January 17, 2011
Pour a Dram of Whiskey
In the dark recesses of the world, under the cover of jungle, underwater, are cities, cultures and beings that vanished for no known reason. The dinosaurs, creatures so large that it seems only plausible that they would only have died out by something as major as an asteroid, gone, only to be brushed from the earth by those that study the bones.
Posted by: Brigid at 08:57 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Marcotte The Latest in Long Line of Leftists Pushing Gun Control After Tucson
I really try not to ready anything by Mandy Marcotte if I can help it. Her worldview is generally overshadowed by a pervading anger and her reasoning, such as it is, is warped and generally illogical. Unfortunately, I ran across her latest post in the U.K. Guardian, an appropriate location for an America-hating leftist, as she whined about America's refusal to conform to what she views as sensible gun control.
As usual, the rant quickly broke down into another shrill feminist rant against penises, which according to Marcotte, are now and have always been the bane of human existence. That particular complaint is of course never worth addressing with someone so steeped in illogic, but the following claim was worth destroying:Based upon past experience reading her half-literate rants, when Marcotte claims that something is "stunningly obvious," you can know for a fact that the next comment she utters will be completely incorrect. This is typically because her fixed and intolerant worldview simply makes her incapable of recognizing that much of what she "knows" is a fallacy, or because her powerful prejudices make it impossible for her to see any other side of an issue. More extensive background checks on handguns, restrictions on semi-automatic firearms, and reduced capacity magazines would not guarantee few casualties when a lone gunman attacks. If anything, historical fact teach us just the opposite. Gunmen who plot these attacks are unhinged mentally, but they are not stupid, and the tend to plan their attacks with the goal of generating as many fatalities as possible, as efficiently as they can. Loughner probably chose the Glock 19 after considering a number of factors, including it's relatively compact size, controllability, ubiquity, and affordability. Glocks are among the most common handguns in America, and the Glock 19 one of the most popular variants of the most popular 9x19mm centerfire pistol caliber on the planet. The Glock also has factory-made 30+ round magazines that can be purchased as an aftermarket accessory. These facts are most likely what led Jared Loughner to select the weapon he did. Marcotte makes the unwarranted assumption that if he did not have access to this kind of weapon, with this capacity magazine, that his rampage could not have been so bloody. This is an opinion based on her particular weakness of incredible ignorance compounded by insufferable arrogance. Let us presume for the sake of argument that Marcotte and her fellow progressive/socialist/Marxist allies had her way, and laws were in place to keep Jared Loughner from purchasing a semi-automatic handgun or high-capacity magazines, and those laws functioned completely as designed. Let us presume that those laws kept Loughner from purchasing handguns of any kind. What would be the likely outcome? Rather obviously, it would mean that Loughner would have had to find an alternative weapon with which to carry out his intended goal of assassinating Gabrielle Giffords and as many random bystanders as possible. Loughner's most natural next choice would either be a rifle or shotgun, or constructing a crude bomb. If he filled the trunk of his aging muscle car with propane canisters and fashioned a crude detonator, he could have emulated the successes of your typical terrorist car-bomber, killing dozens, wounding perhaps hundreds. But what if he went the "easier" route, and went with the sort of common long arms that even radicals such as Marcotte would be forced to allow, such as bolt-action deer rifles, and 12-gauge pump shotguns? Well, then you would have a gunman with weapons with much greater range and far greater destructive power per bullet, which was the recipe for disaster that Charles Whitman brought to the bell tower of the University of Texas, Austin in 1963, where he killed 16 and wounded 32 in 1966. Marcotte doesn't seem to quite grasp the law of unintended consequences, nor does she know enough about the subject matter she has pretended to master to know that when you take away less lethal, shorter range weapons such as pistols, your invariably push would be-shooters towards longer-range, more powerful weapons that keep any would be Samaritans at a much greater distance... or to devices with far more capacity for carnage, such as crude but brutally effective bombs. Marcotte's British readers know the terror of those devices, with the Tube Bombings killing 52 and wounding roughly 700.
It's stunningly obvious that if gun laws were even slightly more restrictive – if background checks were more thorough, if semi-automatic weapons were more restricted, if you couldn't buy 30-round magazines – we would have more survivors of this attack today. Or we may have never had an attack at all.
