Gun Reform Legislation: When the Crazies Come Out to Bray

by Sunnyjane

Of the twenty-three gun control proposals President Obama outlined in his announcement on Wednesday, two deal with mental health:  Encouraging mental health providers to get involved and improving state reporting of criminals and the mentally ill.  I strongly suggest that they start with some of the crazy gun-owning people who are ranting against these proposals – many of whom are state and national legislators.  Of the other whack jobs, they're either paranoid wing-nuts or plain old liars.  Both conditions can be treated by professionals, and it's covered under Obamacare. 

   

 Arm the teachers!  Arm the principals!  (But no, no, no: We are not extremists!)

Any idiot who believes he can successfully argue this country's history of slavery, the civil rights movement, or the tenets of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with Al Sharpton has been skip to my lou-ing through the funky mushroom patch  far too often.

But fools frequently rush in where angels fear to tread, and that's exactly the route Larry Ward took recently.  And just who is Larry Ward?  Damned if I know where he came from; perhaps he's the latest spawn shot out of an AR-15 in the basement of NRA headquarters.  (No, actually he's the CEO at Interactive Media and the President at Political Media, Inc.)  Whatever, Ward is suddenly the NRA pawn and organizer of Gun Appreciation Day, which will be held in Washington on the same day that is nationally recognized as the Martin Luther King Day of Service to honor our greatest civil rights leader.

And what is his basis for a holding a gun-rights rally on this day?  In case you missed this in history class, Dr. King would agree with him that "if African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country's founding, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history." 

Well,  the sonofabitch is right, you know.  If those slaves had just been able to ring those bells and warn the British that -- oops, sorry, wrong idiot.  If those poor kidnapped souls had been presented with guns as they left the slave ships, instead of being beaten and sold into oppression, by golly we'd be a better nation for it.  Makes you wonder why the Colonists didn't think of that, doesn't it?  As Al Sharpton pointed out so succinctly, slaves were not even allowed to name their own children, much less own guns.

Perhaps Larry Ward is getting his civil rights history from his father, Ted Nugent, a board member of the NRA.  (I'm kidding about the father-son relationship -- at least I think I'm kidding.  Nugent has had so many children, in and out of marriage, that one never knows.  He even put two of his children up for adoption.  No, seriously.)

It's pretty obvious that the NRA leadership is not particular about who they seat at their table.  Nugent threatened Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama back in 2007 when they were running for the Democratic nomination.  And in April of last year he made a threatening remark about President Obama by saying If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year.   That tirade earned this rill American a little meeting with the Secret Service.

As Media Matters pointed out, the new NRA mantra is that banning assault weapons is just like racial discrimination.  (Hey, folks, I'm just the messenger here; and you remember what you're not suppose to do to the messenger, right?)  So, loyal gunner that he is, Nugent offered up this pearl of wisdom:  There will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks, and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed.  Because, you see, owning guns is a civil right -- at least according to the NRA.  A little schooling is called for here, and forgive my yelling it:  OWNING A GUN IS NOT A CIVIL RIGHT!  SITTING ANYWHERE YOU WANT ON A BUS IS A CIVIL RIGHT!  Thank you for your indulgence, readers. 

Now, in his defense (an eye-roll is perfectly acceptable here), Nugent was merely following up on former NRA president Marion Hammer's less-than-brilliant contention that banning people and things because of the way they look went out a long time ago.  But here they are again.  The color of a gun.  The way it looks.  It's just bad politics.

Bless Marion's little heart, but I don't believe that civil rights were ever bestowed upon things.  Or is that like Corporations are people, my friends?  I get confused about these right-wing issues.

Before we leave Teddy-boy, let's remember how excited Gagg Tagg was that Nugent had joined Team Romney:

Ah, an endorsement a presidential candidate can surely be proud of.  And if said presidential candidate is not proud, said endorser just might shoot him.  Because it's a civil right -- or something like that.

