Safe Storage Laws to Prevent Theft and Accidents

AOL

As the issue of gun control dominates the political stage, gun safety at home should be on the minds of homeowners who keep firearms in their houses. There's reason to be vigilant: Stolen guns is a big problem. Statistics show an alarming rate of weapons being stolen during home burglaries -- and more often than not, they never get recovered.

According to the Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition -- which counts political heavyweights such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg among its high-ranking members -- as many as 600,000 guns are stolen from private homes every year. The group said on its website that it got that figure by culling polling data on households that own guns.

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report last November with lower -- but still alarming -- numbers. According to the report, 1.4 million firearms were stolen during burglaries and other property crimes between 2005 and 2010. That's an average of 232,400 annually. Here's the most frightening part: At least 80 percent of the stolen guns had not been recovered by the time the report was released.

Gun-rights advocates won't even hear of it. Being required by law to do common-sense behavior like keeping guns locked up as a precaution against theft and accidents rubs them the wrong way.  Their adolescent brains can't stand to be told what to do.  They actually prefer that hundreds of preventable accidents take place and that hundreds of thousands of guns are stolen each year, many of which are used in crime.

What is wrong with these guys? Are they really so blinded by their bias?

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

About Obama's Speech in Jerusalem

Ted Nugent - Worse and Worse

SANTILLI: Do you think right now we are in the final throes of implementing communism? 

NUGENT: Well, you know, let's put it in the most heartbreaking frame, shall we? And you may have never heard this before, Pete, but I want everyone to listen, even the people that might be listening that hate me and want me to shut up. Just take a deep breath and give me a second here. 

The President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama went to the Vietnam Memorial Wall. He did his smoke and mirrors scam. He pretended to show respect and honor, 58,000 American warriors who died fighting communism. And then he hired, appointed and associates with communists. 

 If you can't see through the dishonesty and the scamming of this president with that scenario fresh in your mind, then that's literally like, I guess that would be like, I don't know, a German in 1938 pretending to respect the Jews and then going home and putting on his brown shirt and forcing his neighbors onto a train to be burned to death. 

So we really have a rotten, rotten man in the White House who I am convinced hates America, hates individuality.

That's what I call inexplicable Obama hatred.

Three Marines Dead on Quantico

 Yahoo News

A Marine shot dead a male and female colleague at a Virginia base and then killed himself, in the second fatal non-combat incident involving Marines in the United States this week.

Military investigators declined to comment on what motivated the shooting late on Thursday, which led to a 3-1/2 hour lockdown of Marine Corps Base Quantico that extended to the pre-dawn hours on Friday.

The shooter and his victims were school staff members and active-duty Marines, base commander Colonel David Maxwell said on Friday.

"This is a tragic loss for our Marine Corps family," Maxwell told a news conference.

Of course the gun-rights folks object to any attempts to control and regulate the personal weapons owned by servicemen. The result: record breaking numbers of suicides.

What do you think?  Please leave a comment.

Stolen Guns

Did you get that part at the end.  It's more important than ever for gun dealers to fortify their stores and homeowners to keep their guns in a safe.

This should be the law and whenever a gun is stolen as a result of the owner's failure to comply, the owner should be held accountable.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Californians on Gun Control - A New Poll

The Los Angeles Times

First Safe Act Violation

Benjamin M. Wassell, right, stands with his attorney Michael S. Deal, center, and Assistant Attorney General Paul McCarthy, left, in a courtroom packed with supporters Wednesday. Photos by Mark Mulville/Buffalo News

The Buffalo News

Authorities, though, say Wassell flouted the new law by taking advantage of an increased demand for the banned assault-style weapons by adding features to make the two rifles he sold illegal and thereby increase their value.

He is accused of selling a Del-Ton AR-15 rifle, 299 rounds of ammunition and six large-capacity clips for $1,900 on Jan. 24, nine days after the SAFE Act was passed. That gun had an illegal pistol grip, telescoping butt and bayonet mount. On Feb. 24, he allegedly sold an Armalite AR-10 Magnum semiautomatic rifle with 21 rounds of ammunition for $2,600. That gun had a pistol grip.

Wassell is employed by a utility company to check rural gas lines and well heads, and also has a modest disability pension from his war injuries. He reportedly enhanced the guns to earn money to help support his family.