Would-be elites such as Marcotte love to delude themselves into thinking that they are intelligent enough to control their fellow man. Predictably, they have never been right.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:41 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Loughner Not the Only nut in Tucson, Just the Only One That The MSM Wants to Discuss
After having spent the better part of a week attempting to slander and libel the Tea Party movement and conservative leaders for Jared Loughner's rampage with a Glock 19, we've discovered that one of the things that had driven Loughner was a hatred of George W. Bush.
One of Loughner's victims, Eric Fuller, played along with and for the media, reiterating claims that the Tea Party and conservatives were somehow to blame for the murders. The media loved echoing Fuller's claims... until he was arrested for making death threats against a local Tea Party official and involuntarily committed for mental evaluation. Now we find out that Mr. Fuller, like Mr. Loughner, was also a fanatic in his own right, and also someone who hated George W. Bush. Loughner appears to be criminally insane, and quite a few armchair pundits are in general agreement that he seems to be displaying traits of paranoid schizophrenia. Fuller is "just" a rabid liberal. Why doesn't that make me feel any better?Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:28 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 16, 2011
Tea Party Official Concerned That Death Threat Democrat May Be "Canary In A Coal Mine"
Days after blood-libeling conservatives and Tea Party supporters for Jared Loughner's blood rampage last Saturday, Eric Fuller was arrested for making a death threat towards an Tea Party official and involuntarily committed to a mental health evaluation. Some are speculating that trauma from the shooting may be to blame for Fuller's outburst, and that is entirely possible.
But it now appears that Fuller may have been confrontational prior to the shooting as well, getting into a verbal altercation at the Giffords event last weekend prior to the shooting that required an aide to Giffords to separate Fuller from the still unidentified second party. Trent Humphries, the Tucson Tea Party official threatened by Fuller, has receivednumerous other threats as well, and wonders if the threats will translate into action.
Based upon comments made from self-described progressives in social media and on blogs since last weekend and on cable news, dishonest rhetoric and hate towards the right is indeed very much in the hearts of those on the left. What is far less certain is whether or not progressives are willing to convert their vile rhetoric into physical acts.
"I had nothing to do with the murders that happened or the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords," Humphries said. "And I wonder, if he (Fuller) is crazy or is he the canary in a coal mine? Is he saying what a lot of other people are holding in their hearts? If so, that's a problem."
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:49 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 15, 2011
The Fallacy of Progressive Thought
The recent shooting in Tucson provides yet another opportunity to examine the dank, moldy recesses of the Progressive mind. In order to embark upon this counter-intuitive, frustrating journey, one must understand that Progressive belief, theory and policy is non-falsifiable. In other words, it cannot, by any means, human or Divine, be proved false. It is, in essence, as I pointed out in my recent PJM essay (available here), an article of faith, and any reality that does not comport with it is not reality at all and can and must be ignored. At the same time, Progressive belief, theory and policy can, upon the pronouncements of a contemporary maximum Progressive leader, change in an instant. Despite the fact that said change may be the exact opposite of the past absolute Progressive truth, a truth abandoned just seconds earlier, the Progressive mind sees no contradiction or hypocrisy, such qualities being reserved solely for Conservatives, particularly Sarah Palin.
Relieved of the necessity to analyze their beliefs, theories and policies through the application of experience, logic and reality, Progressives believe that any problem that exists has one of two--or both--causes: (1) Conservative opposition, which hinders or prevents the full wonders that will be realized when Progressive policy inevitably establishes perfect social justice, equality, diversity and absolute peace. (2) Insufficient Progressive policy has been applied, or it has not yet had sufficient time to work its miracles. Before continuing, here are several links readers may wish to explore: (1) For video illustrating the reality of the speed of magazine changes, go here.(2) To quickly research the specifications of Glock handguns, go here.
(3) The website of economist/criminologist Dr. John R. Lott may be found here.
(4) For a more complete report on Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) bill to establish a 1000 foot no gun zone surrounding certain officials, go here.
Posted by: MikeM at 11:13 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Blood-Libeling Democrat Arrested for Death Threat
Eric Fuller, one of those wounded in Jared Loughner's ramapage last weekend and who blood-libeled Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and the Tea Party in days since (in all absence of facts), has been arrested for making a death threat against a Tea Party Leader:
Is he now going to claim he was influenced by his earlier hate speech?
