It’s ironic that when you look up the definition of “knee-jerk” on Merriam Webster, they use “knee-jerk liberals” as an example of usage of the term. It’s proven true once again as the Tucson shooting, starring an idiot acting out his “conscience dreams” using a gun, brings the gun control freaks out of their closets with their morality banners held high.
Congress… who’ll take any advantage of a crisis or tragedy to exercise power or forward a personal agenda… plans to do just that as “one of the fiercest gun control advocates” in Congress, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.)” plans on introducing a bill to reinstate a ban on high capacity magazines, similar to the sunsetted provision in the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.
McCarthy ran for Congress after her husband was gunned down and her son seriously injured in a shooting in 1993 on a Long Island commuter train.
“My staff is working on looking at the different legislation fixes that we might be able to do and we might be able to introduce as early as tomorrow,” McCarthy told POLITICO in a Sunday afternoon phone interview.
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) said he’s preparing to introduce a similar bill in the Senate.
“The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a handgun is to kill a lot of people very quickly,” Lautenberg said in a statement. “These high-capacity clips simply should not be on the market.“
Heaven help us from do-gooders with a personal vendetta…
No, Mr. Lautenberg”…the only reason to have “33 bullets loaded in a handgun..” … a rather impossible feat in itself since the “rounds” reside in a spring fed “magazine”, not the gun nor a “clip” sigh… is not just to kill a lot of people very quickly. sigh… And in fact, even one who is merely a reasonable shot can kill more than Loughner did with just one of the more common 15 round magazines, plus one in the chamber, in similar close range circumstances.
When the Clinton AWB (assault weapon ban) came into being in the mid 90s, limiting magazine capacity, I was an active participant in the sport of Action Pistol, as sanctioned by many an association. To this day, my brother.. an ex AF Vietnam veteran… still enjoys the sport. While I didn’t like the bulkiness and weight of the longer magazines, high capacity for your chosen competition weapon, within the sponsoring association rules of competition classes, could often make the difference in time in between magazine changes on each stage.
With that same legislation in place, not only did the Columbine shooters and the Beltway sniper take lives, but many an action pistol sports enthusiast became felons overnight… not only for the magazines they possessed, but the threaded barrels they included as a signature of an “assault weapon”. Why? You could attach a silencer. Never mind that they were most commonly used for recoil compensation, which would improve the accuracy for the larger calibre guns needed to drop the metal pop ups commonly used in the competition’s staging.
But therein lies the utter ignorance of those who – because of their lack of exposure, respect and knowledge for guns – tend to mislabel that which they do not understand.
Nevertheless, the sport accommodated for the new no more than 15 rounds legality, and created new classes until the ban’s sunset in 2004. Today, it’s mixed. Many of the action pistol classes use smaller capacity magazines, challenging the competitors’ speed in reload. Others use the large magazines… all without committing mass murder.
So no, Ms. McCarthy…. there are more reasons for carrying a larger capacity of ammunition than murder. And it takes only a little practice to swap out magazines in seconds.
But Congress is not so quick to embrace logic. Instead they turn to old, favorite nanny agendas, again purporting they will make a difference. So today… because just idiot with truly disconnected brain cells decided to saunter over to Safeway and commit mass murder at a political meet and greet with a politician he’s on record of despising for over three years… Ms. McCarthy and Lautenberg think that adding one more law about magazine capacity would prevent such an event.
Such a notion defies all sanity. Loughner obviously had no problems with breaking laws, or he wouldn’t be committing multiple felonies under AZ gun laws, including reckless handling, displaying and discharge of a firearm with the intent to disturb the peace and entering a public establishment… not to mention the most obvious… murder in the 1st degree.
So a law about magazine capacity is now going to stop another Jared Loughner? You must be joking me… He’ll buy two 15’s, and practice.
Then we come to concealed carry… and the burning question of just how long it will take the anti-RKBA types in Congress to pick up on Jan Brewer’s signature on the Constitutional Carry law enacted April 2010. Since the intent by most gun control lib/progs has been to simultaneously demonize guns and conservatives, they will be frothing at the bit to run off half cocked on the Constitutional Carry law.
