Saturday, January 5, 2013

Annabel Park Interviews a Gun-Rights Activist

The Coffee Party USA 

Dear friends who can't tolerate anyone bringing up gun control: You're not going to intimidate me with your !!!!s, ????s, WORDS IN ALL CAPS, namecalling, and threats to unfriend. 

I am going to speak my mind regardless of your protestations. I just wish you loved the First Amendment as much as your reading of the Second Amendment. Instead trying to bully people into submission, let us speak freely. 

Most people aren't calling for a ban on guns contrary to your knee-jerk reactions. We want better regulations on something that is already regulated. We just want improvements. To quote my friend Jim Sanches, there's a difference between regulating and banning. Respect that America needs to talk about this massacre considering many factors including gun control. So, stop making wild accusations, calling people morons, and trying to shut down discussion.

The Hysterical and Mendacious Ann Coulter

Toy Guns in Mexico

RT reports with video
In a fight to bring down the crime rate in Mexico’s capital city, police have destroyed thousands of toy guns to stop them from becoming a real threat on the streets.

Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera announced that officials estimate at least three of every 10 violent crimes in Mexico City are carried out with a real-looking toy gun. He said this was enough justification to destroy the seven thousand replica weapons.

Shops bore the brunt of the government's decision as toy items were seized by the police in the capital and the surrounding state. Sunday is Three Kings Day, when Mexican children receive holiday gifts. 

Mexico has strict laws on gun ownership that require toy weapons be made of transparent or colored plastic. 
You know what I say about these realistic-looking toys, don't you?

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

The NRA and Health Care

Anderson Cooper

 

One of Wayne's Favorite Movies: Natural Born Killers

NRA: Banning Guns is Like Racial Discrimination

From Huffington Post.

The claim that the AWB bans guns based on cosmetic features is left over rhetoric from the last time.  The new ban is so much more extensive and names so many more guns specifically that it's just not true.

This is a classic pro-gun trick, exaggerate or distort what the opposition says and then argue against it as if they really did say it. You can see it on this very blog all the time.  The gun-rights folks take their cue from the NRA.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Friday, January 4, 2013

SC 8-Year-old Dead - Lawful Gun Owner Dad Arrested

Local news reports on the original story in which no charges were made.

A South Carolina man has been charged in connection with the death of his eight-year-old son, whom he accidentally shot on Sunday night.


The State Law Enforcement Division has charged 30-year-old Justin Brueger of Bennettsville with unlawful conduct toward a child for the December 30 shooting death of 8-year-old Easton Brueger. Police claim Justin was cleaning his rifle when it accidentally discharged, hitting Easton in the stomach. The boy later died of his injuries at a local hospital. 

According to the State Police warrant, Justin placed his son at "unreasonable risk of harm" by pointing the weapon in the boy's direction while cleaning it. "I want to say I'm very sorry to my son," a distraught Brueger told the court at his arraignment on Wednesday. 

Judge Robert Stanton placed Brueger on a $10,000 personal recognizance bond and ordered all guns removed from his Fayetteville Avenue home. He was also ordered to stay away from Easton's mother and her family.
That's the proper handling of an accidental shooting.What's your opinion? 

Please leave a comment.

Accidental Shooting of Acting Police Chief by Herself

The Fayetteville Observer

The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office was not notified that interim Fayetteville Police Chief Katherine Bryant had shot herself in the hand until a day after the Dec. 26 incident, a sheriff's spokeswoman said Thursday.

Bryant was treated at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center. Under state law, the hospital is required to report every case involving a shooting to the convening police or sheriff's authority.

That didn't happen, said Debbie Tanna, the sheriff's spokeswoman. Instead, Tanna said, Bryant reported the shooting herself more than 24 hours later. Tanna said a sheriff's investigation determined that hospital officials didn't report the case because another police officer was with Bryant at the hospital, and they thought the officer was making the report.

Police reported earlier that Bryant was putting an older-model handgun back in storage when it discharged. The bullet struck Bryant on the ring finger of her left hand. The wound required surgery, but Bryant has returned to work.
It's difficult to tell if a real attempt to cover it up took place. But, what's clear is the acting police chief is too irresponsible to be trusted with firearms. Is that too severe?

Please leave a comment.

Does the NRA Represent Hunters?