David Barton, one of the ickiest human beings alive today, is -- again -- makin' stuff up.  In polite circles he is referred to as a revisionist historian.  In less polite circles, he is called a damn liar.  Because that is what he is.  A book he wrote on Thomas Jefferson was so full of lies that his Christian publishing house had it removed from stores.  Too bad that Thomas Nelson didn't have any decent editors to fact check that sucker before it was printed.  (A personal note: Thomas Jefferson had his faults.  However, to a life-long Virginian, it is not a good idea to lie about the nation's third president.)  

But now the author of the least credible history book in print is pushing back on gun reform legislation and telling tall tales on Glenn Beck's show.  Barton thinks it's a dandy idea to have children armed in schools, and proceeds to give, um, reliable testimony to this stupid-of-the-stupidest notion by relating an uncited story about a bad man who wanted to kill a teacher back in the 1800's wild-west days.  But, gun-toting children to the rescue!  They told the bad man that they liked their teacher and if he killed him/her, they would shoot him.  (No word on what would have taken place had the children not liked their teacher.)


You Can't Make this Stuff Up

As soon as my stomach settles down a bit, I'll do a subsequent post with more idiocy.  In the meantime, here's the latest on that brilliant NRA idea to have armed guards in schools.  A  Michigan charter school thought this was such an important issue that the co-directors hired a retired sheriff's department firearms instructor for that purpose.  It’s a tremendous asset to the safety of our students, the co-directors proudly announced on Tuesday.  On Wednesday, the new "guard" left his hand gun in a student restroom.  It is said that the gun was not loaded, so the county prosecutor chose not to bring charges, declaring it a situation of no harm, no foul.  (Massive head bang here.)

And, what the hell good is an unloaded gun supposed to do?  I don't get it.

End Note: Framing the Narrative

As Kathleen pointed out in a previous post, the President and Vice President have done their part to bring America some semblance of commonsense gun reform.  The NRA is throwing every argument out there that they can think of.  But we can do better.  

It must be reiterated to our legislators that if they don't support practical gun reform, then they support the mass murder of Americans.  It's as simple as that. 

UPDATE:

Gun Appreciation Day -- At least five "responsible gun owners" shoot themselves or others during Gun Appreciation Day.  So, how'd that work out for you, folks?

Gun Show Shootings: At Least 5 Hurt In Accidental Incidents In Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina

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UPDATE 2 (by Patrick):

I am sure that Sunnyjane will approve the following update: Already in 2009, the City of New York launched the project "Gun Show Undercover." In this project, investigators documented illegal sales during gun shows and thoroughly documented the huge loophole which exists at gun shows, where guns can be sold to anyone without background checks from so-called "private sellers." The City of New York published a detailed report about the investigation, and also published video clips which were secretly recorded at gun shows.

Another website exists with a detailed reported for the "follow-up" 2011 investigation.

The following clip from 2009 shows how any criminal or mentally disturbed person could easily buy guns at gun shows from high volume sellers which miraculously pass as "private sellers." It is particularly shocking to see that many sellers would agree to sell guns even after the buyer had explained to the seller that he "probably wouldn't pass a background check."

More videos can be watched at the youtube channel of the "Gun Show Undercover" project.

The next clip shows how easy it was to buy a Glock 9mm handgun with an extended clip without any background check at a gun show in 2011 in Arizona. This is particularly chilling as the same gun was used just 15 days earlier by shooter Jared Lee Loughner in Arizona during the devastating Tucson shooting.

Mike Huckabee Wants Every Person In America To Be Forced At Gunpoint To Listen To Every David Barton Message

In his dreams

Mike Huckabee speaking at the Rediscover God in America Conference in Iowa revealed that he holds David Barton in such high esteem that everyone in the USA should be made to watch all his messages at gunpoint.

There goes everyone's rights to freedom. I wonder if Sarah Palin has anything to say about this?

The video speaks for itself and I think that the more often that this video is posted the less Huckabee's chances for running will be. Please twitter the youtube link.

He's toast! Blueberrytart has this to say after watching the video.

Sick, sick, sick. I'm sure it appeals to the RWNJs, but most Americans would be appalled by that statement, even moreso after Tucson. I think if his fate wasn't sealed already, this should do the trick.