Local station KGUN is reporting that Eric Fuller a 63-year-old military veteran who was shot in the back last Saturday while attending Rep. Giffords' "Congress on Your Corner" event, became enraged by the statements of some of the participants at the town hall events and threatened the life of Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:58 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 14, 2011
No Winners. Just One Fewer Losers.
Surprisingly (to me at least) the jury has acquitted a gun fair organizer in the the death of a child that shot himself to death with a machine pistol.
Since first hearing about the case in October of 2008, my first thought was always, "what kind of idiot parent puts a submachine gun in the hands of a child?" In this case, it was Dr. Charles Bizilj, the boy's father. You would thing a trauma room doctor would have enough presence of mid and enough sense not to arm a child with a weapon he could have no reasonable expectation of controlling, but this apparently wasn't the case. Fleury won't spend the next 20 years in jail, which is something, but the family has still lost a son and the father has his own stupidity to blame. It's a harsh sentence for a mistake, and one I would think that is almost unbearable. Parents, be smart with your kids and machine guns. I would have thought it didn't need to be said...
A Massachusetts jury acquitted a gun fair organizer of manslaughter in the 2008 death of an 8-year-old boy who accidentally shot himself in the head with an Uzi submachine gun. A Hampden Superior Court jury found former Pelham Police Chief Edward Fleury not guilty on Friday of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Christopher Bizilj (buh-SEEL') of Ashford, Conn. The charge carried up to 20 years on prison. Fleury was also cleared of three charges of furnishing machine guns to minors. The jury returned the verdict on its first full day of deliberations. It got the case on Thursday after closing arguments. Fleury's firearms training company co-sponsored the annual Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman's Club, about 10 miles west of Springfield. Christopher was shooting a 9 mm micro Uzi at some pumpkins on Oct. 26, 2008, when the gun kicked back and shot him in the head.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:34 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Eric Fuller's Blood Libel
You can be both the wounded survivor of a massacre and a vile,opportunistic, jerk:
We now know from interviews with multiple people that Jared Lee Loughner did not actively follow politics, didn't listen to talk radio, or watch cable news. The one person who did describe him having any sort of political bent at any time remembers that several years ago he could have been described as very liberal. These are all well-know, published facts. Eric Fuller, however, has chosen to keep right on demonizing political figures on the right, even though there is even indication that Loughner was in his own insane little world and may have been completely unaware that Boehner, Palin, Angle and Beck even existed, outside of possibly knowing their names. Mr. Fuller, I'm glad that you served your nation in the past, but you are doing it a great disservice now. You dishonor yourself. You dishonor the dead. And you spread far more bile and hatred than anyone else you would blame.
A wounded survivor of the Tuscon shooting that critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is blaming Sarah Palin, House Speaker John Boehner, Fox TV host Glenn Beck, and former Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle for the tragedy. "It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target," Eric Fuller said in an interview with Democracy NOW. "Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled — senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even 9-year-old girls," he added, referring to the death of Christina Taylor Green.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:16 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
UFC Fighter Who Challenged Obama Suspended from Coaching by School System
Never, ever commit blasphemy:
Remember kids, dissent is only patriotic when used to bash Republicans. Volkmann challenged Obama to a sporting competition in the ring with a referee and judges, but the real affront to the educators was his insulting the President's intelligence and questioning his policies. That simply isn't allowed.
An Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter has been placed on administrative leave from his job at a Minnesota high school after he insulted President Obama's intelligence and challenged the commander in chief to a fight. Jacob Volkmann told Fox News Radio that he is under investigation by White Bear Lake High School, where he has worked as a part-time assistant wrestling coach for three years. "They didn't like how I was representing the school," he said. "They said I was representing them bad because of what I said about the president and his policies."
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:37 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 13, 2011
The Road and the Radio
The streams run out of the higher elevations, veins that let the mountain bleed. The water rushes, tumbles and races to its destiny, to be drunk deeply or left to stagnate in a secluded pool. The sky breaks out in articulate warmth, there on those last days of the conceit of winter. Soon the sky would warm the land, warming me. In the fields, the planting of grain, in the barn, the protective low of a cow with her young.