Flash in the Pan
The National Rifle Association claims on its website to be the largest pro-hunting organization in the world. As a hunter, not to mention as a human being, the NRA couldn’t represent me less.

The NRA isn’t for hunters any more than AAA is for bicyclists. Sure, some hunters are NRA members, but first and foremost the NRA serves gun fetishists and the firearms industry. (fetish: 1. An inanimate object worshiped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit. 2. A course of action to which one has an excessive and irrational commitment.)

In 2011, nearly 14 million Americans hunted, while NRA members number about four million–fewer than half of whom actually hunt.
When you consider that there are about 100 million gun owners altogether, it seems the NRA doesn't represent anybody, except as the article said, the true gun nuts and the firearms industry.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Don't Believe the NRA, an Op-ed

Op-ed in the Shore News Today

To the editor:

“The only thing that can stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun.” No one is better than the National Rifle Association at coming up with simple canards designed to mislead the public to a bizarre result. We’ll soon see how many Americans are gullible enough to buy it.

Even though the NRA would like that simple ditty to be the last word, just think about the unintended consequences. When I take my grandchildren up on the boardwalk to go on the merry-go-round it would not make me feel safer knowing all the adults in the crowd were packing guns. Even good people lose their tempers. Are you likely to have more violence or less if lethal force were just a pocket away?

The other fear gun worshipers use to separate you from your good sense is to create a dangerous threat to something you highly value like an “attack on the Constitution.” If the Second Amendment were strictly interpreted, the only ones with a constitutionally protected right to a firearm would be those serving in the National Guard (today’s “well regulated Militia” that the second amendment plainly states is the basis of the right to bear arms). If you doubt this just read the second amendment. It won’t take much of your time because it’s only one sentence long.

Other mind tricks used to scare you: The “slippery slope” argument is the standard choice for anyone with a losing case on the merits. It goes like this: If we regulate the access to automatic firearms or “cop-killer” ammunition the next thing the evil government will do is take away your hunting rifle. Apply the same logic to setting the driving age at 16. What’s to stop them from lowering it to 9? Therefore there should be no driving age restriction. Logical, but absurd.

Ask yourself who benefits if you feel you need a gun to protect yourself. People who sell guns will sell more of them if they sell more fear. And people who are afraid want you to feel the same way. If you feel constantly under threat, then that slow simmering anxiety will soon become normal to you. Just replace it with the pleasure of holding a gun. You’ll feel so in control. It’s a persuasive reason for owning a gun.

Personally, I don’t share those fears. And the pleasure part has always seemed a bit creepy to me.

Jim Tweed
Ocean City

More NRA Hypocrisy and Humor

Think Progress

Wayne LaPierre decided to try to divert calls for gun control by blaming decades-old pop culture ephemera like Mortal Combat and American Psycho for recent mass gun killings. And after I hit publish on that post, the Hollywood Reporter pointed out an even more pointed hypocrisy: the NRA may hope that everyone blames media violence for inspiring killings, rather than guns for being the instruments of them, but it’s had multiple exhibits celebrating famous movie weapons at its National Firearms Museum, and apparently has no immediate plans to take the current one down.

Media Matters for America, jumping on the case, grabbed an amazing video of Phil Schreier, the curator of the NRA Museum, talking about the exhibit, which has since been deleted from the NRA’s YouTube feed:

 "wishing that we too could be like our matinee idols." Is that a riot, or what?  When they think no one's lookin', they really let their guard down, don't they?

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Another Mass Shooting in Switzerland.

Yes, the Swiss do have gun crime. There was the 27 Sep 2001 Mass shooting in the Zug Parliament.

Today, Five people were shot in the village of Daillon in Valais canton with three deaths.

This will call into question Switzerland's relatively liberal gun laws (by European Standards).

More on this incident here.Here is a list of some of the most serious violent crimes involving firearms in Switzerland from this story:

24th May 2011: In Schafhausen BE the 35-year-old Swiss tenants shoots in eviction from housing a 39-year-old policeman with his army pistol. Another policeman he injured his arm. The offender was released on medical grounds from the army, but was not properly disarmed.

8th September 2010: The 67-year-old Hans Peter Bieler Kneubühl resisting the eviction of his house and barricaded himself inside. When police anrückt, he shoots at a policeman and seriously wounded him. The pensioner has a whole arsenal of weapons but no firearms license.

