As ever, Europe has the courage and intelligence to respond

America?

React?

Change?

Fuggedhaboudit.

Possible, sure, just not likely.

Great idea on this Super Bowl weekend

Getting--and keeping--more illegal guns off our streets. I'm all for it. Links: http://superbowl.maig.org/; http://www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/html/home/home.shtml

Texans: Seemingly hell-bent on killing each other

First it was guns.

In Texas, for Texans, it's "all guns, all the time."  We know/knew that, right?

Now, they're out-doing themselves.

They want the highest speed limit in the nation:

Texas House backs plan to allow 85 mph speed limit

AUSTIN (AP) — The Texas House approved a bill that would allow the speed limit on some highways to be raised to 85 mph, which would be the highest in the nation.

The Senate is considering a similar bill.

Forget the safety issues. 

Forget the fact that it burns up more gas.

It's Texas, where they want the biggest, the baddest and now the fastest.

It reminds me of the Oscar Wilde quote:   "Nothing succeeds like excess."

Except Texans wouldn't be having anything of Oscar Wilde.

Well, except maybe in Austin.

Have a great weekend, y'all.

Link to original story:  http://www.mywesttexas.com/top_stories/article_74c00fdc-61ff-11e0-beba-001cc4c002e0.html

On guns and the "We'll Never Learn Department"

As promised earlier, from The Daily Beast and Yahoo! News yesterday:

2,405 Shot Dead Since Tucson (Andrew Romano)



Nothing else, here, anyway, need be said. 

(Go read the article.)

Link to original post:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/12881_acourtrulingandcheneycouldswayguncontrollaws/print

Utah follows Arizona's lead

First it was Right-wing, looney-bin Arizona, in love with racism and guns.  Now it's Utah's turn:

Utah lawmakers propose M1911 as official state gun

By JOSH LOFTIN, Associated Press – Tue Jan 25, 9:33 pm ET

SALT LAKE CITY – State lawmakers are debating whether to designate a semiautomatic pistol as the official gun of Utah, despite protests from people who believe it's inappropriate because of recent mass shootings.

The bill to make the Browning M1911 the official gun breezed through a committee hearing this week and is scheduled to be debated by the full House as early as Wednesday.

Republican Rep. Carl Wimmer said the state should have the gun as one of its state symbols to honor John Browning, a Utah native who invented it in 1911.

A "state gun"?

I ask you, is this really necessary?

More to the point, don't these legislators have any very real problems and issues that need attention and addressing and not nonsense like this, particularly on the heels of the Arizona slaughter?

Even ignoring the Columbine and Arizona shootings, etc., shouldn't the legislators be doing more of their constituent's real business instead of nonsense like this?

I'd think so, anyway, but "Yee-haw!  Let's git our guns, Clem!"

Ironic aside:  The Gun Violence Prevention Center has a board member named Steve Gunn.

Charles Dickens would have loved that.  It sounds like something he'd have written.

Link to original post:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110126/ap_on_re_us/us_utah_state_gun

Dick Cheney: Maybe it's time to limit gun magazine size

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Dick Cheney.  Right-wing, uber-conservative, Republican says maybe it's time to limit the size of gun's magazines.

It's a new day.

It's almost enough to give you hope.

Isn't it?

Link:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/19/dick-cheney-gun-control-magazines_n_811057.html

Guns popping out all over

Learn something from the Arizona shooting rampage?

Are you kidding?

This is Amerika.  "We don' need no stinking knowledge!"

Check it out.  It came out yesterday afternoon.  First this:

After tragedy, Arizona lawmakers eye more gun rights

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona has become a national leader in the gun rights movement in recent years as the state enacted law after law to protect the people's right to bear arms nearly anywhere, at anytime.

The shooting rampage that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a former legislative colleague, has done nothing to slow down the Legislature.

Gun rights bills were introduced in the days after the shootings last week, and more proposals are to come.

Giddy-up.

"Ain't nuthin' wrong with our God-fearin' country that more guns kayn't fix..."