It was the very end of the 70's. It would soon be Spring, in the year that the fire took down the hillside behind the house, the year the marching band went to State. It was when I learned about freedom and speed, the year I learned to drive. It was the year in which I learned about the hard outcome of choice.Posted by: Brigid at 03:58 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
A Few Words on Blood Libel
On Twitter yesterday I ticked off quite a few vehement leftists for supporting Sarah Palin's decision to use the phrase "blood libel" in describing how blatantly biased media branded conservatives in general, the Tea Party in specific, and a handful of political figures in particular as somehow being responsible for inciting Jared Lee Loughner to go on his shooting spree in Tucson.
I can only ascribe their anger to the effectiveness of the comparison, which portrayed those pushing this dishonest meme in a very bad light, and lumped them in the corner of Russian thugs, medieval zealots, and murderous Muslim extremists that have used (and still use) the original blood libel against the Jewish people. These leftists shrieked that using such a term was offensive to the Jewish people, and that it can only be used in referring to the original meaning. Really? Jim Geraghty isn't the first to notice that the term has been used repeatedly in common usage, and in that context is not dissimilar from the use of "witch hunt," though certainly infused with more power in our contemporary language. The simple fact of the matter is that when someone is falsely accused of shedding blood, that is a blood libel. Stop. Period. End of story.Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:49 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Appalling Media Double Standard on Reporting Political Violence
I wrote a column by that title for Pajamas Media back in May of last year. It's amazing how well it has stood up over time, concluding:
Radical leftists are typically more violent than those on the right, but the media buries these stories—like those I documented—as quickly as possible, while over-promoting threats that serve their ideological needs. And as we've learned in these disgusting last few days, the threat doesn't even have to come from the right for the leftist media to make the charge that it does.
Again, the progressive media turned a blind eye to real violence because the source of that violence was a bit too close to their ideological home. It was no mistake that MSNBC's Contessa Brewer hoped that the Times Square bomber was a tea party protester; it is a view that is common among a media that is a symbiote of the Democratic Party. Progressive media have spent the last decades turning a blind eye to the depravity, violence, and terrorism that mark the radical fringe of their beliefs. Never mind the stench of the smoke and the steady fall of ash. The media refuse to report, because they refuse to believe that their allies are capable of such actions.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:54 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 12, 2011
Quick Takes, January 13, 2011
ITEM: According to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services Brenda Sprague, new passport applications will be “gender neutral.” Blanks will no longer ask for “Father” and “Mother,” but will now list “Parent one” and Parent two.” Why? ““We find that with changes in medical science and reproductive technology that we are confronting situations now that we would not have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago,” Sprague said.” Sprague denied that the change was motivated by political correctness. Well of course. More and more people are recognizing that there is absolutely no difference between men and women. Unconfirmed rumors are circulating that under a little known provision of Obamacare, hospitals may lose federal funding if an insufficient quota of men are not proved to be giving birth.
ITEM: Having cut off production of the F-22 stealth fighter, currently the most advanced in the world at only a bit over 180 aircraft, the Obama Administration apparently felt no embarrassment or alarm whatever at the release of video of China’s Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter. The J-20, which resembles the F-22 in many ways, appears on first glance to have benefitted from stolen American technology. It completed its first test flight this week. China is currently working on an unprecedented technological military build up. This too does not seem to embarrass or alarm the Obama Administration. You? ITEM: Congresscritters and the Obama Administration are claiming that repealing Obamacare would actually cost money and would “explode the deficit.” The lamestream media is taking up the hue and cry. Let’s see if I have this straight: Repealing a bill that will spend upwards of three trillion dollars (or more), establish more than 100 new federal bureaucracies, hire tens of thousands of highly paid, mostly unionized governmental employees in the IRS alone, that is already causing insurance and medical costs to skyrocket, that will give free insurance to tens of millions, etc. etc. is far more costly and damaging to the economy than not spending all that money? But of course. Have I mentioned that I have a miraculous fuel additive that will allow your car to get 500 MPG? Only $99.99 if you call in the next 15 minutes! It also removes body fat and wrinkles! ITEM: Those darned kids these days. Seventeen year old Sammy Parker weighs only 75 pounds. Stricken with cerebral palsy, Sammy cannot speak or walk. Until his recent surgery for a life-threatening heart ailment, his father Rick carried him upstairs to his bedroom every night. Enter Rudy Favard, the son of Haitian immigrants. Co-captain of the Malden Catholic high school football team in Boston and an honor roll student, Rudy was glad to help, and so four nights a week, he drives to the Parker home and carries Sammy to bed. The complete article can be found here. This is America. This is the best we can be, and Rudy is not alone. There is real hope. ITEM: