Adventures in responsible gun ownership

Ye gods. Adam Kokesh is a bonafide crackpot:

The libertarian activist Adam Kokesh who called for and then canceled an armed march on Washington uploaded a YouTube video on July 4 that shows him loading a shotgun in the center of Freedom Plaza, Washington, D.C, near the White House. In the video, Kokesh cryptically warns, “We will not allow our government to destroy our humanity. We are the final American revolution. See you next Independence Day.”

You have to watch the video clip to appreciate the full scope of his insanity. This guy just exudes teh crazy.


This of course is wildly illegal in DC. The good news is he doesn't seem to have a huge following. One might assume the real reason he cancelled his giant armed march of freedom was because he didn't think he would get a good showing. Evidence being how sparsely attended his alternate July 4th protests were after he issued his call to arms.

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NRA losing its firepower

Alec MacGillis takes a long look at the battle over gun safety reform and finds NRA is losing its might in the fight. It's a longish read but this is the big takeaway.

The narrow defeat of the background-check bill, it turns out, was not the end of hopes for gun reform, but the beginning.

Newtown really did change everything and the the conventional wisdom is outdated. The NRA's power to swing elections is waning.

Senator Chris Murphy, a rookie Connecticut Democrat who has taken a lead on the issue since the Newtown massacre, points out that, of the 16 Senate races the NRA participated in last year, 13 of its candidates lost. “The NRA is just all mythology,” he says. “The NRA does not win elections anymore.”

The forces for gun sense are gaining strength. Their resolve was not broken by one legislative defeat, it's hardened into a determined force that will prevail in the end. From Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns to Gabby Giffords' group to Moms Demand Action and a growing list of gun safety activists, a coalition is growing larger every day. Their tactics are improving. The NRA's gun absolutists are loud but their numbers are shrinking. The gun sense lobby is determined to prove to the political class that aligning with that minority comes at a greater cost than defying it. We'll all be safer because of their good work.

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Just one of those crazy accidents

Story got such wide play, I wasn't going to talk about the five year old kid who killed his two year sister with his very own gun. Then I saw the marketing stats for "My First Rifle."

They are available with different barrel and stock designs, including some made in hot pink to appeal to young girls.

Business has boomed since the company's inception in 1996, according to its website. In its first year, it had four employees and produced 4,000 rifles for kids; by 2008 it had greatly expanded its operations, with 70 employees and an output of 60,000 rifles a year.

Seriously. Sixty thousand of these rifles that shoot live ammunition are in the hands of kids? And please do click that link to see a photo gallery of the kids who are playing with them. It's a "crazy accident" begging to happen.

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Congresswoman Colbert from South Carolina

Yes I know I keep breaking my ignore the damnable polls rule, but the latest results showing Elizabeth Colbert Busch leading Mark Sanford by 9 points evokes visions of a liberal Democratic Congresscreature from South Carolina in my head. There's something I find deliciously weird and amusing about that.

Sure it's early and anything could change, but the other breakout numbers here that are worth noticing are these:

Although Sanford's unpopularity is clearly the main reason Democrats have a chance to win in this district, it's interesting to note that there is some backlash against Republicans over last week's vote on background checks. 86% of voters in the district say they support them to only 12% opposed, and 45% of voters say the GOP's opposition to them makes it less likely they'll support the party in the next election compared to only 21% who consider it a positive. That anger over the gun vote comes despite Barack Obama having only a 41% approval rating in the district with 51% of voters disapproving of him.

When they've lost the gun loving deluded rubes over gun safety reform, maybe that pathetic display of general cowardice and GOP obstruction on background checks will turn out to be the seminal moment that broke the Republicans' stranglehold on the House.

[Big thanks for the kind link at Mike's Blog Roundup and if you're not reading John Perr's other blog, well, you're missing some of the smartest analysis on the internets.]

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GOP dances on the graves of the dead children of Sandy Hook

By now you've heard Senate Republicans killed the gun safety bill by filibuster today. Within minutes of the vote, even as the victims of gun violence were weeping in the gallery, Mitch McConnell posted this gloat on his facebook page:



The 90% of America who wanted better protection against allowing lethal weapons to fall into the hands of homicidal maniacs responded:



I'm too disgusted to say anything tonight and really I can't put it better than this:

"Today, the U.S. Senate decided to do the unthinkable about gun violence --- nothing at all," - Gabby Giffords

And to add insult to injury, on the same day our broken Senate refused to pass gun safety reform to protect 300million+ living Americans, they unanimously passed a resolution to pardon one man, Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight boxing champ. He deserves the pardon, but he died over 50 years ago.

These are the priorities of the so-called greatest deliberative body in the world.

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Making guns mandatory in Missouri

Crackpot cons have such a bizarre definition of freedom. It's not enough for these guys to demand the right to wave their firearms in your face at every turn, this Missouri Republican lawmaker introduces stealth legislation to make it mandatory for every business owner to allow guns into their establishments. The bill provides:

1. Any private business that displays signage which prohibits public invitees, business visitors, and employees from carrying a concealed weapon on the premises owned or occupied by such private business shall be liable for any injury or damages incurred by such public invitees, business visitors, and employees as a result of such prohibition if such public invitee, business visitor, or employee establishes by a preponderance of evidence that having access to a firearm may have prevented his or her injury or damage.

2. Any private business that does not prohibit public invitees, business visitors, and employees from carrying a concealed weapon on the premises owned or occupied by such private business shall be immune from any liability arising from its decision to permit concealed weapons to be carried on business premises.

See what he did here? If you prohibit guns in your place of business and some wacko comes in and shoots the joint up, any litigation happy wahoo can sue you for preventing them from carrying a gun inside to shoot back because, for sure they would have been a hero. But if you allow guns into the establishment and some wacko shoots the place up, business owner is legally off the hook because, well, you should have been carrying your own damn gun so you could be the hero and stop the wacko from committing mass murder.

Here's hoping this bill dies on the Statehouse floor before it unleashes mass mayhem in Missouri. [graphic via]

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