According to sourcewatch, Dave Barton, the man that Huckabee admires so much, has been hired by the RNC as a political consultant on numerous occassions. Barton believes that the idea that church and state should be separated is a myth and that pastors should be free to endorse politicians from the pulpit. A belief that he had to walk back when it was made apparent to him that he was encouraging pastors to put at risk their churches tax status.

Here is a typical David Barton message -- be careful how you vote or you will have to answer to God.

The following transcript of the above video is from rightwingwatch which is an excellent resource and one which I read daily.

We're to seek righteousness first, and dozens of Bible passages affirm that a nation's righteousness is determined by its public policies, by how well those policies conform to God's standards. We love to sing "God Bless America," but if we really want God to bless America, we've got to give him something to work with.

For Christians, voting is not a right, it's a duty. It's a stewardship that we owe to God and it's a stewardship for which we'll answer directly to him. One day we'll stand before him and he'll say "what did you do with that vote I gave you?" And we'll have to answer.

Righteousness must be the issue. It must be the measure to define what we're for politically and what we're against. And each of us will answer to God not only for whether we voted, but for how we voted, for what issues drove our vote.

If we stand before God and He says "why did you vote for a leader who's attempting to redefine my institution of marriage and who wills the unborn children that I knew before they were in the womb?" If He asks us that and our answer is "Because that leader was good on jobs and the economy," He's not going to accept that.

Hat tip to Davedownunder for the link to the alternet article

Michele Bachmann's Constitutional Classes: Spring Training for the Minor Leagues?

Guest Post By Nomadic Joe

Normally when a Republic as great as the United States elects a citizen to a high office, the public expects that person to be politically "fully-developed." Naturally we don't expect to have to give classes to teach them what they should already be familiar with, such as, for example, the laws of the land or the basic principles upon which that republic was founded, namely the Constitution. And we certainly don't expect the American taxpayers to foot the bill for these remedial classes. Yet, apparently Rep. Michele Bachmann thinks that new members of Congress - read, Tea Party members - need some indoctrination into the the extreme far right's world view.

In an interview with Lou Dobbs, Bachmann outlined the concept in sporting terms:

Dobbs: You've got a terrific idea that you're going to implement with the new Congress: a course on the Constitution for incoming Congressmen and women. Tell us about that.
Bachmann: We're going to do what the NFL does and what the baseball teams do: we're going to practice every week, if you will, our craft, which is studying and learning the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Justice Scalia has graciously agreed to kick off our class. The hour before we cast our first vote in congress, we'll meet in the Capitol, we'll have a seminar on some segment of the Constitution, we'll have a speaker, we'll have questions and answers, we'll wrap our minds around this magnificent document [and] that'll set the tone for the week while we're in Washington.

Watch:

“Every week the hour before we take our first votes, we have our weekly class so that we are reminded of our constitutional jurisdictional limits,” Bachmann told Glenn Beck in a recent radio interview.

Sergio Gor, a spokesman for Bachmann, explained:"It was something she’s always wanted to do. There’s so many folks that come to Capitol Hill to discuss obscure and mundane topics, but no one coming regularly to discuss bill of rights or the role of government.”

Although Bachmann doesn't plan on teaching the class, Gor added, she will organize sessions with constitutional scholars, experts, and judges likely to be held in one of the committee rooms on the Capitol Hill complex. According to a report by Politico in October 2010, Gor explained that the classes will be open to any members — not just freshman — looking to continue their study of America’s founding documents. They will not be open, however, to staff or members of the press, and the list of speakers won’t be made public.

However his statement, like so much about the Tea Party, is misleading. Both the topics being discussed and the speakers who have reportedly been asked to lecture are much more specific than Gor's statement suggests.