Low-crime Vermont has had this freedom intact since Colonial days. The permit system remains in place but will no longer be required for discreet carry.
Alaska enacted a Constitutional Carry law in 2003, and Texas passed a limited version for traveling in 2007. Montana has enjoyed this freedom since 1991 on 99.4% of its land (outside city limits). These states experienced no increase in crime or accidents from the expanded freedom to discreetly bear arms in public. However, numerous dire warnings of “blood in the streets” preceded those new laws, but proved false. A list of circulating myths about the law, also known as “Freedom To Carry,” appears at the end of this article.
Arizona residents have been able to openly carry weapons since their 1912 statehood, but Constitutional Carry enables any citizen to also carry discreetly without permits, paperwork, added training or permits. Considering AZ, and Phoenix being the abduction capital of the nation, it’s long overdue for self defense in AZ’s illegal immigration “wild west”, overrun my the Mexican drug cartels.
Before everyone thinks this is somewhat unique to AZ, Alan Korwin at AmmoLand notes, 11 states have similar CCW abilities, sans the paperwork. AL, DE, GA, ID, IN, MD, MS, NH, PA, SD, WA
In fact, there are only two states in the nation with no right to carry laws… WI and IL. Wisconsin is not for lack of trying. It’s been passed twice, just to be shot down (pun intended) by Gov. Jim Doyle. IL? Well now, they say it’s making progress, but it does have the most corrupt Chicago at it’s heart. How that goes remains to be seen.
But here’s the irony… while the lib/progs will scream mightily that this is a preventive measure the nation cannot afford to implement again, they ignore the real preventative measure that would have worked from the onset. That is the fact that Loughner had not only a history of abuse for drugs and outbursts, but that it was documented by both university officials, and local police officers…
…. and ignored.
They turned a blind eye.. just like the Ft. Hood shooter… to a walking time bomb. Yet the true preventative measure isn’t even a glint in the Congressional anti-gun members’ eyes as they eagerly reach for more control over guns.
Exactly what will one more law will do? Nothing. But then, it’s not about preventing the future Loughners. It’s about inserting a favored agenda back into the mix to take shameless advantage of a crisis. It’s about power, and it’s about stripping freedom for law abiding citizens.
Yes, the gun control agenda is coming back full force. For another brief period, an embattled Congress will stand with locked arms. But just how far will that shared truce go? Now is the test for the GOP House majority. Will they be able to withstand the rocks – not to mention the mistruths – the Dems will be throwing? Or will the emotion of the moment prove another open door for useless laws that do not stop criminals from engaging in crime?
Let’s remember what the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is all about…
But wait… there’s *more*. It’s not enough that Congress has virtually put all issues and bills on hold, the ones they are planning on considering all have to do with further erosion of our Bill of Rights and Congressional amendments. So in addition to McCarthy’s magazine capacity bill is PA Dem Rep. Robert Brady, and his plans to introduce a bill making it make it a federal crime to use symbols or rhetoric that appears to threaten members of Congress.
“I want to protect our congresspeople in a way that they can’t put a crosshair on us and they can’t put a bull’s-eye on us,” Brady told Fox News. “Whoever does it should know it’s going to be illegal to do it.”
~~~Brady, who is the ranking member of the Committee on House Administration and a member of the Capitol Security subcommittee, indicated he believes the image posted on the website was a factor in the alleged shooter’s motivation.
~~~Gabrielle Giffords is in a coma, in a coma, because there was a bull’s-eye put on her,” said Brady.
Brady stepped back from his statement a moment later, telling Fox News that he didn’t “know what was in his [the alleged shooter’s] demented mind.”
And from the Political Ticker blog, quoting Brady…
Brady said it is now time to put an end to the hyper-charged language.
“The rhetoric is just ramped up so negatively, so high, that we have got to shut this down,” Brady said, noting that “I’ve had my share of death threats” over his many years in politics.
I’m sorry… what was all that about hate speech and rhetoric again?
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.