30th April 2006: The former skier Corinne Rey-Bellet and her younger brother Alain in Les Crosets VS from estranged husband shot himself with his service pistol. Then the offender commits suicide.

29th March 2004: A 43-year-old farmer in Escholzmatt LU shoots his wife, his brother, his wife and the social director. Then he directed himself Tathintergrund were family problems.

27th September 2001: The 57-year-old Friedrich Leibacher shoots out of anger at the authorities in the Zug cantonal parliament 14 people with an assault rifle and a pump action shotgun, then he shoots himself

Second April 1993: A 54-year-old employee of the Berne Bedag computer science at work runs amok and shoots two people before killing himself. Apparently he had family problems and difficulties at work.

31st August 1990: An engaging in financial difficulties Zurich Bijoutier shoots in a shooting spree in Zurich and Rickenbach TG five people, including his wife and two children. He also wounded four people before killing himself.

16th April 1986: The head of the City of Zurich Building Inspection, Günther Tschanun shoots, after tensions at work in the Zurich building department four colleagues and wounded a fifth. He is sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Celebratory Gunfire



Do you think they're all criminals who are doing this?

30-Round Magazine Prices Skyrocket

via TTAG
That would be a 30 round magazine with an asking price of $99.97. Standard asking price of a metal 30 round magazine before the insanity began? Less than $20.

You know what's funny. These are gun owners screwing other gun owners by taking advantage of the situation.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Captain Beefheart Festival 2012 - 2013 - The 18th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Tropical Hot Dog Night from Shiny Beast



Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

The NRA Claims the AR-15 Is Useful for Hunting and Home Defense. Not Exactly

Slate.com 
But the AR-15 is not ideal for the hunting and home-defense uses that the NRA’s Keene cited today. Though it can be used for hunting, the AR-15 isn’t really a hunting rifle. Its standard .223 caliber ammunition doesn’t offer much stopping power for anything other than small game. Hunters themselves find the rifle controversial, with some arguing AR-15-style rifles empower sloppy, “spray and pray” hunters to waste ammunition. As one hunter put it in the comments section of an article on americanhunter.org, “I served in the military and the M16A2/M4 was the weapon I used for 20 years. It is first and foremost designed as an assault weapon platform, no matter what the spin. A hunter does not need a semi-automatic rifle to hunt, if he does he sucks, and should go play video games. I see more men running around the bush all cammo'd up with assault vests and face paint with tricked out AR's. These are not hunters but wannabe weekend warriors.”

In terms of repelling a home invasion—which is what most people mean when they talk about home defense—an AR-15-style rifle is probably less useful than a handgun. The AR-15 is a long gun, and can be tough to maneuver in tight quarters. When you shoot it, it’ll overpenetrate—sending bullets through the walls of your house and possibly into the walls of your neighbor’s house.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Texas 9-Year-old Shot in Hunting Accident

Local news reports
Houston County Sheriff's Office deputies responded to a report of an accidental shooting that occurred Dec. 29 or 30 in the Grapeland area. Officials said a 9-year-old boy was shot in the arm.

HCSO deputies went to the East Texas Medical Center Crockett ER to investigate after a boy was brought in with a gunshot wound.

Chief Deputy Gary Shearer of the Houston County Sheriff's Department said two unsupervised boys were hunting in the woods with a .410 shotgun when the incident occurred. Somehow, the 9-year-old boy holding the shotgun fell, and the weapon fired. The other boy, who had been walking in front of him, was shot in the arm.

Shearer said there was no indication of foul play and that the case has been ruled an accidental shooting.
Even many gun rights activists would agree, I think, that 9 years old is a bit young to be hunting unsupervised.

The responsible adults should be held accountable for this. Don't you think so?

Please leave a comment.

Lawful Gun Owner Shoots Friend Accidentally and Goes to Jail

Local news reports

According to the police report, the shooting appeared to have occurred at a couch in the downstairs portion of the residence. SCSO Public Information Officer Leslie Earhart says Flanary was showing his friend a 16-gauge shotgun when it inadvertently fired.

Detectives responded to the home and hospital to speak with witnesses and the victim. Flanary allegedly had a strong odor of alcohol, while a pat down located a small baggy of marijuana in his back pocket.