Even the way the opening seminar with Justice Scalia was conducted is questionable and shadowy. Take a look at this telephone conversation between a Daily Kos reporter and a staffer at Bachmann office, which was published on January 24, 2011:

REC: No, it is a seminar.
ME: Then, why is it closed to the public. I thought the only time a Caucus was "closed" was when the members were deciding on "policy."
REC: Justice Scalia is not speaking to the Tea Party Caucus. Justice Scalia is speaking to all members of Congress.
ME: Then why is it "closed" to the public.
REC: For security reasons.
ME: Where is the meeting being held?
REC: In the Capitol building
ME: Did they close the Capitol Building to the public today?
REC: No.
ME: Then Scalia's Seminar is not closed due to security reasons at all. Otherwise they would have cleared the Capitol.
REC: It is "closed" because it is a Congressional Constitutional Seminar.
ME: The only "Closed Door" Seminars I have attended are only "Closed" because the group hosting the event wants to make sure they get paid - so they can pay the Seminar Speaker. Since you are telling me Scalia is not getting paid there is no reason to "close" this seminar off from the public.
REC: It is closed because there was not enough room to handle the press.
ME: You told me that the Seminar was open to all 535 members of Congress. CNN is reporting that only 40 people showed up. That means there is PLENTY of empty seats for the press. So, who made the decision to have a "Closed Door" Seminar and why was that decision made.
REC: Members of Congress have 'closed door' meetings all the time.
ME: Is this a "meeting" or a "seminar."
REC: It is a Constitutional Seminar.

Influence and Conflicts

When certain members of the Supreme Court are allowed to give policy advice behind closed doors to selected members of Congress, it is time to start asking questions about ethics and impartiality of their rulings.

Issues of judicial ethics have already been raised regarding Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, two of the more conservative members of the bench, attendance at seminars sponsored by the energy giant and Tea Party bank-roller Koch Industries. While there is nothing unusual about Supreme Court Justices attending seminars, the Koch event seems to have been more political than the usual fare. In its own invitation, it was described as a "twice a year" gathering "to review strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it." I think it is safe to assume this would be liberal policies.

"I think it is very important for judges to be part of the real world and to appear in public for educative purposes to help explain the arcane mysteries of the court to the general public," said William G. Ross, a judicial ethics professor at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law. "That is very healthy and I don't think that judges should isolate themselves in a marble palace... However I am very troubled by the tendency of judges to make broader comments on public issues and to appear in public or private gatherings in which there are political overtones."

A reform group called Common Cause requested that the Department of Justice investigate possible conflicts of interest regarding their appearance at Koch brother's retreats at the very time the court was deliberating a case which would allow corporation to spend unlimited amounts of money on federal elections (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission).

So, the question boils down to: Is there any real evidence that judicial decision were affected or influenced by Koch? Nothing concrete. However there is circumstantial evidence.

In the dissenting opinion of the Supreme Court by Justice Stevens, it was noted that the decision of the court over-reached the original case brought before it and so claimed that the majority "changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law." Stevens concluded his dissent with: Basically a case of opportunism.

Justice Thomas, the other Koch retreat attendee, would have preferred to go even further. In order to protect the anonymity of corporations that contributed financially - an exercise of their free speech according this ruling - Thomas argued that making contributor lists public makes the contributors vulnerable to retaliation, citing instances of retaliation against contributors to both sides of a then recent California voter initiative. Thomas also expressed concern that such retaliation could extend to retaliation by elected officials.

In any case, whether or not there was any corporate influence in this historic - some say disastrous - court decision, the appearance of a conflict of interest undermines the impartiality of the court and therefore the Justices should have recused themselves from the case.

Beyond the question of Koch and its influence, Justice Thomas is facing, separate ethical questions regarding his wife's lobbying efforts on behalf of the Tea Party. According to a New York Times article, Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, "Liberty Central", dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation.

Guest Speaker Barton

The list of seminar speakers is a tightly held secret but rumor has it that Bachmann intends to invite another member of the Supreme Court bench, Chief Justice John Roberts, Beyond Supreme Court Justices, Bachmann has also supposedly made plans to court a variety of other conservative stars, such as 9/11 "truther" and judge, Andrew Napolitano, Fox News personality Sean Hannity, and controversial Evangelical and separation-of-church-and-state denier David Barton to teach the "bipartisan" classes, AOL News reported last month.