State police, in their complaint, pointed out that Wassell went through with the second sale even though the undercover officer told him he had a felony domestic violence conviction. Felons are prohibited from owning guns.

“In this case, he sold a dangerous assault weapon to an undercover police officer who could have very well been a dangerous felon looking to do harm in our community,” said one law enforcement official familiar with the case.

Wassell also allegedly was selling or attempting to sell several other guns that he had illegally modified.

“He would get the main portion of the gun, the receiver with the barrel, and make modifications, like adding a flash suppressor, telescoping butt, bayonet mount, features that are currently prohibited under the SAFE Act,” the official said.

So, he sold guns to a guy who said he was a disqualified person. That right there is enough to make him a criminal. Plus, he sold a type of gun that was recently prohibited. This is more like "bad laws be damned." But, as Ghandi said, when doing civil disobedience, one must be prepared to pay the price.

The worst thing about this case is the failure to take responsibility for his actions.  It's not his fault, it's never his fault. How many times have we heard gun-rights folks saying  certain laws MAKE criminals out of law-abiding citizens?  That's a pathetic shirking of accountability.

The pro-gun liars are touting this as the first bust of the NY Safe Act. But, wasn't it already a crime to sell a gun to someone you suspected of being a disqualified person?

And would someone please tell us what his having been a "war hero" has to do with it. As we recently discussed, I'm not the biggest fan of former-military guys wearing their war wounds like a crown, as Elton put it.  In this case he sounds like a true hero, having been seriously wounded and risking further injury to save fellow Marines, but I ask again, what does that have to do with anything?

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper Signs Gun-Control Bills

Sponsors and family members of victims watch Wednesday as Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signs gun-control bills into law at the Capitol in Denver. (Ed Andrieski / Associated Press / March 20, 2013)

Rachel Maddow - Republicans Trying to Win Hispanic Support

Florida Violent Crime is Down - More Murders Committed with Guns

Local news reports

In the so-called Gunshine State, home to the most gun permits in the country, firearm violence has fallen to the lowest point on record.

As state and national legislators consider gun control laws in the wake of last month's Connecticut school shooting, Florida finds itself in a gun violence depression. The firearm-involved violent crime rate has dropped 33 percent between 2007 and 2011, while the number of issued concealed weapons permits rose nearly 90 percent during that time, state records show.

"We're happy to have facts and statistics put into these debates, because every time they do, we win," said Sean Caranna, executive director of Florida Carry Inc., a pro-gun-rights advocacy group.

But other state and national data suggests a more nuanced picture of gun violence.
Florida statistics show murderers are increasingly using firearms. Between 2000 and 2005, Florida's firearm-involved murder rate never topped 3.5 per 100,000 residents. Every year since, it has exceeded that number. And in 2011, for the first time on record, guns were used in more than 70 percent of homicides.

Mirroring the 33 percent decline in gun violence since 2007, the violent crime rate also dropped 26 percent during that time, which could suggest other factors at play in causing fewer criminal acts.

This article was linked on my facebook account by one of the most ignorant and biased gun-rights fanatics out there.  He/she offered it as "proof" that more guns means less crime. I guess the part about "a more nuanced picture" and the part about "other factors at play" went unnoticed.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

The Daily News Cover

Bill O'Reilly Takes Michele Bachmann to Task

Minnesota House Approves a Watered-Down Version of the Background Check Bill

 Local news reports

A last-minute meeting came together in a Minnesota House committee on Thursday to take-up a bill from Rep. John Lesch (DFL-St. Paul) to close the so-called gun show loophole.

The Public Safety Committee voted 10-8 Thursday on a compromise bill that removed a universal background check provision but kept an amendment to require background checks between private party sales at gun shows. 

Democratic Rep. Michael Paymar's universal background check bill failed get enough support Tuesday night. Paymar eventually withdrew his bill and said he would work with other lawmakers to find a consensus instead.

Lesch's bill was retooled with provisions to appeal to Republicans and more conservative Democrats. Not only does it require background checks for gun show sales, but it also expands the list of crimes that will make a person ineligible to own a firearm or ammunition.

The universal background checks Paymar sought would not have applied to family members selling a gun to one another, but all other private sales -- from pistols to semi-automatic rifles -- would have required sellers to bring the gun to a federally-licensed dealer for a background check and license transfer fee costing $25.

