Oh shit

By Capt. Fogg

Not again.

Two students were shot at a Los Angeles high school today because some idiot put a cocked and locked pistol in his backpack and it went off when he dropped his pack on a table. One could call it an accident, but you'd at least have to put the word in italics.

There's no resemblance to the Tucson shooting, although the student obviously illegally possessed the gun, illegally concealed it, and illegally brought it into a school, even if he wasn't out to shoot anyone at that particular moment. I'll bet there will be more calls to make it even more illegal, but more than likely he was a gang member, so illegality isn't a deterrent any more than it is to a psychotic. It may have earned him some status, in fact.

It may surprise some people, but we have a maze of gun control laws and they aren't doing a good enough job with this kind of crime and these kinds of criminals: gang members, psychotics, and sociopaths -- a tiny but deadly element.

But without knowing just how the kid got the gun, I can only speculate about what went wrong and can't talk about what to do, other than to do a better job with the metal detectors. There's a gun-show loophole. There are hard-to-control private transfers, some legal, some not, and some guns are stolen. Even though nothing short of a 24-hour curfew and a police state with no civil rights will stop such crimes, it's time we stopped being comfortable with more and more "gun control" bills based on twisted descriptions, laden with straw arguments, and riddled with loopholes. It's time for -- no, please don't laugh -- some bipartisan and rational reconsideration.

It's also time to remember that in a huge country, with a growing population, crime can be on the decline and still appear to be on the rise.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Rendell, Giuliani call for "early detection system" for mental illness and guns

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill:

Two high-profile politicians [yesterday] called for sweeping reforms to the nation's mental health system that would prevent individuals deemed ill from legally purchasing firearms.

Had numerous concerns about alleged gunman Jared Lee Loughner’s mental status placed him on a list restricting his ability to buy a gun, his Jan. 8 rampage might have been prevented, said former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, and Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell, a Democrat.

During a "Face the Nation" appearance, Rendell called for an "early detection system" designed to keep mentally unstable individuals from buying guns. 

Basically, if you've attended more than one Tea Party event (because you could have attended one just by accident) or if you're a Tea Party-backed candidate for the GOP, you shouldn't be able to buy a gun. Period.

I'm kidding... of course. (Ahem.)

Actually, in a country that refuses to do anything about guns and gun violence, this was an admirable display of bipartisan support for a rational response to the Arizona shooting. Giuliani, once something of a moderate but now a Republican hard-liner, even talked about the country's "inability to deal with mental illness."

I would just note that while there does need to be a "rational debate" on gun control, as Rendell said, as well as a serious effort to address mental illness, the Arizona shooting -- an assassination attempt on a politician -- wasn't just about some lone crazy guy getting hold of a semi-automatic pistol with a high-capacity ammunition clip. It was also about the right's culture of violence, both in rhetoric and in ideology, and about the extent to which that culture has come to shape American politics and define conservatism.

As I wrote last week, while it certainly appears to be the case that the (alleged) killer, Jared Lee Loughner, is "deranged" (to use a loaded and hardly clinical term), as well as that he was not a card-carrying member of the Tea Party or GOP, it is wrong, I think to treat him as a detached loner who acted in a vacuum of his own derangement. To do that is to ignore context, to ignore the bigger picture, the "national climate."

In other words, there may be no direct connection between conservatism and the shooting, but that does not necessarily mean that what Loughner did (or, rather, is charged with doing) may be detached entirely from the broader, right-wing political context that may very well have informed his thinking, or his derangement, to some degree.

Republicans should man up and back stiffer gun laws

By Nicholas Wilbur

Bang. Bang. Bang.

That's the sound of Democratic Party leaders smashing their heads against the wall after House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that, in light of the Tucson shooting of 20 people, including a member of his own branch of Congress, he will not be supporting any bill that would expand federal gun regulations.

The doomed fate of any gun-restriction bill is as disappointing as it is expected.

Disappointing because a recent poll shows that more Americans support increased gun restrictions, and because authorities in Tucson say the gun used in the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) – a 9-mm semi-automatic Glock with a 31-round clip – would have been illegal six years ago under President Clinton's assault weapons ban of 1994.

Expected because the power of the gun lobby in Washington, combined with historic GOP backlash against any legislation that smells of Second Amendment infringement, effectively killed any Democratic hopes of reauthorizing the ban in 2008, four years after the bill's 10-year sunset clause expired.

Faced with a Republican-controlled and Tea Party-influenced House of Representatives, Democrats have resorted to tepidly backing a Republican-proposed and severely gutted version of the 1994 bill: a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines, or clips.

The argument for such a ban is simple but not overwhelmingly popular: nobody but a mass murderer hoping to gun down a parking lot full of civilians needs 31 bullets in a semi-automatic weapon for protection, Democrats say. While true, this argument hasn't convinced opponents, and it won't get legislation passed.

The Democrats' idealism is noble, and their efforts might be regarded as irreproachable if it weren't for the constraints of political pragmatism and the Speaker's perfunctory refusal to even entertain such an idea.

Rest assured, Democrats. There is another way.

When Republicans spin the rhetoric surrounding a controversial issue, it's called "framing the argument." When Democrats do it, it has no name because they don't have much of a track record of ever having effectively done it. Now is their chance.

Republicans love their country. They love their Constitution. They love their guns. And they love to entertain thoughts that one day they will be able exercise their patriotism and give their double-action Smith & Wesson some real action and defend of their homeland against Commie terrorists who want to invade their homes and burn the Stars and Stripes swaying in the Midwestern winds on their lawn.

This is fine. These beliefs are admirable. But what ever happened to excellence, discipline, and self-responsibility, the core values of American conservatism?

Republicans, of all people, should be the last to lean on the government in order to uphold a law that allows 31 rounds in the clip of a semi-automatic weapon. To rely on government bailouts for this kind of social assistance is antithetical to the most basic tenets of conservatism, and it should be utterly insulting to the true patriots of this country to ask the government to essentially subsidize ­– via legalization – the unskilled and un-sharp-shooting of those who claim to stand for individual liberties in the ongoing battle against socialism, treason, and terrorism.

Republicans are not lazy, deranged, sissy stoners who require 31 rounds of ammunition to protect themselves, their families, their country.

Republicans are masterful marksmen – whether in war, in politics, or in defending property lines – who can etch themselves into the history books of American Independence with a single shot (or possibly two, for those who hold the double-tap method of execution in high esteem).

It's time Republicans put an end to the excessive government handouts that serve no other purpose than to give unqualified, unskilled, undisciplined, and generally unexceptional Americans an undeserved sense of machismo. It's time they back a law that separates the boys from the men. It's time these faux Republicans MAN UP and start proving their patriotism.

(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.)