The mention of David Barton should raise a lot of eyebrows from those in the know. Think Glenn Beck on steroids and that, believe it or not, is a charitable, a kind view of this character. David is a controversial figure whose ideas about the constitution and the founding fathers have drawn sharp criticism from both the religious and secular communities.

Bachmann and Barton, who have worked together for many years, have a long relationship going back to Bachmann’s time as state senator. Barton was invited to Minnesota to help Bachmann with legislation on school history standards, she’s appeared his radio show numerous times and she and Barton have conducted tours in Washington, D.C., to demonstrate to tea partiers how religious the Founding Fathers were.

Barton came to Minnesota in 2005 to help Bachmann shape the state’s “history standards.” Bachmann wanted to make sure that references to religion in historical documents were taught in Minnesota’s public schools. Barton came to the Minnesota Senate to give a presentation at Bachmann’s invitation.

The statements Barton has made in the past are certainly not the kind of remarks that bring either honor or information to the halls of Congress. For example, he has stated in all seriousness that the government should regulate homosexuality (if you don't believe me, please check this link).

According to the Anti-Defamation League, David Barton, a self-described historian promoted by Fox News' Glenn Beck, has twice spoken to groups affiliated with the racist and anti-Semitic Christian Identity movement. Beck himself has promoted the work and ideas of anti-Semites.

Also, the details of the charge do not paint a pretty portrait of Barton. In 1991 Barton addressed the Rocky Mountain Bible Retreat of Pastor Pete Peters' Scriptures for America, a group that espouses the racist "Christian Identity" theology. Advocates of this bizarre dogma insist that white Anglo-Saxons are the "true" chosen people of the Bible and charge that today's Jews are usurpers. Aside from being a virulent anti-Semite, Peters has advocated the death penalty for homosexuals. According to the Anti-Defamation League, other speakers at the event included white supremacist leader and 1992 presidential candidate James "Bo" Gritz, a leader of the radical and increasingly violent militia movement, and Malcolm Ross, a Holocaust denier from Canada. In November of that same year, Barton spoke at Kingdom Covenant College in Grants Pass, Oregon, another "Christian Identity" front group with ties to Peters.

In the recent past, he has stated his belief that United States borders were drawn by God, thereby condemning illegal immigration as a sin against God.

“God’s the one who drew up the lines for the nations, so to say open borders is to say, ‘God, you goofed it all up and when you had borders, you shouldn’t have done it,’” he said recently on his radio program. “And so, from a Christian standpoint, you cannot do that. God’s the one who establishes the boundaries of nations.”

Barton's brand of revisionist history has come under intense criticism and he penchant for using unverified quotes from the founding fathers are used to support his idea that Constitution calls for the United States to be a Christian nation.

Kyle Mantyla, senior fellow with People For the American Way, told the Minnesota Independent:

That Rep. Bachmann would possibly tap someone like David Barton to teach this class is in no way surprising, since Bachmann clearly has no desire to gain a true understanding of the Constitution and is looking instead for an opportunity to pass off right-wing propaganda as scholarship. As such Barton is the perfect teacher for her effort. In fact, only Bachmann would considering having a class on the Constitution taught by a man whose academic credentials consist entirely of a B.A. from Oral Roberts University and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Pensacola Christian College.

Former Republican Senator Arlen Specter wrote in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy that Barton’s “pseudo-scholarship would hardly be worth discussing, let alone disproving, were it not for the fact that it is taken so very seriously by so many people.”

Tell it to the Newts of this world, Mr. Specter. At a Heritage Foundation speech pushing a school prayer amendment held on October 5, 1995, Newt Gingrich, who considers himself an historian and fancies himself a potential Republican candidate for president in 2012, praised Barton's books, calling them "most useful" and "wonderful."

Looking over Bachmann's list of speakers, who can hardly be considered experts, one wonders how much of this Bachmann-styled education is really just a form of Neo-Con brainwashing for the fresh faces of Washington.

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