Under President Obama, gas prices have risen 55% in only two years! We’re number one! We’re number one! Shortly after his appointment, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that he wanted to “...figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels of Europe.” At that time European gas cost $7.00 to $8.00 per gallon. Remember that President Obama, while on the campaign trail (yes, I know; he’s never left), promised that “energy prices would necessarily skyrocket” if he got his way. Memo to self: When a Democrat politician promises to destroy the economy, that’s the only thing about which he is not lying. ITEM: So that’s what caused it! Former Speaker of the House (Ahhhhh! To paraphrase James Brown: “That feels good!”) Nancy Pelosi has, for the sake of posterity, explained why Democrats were so soundly spanked at the mid-term election: George W. Bush did it. But of course! Global warming? Bush did it. No global warming? Bush did it. Lost your car keys? Bush did it. Got a pimple? Bush did it. Amazing what a man certified by the left as a low-grade moron can accomplish. Can we pass a constitutional amendment requiring that all federal politicians be pre-tested and certified for adulthood? ITEM: There is no lack of competition for the “Most Deranged Commentary by a Politician Commenting On Deranged People” award, but I hereby nominate Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) and Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerry (D). On the Imus show, Kerry noted that the Arizona killer was “mentally ill and deeply troubled,” and that he wouldn’t address his political beliefs--immediately before announcing that his attack was motivated by those who want to appeal ObamaCare(?!). Clyburn suggested that the attack was somehow motivated by or related to the recent reading of the Constitution in the House of Representatives and unspecified attempts to “delegitimize the President.” “All that stuff is uncalled for,” he said. I just know that somehow, somewhere, George W. Bush is involved... ITEM: Speaking in Abu Dhabi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compared the Arizona killer with Arab terrorists, drawing no distinction between them and calling both “extremists.” But of course. There is obviously no difference between organized and well financed groups of Jihadis who have declared war on the United States and western civilization, who commit horrendous atrocities without a second thought, and a deranged pothead loner with a handgun. That’s why Mrs. Clinton gets the big bucks and all the perks. Nuance. Sophistication. Vision. Hope. Change. I used to think that she could not have been worse that Barack Obama. I’m no longer sure... ITEM: Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has announced plans to make carrying a firearm within 1000 feet of certain “high-profile government officials” a federal offense. Great. That’s more than three football fields. As with so many gun laws, this proposal would do nothing more than create an entirely new class of criminals out of law abiding gun owners who had no idea that a “high profile government official” was within 1000 feet of them. “But that’s not what we intend with this law,” its supporters would surely say. OK then. Don’t pass it. ITEM: He did it again. President Barack Obama has, in his serial insults of Great Britain, set another world record. But in a press opportunity with French President Nicolas Sarkosy Obama said: ‘We don’t have a stronger friend and stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy, and the French people.” It’s hard to imagine a more direct insult to the British other than, perhaps, Mr. Obama’s previous serial insults. THe British press has not been amused. With a President and Secretary of State like this, who needs enemies? ITEM: The Democrat controlled Illinois legislature, having driven the state into bankruptcy, at the urging of Gov. Pat Quinn took the bold and courageous move of increasing personal income tax rates 67% and business rates 46%. No Republicans voted for the increase. The governors of Indiana and Wisconsin are said to be ecstatic and are advertising, or planning to advertise, their business friendly climates. That’s Progressive thinking for you: “Our policies have propelled the state into bankruptcy, but that’s only because we haven’t inflicted even more of the same policies on the state. Just wait; you’ll see.” Yes, they will. Congratulations to Wisconsin and Indiana and to the owners of Illinois home and business moving companies! ITEM: A few questions about President Obama’s speech at the Tucson memorial service on Wednesday evening: Why would anyone think a university athletic arena an appropriate venue? Repeatedly and loudly cheering the President? At a memorial service? Handing out t-shirts beforehand? Did it remind you too of the Wellstone memorial/Dem. pep rally? Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder speaking before the President? A 34 minute speech, after other lengthy speeches? Why was the POTUS there at all, to say nothing of the other administration figures? Is this yet another occasion all about Mr. Obama? Is this his attempt to be, like Bill Clinton, the comforter in chief? Will he rush to comfort victims of tragedies around the nation from now on? Just asking. CORRECTION: It seems that the source from which I received an armed citizen report isn't quite as reliable as I might have hoped. Since I can't unquestionably verify it, I'm removing it. Thanks to George and Professor Hale for catching that one! See you next time!Posted by: MikeM at 11:57 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Ever the Gun-Grabber, Lautenberg Lies About Failed Gun Law in CNN Op-Ed
It seems all I have done the past several days is "correct" obvious attempts by the leftist media/political machine to create false narratives about the gun and magazines used by Jared Lee Loughner in his deadly assault last Saturday, and when I haven't been dealing with that, I've been dealing with pundits and politicians lying about the failed 1994 "assault weapons ban" that expired in 2004.
