Forty-five Senators Support the Mass Murder of Americans

by Sunnyjane

  Second Amendment Rewrite: A well funded NRA, being necessary to the job security of gutless Republicans and Democrats who believe in the right to massacre Americans, shall not be infringed.

One day before a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer was gunned down by a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, forty-five U.S. Senators decided it was better to let Americans be murdered than to have gun purchasers suffer the inconvenience of a five-minute background check.  And let us be clear: this was a vote of sheer cowardice, having nothing to do with their alleged Second Amendment convictions.  [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) also voted No, but for procedural reasons that will allow him to bring the amendment back up at a later date.]

As for those Second Amendment convictions, it is worth noting that forty-two of the senators who voted No have received campaign funding from the NRA.  I know; shocking, isn't it?

A Shameful Day: Spitting on the Graves of Newtown Victims

President Obama:  The gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill. 

A grim and angry President, a distressed Vice President, a former Representative who is a  gun violence victim, and anguished family members of the Newtown dead stood in the Rose Garden after the Senate vote that defeated the  Manchin-Toomey Amendment.  This watered-down-to-weak-tea amendment, which was introduced as a compromise to satisfy pro-gun senators, only provided background checks for commercial gun sales; private sales would have required no background checks.

The remainder of President Obama's statement from the above caption said, They claimed it would create some sort of Big Brother gun registry, even though the bill did the opposite.  

The President went on to give a well-deserved smack-down to Sen. Rand Paul, who had insolently referred to the Newtown parents lobbying Capitol Hill as props:  It's a dog and pony show, it's a parade, it's theatrics.  

President Obama:  I've heard folks say that having the families of victims lobby for this legislation was somehow misplaced–a 'prop,' somebody called it.  Are they serious?  Do they really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don't have a right to weigh in on this issue?  Do they think their emotions, their loss is not relevant to this debate? 

Two other amendments -- a ban on the sale of military-style weapons and a limit on the size of ammunition clips -- both failed.  

To register your disgust with the spineless senators who voted No on the gun bill(s), tweet them!
    
Crackling and Cackling Static from NRA Lackeys 
 

Fearful of further soiling their skid-marked Fruit of the Looms, the forty-five senators who voted against the amendment defied the will of ninety percent of Americans who want to reduce their chances of being killed or wounded by gun violence.   Even seventy-five percent of card-carrying NRA members favor commonsense gun reform.

After Arkansas GOP state Rep. Nate Bell tweeted that Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine, Joseph Farah of Wing Nut Daily World Net Daily took up that mantra, writing the systematically disarmed residents of the Boston and Cambridge area cowered in their homes and hid in their closets in fear of one armed and dangerous terrorist presumed to have been involved in the Boston Marathon bombing.

Frighteningly, the Boston Bombing suspects possessed what police called an arsenal of weapons, which included a M-4 carbine assault rifle, a weapon similar to those used by American forces in Afghanistan.  Information to date suggests, but does not confirm, that these weapons were not obtained legally, as the younger brother was not old enough to obtain a gun permit and the elder brother was not on record as having a permit.
 
Appropriately named GOP Senator Jeff Flake obviously believes that under the First Amendment, he has the right to lie shamelessly to the relatives of shooting victims.  He wrote to the mother of a gun violence victim that While we may not agree on every solution, strengthening background checks is something we agree on.  He voted No.  And when asked about his duplicity, he replied That's the beauty of a six-year term.  

Reactions to the Vote that Defeated Gun Reform

Public reactions to the irresponsible, anti-American vote in the Senate can be seen in this excellent video: The Senate "decided to do nothing."  We've had enough gun violence.  "Vote them out."   H/T to GottaLaff at The Political Carnival.

Editorial response from the media was brutal: cowardly ... cowed into submission ... more shameful and dysfunctional than we've known ... revealed more than a "do-nothing" body ... a sanctuary for too many cowards...

 End Note

It is past time for sound reasoning and commonsense to rule the gun reform debate instead of special interests and the contrariness of the ten percent in our country who only care about hanging on to their right to have as many weapons available to them -- and to people who have no business with guns -- as possible.

At the Second Continental Congress in 1776, Dr. Lyman Hall arrived in Philadelphia as a representative from Georgia.   At the direction of his constituents, he voted No on the proposal to fight for independence from England.   However, he later changed his vote to Yes, saying to John Adams,  I remembered something I'd once read, "that a representative owes the People not only his industry, but his judgment, and he betrays them if he sacrifices it to their opinion."  Rather wryly, he then told Adams, It was written by Edmund Burke, a member of the British Parliament. 
     
When it comes to judgment, integrity, and doing what is right for all Americans, we could learn some good lessons from people like Dr. Lyman Hall. 