It seems to me if you allow people to exchange firearms without a background check everywhere EXCEPT at the gun show, you've accomplished absolutley nothing.

This is not a compromise, this is a failure.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Jamaica Reprimands the U.S.

The Jamaica Observer

MONTEGO BAY, St James — PASTOR of the Granville Seventh-day Adventist Church, Charles Brevitt, has called on the United States Government to contain the trafficking of illegal guns into the island with the same fervour with which they are insisting that the Jamaican Government control the lottery scam and the illegal narcotics trade.

"They are allowing guns to leave up there (US) and come down here. We feel that reciprocity ought to be the order of the day. We will control scamming, they must control guns," the tough-talking clergyman charged.

"We don't make guns in Jamaica, we don't have any gun factory in the Caribbean, so in the same way that the Americans are literally holding a gun to our heads to control scammers and to control drug dealers, we must ask them to help us to control the flow of guns into our country."

Last week, at the US Senate Special Committee on Ageing's hearing into the lottery scam, senators called for the extradition of Jamaican lottery scammers.

They argued that enough was not being done by the Jamaican Government to stamp out the illegal practice.

Harry Reid Says Universal Background Checks a Must

 

Yahoo News reports

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Thursday that to be effective any gun-control bill that passes his chamber must include universal background checks, an embattled centerpiece of the White House's bid to curb gun violence.

Reid voiced hope that an elusive bipartisan deal can soon be reached to require virtually all firearm purchasers to be screened for criminal records and possible mental health problems.
Republicans have voiced concerns that a proposed record-keeping provision in private sales could lead to registration, something that gun-rights groups have long opposed.

But Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said in a statement: "In order to be effective, any bill that passes the Senate must include background checks."

Federally registered gun dealers are required to conduct such background checks, but about 40 percent of guns are purchased from private sellers who have no such obligation.

Earlier this week, Reid acknowledged that there is not enough support in the Senate to pass another key part of Obama's drive to curb gun violence - a proposed renewal of a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons.

I'd be quite pleased if the AWB failed as long as universal background checks became law. After that another bill to address the high-capacity magazines would make it just about perfect.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

The Dying Veteran's Letter to Bush and Cheney

MoveOn.org

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens,along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Although I agree with his accusations of former-President Bush and former-Vice-President Cheney, I couldn't help but think there was a bit of self-exoneration in the letter.  After all, HE volunteered for service.  HE allowed the Bush lies to suck HIM in.  HE was the dupe.

This is something that is completely lacking in veterans in general.  Usually, after serving their time, they assign noble motives to their decision to enlist where there really were none. Most joined out of economic need.  Others to get away from family and home town situations, but afterwards they love to pawn themselves off as patriotic heroes.

You can tell this is true because the upper-middle class and the upper class of Americans is almost completely unrepresented in the military.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Yoko Ono's Tweet

Colion Noir on NRA News

These guys are like two bullshit-artists blowing smoke up each others asses.

I loved what Colion said, "It was love at first shot."  This is what happens to many insecure and frightened men who suddenly find the cure to their lack of empowerment. Immediately afterwards they construct elaborage justifications for gun ownership like "I could probably take on one guy, but two or three or four."  They actually convince themselves that it's a serious possibility that they'll be attacked someday by "two or three or four" guys and having the gun will save the day.

The real reason of course is the feeling of empowerment the gun gives them. It compensates for a psychological inadequacy. And once experienced, they'll go to any length to maintain it.


Now, that wouldn't be so bad except for the down side.  People should be able to own whatever fetish items of talismen they want to feel whole, but with guns it's not so simple.

Gun accidents are not the statistical anomaly the gun fanatics keep saying.  Besides the hundreds of deaths that occur each year, there are many times that who are seriously wounded. These are the direct result of gun proliferation.

Even worse is the gun flow into the criminal world. Through various means, lawful gun owners are the source of almost all the guns used in crime. The more diffuse gun ownership is, the greater the gun flow is into the black market.

Please leave a comment.

New Jersey Boy's Facebook Picture Brings Cops to the House

The picture that allegedly caused official concern.