To hear them tell it, the ban kept blood from flowing in the streets and ended threats of gun violence. That is a neat trick, as the ban did not radically affect the violent crime rate during its entire existence, nor did violent crime spike as a result of the ban expiring. To those with knowledge of the ban's actually language and effects, this is less than surprising. After all, the ban did not in any way address the lethality, range, rate of fire or accuracy of any firearms. It was nothing more or less than a ban on the name of certain firearms, along with a list of cosmetic features that bore no relation to how well firearms functioned. A perfect example of a "banned" gun was the Tec-9 pistol. Demonized by liberal gun-grabbers as the kind of "assault weapon" favored by criminals, it underwent utterly cosmetic changes—the elimination of the barrel shroud and threaded muzzle—and was out on the street as the AB-10 the very next day. Gun-control advocates claimed victory, but accomplished precisely nothing in terms of saving lives or reducing crime. So it goes with Senatorial vulture Frank Lautenberg, who wants to use the bodies of Jared Loughner's victims as pulpit to press forward once again with gun control schemes. His editorial at CNN today is replete with half-truths and lies, with this being the most objectionable.The Senator has carelessly libeled hundreds of thousands of police officers, military servicemen and women, and law-abiding citizens around the world that rely upon Glock pistols, and like all would-be tyrants, he would use the actions of a loathsome individual to justify his attempt to usurp the freedoms of the rest of society. He then goes on to argue:
If the shooter didn't have access to the high-capacity magazine that he used, he would have stopped to reload sooner and lives might have been saved. Loughner's magazine was attached to a 9 mm Glock 19 semi-automatic handgun, which is the preferred weapon of deranged madmen. In 2007, Seung-Hui Cho used the same model in the Virginia Tech shooting spree, which claimed 32 lives.
The unintended irony of his pronouncement that such magazines are suitable for military and hence militia use is not doubt lost upon him, but that is dwarfed by the magnitude of the lie he continues to spread. These so-called "high capacity" magazines were never illegal to buy, sell, trade, possess or use during the entire life of the ban. They were freely available for commercial sale, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, were bought, sold, and used. The law banned the import of foreign high capacity magazines, and marked new magazines manufactured after the law went into effect for law enforcement use only. All previously manufactured magazines were completely legal, even those thousands of brand-new magazines sitting in packages in the warehouses of wholesalers and retailers, which were never in serious threat of being depleted. Likewise, "AK-47s, Uzis and other semi-automatic firearms" were never in short supply during the laughably labeled "ban." You could walk into gun stores across the breadth of America and pick up AR-15 or AK-pattern rifles, or many other semi-automatic firearms. Manufacturers simply shrugged their heads at the absurdity of the law passed, and went about releasing the same functional weapons, with minor and superfluous cosmetic differences. The simple fact of the matter is that the petty tyrannies that men like Lautenberg desire to impose on others merely restricts the rights of the lawful, at the expense of liberty. That, of course, is far harder to sell than his fiction that he's done something worthwhile in the past that he'd like to replicate. After all, who would buy the claims of the honest liberal politician proclaiming, "I want to re-impose upon you a law that failed before?"