Flanary was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment, possession of a gun while under the influence, simple possession of marijuana and public intoxication. He was jailed at the Sullivan County Justice Center and released after posting $5,000 bond.
You know what they do for there, right? They plea bargain the whole thing down to disorderly conduct and retain the gun rights.

Gun negligence is not taken seriously enough.  Even the so-called liberal media keeps saying things like "it inadvertently fired," as if it weren't the negligent gun owner's fault.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Accidental Shooting in Spokane - Woman Dead - 20-Year-old Marine Charged

Local news reports

 

Lawful Phoenix Gun Owners Drinking and Playing with Guns - One Dead

Local news reports

Gun Paradise Vermont has Two Deadly Shooting Accidents

FOX44 - Burlington / Plattsburgh News, Weather Local news reports

Lawful Florida Gun Owners Doing Their Thing


Local news reports
The Pasco County Sheriff's Office reports that 54-year-old Charles Martin Jones and 51-year-old Michael Edward McCord were traveling along a rural road Saturday night when they pulled over to shoot the deer, which they left dead by the road.

The men traveled several more miles before throwing the rifle out the window.
The Tampa Bay Times reports that a deputy caught up to the pair and arrested them.
Jones was charged with taking wildlife on a road.

McCord was charged with willful waste of wildlife, taking wildlife on a road and discharging a firearm in public.


Don't worry. They'll get a slap on the wrist and be right back in business.

The Gun Lobby Interfering with the CDC

via Juvenile Justice
The Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) has published numerous studies analyzing firearms-related deaths and injuries data, but over the last 16 years, the NCIPC hasn’t conducted a single study exploring why such acts of violence take place.
The reason, several former CDC directors say, is because pro-gun lobbyists made the topic of gun violence research forbidden through several measures adopted in the mid 1990s.

In 1996, several legislators co-sponsored an amendment that would cut the CDC’s budget, with a House Appropriations Committee adopting an additional amendment that prohibited CDC funding “to advocate or promote gun control.” Eventually, $2.6 million was removed from the CDC’s budget — the exact amount that the NCIPC spent on firearms injuries studies a year prior.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has long been critical of the CDC, with NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre recently telling the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) that he believed the agency was promoting a political agenda through the NCIPC in 1995.

Other gun proponents agreed. Former Georgian congressman Bob Barr — a member of the NRA board — said that firearms violence is “nothing CDC should be involved in.”

“It has nothing to do with health,” he is quoted by the AJC. “I don’t think when the CDC was created there would by any contemplation that they would be studying firearms as a health issue.”

Several ex-CDC directors, however, claim that gun lobbyists have effectively eliminated any possibility of meaningful firearms research studies being conducted today, with former director of NCIPC Mark Rosenberg going as far as to say that “the scientific community has been terrorized by the NRA.

Not Enough Good Guys to Go Around

Huffington Post
We'll need to fight military-style fire with military fire. It won't be enough to stick one or even three uniformed police officers at the front doors of our schools with their conventional, .40 caliber pistols and call that sufficient protection. Just ask yourself: In a duel between you and this anonymous "bad guy," only one of you can have the 100-round assault rifle, the other gets the 13-round handgun; which weapon would you choose? 

We need James Holmes, SWAT Team-style gear, complete with helmets, neck protectors, bullet-proof vests, helmets, shields and a little tear gas for good measure.
We need throat and groin protectors, ballistic leggings and gas masks. We have to eliminate any weak spots -- any at all that can be exploited in an indiscriminate spray of bullets, and essentially be prepared to turn an elementary school lobby into a war zone rivaling Baghdad faster than you can say "Bushmaster." 

My heart breaks for the possible realization of LaPierre's proposals, that the schoolhouse might not be safe as a direct result of its "Firearm-Free Zone" status, and that our only solution to keep our children safe is to strengthen the gun presence in our society, as I'm sure LaPierre would agree, it's not just our schools that are targets for such destruction. 

As we saw in Aurora, Colo., there's danger in our movie theaters, the threat of violence looming by the roads we drive along every day, should an assailant decide to use the cars passing by for target practice. Our parking lots are unsafe, our shopping malls, college campuses, temples, churches, grocery stores, pet shops, soup kitchens. 

As LaPierre has made us hauntingly aware, anywhere that there is not a gun presence, we are vulnerable, and yet the NRA, which has a real voice in this debate, can only point blame elsewhere -- anywhere but itself. 