And then, surprisingly, as though that weren't enough, a few hours later, this came out:

Wisconsin expected to expand gun owner right:  paper

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - Wisconsin, one of two states in the nation that prohibits citizens from carrying a concealed weapon, is expected to reverse this law during the upcoming state legislative session, according to a local newspaper.

Only Illinois and Wisconsin forbid carrying concealed weapons. A Republican was elected governor and Republicans won majorities in both houses of the Wisconsin legislature in November, bringing many more supporters of gun rights to the state government.

So saddle up, buckaroos...  The big solutions to all of America's problems are right around the corner.  If Ronnie the Ray-gun thought we had enough guns when he were preseedent, he ain't seed nuttin'.  We'z about to git a hole-lot more.

Ain't that jist tee-riffick?

Yee-haw!!  Let the shootin' kommence!

This kuntry's gittin' better and better!

Links:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/17/after-tragedy-arizona-lawmakers-eye-more-gun-right/;  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110117/us_nm/us_wisconsin_guns

Quote of the day--on guns

“The tragedy in Tucson has reminded America just how vulnerable it is to senseless acts of gun violence. As a country, we have come together to offer our prayers and condolences to the victims and their families,” said Syracuse, New York Mayor Stephanie Minor. “During this difficult time, Americans are asking their elected officials to help usher in a more civil and compassionate political tone. We must do that. We must also take a serious look at how and why gun violence continues to inflict pain in our country. Too many lives are destroyed, snuffed out too early because of guns.”


Link:  http://mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/html/media-center/pr001-11.shtml

An eye-opener from and about "gun enthusiasts"

Well, I got a real education this week, from a reader here and gun enthusiast.

I had no idea that these people equate the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution.

At least this one did--and let me be clear, I'm not mocking him, either.  These people apparently assume that  since there should be no limits to Free Speech, as called for by the Constitution in the First Amendment, that there also should be absolutely no limits to "the right to bear arms", either, as called for by the Second Amendment.  Their both Amendments, right?  So shouldn't they be "equal"?

When I learned this, I was stunned.  And by stunned, I mean shocked.

While, as I explained to him, I do believe the old saw that "the pen is mightier than the sword", I also don't know of any instance where someone's pen, writing, book or video--any kind of media--actually hurt or killed anyone, do you?  So equating unlimited free speech with unlimited rounds of ammunition in a gun--because that's where this conversation started--seems just completely disconnected to me, if not insane.

Weapons in this country have become rather like nuclear arms in the world.

By that, I mean we all know there are more than enough nuclear missiles in the world, no matter who owns them, to destroy the world several times over.

The same with guns in America.  If the big fear for Second Amendment supporters is that they have to be ready to "fight the government" (good luck with that, by the way, should it ever--God forbid--come about), heaven knows these people have oodles and boodles of guns in their homes, so many of them.

A week or so ago, during the RNC debate for the next Chairman post, Ann Wagner, for instance, said her family had 16 different weapons in their home.  That got her kudos all around, naturally.  She won the "gun tally" that night.

See, there's no limit on the amount of guns we can own and no one--I repeat, no one--is, right now or in the recent past, talking about making any limits or of adding any type of gun control.  The NRA is much too powerful to even think of that.  Literally.  That and our representatives are too cowardly.

What I did bring up, however, by way of a quote earlier this week, was the idea that maybe having guns--handguns and rifles both--with smaller numbers of rounds in them so people with schizophrenia or whatever, can't shoot so many people, all at once, so quickly, as the shooter in Arizona did this past weekend.

It was then that this reader responded with the idea of equating the First and Second Amendments.

My response was shock, then, and it is shock to this day.

I've said for some time that these people--the NRA, their followers and others--want "all guns, all the time".

I had no idea how insanely correct I was.

Link:   http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2011/01/ladies_and_gentlemen_your_rnc.php

My point exactly (on guns)

From "Crooks & Liars" today:

January 12, 2011 12:00 PM

Can we retire the "if everyone has guns, no one will need guns" theory now?