(Credit: Shawn Moore/Facebook) 

 Cnet

They were allegedly alarmed by a Facebook photo of Josh Moore, aged 11, holding a .22 rifle, and they allegedly wanted to get very near him.

The photo had been posted by his father, Shawn, to Facebook. It showed Josh, in his camouflage outfit and rather bright sneakers. 

Shawn Moore told his story to a forum on the Delaware Open Carry Web site.
He said he received a text from his wife that police and alleged members of the Department of Youth and Family Services had paid their home a visit. It was, allegedly, not a social call. 

Indeed, he posted a picture of police in what he describes as "tactical gear."

He says the authorities demanded to enter the house in Carneys Point, N.J., and check his guns. His lawyer, on a cell phone speakerphone, was privy to all the discussions.

Moore insisted that he wouldn't open the safe where his guns are kept-- as no warrant was allegedly presented to him -- and that a lady from the Department of Youth and Family Services refused to identify herself. 

What do you think?

TJ Lane, Mentally Ill Teenager, Gets Three Life Sentences

Huffington Post reports

Wearing a T-shirt with "killer" scrawled across it, a teenager cursed and gestured obscenely as he was given three life sentences Tuesday for shooting to death three students in an Ohio high school cafeteria.

T.J. Lane, 18, had pleaded guilty last month to shooting at students in February 2012 at Chardon High School, east of Cleveland. Investigators have said he admitted to the shooting but said he didn't know why he did it.

Before the case went to adult court last year, a juvenile court judge ruled that Lane was mentally competent to stand trial despite evidence he suffers from hallucinations, psychosis and fantasies.

He belongs in a mental hospital not a state prison.  Naturally, his granddad didn't even receive a reprimand for leaving his guns available to the disturbed young man.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

In North Carolina Shooting Inside a Building is a Misdemeanor

 Local NC news reports 

Sen. Pete Brunstetter, R-Forsyth, has introduced a bill that would change the law that allowed a man to open fire inside a Walmart without incurring a felony charge.

As it stands, it is a felony to fire into a building but only a misdemeanor to fire a weapon once inside, Brunstetter said. Senate Bill 124 would add make it a felony "to discharge a firearm within any building, structure, motor vehicle, or other conveyance, erection, or enclosure with the intent to do harm or incite fear."

The bill was spurred by the case of Justin Ross Murphy, who was caught on surveillance video in October 2012 opening fire in the electronics department of the Kernersville super store. Under current law, Murphy was charged only with a misdemeanor, Brunstetter said, and was allowed to continue carrying a gun.

The gun-rights fanatics who oppose any and all restrictions on firearms ownership and use should be proud of themselves for this one.  I can't want to hear their justification.

My idea of one strike you're out would cover it.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment. 

Phoenix 17-Year-old Dead

Local news reports with video

The owner of the guns who probably had them under his pillow and in the night-stand drawer should be in jail. That's the source of the guns. That's where they passed from the possession of a law-abiding gun owner to the hands of young criminals.

Charging the girl with homicide seems a bit exaggerated, don't you think. She did what thousands of lawful gun owners do all the time, forget the one in the chamber.  That's negligence, not murder.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Colorado Head of Prisons Murdered in his Home

BBC

The head of the department of corrections in the US state of Colorado has been shot dead at his home, authorities say.

Tom Clements, 58, was shot on Tuesday evening as he was called to the front door of his home near the city of Colorado Springs, officials said.

"We know of his position and realise that it is a possible motive for a crime such as this," the El Paso County Sheriff's office spokesman told the newspaper.

"It's a quick, rapidly evolving investigation."

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper appointed Mr Clements to the post in 2011. The prisons chief had previously worked for more than three decades in the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Obama Still Pushing the Assault Weapons Ban

 
Reuters/Reuters - U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden talks before U.S. President Barack Obama signs the Violence Against Women Act while at the Department of Interior in Washington, March 7, 2013. REUTERS/Larry Downing

Yahoo News

Vice President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that the Obama administration would continue to press for an assault weapons ban as part of gun control legislation despite a serious setback on the issue earlier this week.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acknowledged on Tuesday that there was not enough support for the ban in the Senate, meaning it would fail when gun control legislation comes to the floor of the chamber next month.

Biden, who has led President Barack Obama's push for tighter gun regulations, said he was undeterred.

