Left Rudder

Anybody remember Y2K?

Planes were going to fall from the skies, whole electrical grids would go down, everybody’s financial records lost forever, etc.

The NRA:

A key marketing tool of the firearms industry is the “gun press,” in particular those magazines aimed at the retail gun buyer, such as Guns & Ammo and Gun World. Official National Rifle Association publications such as American Rifleman and American Guardian also play a key role. This “consumer gun press” has been relentless in its hype of a pending Y2K crisis, and the multitude of guns required to survive it. Articles in the gun press promote the same theory as the industry: to survive Y2K, it is vital to be well armed.

Magazine headlines illustrate the climate of fear the gun press promulgates in order to use Y2K to the industry’s advantage: “Y2K Survival Guide to Revolvers,” “Survive Y2K—Guns and Gear You Need,” and “Coping with the Upcoming Computer Collapse: Being Forewarned as Well as Forearmed Will Help You Survive the Coming Y2Kaos,” to name a just a few.4

No question about it, howler monkeys are smarter than NRA gunloons.

…gunloons treat this kind of story as good news:

Norcross Police Detective Jason Carter said. Ojeda joined a group of four other people — other regulars, but not well acquainted with the man — on the patio and became belligerent when one person asked Ojeda not to be obnoxious. After a brief scuffle, Ojeda left, only to return with a gun about 45 minutes later, Carter said.

As people on the patio scattered, one of the men he’d been sitting with ran away but drew his own gun, police said. That man, whose name was not released, fired once and hit Ojeda in the head, police said.

Of course, the gunloon moral of this story is that folks should carry firearms everywhere, even bars.

The real moral of the story: guns, alcohol, recipe for disaster.

The Ghost Map is a darn good read; highly recommended.

The author is Steven Johnson and he writes compellingly of how Dr. John Snow and a few others, defied the ’science’ of the era to identify the source and causes of London’s cholera epidemics.

The gunloons are in a tizzy about proposed legislation which compells gunowners to report stolen firearms within a certain time period.

The purpose of such legislation is to put a damper on straw purchases–where a person who cannot legally purchase a firearm has a surrogate purchase the weapon for him or her. Currently, a such firearms may be used in crimes and the straw purchaser can claim the weapon was stolen–after the fact. Thus, there is little chance of a straw purchaser being prosecuted. And where do many criminals get their guns?

In fact, there are a number of sources that allow guns to fall into the wrong hands, with gun thefts at the bottom of the list. Wachtel says one of the most common ways criminals get guns is through straw purchase sales. A straw purchase occurs when someone who may not legally acquire a firearm, or who wants to do so anonymously, has a companion buy it on their behalf. According to a 1994 ATF study on “Sources of Crime Guns in Southern California,” many straw purchases are conducted in an openly “suggestive” manner where two people walk into a gun store, one selects a firearm, and then the other uses identification for the purchase and pays for the gun. Or, several underage people walk into a store and an adult with them makes the purchases. Both of these are illegal activities.

The next biggest source of illegal gun transactions where criminals get guns are sales made by legally licensed but corrupt at-home and commercial gun dealers. Several recent reports back up Wachtel’s own studies about this, and make the case that illegal activity by those licensed to sell guns, known as Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs), is a huge source of crime guns and greatly surpasses the sale of guns stolen from John Q. Citizen. Like bank robbers, who are interested in banks, gun traffickers are interested in FFLs because that’s where the guns are. This is why FFLs are a large source of illegal guns for traffickers, who ultimately wind up selling the guns on the street.

What’s alarming about “law-abiding” gunloons is the excuses employed. One has claimed he doesn’t check his firearms daily. This excuse doesn’t really fly because how often is one’s home broken into, burgled, and the homeowner hasn’t a clue?

Sebastian the Lying Censor™ : Urban Rambo.

Unlike the fictional Rambo, who just wanted to be left alone to brood and, presumably, do lot of bicep curls–Sebastian the Lying Censor™ wants to walk point in his neighborhood.

An event like 9/11 often gives rise to lunatics like Charles Johnson and Michelle Malkin to spout racism against anyone who isn’t the right skin color or the right religion. Nevermind the fact the terrorism of 9/11 was committed by a very, very small subset (and fringe element) of a given religion. Similarly, Sebastian the Lying Censor™ experienced his own personal trial and has completely left the world of the sane.

Alphecca takes a Philadelphia op/ed to task for favoring two relatively minor commonsense initiatives:

They want the Legislature to pass a law that requires gun owners to report a lost or stolen handgun, and pass the one-gun-per- month plan.

Jeff Soyer’s comments are fairly mundane and juvenile. But his commenters are just…well…clueless. There are the usual exhortations to toss criminals in prison and throw away the key. But what takes the cake are those commenters opposed to making it crime not to report stolen firearms.

Why on earth would anyone not report a stolen firearm? Especially when we know a common straw purchaser tactic is to claim a weapon was stolen sometime in the distant past–after a crime or crimes have been committed.

When you hear about gunloons claiming to be “law-abiding”—it’s a sham.

Whoa!

Maybe it’s all that drinking….

Sam Brownback (Repug-KS), who has a lifetime “A” rating from the NRA, is dropping out of the race for the GOP Prez nomination.

Must be a liberal conspiracy.

In another desperate attempt to bolster sagging gunloon morale, Alphecca breathlessly cites a Gallup Poll on the US public’s attitude toward gun laws:

a very slim majority — 51% — favor additional measures; 47% are against it.

In reality, the poll says 51% favor stricter gun laws, 8% favor less strict laws, 39% say keep laws as is, and 2% are unsure.

Ah well, you have to feel for the gunloon side; truth just has a liberal bias.

Still another example of how the NRA wants to make the GOP a third party in US politics:

The National Rifle Association has promised to come back with another version of the measure - which the organization has developed into a state-by-state, national campaign. In an e-mail to Republican state senators, chamber spokesman Joe Fleming on Monday promised to again oppose it:

“The NRA has regrettably placed the members of the majority caucus in a trap, asking senators to choose between the principles for which the members stand and - as one senator has said - ‘a solution in search of a problem.

“As amended, the bill would for forbid property owners and employers from establishing policies that prevent the introduction of guns into the workplace.

“The officers of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce met this past week, and strongly re-affirmed their complete, total opposition to the parts of HB 89 that were added to that bill in the Senate Rules Committee.

“I feel it is my duty to inform you of this action before the Republican caucus meets later this week.”

Perhaps more important, a similar measure in Oklahoma was struck down in federal court last week, when a judge determined that employers couldn’t comply with both a law permitting guns in corporate lots, and the federal Occupational Health and Safety Act.. You know - OSHA.

Sooooo…when a gunloon talks about “rights”, he doesn’t mean yours.