Gun Reform Laws: In WayneWorld, It's Apocalypse Now!

by Sunnyjane

Unfortunately, the country's Founding Fathers didn't reckon on the vile and authoritarian  National Rifle Association when they penned our Constitution's Second Amendment.  Nor did they ever think that elected representatives, who are sent to the nation's capitol to promote the general welfare, would be so lily-livered as to kiss the ring of a lobbying organization with a membership totaling fewer than 1.4% of the American population.  Hell, if there were such an organization as the American Society of One-Armed Chicken Venters, it would have more members.

How ashamed the Founders would be of us.

My dentith is going to thoot thith ugly tooth out ob my mouff.

Wayne LaPierre is on a rant against gun reform.  Not just any rant, mind you.  This is an all-out tirade boiling over with unmitigated racism, while reminding us that the NRA is the largest civil rights organization in the world. 

What?  Did LaPierre really say that?  Yes, he very recently said that -- and more.  Have you heard this one?  Phoenix is one of the kidnapping capitols in the world?  Yes, you have.  John McCain said in 2010 that Phoenix is the second kidnapping capitol in the world.  While I have recently expressed my displeasure with NRA mouthpieces calling gun ownership a civil right, it is important to reiterate that the Phoenix kidnapping capitol thingy is pure bullshit has been thoroughly debunked. 

We've got violent Latino gangs, a porous Mexican border that lets in gangs of murderers, rapists, and robbers -- and Al-Qaeda!  We've got gangs of marauding something-or-others in Brooklyn, Obama using some trumped-up massacre to take our guns, and a collapsing civilization if we enact any intelligent form of gun reform.  Whew!

However, concerning LaPoop's claim that South Brooklyn became a hellish world of apocalyptic violence after Hurricane Sandy,  one business owner said of the NRA maggot, He's a f---ing idiot.  In fact, an NYPD spokesman even refuted his allegation, saying: (In) the 60th Precinct in Coney Island, it was hardly hell week — there were no murders, no rapes and no shootings.

 

But hold on there, dear readers, we're not through with the crazy yet.  Ms. Lindsey (Graham) had to come up with something heady to salve the worries of the 2014 voting constituents in South Carolina.  Before Wayne-Boy had his say, Graham tried to scare the hell out of Americans in January by giving this piece of sage advice for owning an AR-15: In 1992 you had the riots in Los Angeles.  I think it was the King event, but you could find yourself in this country in a lawless environment through a natural disaster or a riot. … And the story was about a place called Koreatown. There were marauding gangs going through the area, burning stores, looting and robbing … and raping. 

However, as The Grio points out, Of course, there is no evidence of marauding rape gangs in Koreatown during the 1992 riots, but that’s not the point of Graham or LaPierre’s rants. The point is to terrify Americans who don’t fall into the ethnic categories their comments are targeting, into buying more, and deadlier weapons, out of fear. 

Quite frankly, I'd rather take my chances with the marauding gangs than those law-abiding, real-American men who use guns as testosterone enhancement therapy.

After the Connecticut Effect Dissipates...

While NRA headquarters has, for the most part, been loath to mention the words Sandy Hook, it appears that at least one state NRA lobbyists is not so squeamish.   Last week the Wisconsin NRA lobbyist, Bob Welch, had an unfortunate case of verbal diarrhea when he lamented at the state convention that until the public stops focusing on the Newtown shooting it would be impossible for the NRA to push bills like Stand Your Ground through the legislature.  We have a strong agenda coming up for next year, but of course a lot of that’s going to be delayed as the “Connecticut effect” has to go through the process.  

These remarks caused some heartburn (heh) at HQ, causing an NRA spokesperson to assure Talking Points Memo that Bob Welch is neither a staff lobbyist nor a contract lobbyist for the National Rifle Association and added that Welch does not speak for the NRA.

Death by Calphalon

Expect the next fashion trend to be a holster for your favorite frying pan.  Why? you ask.  Well, because according to one Georgia state legislator, Bill Jackson (R-Demented), They’re killin’ people with frying pans. They’re killin’ people with hammers! There’s more murders with hammers last year than there was shotguns, pistols and AK-47s.

Back in the real world, the FBI states that statistics from 2011 reveal that firearms accounted for 67.7 percent of all murders and blunt objects (including frying pans and hammers) accounted for 3.9 percent. 

No word on how many mass murders have been committed with frying pans or hammers, but Politicususa is still looking.  If they find some, I'll get back to ya. 

Not Enough Money for Hate

One bit of bright news last week was that the Tea Party's Day of Resistance, scheduled for February 23rd, failed to reach its fundraising goals.  Can I hear a collective Awww?  Yep, the big event needed $100,000 to proceed after its drop-dead (no pun intended) collection date; it garnered a mere $26,000.  Not to fear!  They have pledged to do better in the future.  (What, are the Koch Brothers not answering their phones these days?)

End Note

There was great skepticism over the veracity of this chart, which shows that more people in the U.S. have been killed by guns since 1960 than have been killed in all of our wars.  However, as it turns out, it's true.  And very chilling.

+++

NEW POST UP!

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

+++

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.