This is common-sense legislation, and there is no justification for keeping these large-capacity devices on the market. The sad irony is that high-capacity magazines were illegal from 1994 until 2004 when the federal assault weapons ban was in place. In addition to dangerous gun magazines, this groundbreaking law also outlawed AK-47s, Uzis and other semi-automatic firearms. These are the kinds of guns soldiers used on faraway battlefields; they don't belong in our communities.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:54 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Westboro Left, Calculated Lies, and Wellstone II
Matthew Sheffield has a very interesting post up at the Washington Examiner:
Rhetorically, there is very little difference between the ranting of the Westboro cult and rhetoric vomited forth on the pages of the New York Times and Newsweek in recent days. Facts are irrelevant to reporting on this massacre Leftists immediately seized upon as an opportunity to demonize conservatives and squelch free speech. Eerily, liberal Democratic politicians and their allies in the leftist media seem to have once again coordinated a two-pronged assault against civil liberties, using deception and outright lies. Perhaps most disturbing of all is that they've given up all pretense of tying their efforts to facts or reality. The 22-year-old that shot 20 people—killing six—has become an excuse for the left to blame the Tea Party in specific and conservatives in general for the massacre, attempting to tie the shooter and the slayings to the patriotic rhetoric used to capture the House in the 2010 mid-terms. Actual reality is utterly irrelevant in liberal massaging on the tragedy. Jared Lee Loughner has been identified as being "very liberal" by a classmate who knew him in high school, in a band, and community college. His documented history of abusing marijuana, admiration of flag-burning, dislike of the Constitution, and anti-war views that held the Bush Administration as "war criminals" for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan closely coincide with the progressive liberal world view. Despite this, most conservatives and moderates on both sides of the aisle recognize that Loughner's rampage is far more closely tied to mental illness than any political philosophy. Meanwhile, liberals hoping to find a way to turn this outburst of violence into a ghoulish opportunity—as evidenced in the Krugman editorial and alternate-reality Newsweek article linked above—are forging ahead with rhetoric to restrict free speech, while simultaneously promoting restrictions on civil rights and declaring intentions to further alienate and insulate themselves from the very people they are supposed to represent. The always excellent James Taranto notes the authoritarian and repressive political putsch on display in an op-ed today in the Wall Street Journal:
Fred Phelps, the crazy leader of the Westboro Baptist Church cult, has become infamous for blaming any bad event on the evils of homosexuality. Earthquake in Haiti? Blame the gays. Combat troop deaths in Iraq? Ditto. Phelps' logic works thusly: God literally hates people who engage in homosexual conduct and unless societies take the steps to ban and punish such action, God is going to destroy them. Any natural disaster or mass murder is, accordingly, the will of God being carried out on the "sinners" who refuse to listen. If that type of "logic" sounds familiar, it should be. It's exactly the same as the explanations the far left is resorting to in its efforts to pin the recent Tucson, Arizona shooting onto conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, John Boehner, Glenn Beck, and the right generally.
Evidence indicates that Loughner's obsession with Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords years before the Tea Party formed, but leftists persist in constructing an alternate reality where the Tea Party and a handful of conservative politicians and pundits are is the root of all evil. Facts are utterly irrelevant in a worldview so skewed; Sheppard's likening of the radical left to the Westboro hate cult grows more apt with every dishonest attempt to draw false parallels between the Tea Party and conservatives and the maniacally-grinning, left-leaning madman. Sadly there is reason to believe that this hateful rhetoric attempting to demonize and isolate the Tea Party comes straight from the White House itself, author's of the theory that you should never let a tragedy go to waste if it can be used to extract a political gain. Hence the false characterizations and outright lies in hopes of generating support for the draconian gun control laws that the Administration favors, but lacks the fortitude to openly champion. And of course, we look with trepidation and sadness upon what may likely transpire later today, when President Obama is scheduled to speak in Tucson. This is an opportunity for a real statesman to attempt to bridge the political divide and promote healing, but nothing in this President's past suggests he is capable of delivering a speech that isn't calculated and self-serving. It appears that we face the probability of another Wellstone funeral, as the memorial has taken the tone of a politicized union rally. There are few things more shameful than using the corpse of of a child as a campaign stage, but we've long past the point of thinking that this radical Administration is capable of any decency at all. Update: Sarah Palin labels the media/political smears as "blood libel," which is both controversial, and accurate, as Dan Riehl observes.
