The violent, gun-loving rhetoric of Scott Beason, Alabama state senator

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's like the Arizona shooting, and the aftermath with all the talk of violent political rhetoric, never happened:

State Sen. Scott Beason said he's been flooded with phone calls since saying at the end of comments on illegal immigration Saturday that Republicans need to "empty the clip, and do what has to be done."

Beason said he was not urging violence against immigrants, but using an analogy.

"I did say that but it was completely taken out of context," said the Gardendale Republican. "Look, I'll take my beatings when I mess up. But no way was I urging anyone to do harm to Hispanics or illegal immigrants. I would never do that." 

Er, no, of course not, never. But his excuse is not just lame but, well, an expression of violence that hardly vindicates him:

Beason said the quote stemmed from a story he told at the beginning of the breakfast.

"I began telling the story about a family visiting a big city when some guy with a knife or gun jumps out from behind some bushes and comes at them," Beason said. "The story talks about how a Democrat handles the situation, I think I said the Democrat tells the guy he'll put together a charity basketball league or something to raise money to help him. The second family, that father has a gun but takes only one shot. The third family, and that father also has a gun, but he empties the clip. He solves the problem."

Solving problems was one of the themes of Saturday's speech, Beason said.

"I think we face a lot of problems and we need to tackle them with everything we have, with all of our brain power, our imagination and with courage," Beason said. "That's what I meant by emptying the clip."

First, it's a ridiculous straw-man argument against Democrats. If a Democrat were to be confronted by "some guy" with a gun, he'd "raise money to help him"? Please. That's simply idiotic.

Second, even as an analogy, Beason is still saying that a legitimate solution in some cases is to shoot someone to death with reckless aggression. (You kill someone by emptying an entire clip? Really?)

Third, yes, fine, taking that figuratively, the idea is to respond to problems with "everything we have," but then why not just say that? Why the violent, gun-loving analogy?

I'm not for censoring political speech, but a certain amount of responsibility is in order, especially from elected officials who are widely quoted and who have a great deal of influence.

Benson's right-wing (and mainstream Republican) views themselves are abhorrent. But he should have known better to express himself in such a way -- except that he expressed himself like so many on the right do, with just the sort of violent, gun-loving rhetoric that is so much a part of the problem in a violent society that loves guns.

South Dakota legislators introduce bill requiring all adults to buy a gun

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Five Republican lawmakers in South Dakota have introduced a bill that, if passed, would require all adults over the age of 21 to purchase a firearm "sufficient to provide for their ordinary self-defense":

The measure is known as an act "to provide for an individual mandate to adult citizens to provide for the self defense of themselves and others."

Rep. Hal Wick, R-Sioux Falls, is sponsoring the bill and knows it will be killed. But he said he is introducing it to prove a point that the federal health care reform mandate passed last year is unconstitutional.

"Do I or the other co-sponsors believe that the State of South Dakota can require citizens to buy firearms? Of course not. But at the same time, we do not believe the federal government can order every citizen to buy health insurance," he said.

First, being armed is not the same as having health insurance. We're living in a society, as George Costanza said, not in some Hobbesian state of nature.

Second, the conservative argument that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate is unconstitutional is deeply flawed. (And the two activist rulings, in Virginia and Florida, against the mandate were both deeply partisan.)

Third... well, here's Jack Balkin:

The irony, of course, is that this is an example of what the federal government could require citizens to do at the founding. All able bodied male citizens were part of the militia, and therefore were required to bear arms in defense of the state. In fact, the federal government passed a militia act in 1792 that required that every citizen purchase a weapon and ammunition.

Oops. Nice try, idiotic South Dakota Republicans.

Balkin again, utterly and brilliantly destroying conservative opposition to the mandate: 

What is lost in the debate over the individual mandate is that the point of the individual mandate is also civic republican in nature. It requires citizens to make a far less significant but also public-spirited sacrifice on behalf of other Americans who cannot afford health insurance. Individuals must join health insurance risk pools to make health care affordable for more of their fellow citizens. This is a very modest request that individuals not be entirely selfish and that they contribute to the public good in a small way by helping to make health care accessible and affordable for all Americans. Indeed, under the terms of the Affordable Care Act, one doesn't even have to purchase insurance; one can simply pay a small tax instead. And one doesn't have to pay at all if one is too poor to do so or has a religious objection.

The notion that being asked to either buy health insurance and make health care accessible for one's fellow citizens--or to pay a small tax-- is a form of tyranny akin to George III's regime is simply bizarre: it shows how perverted and twisted public discourse has become in the United States. The assault on the individual mandate is really an assault on the public duty to assist other Americans in need, and in particular, an assault on the legal obligation to pay taxes to contribute to the general welfare. The assault on the health care bill is not a defense of liberty. It is a defense of selfishness. 

Which is pretty much what the Republican Party is all about, along with a complete lack of regard both for American history and for the Constitution they claim to love so dearly.

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.)

Gun sales soar after Arizona shooting

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, that's right, the Arizona shooting that left six dead, including a nine-year-old girl, has spurred gun sales across the country:

One-day sales of handguns in Arizona jumped 60 percent to263 on Jan. 10 compared with 164 the corresponding Monday a yearago, the second-biggest increase of any state in the country,according to Federal Bureau of Investigation data.