"We are still pushing that it pass," Biden told NPR in an interview, according to its website.

"I believe that the vast majority of the American people agree with us, the vast majority of gun owners agree with us, that military-style assault weapons are — these are weapons of war. They don't belong in the street," he said.

Wstch out. Maybe they're gonna pull one of those "Lincoln" things and surprise everybody.

What do you think?  Please leave a comment.

The Tea Party Has Gone Completely Around the Bend

Suddenly the Pro-Gun Folks Don't Like the Car Comparison

--(Ammoland.com)- Comparing guns to cars is a common and seductive but subtle error of logic.
If it makes sense to license drivers and register cars, then it would make sense to license pilots and register airplanes. And we do. That’s parallel logic.

However, if it makes sense to license gun owners and register guns, then it would make sense to license writers and register printing presses. That would be parallel logic too. But we don’t do that, because that doesn’t make sense.

That’s because those are rights, and government has no legitimate power to license your rights.

So, why would an honest writer object to having a license? Most reporters I know can’t answer that question, which explains why so many support “universal registration” — they understand the issue very poorly. I’ll answer it for you.

If you must pass a government test, pay a tax called a “fee,” get fingerprinted, photographed, listed in the criminal database and carry around your card with an expiration date to publish an article, or else go to prison, that’s flat out wrong. Licensing and registering freedom is tyrannical, assaults the innocent and serves no legitimate purpose in America. That’s why.

There’s also the small point that writing down your name, or my name, in an FBI file somewhere, when we buy a firearm (or write an essay) lacks a crime-fighting component, and in fact focuses in the opposite direction.

I wish I had a Mexican Peso for every time one of the gun-rights folks used the car comparison to try and make their biased and silly points. I'd be able to buy me a nice hacienda south of the border where the living is easy.

But now that the argument has been successfully turned against them, concerning registration and licensing, they've come up with this. Licensing gun owners and registering guns the way we do car owners and cars only makes sense if we also license writers.

Does that make sense to you? Isn't that the same thing as bringing the 1st Amendment into the discussion about limiting the 2nd?  We're not talking about writers and we're not talking about the 1st Amendment.

In other words, in order to claim that one comparison is wrong they introduce another.  Why can't these people just say what they mean?

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Michael Moore and Piers Morgan on Harry Reid

Minnesota Dad Goes to Trial for Manslaughter and Child Endangerment

Kao Xiong, the father of 2-year-old Neegnco Xiong, faces charges of manslaughter and child endangerment in the shooting by his 4-year-old son.  

The Star Tribune reports

When we posted this story before my only observation was that it took so long to charge the responsible person.  Now something else of interest has come up.

Xiong, 31, was charged with second-degree manslaughter and child endangerment, both felonies, three weeks after his 2-year-old son, Neegnco Xiong, was killed on Dec. 5. 

Charges say Xiong had eight guns in the two-bedroom home at the time the 4-year-old was playing with the gun, which had been stashed between the bed and the mattress in his bedroom. 

Xiong and his wife were on the first floor of the home preparing lunch when the gun went off. They found Neegnco on the upstairs bed and his 4-year-old brother under the bed. A 5-year-old son was at kindergarten at the time, while a 1-year-old was asleep in the children’s bedroom.

Police said the safety device was missing from the loaded semi-automatic pistol used in the shooting.

Xiong, a vocational rehabilitation counselor in St. Paul, had a permit to carry the firearm, but he said he could not take the gun to work, so he tucked it into the bed.

You spotted it too, didn't you? Although not your typical looking gun nut, Mr. Xiong had a concealed carry permit. I sure hope someone's keeping track of these guys, they're a lot more dangerous than we first tought.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Assault Weapons Ban Failing in the Senate

 Reuters/Reuters - Customers view semi automatic guns on display at a gun shop in Los Angeles, California December 19, 2012. REUTERS/Gene Blevins

Yahoo News reports

An assault weapons ban sought by President Barack Obama ran into serious trouble on Tuesday when Majority Leader Harry Reid acknowledged there was not enough support for it in the Senate.

It was the latest blow to the White House's gun control plans which are fading as Republicans and even some Democrats baulk at taking on the powerful gun lobby.

Less than half of the Senate backs the assault weapons ban, Reid said, which would condemn it to failure when gun control legislation comes to the floor of the chamber next month.

