Guns and Crazy Update

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Timothy Egan says that Wayne LaPierre is the “Kim Jong-un of American politics.” LaPierre’s job is to say things so crazy that it makes other crazy people seem reasonable.

Remarkably, yesterday Democratic leaders in the Senate actually defeated a filibuster so that gun control can be debated. However, the Manchin-Toomey bill to be debated has been called a toothless wonder that doesn’t come anywhere near providing universal background checks.

The bill would require background checks for any sale that “occurs at a gun show or event” or “pursuant to an advertisement” on the Internet or in a publication. Yet no other private sales require a check. Transfers among family members are explicitly excluded, as are sales between friends or acquaintances (who presumably won’t meet at a gun show or pursuant to an advertisement.) Yet we know that the vast majority of criminals obtain their guns from friends and family members.

Well, closing the loophole for gun shows and internet sales is better than nothing. A start. Wayne LaPierre continues to warn America that closing the gun show loophole will lead to registration which will lead to confiscation which will lead to black helicopters landing on your roof. Be afraid.

See also Mark Follman, New Research Confirms Gun Rampages Are Rising—and Armed Civilians Don’t Stop Them

11 thoughts on “Guns and Crazy Update”

  1. Butcha still gotta love the old, “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is with a good guy with a gun.”

    It’s really a shame that at Ft. Hood, and at the range where that veteran and advocate for using gun-therapy for other veterans as part of helping them cope with their PTSD – and was shot and killed by another another veteran – NO ONE had any loaded weapons nearby.
    Tragic!
    There, but for a loaded weapon or two, countless lives would have been saved…

    Here’s the real problem with gun control for the NRA, and the gun manufacturers behind it:
    More gun control = Less profits.
    Less profits = Less bought and paid-for politicians.
    Less bought and paid-for politicians = Less influence in DC and state legislatures.
    Less influence in DC and state legislatures = More gun control.
    More gun control = …
    You get the idea.

    But, yeah, I’ll take whatever we can get right about now.
    You can’t take that 2nd step, without having taken the 1st one.

  2. “Yet we know that the vast majority of criminals obtain their guns from friends and family members”

    I’d like to see the data that proves that statement. Many criminals and crazies steal guns from family members, but purchase I doubt it. Requiring a background check for family giftd and inheritance seems a bit cumbersome and hard to enforce. Closing the internet, classified and gun show sales loop holes is a good thing and as Biden would say a BFD. It should lessen the straw purchase of large quantities of guns. Those guns won’t be sold to those that can’t pass a background check. If the senate can pass this and add a ten round clip amendment I’d be happy. I don’t think the assault rifle ban pass but I’d like to see them at least try. We’ll see.

  3. And for dessert, legal liability for manufacturers of guns that injure their users. NRA opposed this, of course; let them do it again, and explicitly reveal that they lobby for the gun-runners, not the gun-owners.

  4. “Yet we know that the vast majority of criminals obtain their guns from friends and family members”

    Source of guns in Chicago Crimes:
    http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-27/news/chi-study-suburban-gun-shops-source-of-city-crime-20120826_1_suburban-gun-shops-gun-laws-gun-violence

    “Criminals” get their guns through straw purchasers for the most part. Friends and family, and in some cases the criminals themselves where gun laws are lax, go to shops like in the above mentioned story, buy ’em outright, then use them themselves or hand them over to others. Neither does the Manchin-Toomey bill, which is just a way to say, we did something, now SFTU.

    The only way to address this is through some form of registration, e.g. if I make a straw purchase for a gun to give to someone else, and that gun is used in a crime, I should be hit with the same charge the criminal who used the gun is being hit with. If they use it to kill someone, charge the straw purchaser with murder or accessory. That’ll make straw buyers think twice.

  5. WAAAAAY OT – But one of the greatest comedy minds in American history has died. The GREAT Jonathan Winters:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/12/jonathan-winters-dead_n_3070474.html

    That won’t be thunder you’ll be hearing this spring – it will actually be everyone in Heaven laughing hysterically at another one of his brilliant improv’s.

    R.I.P. Jonathan Winters.
    Ya made a lot of people laugh!
    What greater thing can one give to humanity, than the healing gift of laughter?

  6. ” closing the gun show loophole will lead to registration”
    Maybe I won’t register my next car, because if I do, the Feds will have my name in some big registry in Washington. Next thing you know, they’ll be issuing people ID numbers at birth!

  7. I wonder why we hear so much about drug testing folks on welfare, but nothing about drug testing gun buyers? Anybody know iof a drug test is required for a carry permit?

    R.I.P. Jonathan Winters. I saw him walking with his father on Stern’s Wharf in Santa Barbara, Ca. back in ’82.They were trying to keep a low profile.

  8. Anybody know iof a drug test is required for a carry permit?

    No, not here in Indiana anyway.

  9. Anybody know if a drug test is required for a carry permit?

    I’m sure there isn’t…and if there was, it wouldn’t include alcohol..The worst drug out there. Rednecks and alcohol don’t mix.

    I hate to get a bibley,but it’s a demon that we should be coming against.. look back at the guy who shot his daughter’s laptop computer..evaluate each step in his decision making process..and see if you can spot the demon.. He could of used a hammer to destroy the computer just as effectively, but he chose to use a gun.. There’s where the demon lurks.

  10. I never thought I’d see the day when politician’s need for a campaign contribution would trump the will of 90% of the American people but now I have. That is being ruled rather than represented and it will never improve until we can get the money out of politics. Given the current state of things it might take a lot more moeny than we have to get the money out.

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