To describe the Tucson massacre as an act of "political violence" is, quite simply, a lie. It is as if, two days after the Columbine massacre, a conservative newspaper of the Times's stature had described that atrocious crime as an act of "educational violence" and used it as an occasion to denounce teachers unions. Such an editorial would be shameful and indecent even if the arguments it made were meritorious. The New York Times has seized on a madman's act of wanton violence as an excuse to instigate a witch hunt against those it regards as its domestic foes. "Instigate" is not too strong a word here: As we noted yesterday, one of the first to point an accusatory finger at the Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin was the Times's star columnist, Paul Krugman. Less than two hours after the news of the shooting broke, he opined on the Times website: "We don't have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was."
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:33 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 11, 2011
They're Greek To Me
My latest article on understanding Progressive thinking is up on Pajamas Media. It can be accessed here.
Posted by: MikeM at 09:22 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Bet on Stupid
With college football now over, the folks doing online sports gambling at betus.com have one less sport to wager on this time of year. I'd suggest they put together a line on which opportunistic politicians and social commentators will make the dumbest statements or propose the most preposterous laws in the wake of Jared Loughner's 20-victim rampage in Tucson this past Saturday.
Peter King's self-serving, dim-witted, and no-doubt unconstitutional attempt to build a 1,000 foot gun-free zone around politicians is certainly a candidate to win the prize for dumbest proposed law, though the attempt by a bevy of Democrats to resurrect the laughably ineffective "assault weapons ban" of the 1994 federal crime bill is a close second. The most competitive betting would take place on who is making the dumbest comments regarding the murders, with Pima County Sheriff Dupnik being a contender, along with Paul Krugman, and pretty much the entire stable of anchors and commenters at MSNBC. The would-be elitists on the left all want to capitalize on the shooting and hope to to use the actions of a deranged individual to libel their political enemies. We can't be sure what perverse suggestions or solutions they will offer next, but it's a sure bet it will be vitriolic and stupid.Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:00 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Lautenberg Reminds Us Why The Founders Want Us Armed
The Senator from New Jersey is partially correct (though they are magazines, not clips, which are something completely different). The standard-capacity and high-capacity magazines of semi-automatic firearms does enable shooters to have a formidable amount of firepower. But they most certainly should be on the market, and in the hands of every responsible adult. Provided such devices, adequate arms, ammunition, and fortitude, even just one person can mow down a crowd... or keep a lynch mob at bay, send rapists to the morgue, stop would-be tyrants, another coup d'etat, or genocide. Such weapons systems serve as a great equalizer. The Founders intended arms to be used by a "well-regulated" militia comprised of patriotic citizens to keep would-be tyrants at bay, whether those tyrants were Redcoat tyrants of centuries ago, or the mentors and fellow travelers of a sitting President that plotted an American holocaust.
A US Senator announced Monday he would soon present legislation to ban high-capacity ammunition clips after a gunman used one in an attempted assassination of a US lawmaker over the weekend. "The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a handgun is to kill a lot of people very quickly. These high-capacity clips simply should not be on the market," Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg said in a statement.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:21 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Why Magazine Limit Laws Don't Save Lives
Gun control advocates are hoping to use the bodies of those killed by Jared Loughner as a podium to spread their views. New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy—Democrats all—are using the tragedy to rush forward a ban on magazines of more than ten rounds, claiming that by limiting the number of cartridges held in each magazine, the number of casualties in shootings would be reduced.
Really? Here is a magazine change of a Glock 19 pistol (the kind used in the shooting in Tucson and at Virginia Tech) by a shooter with average skill.Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:50 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 10, 2011
Get Olbermann, Matthews, and Behar Their Sedatives. New Revelations Paint Picture of Jared Loughner as Being an Insane Left-Winger
Before tonight revelations from friends and acquaintances of Jared Loughner had already paint a picture quite counter to that of a conservative.
Loughner was identified as being "very left wing," abused drugs, found humor in aborted fetuses (once proclaiming they could be fitted with suicide vests as "baby bombers" according to one offended classmate), hated God and was a 9/11 Truther... all beliefs more consistent than the political left than right. Now we find that that Loughner was a vitriolic anti-war left winger as well. Reality isn't what the media would like it to be. Expect this story to die soon. What, you don't expect them to report Loughner was a product of their hate speech from the last decade, do you?Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:14 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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