Prohibition on the sale of assault weapons was always the most controversial element of Obama's attempt to stem gun violence since December's massacre at a Connecticut school where 26 people died.

Backed by a lobbying campaign from the National Rifle Association, many lawmakers argue that bringing back a ban that ran out in 2004 infringes Americans' constitutional right to bear arms.

"Right now," Reid told reporters, the bill by Senator Dianne Feinstein to renew the ban "has less than 40 votes" in the 100-member chamber.

This is certainly no suprise, although a disappointment for sure. Maybe Obama needs to see the film Lincoln to learn how to make this happen.

What do you think?  

Murder Disguised as a DGU

Caleb A. Gordley, 16, was killed inside his neighbor's Sterling, Va., home early Sunday morning. Gordley was a junior at Park View High School, and played for the school's varsity basketball team. (Courtesy of Shawn Gordley) 

Local news reports

The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office says Caleb A. Gordley, 16, was shot by the owner of the home on the 45900 block of Pullman Court around 2:30 a.m. The house's alarm sounded, and the homeowner found Gordley on the stairwell, police say. 

Gordley, a Park View High School student, died on the scene. The homeowner's name has not been released. 

The sheriff's office says Gordley lived on the same street where the shooting took place, and that they believe he entered the home through a window in the rear of the home. 

Gordley had apparently been drinking, and a Twitter account that appears to be his did post about a party happening Saturday night. 

Shawn Gordley, the teen's father, made his comments on Twitter:

This one could very well be another murder disguised as a DGU. Being a drunk 16-year-old and entering someone's house does not merit death. But you won't hear that from the frightened and fanatical gun-rights advocates.  To them, the downside of hesitating is too much.  They shoot to kill as soon as someone dares to violate their sacred boundaries.

And naturally once the delinquent kid is dead, there's only the home owners side of the story which always includes that he felt threatened.  What he usually feels is outrage and anger that some punk would dare to do something like that. He shoots without making any effort to determine if his life is really in danger and he does so totally justified by the law and all the other self-righteous castle-doctrine proponents.

What's your opinion?

Lawful Michigan Gun Owner Thought the Gun was Unloaded - Shoots Friend

Local news reports

Montcalm County Sheriff’s Deputies are investigating after a man was shot in the leg with a .45 caliber handgun.

Deputies say the eighteen year old Carson City man, along with a twenty-three year old Carson City man, were disassembling their weapons in a Crystal Township home Saturday evening. That’s when the twenty-three year old thought he unloaded his handgun and while attempting to disassemble the weapon it discharged shooting the victim in the leg.

Sheriff’s deputies continue to investigate this case and the prosecutor’s office will review to determine if any charges will be issued.

Does anyone really believe this young man is qualified to own guns? Why do gun-rights fanatics not want to hold their own to the simple standard of adherence to the Four Rules of Gun Safety? Why do they always make excuses for each other?

One strike you're out.

What's your opinion?

More Misdirection and Obfuscation from Colion Noir

Cenk Uygur vs. The Armed Citizens Project

Lawful Alaska Gun Owner, Enjoying Constitutional Carry, Shoots Walmart Store Manager

 Local news reports

A man driving a motorized shopping cart shot an Anchorage Walmart assistant manager during a dispute over the man's unrestrained dog on a busy Saturday afternoon inside the Midtown store, police said.

Police arrested the suspect minutes later. Medics rushed the victim, a man shot once in his midsection, to a hospital in stable condition, police said. The store was not shut down, a police sergeant said, and business continued as usual minutes later, with many shoppers unaware a shooting had taken place.

Police later identified the shooter as Daniel Pirtle, 45. The victim, Jason Mahi, 33, was in surgery Saturday afternoon, a police spokeswoman said.

Pirtle, a double amputee with metal, prosthetic legs, came into Walmart with his service dog not on a leash, police Sgt. Cameron Hokenson said.

Mahi is an assistant manager at the store, according to Walmart. He asked the man to leave, police said.

How dare that store manager ask the man to leave.  He wasn't doing anything wrong. No wonder he ended up getting shot, he asked for it.