By karoli

Conventional Village wisdom goes like this: In situations where a bad guy has a gun and is shooting everyone in sight, a good guy with a gun will save lives. Not letting good guys carry guns means more people will die at the hands of the bad guy.
In the midst of Saturday's chaotic news reporting, one question on my mind was whether the shooter had been subdued by someone else's gun, and whether any of those hit in the barrage of bullets had been hit by so-called friendly fire. As events unfolded, it seemed as though only one weapon had been fired -- the 9mm Glock in the hands of Jared Lee Loughner.
But Arizona is an open carry state. It's not unusual at all for citizens to be carrying their guns, even to the supermarket. So what happened? Why wasn't there a hero with a gun ready to shoot Loughner down before he trained his Glock on that nine-year old child, or that Federal judge, or the nice little elderly man waiting to chat with her?
It turns out there was. Only this particular hero was smart enough to stop and think for a second or two, which probably saved more lives than were otherwise lost.

But before we embrace Zamudio's brave intervention as proof of the value of being armed, let's hear the whole story. "I came out of that store, I clicked the safety off, and I was ready," he explained on Fox and Friends. "I had my hand on my gun. I had it in my jacket pocket here. And I came around the corner like this." Zamudio demonstrated how his shooting hand was wrapped around the weapon, poised to draw and fire. As he rounded the corner, he saw a man holding a gun. "And that's who I at first thought was the shooter," Zamudio recalled. "I told him to 'Drop it, drop it!' "
But the man with the gun wasn't the shooter. He had wrested the gun away from the shooter. "Had you shot that guy, it would have been a big, fat mess," the interviewer pointed out.

If you compare Zamudio's story to Bill Badger's account (video at the top) as told to Lawrence O'Donnell last night, a picture emerges. Had Zamudio not been careful, there might have been another fatality, or six. At about the 5:36 mark in the video, Badger says that after Loughner went down, the gun left his hand and someone else picked it up. Badger yelled for him to drop the gun, fearing that the police might shoot him, thinking he was the shooter.
Or a well-intentioned citizen like Zamudio.
This idea that good guys carrying guns will somehow make us safer from bad guys carrying guns is straight out of the NRA talking points, but it doesn't bear any relationship to reality. At a recent school board meeting in Florida, a deranged person yanked out a gun and held everyone hostage for a time. One brave woman tried to knock the gun out of his hand with her purse. She's lucky to be alive today, but that purse was likely as effective a weapon as someone in that room with a gun would have been. Ultimately, the shooter turned the gun on himself. No well-intentioned citizen with a gun ended that standoff.
And then there's the dilemma that Zamudio ultimately faced when confronted with the prospect of using his own gun:

The Arizona Daily Star, based on its interview with Zamudio, adds two details to the story. First, upon seeing the man with the gun, Zamudio "grabbed his arm and shoved him into a wall" before realizing he wasn't the shooter. And second, one reason why Zamudio didn't pull out his own weapon was that "he didn't want to be confused as a second gunman."

Here's the truth: Had Zamudio used his gun, there's every indication the tragedy would have been compounded, not averted. Isn't it time to lay this canard to rest?

_________________________________________________

Exactly my point all this time.  That is, more guns do not make for less shootings or killings.  It defies logic.

Link to original post:  http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/can-we-kill-if-everyone-has-guns-no-one-wil

Quote of the day--on guns today

Today, the amazing thing about the reaction to the Giffords shooting is that virtually all the discussion about how to prevent a recurrence has been focusing on improving the tone of our political discourse. That would certainly be great. But you do not hear much about the fact that Jared Loughner came to Giffords’s sweet gathering with a semiautomatic weapon that he was able to buy legally because the law restricting their sale expired in 2004 and Congress did not have the guts to face up to the National Rifle Association and extend it.


If Loughner had gone to the Safeway carrying a regular pistol, the kind most Americans think of when they think of the right to bear arms, Giffords would probably still have been shot and we would still be having that conversation about whether it was a sane idea to put her Congressional district in the cross hairs of a rifle on the Internet.

