refusing his sexual advances. George Zimmerman was a 'good guy with a gun' before he accosted Trayvon Martin for the crime of walking while black.

Retired cop Curtis Reeves was a 'good guy with a gun' before he killed Chad Oulson for texting his daughter in a theater. And both James Pullam and Robert Taylor were 'good guys with guns' - with their concealed-carry permits and everything - before they killed each other in a road rage incident which wouldn't have happened if they hadn't both been armed.

But gun nuts are faith-based. They have their dogma, and that's it. Of course, they're encouraged by the NRA, which works for gun and ammo manufacturers, and by politicians who also work for such big-money donors. But what about the rest of us? We don't have to buy their bullshit.

What has happened to my country?

A moral outrage and a national disgrace

There was a front page editorial in the New York Times yesterday, "End the Gun Epidemic in America":

(M)otives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism. ...

...politicians abet would-be killers by creating gun markets for them, and voters allow those politicians to keep their jobs. It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation. ...

What better time than during a presidential election to show, at long last, that our nation has retained its sense of decency?

That's just an excerpt, of course, but let me emphasize this paragraph by repeating it: "It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation."

Freedom of speech is guaranteed in the Constitution, too, but slander and libel are still crimes. So is treason. You can still be arrested for falsely yelling, "Fire!" in a crowded theater. No right is absolute.

Freedom of religion is also guaranteed by our Constitution, but you can't burn witches alive. You can't sacrifice people - even willing volunteers - to your bloodthirsty god. You still have to obey the law, no matter what your religious beliefs might be.

Personally, I don't think that the 2nd Amendment is about individual gun rights at all, but rather the rights of states to equip their national guard units. (You know, the whole "well regulated militia" part that gun nuts prefer to ignore.)

But even if I'm wrong about that, it doesn't matter. No rights are absolute. Reasonable regulations are absolutely constitutional. Not that we'll get any. We have mass shootings every single day, on average, and it does nothing. Even when it's children, we do nothing.

We've lost all sense of decency, apparently.

I like this woman

(TPM)

From TPM:

Missouri state Rep. Stacey Newman (D) pre-filed a bill Tuesday that would restrict access to firearms in the same way her state restricts access to abortion.

Newman's bill includes a 72-hour waiting period for purchasing guns and watching a 30-minute video on firearms fatalities before purchasing. It also requires the firearms dealer be at least 120 miles from the purchaser's residence.

The bill would require that a gun purchaser visit an emergency room at the nearest "urban hospital" on a weekend between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. "when gun violence victims are present."

Within 72 hours of their purchase, the individual also must meet with at least two families who have been victims of firearm violence and two faith leaders who have presided over funerals in the last year of a child gun violence victim.

Of course, it's Missouri, so there's not the slightest chance it will pass. Not that it would pass anywhere, really. But I love the whole idea here.

I suppose she won't be too popular with the NRA, though. Of course, that's another plus in my book. :)

Christian vs Muslim

Funny, isn't it?

Elizabeth Warren vs the NRA

Great, isn't she? I wish she were my senator.

Of course, Congress will choose the NRA over children, every time. But it doesn't have to be this way. And I'm certainly glad that someone is still fighting back.

Feel safe yet?

(Tim Eagan)

The cult of the 2nd Amendment

(The Stranger)

From Ed Kilgore at TPM:

Nowadays this revolutionary rationale for gun rights [that the main purpose of the Second Amendment is to keep open the possibility of revolutionary violence against the U.S. government] is becoming the rule rather than the exception for conservative politicians and advocates. Mike Huckabee, a sunny and irenic candidate for president in 2008, all but threatened revolutionary violence in his recent campaign book for the 2016 cycle, God, Guns, Grits and Gravy:

If the Founders who gave up so much to create liberty for us could see how our government has morphed into a ham-fisted, hypercontrolling “Sugar Daddy,” I believe those same patriots who launched a revolution would launch another one. Too many Americans have grown used to Big Government’s overreach. They’ve been conditioned to just bend over and take it like a prisoner [!]. But in Bubba-ville, the days of bending are just about over. People are ready to start standing up for freedom and refusing to take it anymore.

...

Perhaps the most surprising statement on this subject from a Republican presidential candidate was by a rare figure who dissents from the right-to-revolution talk, per this report from Sahil Kapur at TPM a few months ago:

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz's argument that the Second Amendment provides the "ultimate check against government tyranny" is a bit too extreme for potential 2016 rival and fellow Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

"Well, we tried that once in South Carolina. I wouldn't go down that road again," Graham said, in an apparent reference to the Civil War. "I think an informed electorate is probably a better check than, you know, guns in the streets."

Graham joked about this, but liberals generally are not amused by the suggestion that “patriotic” Americans should be stockpiling guns in case “they”—it’s not clear who, of course—decide it’s time to start shooting police officers and members of the armed forces in defense of their liberties, which in some cases are perceived to be extremely broad. Indeed, a lot of Second Amendment ultras appear to think the right to revolution is entirely up to the individual revolutionary. Here’s Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, the darling of the GOP Class of 2014, talking about this contingency in 2012:

I have a beautiful little Smith & Wesson, 9 millimeter, and it goes with me virtually everywhere...But I do believe in the right to carry, and I believe in the right to defend myself and my family — whether it’s from an intruder, or whether it’s from the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important.

You can wonder, as I often do, how people like Ernst would react to such rhetoric if it were coming from a member of a black nationalist or Islamist group. But clearly, there’s no point in progressives seeking any “compromise” with them on gun issues. They can only be defeated by a true mass social movement supporting reasonable gun regulation. But it’s important to understand that according to the Cult of the Second Amendment, opponents of gun measures have every right to fire back, literally.

So who decides when a police officer needs to be shot and killed, or a president, or any other government official?

In 1776, we didn't have a democracy. No one had a democracy. Today, we do. Today, we can vote. If you lose a vote, is that when you decide that police officers should be killed? Or politicians, elected by the majority of voters, whom you dislike?

And how is this different from ISIS? What makes Christian terrorists any better than Muslim terrorists?
___
PS. That picture above? You've probably seen it before, I'm guessing. It was popular for awhile. But I never heard the sequel, myself. Holly Fischer, that right-wing Christian gun nut who bragged about her morals and integrity, was later found cheating on her husband.

Because nothing says "moral Christian" like adultery, right?