By the way, if the justification for Constitutional Carry is that gun owners are law abiding, shouldn't the ones who do stuff like this count as concealed carry fuck-ups?  The problem is no one is counting and the gun-rights fanatics keep touting those ridiculously low percentages.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/03/16/2828283/one-shot-at-anchorage-walmart.html#storylink=cpy

Restraining Orders Often Don't Require the Surrender of Weapons

Washington State Department of Corrections

Ms. Holten had recently applied for and obtained an order for protection against Mr. Holten. 

The New York Times

Early last year, after a series of frightening encounters with her former husband, Stephanie Holten went to court in Spokane, Wash., to obtain a temporary order for protection.  

Her former husband, Corey Holten, threatened to put a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger, she wrote in her petition. He also said he would “put a cap” in her if her new boyfriend “gets near my kids.” In neat block letters she wrote, “ He owns guns, I am scared.”

The judge’s order prohibited Mr. Holten from going within two blocks of his former wife’s home and imposed a number of other restrictions. What it did not require him to do was surrender his guns. 

About 12 hours after he was served with the order, Mr. Holten was lying in wait when his former wife returned home from a date with their two children in tow. Armed with a small semiautomatic rifle bought several months before, he stepped out of his car and thrust the muzzle into her chest. He directed her inside the house, yelling that he was going to kill her. 

For all its rage and terror, the episode might well have been prevented. Had Mr. Holten lived in one of a handful of states, the protection order would have forced him to relinquish his firearms. But that is not the case in Washington and most of the country, in large part because of the influence of the National Rifle Association and its allies.

The pro-gun argument is that hysterical women will be frivolously calling for restraining orders where they're not really needed and unfailry depriving their husbands of their god-given rights.

I say if a judge has enough evidence to order a man to stay away from his wife and kids and home, he has enough evidence to order the surrendering of weapons too.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

The NRA and the Republican Party Go Together like Pigs and Mud

Gun Buy-Backs Affect Total Number of Gun Owners

The Baltimore Sun

A line of cars snaked around the government office parking lot, down Bendix Road and for up to half a mile along Route 108 in the late morning and the afternoon, as people waited for hours to trade in guns to Howard County police for crisp $100 bills.

At the end of the day police had recovered 631 guns and at 2:30 had to start turning cars away, officials said. The last time they tried a similar effort in 1995, the total number of guns collected was three.

Even more than the total number of gun owners, the total number of households with guns is affected. Gun-righs fanatics love to claim the 80 million or so gun owners as their own, but nothing could be further from the truth. Most of them are either apathetic towards gun rights or actually in agreement with the gun control side of the argument.

But even more importantly, the numbers are dwindling. There's the attrition of elderly gun owners dying off as well as the ever-more-popular gun buyback programs providing a safe place for people to rid themselves of their guns and join the ranks of non-gun owners.

The result: an ever more concentrated minority which becomes ever more strident in their protestations of reasonable limitations on their gun rights.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

NRA Preaching Voter Suppression

Ruthann Sprague, with the National Rifle Association, shows Bonnie Kristian, 24, of Alexandria, Va., foreground, how to hold the Laser Shot at a shooting simulator booth run by the NRA at the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md. on Friday, March 15, 2013. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

The Daily Beast

At NRA University, National Rifle Association grassroots organizer Miranda Bond told a group of young conservatives fresh from Sarah Palin’s fiery, lead-barreled CPAC speech Saturday afternoon that encouraging pro-gun friends to register to vote was a good start—and even better would be discourage “anti-gunners” from casting ballots.

“The thing is, we don’t want the anti-gunners to vote,” she said, lamenting the fact that President Obama was re-elected despite the NRA’s best efforts to oust him. So, she said, students should set up voter registration booths on campus but “put up a great big sign that says, ‘Pro-gun? Vote Here.” That will keep the gun control advocates away, she said, because “they’re scared of guns.”

Brandon Maxfield Who Took Down the "Ring of Fire" Gun Companies

 Brandon Maxfield with his mother, Sue Stansberry, in January. He was badly injured when shot with a gun made by Bryco Arms. (Robin Abcarian /Los Angeles Times / January 18, 2013)

LA Times

We've heard a lot in this post-Newtown moment about how California leads the nation in gun laws. But you probably haven't heard the unlikely story of Brandon Maxfield, a quadriplegic 26-year-old who helped drive a notorious segment of California's gun industry toward extinction.