It refuses to acknowledge the hard truth of the matter, which is that there are simply too many bad guys out there with much too easy access to these high-caliber assault rifles.

Mental Health Issues and Gun Control


2012-12-31-erikamenendezsubwaykiller.jpg
Suspected killer Erika Menendez being arrested.

It doesn't have to happen.

Every year about 1,000 people in the U.S. are murdered by severely mentally ill people.
Over 38,000 people in the United States die by suicide every year -- 90% of whom have a diagnosable mental illness. 

Treatable mental illness destroys the lives of tens of millions of families each year. The economic toll is enormous -- and mostly hidden. Untreated mental illnesses in the U.S. costs more than $100 billion a year in lost productivity according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
 
Control of handguns and assault rifles is a needed start. It is the low hanging fruit.
The pro-gun response is that we need to address the mental health issues INSTEAD of doing something about the gun availability.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

8-Year-Old South Carolina Boy Dead in Accidental Shooting - No Charges

Local news reports
Bennettsville Police were called to a home on Fayetteville Avenue, December 30, for an eight year boy who was shot.

LT. Larry Turner said the child was accidentally by a family member.  The child was taken by ambulance to Marlboro Park Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

Marlboro County Coroner Tim Brown, identified the child as Easton Brudger, from Clio.  He said Brudger was visiting his father in Bennettsville.  He died from a single gunshot wound to the abdomen.

No charges have been filed yet by the Bennettsville Police Department and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. The investigation continues.
What kind of investigation does it take to determine who was responsible and to charge them? It takes about an hour. Belaboring it with a lengthy investigation and the possibility of no charges because it was just an accident is a disgrace.

Whenever a kid is shot, an adult should be held accountable. 

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Demand a Plan

Demand a Plan

Texas Lady Bought Gun and Committed Suicide in the Parking Lot

The Dallas News reports

Harriet Deison, 65, of Dallas was found dead in her Lexus sedan near McClelland Gun Shop. Witnesses told police they heard two shots and saw smoke coming out of the car around 2:15 p.m. 

Police think Deison shot herself with the pistol she had just purchased. The Dallas County medical examiner’s office has ruled the death a suicide.

ATF spokesman Andrew Young said that in all such situations, the ATF reviews the shop’s procedures and the application the customer completed before the purchase. He estimated that the application process and background check take about 20 minutes.

Before buying a gun at a store, a customer must fill out a form with personal information, show a government-issued ID and pass a background check based on a national directory called the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

“At that point, if the background check is passed, they buy a gun and walk out with a gun,” Young said. There is no waiting period in Texas, he said.

Young said the ATF discourages gun dealers from selling a firearm if a customer seems “under duress,” intoxicated or mentally unstable. “We recommend during the application process if there’s anything that seems wrong or illogical, don’t do the sale. It’s not worth the small amount of profit.”
What gun control law would have prevented this, the gun-rights folks often ask. Well, obviously a waiting period before collecting the newly bought gun very well might have prevented this tragedy. That's number 4 on the list of proper gun control laws.  Also, if the law did a bit more than "DISCOURAGE gun dealers from selling a firearm if a customer seems “under duress,” intoxicated or mentally unstable," this incident might have been avoided. I don't believe a person who is five minutes away from blowing their brains out appears normal.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Fr. Michael Plfeger Describes the Solution

The Chicago Tribune reports with video

The pro-gun guys, inspired by their leader, Wayne La Pierre, have been doubling down on one of their favorite ploys. They talk about ways to reduce gun violence, placing armed guards in schools, for example, INSTEAD of doing something about gun availability.

They will do or say anything to deflect attention from that first main problem.

Fr. Pfleger, on the other hand, said it nicely.  We need to work on all aspects of the problem, INCLUDING gun availability.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

December Visits and Page Views

(click to make bigger)

Monday, December 31, 2012

Both Sides of the Assault Weapons Ban Debate

via TTAG

Cell Phones and Video Surveillance Have Contributed to Falling Crime Rates

via TTAG

Mass Shootings

via Mother Jones

Snow Camo

via Suzie Q

Tennesseean Shoots Himself By Accident - He's Critical

Local news reports

Murfreesboro attorney Guy Dotson Jr. remained in critical condition at Vanderbilt University Medical Center Saturday after an accidental shooting while cleaning a gun.