But we might not have lost a federal judge, a 76-year-old church volunteer, two elderly women, Giffords’s 30-year-old constituent services director and a 9-year-old girl who had recently been elected to the student council at her school and went to the event because she wanted to see how democracy worked.

Loughner’s gun, a 9-millimeter Glock, is extremely easy to fire over and over, and it can carry a 30-bullet clip. It is “not suited for hunting or personal protection,” said Paul Helmke, the president of the Brady Campaign. “What it’s good for is killing and injuring a lot of people quickly.”

America has a long, terrible history of political assassinations and attempts at political assassination. What we did not have until now is a history of attempted political assassination that took the lives of a large number of innocent bystanders. The difference is not about the Second Amendment. It’s about a technology the founding fathers could never have imagined.

--Gail Collins, The New York Times

Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/opinion/10collins.html?src=me&ref=general

Here's a Tea Party, Right wing supporter saying guns at political rallies are okay

Watch the above video, then, there's this:

"I tell people don't kill all the Liberals.  Leave enough so we can have two on every campus--living fossils--so we will never forget what these people stood for."  --Rush Limbauh, The Denver Post, Dec. 29, 2005

So don't say some Right wingers, Conservatives, Republicans and/or Tea Party members haven't supported the proliferation of guns and/or out and out killing and murder into our political discussions.

Just don't.

It isn't so.

They have and they did.

And it needs to stop.

Another gun nut attacks

I refuse to apologize for the term for surely this was, in fact, a true "gun nut":


Arizona Rep. Giffords shot, at least 5 killed

By TERRY TANG, AMANDA LEE MYERS and DAVID ESPO, Associated Press3 mins ago

TUSCON, Ariz. --  Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head Saturday when an assailant opened fire outside a grocery store during a meeting with constituents, killing at least five people and wounding several others in a rampage that rattled the nation.

Newly elected House Speaker John Boehner said it best when he was quoted, saying "Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society. 
It seems Former Part-time Governor--and full-time "quitter" Sarah Palin seems to sharea some culpability for inciting followers, too:

In August 2009, an attendee at a Giffords town-hall meeting dropped a handgun, leading Giffords's staff to call the police. "We have never felt the need before to notify law enforcement when we hold these events," her spokesman said at the time.

After Giffords voted in favor of the health-care overhaul in March, she said that vandals had broken the glass door of her Tucson office. "The rhetoric is incredibly heated, not just the calls but the emails, the slurs," she told MSNBC at the time. "Things have really gotten spun up."

She added: "We do have these polarized parts of our parties that really get excited, and that's where ... all of us have to come together and say, 'OK, there's a fine line here.' "

She told MSNBC's Chuck Todd that she was not afraid, however.

That same month, Sarah Palin's political action committee posted a map of the US, showing the locations of the 20 Democratic members of Congress, including Giffords, it was targeting for defeat. Each location was marked by an image of a gun crosshairs.

Fewer guns in the world only makes sense, as does less talk or images of violence and the possible use of violence as an option in our society, to our problems and issues.
Links:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110108/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shothttp://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110108/ts_yblog_thelookout/giffords-had-been-target-of-violent-threats;_ylt=AjOkbDqgX65.tc07YcFi3SpH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTU0bzVlajg0BGFzc2V0Ay9zL3libG9nX3RoZWxvb2tvdXQvMjAxMTAxMDgvdHNfeWJsb2dfdGhlbG9va291dC9naWZmb3Jkcy1oYWQtYmVlbi10YXJnZXQtb2YtdmlvbGVudC10aHJlYXRzBGNjb2RlA21wX2VjXzhfMTAEY3BvcwMyBHBvcwMyBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDZ2lmZm9yZHNoYWRi

Quote of the day--on America, guns and death rates

Americans account for 80 percent of all firearm deaths among high-income populous countries. Every day in the United States, around 300 people, including 65 children and teens, are injured or killed with guns in murders, assaults, suicides, and accidents. A police chief recently testified before Congress and stunned them with the fact that “America has lost more people to gun violence than during all the wars in the 20th century combined.” --Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence Link to original post: http://blog.bradycampaign.org/?p=2753