Handgun sales rose 65 percent to 395 in Ohio; 16 percent to672 in California; 38 percent to 348 in Illinois; and 33 percentto 206 in New York, the FBI data show. Sales increasednationally about 5 percent, to 7,906 guns.

Federally tracked gun sales, which are drawn from sales ingun stores that require a federal background check, also jumpedfollowing the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech, in which 32 peoplewere killed.

"Whenever there is a huge event, especially when it'sclose to home, people do tend to run out and buy something toprotect their family," said Don Gallardo, a manager at ArizonaShooter's World in Phoenix, who said that the number of peoplesigning up for the store's concealed weapons class doubled overthe weekend. Gallardo said he expects handgun sales to climbsteadily throughout the week. 

Really? For self-protection? Then why did sales of the weapon Jared Lee Loughner (is alleged to have) used, the Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol, also increase dramatically following the shooting? Do people really need to protect themselves, and their families, with a gun that is designed to kill large numbers of people in short order? And why, in any event, would a targeted political shooting, an assassination attempt, compel so many people to arm themselves? It's not like violent crime was about to go up.

As another Arizona gun-store owner explained, "[w]hen something like this happens people get worried thatthe government is going to ban stuff." Ah, so now we find ourselves in the vicious cycle. It was very much the anti-government, pro-gun right-wing political culture that provided the broader context for the shooting. And now, in direct response to the shooting, that culture, already a powder keg on the brink of explosion, feeds upon itself and expands, with more and more people acting on their anti-government, pro-gun fantasies and arming themselves against the "enemy."

Honestly, if the shooting wasn't all that surprising, should we really be surprised it if happens again and again, and perhaps to even worse degrees?

"You can't outsmart crazy"

By Edward Copeland

With those words, Jon Stewart gave another eloquent speech at the beginning of Monday night's Daily Show, dispensing with humor to address Saturday's horrific events in Tucson.

With each passing hour and day since alleged gunman Jared Lee Loughner opened fire on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, critically injuring her, killing six and wounding 14 others, it becomes clearer that this 22-year-old man was not a political partisan but someone who was severely mentally ill. With Arizona government offices finally open Monday, The Washington Post finally was able to answer one simple question that's not open to debate: his voter registration. The answer turns out to be that he was a registered independent but was considered inactive because he hadn't bothered to vote in such a long time, including in November. Hardly indicative of a Tea Party participant.

I am guilty of jumping to conclusions. With the precursors without body counts such as smashed windows, threats, cut gas lines, it was an easy assumption to make. However, in my horror of the moment I forgot the old line about what happens when you assume: it makes an ass out of u and me. Subconsciously, there probably was part of me as there consciously was in many others who wanted this tragedy to turn out to be that way for political advantage. I may disagree with the Tea Party, believe them to be terribly misinformed and inflamed by the likes of Glenn Beck, but they aren't all homicidal lunatics.

When so many on the left criticized Jon Stewart's rally, claiming he was trying to make both sides equivalent, in the wake of Saturday's events, now he seems more right than ever. Keith Olbermann's Saturday special comment didn't say so explicitly, but if you read between the lines, it was a bit of a mea culpa for his own role. As Sarah Palin rushed to delete her graphic with the gunsight over Giffords' district, Daily Kos also had to delete a post where one of Giffords' constituents said that Giffords was "dead to me" because she voted against Nancy Pelosi for House minority leader.

Already, both sides are starting to revert to old habits. Because we on the left rushed to link the act of a madman to the politics of those we oppose, now those on the right revert to defensive mode and attack us. Hopefully, someone can stop this quickly. This is an opportunity for everyone to step back, take a breath and restore civility to the political process. I'm not saying compromise your principles, but it's long past time where both sides stop treating political opponents as the enemy. As it's been said many times, you can disagree without being disagreeable. The political climate probably didn't set Loughner off, but both parties need to look at themselves critically and seriously.

I hope that people take Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Clarence Gupnik to heart and start rejecting the Becks and Limbaughs, but the only way that happens is when they get hit where it really hurts: the wallet. Beck has shown those signs with the loss of lots of sponsors, being taken off a big New York radio station and even dropping numbers on Fox News. I wish their listeners realized they were in it for the money, but oh well.

What really needs to be addressed seriously is the fact that this country has a gun problem and it's had a gun problem for a long time. A man rejected by the military, kicked out of college and who worried others around him was still allowed to legally purchase his Glock and, more importantly, his high-volume ammunition clips. He had three clips which had 33 rounds each. These sorts of clips were illegal under the assault weapons ban which was allowed to expire during the Bush Administration. If that law were still in place, he could only have purchased clips that held 10 rounds, meaning he would have to reload more frequently and the bloodshed would have been less. I hope the NRA and their friends in Congress are proud. Right now, Arizona is considering allowing faculty and college students to carry concealed weapons without a permit.

We also have to improve our ability to treat the mentally ill. In a rare moment of a television newsperson saying something profound, Lester Holt did the other day when he said that in the end, the motive doesn't matter. Six people are still dead, including a 9-year-old student council president born on 9/11.