According to the Murfreesboro Police Department incident report, police were called to his residence at 1504 Monticello Court around 10 p.m. Thursday and found Dotson lying on his bedroom floor where he fell after suffering a gunshot wound to his abdomen. He told police he was going to clean the pistol when it accidentally discharged.


Police noted that he had been struck in the right side of his abdomen and the bullet exited his middle back. First aid was started immediately until EMS and first responders could arrive.
I sure hope this isn't our friend who calls himself Tennesseean. He's the only lawyer I know from Tennessee.

If we hear from him later today I'd like to ask what he thinks about my one strike you're out suggestion. What's the difference between the guy who forgets there's a round in the chamber and kills a kid, the guy who shoots himself in the stomach and the guy who puts a round into the floor?

Not much, is my answer.  The first two guys broke all Four Rules of Gun Safety.  The third guy broke three.

In my opinion they should all lose their gun rights, minimum, in some cases they should go to jail too.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Sound Suppressors for Guns - Allow Them or Not?

Salon
A gruesome holiday season exercise: Think of some firearms and accessories that might have added to the body counts of Aurora and Newtown. More starkly, imagine the means by which coming Auroras and Newtowns will be made more deadly.

The exercise starts with a militarized baseline, as both shooters unloaded designed-for-damage rounds from high-capacity magazines loaded into assault rifles. Improving their killing efficiency would require one of two things: the ability to shoot more bullets faster, or more time. A fully automatic machine gun would provide the first. More minutes to hunt, meanwhile, might be gained by employing a noise suppressor, those metallic tubes better known as silencers. By muffling the noise generated with every shot by sonic booms and gas release, a silencer would provide a new degree of intimacy for public mass murder, delaying by crucial seconds or minutes the moment when someone calls the police after overhearing strange bangs coming from Theater 4 or Classroom D. The same qualities that make silencers the accessory of choice for targeted assassination offer advantages to the armed psychopath set on indiscriminate mass murder.
The article provides a fascinating history of suppressors. I'm now wondering if I have to abandon one of the only exceptions I've had about gun control laws I support. What do you think?

Please leave a comment.

How Many Have Left the Ranks?

 from an op-ed in USA Today by Ed Tinsley, former commissioner of Lewis and Clark County in Montana.
I am a proud gun owner and, as such, I call on our nation to stand up and demand that our leaders tackle gun violence in this country. Specifically, the president and Congress must take up the question of whether assault weapons and high-capacity magazines have a place on our streets and in our homes.

This conversation will no doubt raise the hackles of those who disavow even the most minor regulations on their guns or ammunition. They'll say the government is infringing on their rights yet again.

Let them tell that to the grieving parents in Newtown who just buried their children.

The government regulates the amount of shells I can have in my shotgun when hunting waterfowl. It regulates the number of beers I can have at a local microbrewery. It determines whether or not I can talk on my cell phone while operating a 4,000-pound vehicle on public streets.

We need certain laws in place to protect our health, safety and the welfare of our citizens. Why then is it so difficult to reduce the number of assault weapons that pose a threat to Americans everywhere?
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Captain Beefheart - 14th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

This is the final cut on Trout Mask Replica.


I cry but I can't buy  
Your Veteran's Day poppy 
It don't get me high 
It can only make me cry 
It can never grow another  
Son like the one who warmed me my days  
After rain and warmed my breath 
My life's blood Screamin' empty she crys  
It don't get me high It can only make me cry  
Your Veteran's Day poppy.

Captain Beefheart Festival - 14th Night of the Living Van Vliet



Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

 
Now, here she comes, 
walkin', lookin' like a zoo 
Hello, moon, hello, moon
Hi, Ella, high Ella Guru 

She knows all the colors that nature do 
High Ella, high Ella Guru  
High yella, high red, high blue, she blew  
High Ella, high Ella Guru
She do what she mean and she do what she do 

Got sumptin' fo' me, sumptin' for you She sho' sumptin', she's young too
Ella Guru, Ella Guru Ella Guru, Ella Guru
Ha, ha, right, right, just dig it  

That's right, the mascara snake  
Fast and bulbous, tight also
Ella Guru, Ella Guru Ella Guru, Ella Guru
Ella Guru