"It wouldn't have happened without him," said Garen Wintemute, a UC Davis professor of emergency medicine whose anti-gun advocacy has made him a firearms industry nemesis.

In 1994, at the age of 7, Brandon was accidentally shot through the neck with a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol. The pistol belonged to Brandon's parents, who kept it in an unlocked drawer.

A 12-year-old relative had found it, and a 20-year-old family friend, who was watching the kids for Brandon's mother, tried to unload it. The gun discharged, grievously wounding Brandon, who was not expected to live.

Of course you should be able to sue the gun manufacturers, which the gun-rights fanatics seem to question, but in cases of gun negligence and failure to store the gun secureley, the person or persons responsible should not go unpunished. That's what one strike you're out means.

In this case the whole family seems to have become gun control advocates, but that's not usually the case.  People who prove themselves incapable of handling guns safely and are permitted to continue owning them are a danger to themselves and others.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Werner Herzog's "Into the Abyss"

States With Weak Gun Control Laws Have More Murders - Not Just Gun Murders

The ten worst and ten best states according to the Brady State Scoreboard

Murder and non-negligent manslaughter rate per 100,000 inhabitants in the United States in 2011 according to Statista


Utah   1.9
Arizona   6.2
Alaska   4
Oklahoma   5.5
North Dakota   3.5
Montana   2.8
Louisiana  11.2
Kentucky   3.5
Idaho   2.3
Wisconsin  2.4
Average  4.33

New Jersey   4.3
Massachusetts  2.8
New York   4
Connecticut   3.6
Hawaii   1.2
Maryland   6.8
Rhode Island  1.3
Illinois   5.6
Pennsylvania  5
Michigan   6.2
Average  4.08

Further to a very tedious comment thread in which TS put forth some unbelievable propositions, I did some research myself. You know I hate to do that, I prefer using my head and trying to determine what's what by logic. But, what a surprise, when I did the research, it jived perfectly with my ideas that more guns in a particular state means that state will have more murders, not just gun murders.

The reason this makes sense is because most murders are done with guns. What could be simpler?

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

America Is Not the Greatest Country in the World Anymore

Wichita Pellet Gun Accident - 5-Year-old Seriously Injured - Dad Arrested

Local news reports

Wichita police say a 26-year-old man has been arrested after a 5-year-old boy was accidentally shot in the head with a pellet gun. 

Wichita police Lt. Doug Nolte says the man’s 5-year-old son picked up the pellet gun and pulled the trigger on Sunday. A pellet penetrated the child’s skull.

Nolte says the father of the shooter left the pump-action pellet gun on a table after returning home from hunting.

The father was arrested on suspicion of offenses that include aggravated child endangerment and obstructing arrest.

You see what happened there? "Obstructing arrest" was where he went wrong.  Gun fanatics can let their kids shoot themselves all day long and not get arrested, but if you mess with the police when they come by lying or hiding evidence, you're bound to end up in the pokey.

What's your opinion?  He sounds like another lawful gun owner, don't you think?  Anyone idiot can own one of those pellet guns, right?  He could have had a concealed carry permit too, for all I know. No one checks on that.

Please leave a comment.

The NRA Opposes the UN Treaty on Small Arms - Naturally

Dallas News reports

The National Rifle Association, which is battling a raft of gun control measures on Capitol Hill, also has an international fight on its hand as it gears up to oppose a U.N. treaty designed to restrict the flow of arms to conflict zones.

Negotiations open Monday in New York on the Arms Trade Treaty, which would require countries to determine whether weapons they sell would be used to commit serious human rights violations, terrorism or transnational organized crime.

The gun lobby fears that the treaty would be used to regulate civilian weapons. Human rights activists counter that it would reduce the trafficking of weapons, including small arms such as the ubiquitous AK-47 assault rifle, to outlaw regimes and rebel groups engaged in atrocities against civilian populations.

“This treaty is a common-sense alignment of the interests of governments, law-abiding citizens and individuals all over the world, who deserve the right to live free from harm,” said Michelle Ringuette, chief of campaigns and programs at Amnesty International USA. “Any step toward restraining the illicit sale and transfer of weapons used to commit horrific crimes is a good move forward, and the world could use a lot more steps in the direction of ending human rights abuses.”