Purification Ritual

via Criminal Wisdom
Devotees of the Chinese Jui Tui Shrine take part in a street procession marking the annual Vegetarian Festival in the southern town of Phuket on October 21, 2012. During the festival, which begins on the first evening of the ninth lunar month and lasts nine days, religious devotees slash themselves with swords, pierce their cheeks with sharp objects and commit other painful acts to purify themselves, taking on the sins of the community. (Pornchai Kittiwongsakul/Getty Images)

Gun Control in Japan

History of Dodge City - Gun Free Zone

Legends of America

Intending to restore order, one of the first things the new lawmen did was to initiate a "Deadline” north of the railroad yards on Front Street to keep the commercial part of the city quiet. On the north side, the city passed an ordinance that guns could not be worn or carried. On the south side of the "deadline”, those who supported the lawlessness continued to operate as usual, with a host of saloons, brothels, and frequent gunfights. The expression "Red Light District” was coined in Dodge City when the train masters took their red caboose lanterns with them when they visited the town’s brothels. The gun-toting rule was in effect around the clock and anyone wearing a gun was immediately jailed. Soon, Dodge City jail was filled.

How Many Pro-Gun Folks Have Changed Their Position?

ABC via Baldr

 

Lee Camp on the Gun Debate

Big Boys and their Toys

More on the NY Firefighter Shooter Case

USA Today has a follow up on our story about the NY firefighter shooter.

Around 1:40 p.m., New York State Police, Webster Police and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives descended on the home where Dawn Nguyen and her mother, Dawn Welsher, were staying. Nguyen was taken out of the home in handcuffs.

Senior Investigator James Newell of the state police said Nguyen was charged with offering a false instrument for filing.

Nguyen is also facing federal charges for allegedly lying about the purchase of the semiautomatic .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle, equipped with a combat-style flash suppressor, and the .12-gauge Mossberg shotgun used in Monday's slayings of two first responders and the wounding of three others. Nguyen is not connected to a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol also recovered.


U.S. Attorney William Hochul Jr. said at a 4 p.m. ET press conference that Nguyen bought the guns on June 6, 2010, from a Gander Mountain store in Henrietta, south of Rochester. He said William Spengler Jr., a former neighbor in Webster who ignited an inferno and ambushed first responders before dawn Monday, picked out the guns and Nguyen bought them.

As as a convicted felon, Spengler was banned from owning guns. He served 17 years in state prison for killing his grandmother with a hammer in 1980. Nguyen lived next door to Spengler for about five years, in the house where he killed his grandmother.

"It is sometimes referred to acting as a 'straw purchaser' and that is exactly what today's complaint alleges," Hochul said.

Hochul indicated that in his rambling suicide note, Spengler revealed how he got the guns.
Pro-gun folks often point out that straw purchasers can easily claim that the guns were stolen. Well, in this case that didn't work.  Also it wouldn't work for the frequent or "professional" straw purchasers.  I mean, how many times can you reasonably expect the police to believe your guns were stolen.

What's needed is a comprehensive plan of proper gun control, including licensing and registration. This would eliminate almost all straw purchasing.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.


Where Does the NRA Get Its Money?

Greenwichtime.com
The National Rifle Association and the firearms industry are locked and loaded in a mutually beneficial financial relationship that funnels millions into the NRA's coffers, yielding legislative triumphs on Capitol Hill that boost gun sales.

The NRA's "Ring of Freedom" corporate donors list on its contributions website (www.nragive.com) reads like a Who's Who of gun, ammunition and ammunition magazine manufacturers, shooting-accessory providers and retailers.

Among them: Sturm, Ruger & Co., of the Southport section of Fairfield; Smith & Wesson, of Springfield, Mass.; and Beretta USA, a subsidiary of the Italian arms manufacturer.

The website shows that since 2005, corporations have given between $19.8 million and $52.6 million -- the vast majority of that from the firearms industry. Ruger said in a news release in April that it had donated $1.2 million to the NRA in the past 12 months.
This information should be of interest to one of my Facebook antagonists who challenged me to provide a link to a remark I made about the gun manufacturers' support of the NRA.  I ignored his comment because it's what the pro-gun guys often do, demand proof for things that are either obvious or for which there is no proof. In this case it was something obvious.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.