Supreme Invitation

When (not if) someone in your family or neighborhood, perhaps a law officer or child, dies from a gunshot wound inflicted by a handgun in a homicide, suicide, or accident, please remember to invite these distinguished and clever men to the memorial service:

The Hon. Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.
Supreme Court of the United States
One First Street N.E.
Washington, DC 20543

The Hon. Justice Anthony McLeod Kennedy
Supreme Court of the United States
One First Street N.E.
Washington, DC 20543

The Hon. Chief Justice John Glover Roberts, Jr.
Supreme Court of the United States
One First Street N.E.
Washington, DC 20543

The Hon. Justice Antonin Scalia
Supreme Court of the United States
One First Street N.E.
Washington, DC 20543

The Hon. Justice Clarence Thomas
Supreme Court of the United States
One First Street N.E.
Washington, DC 20543

Please allow sufficient time for the mail to be processed by security apparatus before delivery. Unlike you, these gentlemen live in a safe and sterile environment.

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Obama On Supreme Court’s Ruling On DC’s Handgun Ban

According to the Chicago Tribune's DC political blog, The Swamp:

Barack Obama moments ago made his first public comment on the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling striking down the District of Columbia's handgun ban. The candidate issued a highly guarded written statement that compliments the Court for "much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions across the country" but provides little sense of the Democratic presidential candidate's own view of the ruling.

Gun control presents a delicate issue for Democratic presidential candidates as they head into a general election. The party's base of liberals and urban dwellers strongly supports gun control as a way to combat street crime. But rural swing voters, many of whom come from hunting traditions and may face long waits for a police response in an emergency situation, are often suspicious of erosion of Second Amendment gun rights.

Al Gore's close identification with gun control is generally considered to have played a significant role in his loss of several rural swing states in 2000.

Here is Obama's statement in full:

"I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures. The Supreme Court has now endorsed that view, and while it ruled that the D.C. gun ban went too far, Justice Scalia himself acknowledged that this right is not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe. Today's ruling, the first clear statement on this issue in 127 years, will provide much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions across the country.

"As President, I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners, hunters, and sportsmen. I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact common-sense laws, like closing the gun show loophole and improving our background check system, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals. Today's decision reinforces that if we act responsibly, we can both protect the constitutional right to bear arms and keep our communities and our children safe."

R.I.P. George

Shot and Killed for a Bike

Chicago Student, 14-Years-Old, Gunned Down For His Bike

In yet another tragic shooting in Chicago, 14-year-old Ulysses Simmons was killed while enjoying a summer day. He was gunned down by two other teens who wanted his bike.

According to the Sun-Times cover story on June 18th:

Ulysses Simmons is first CPS student killed over summer break

It was the first day of summer vacation -- cool, not too hot -- a perfect day to hang out with buddies on the block and flirt with the girls.

That's what 14-year-old Ulysses Simmons was doing Monday, friends said, when a white car circled the South Side block for the third time, disappearing around the corner.

Minutes later, two of three teens who had been riding in the suspicious car ran up through the alley near 92nd and Langley and opened fire on the group of about 10 youths.

As they scattered, one 14-year-old boy was shot in the shoulder. Friends said Ulysses, who had been sitting on his beloved bike talking to one of the girls, fell to the ground, clutching his stomach.

The Burnside boy, an eighth-grader at Beasley Academic Center, was mechanically inclined -- he could fix almost anything around the house and on the car, even radios and computers, his grandmother said. He is the first Chicago Public Schools student slain over the summer break.

And it was all because of a bike.

"All I could do was pray in silence when I heard that," Sharon Wright, his grandmother who raised him, said Tuesday as she mechanically prepared to bury a child.

"My Ulysses was a sweet, outgoing and kind-hearted son. He always did whatever I asked him, without any argument," she said, still numb. "He was full of love, a good spirit, just one of a kind."

Ulysses, the youngest of five siblings, loved music and spent hours on his computer composing raps and funky beats. He'd just gotten his first job -- working with young children this summer at a local church, his grandmother said.

"When will this killing stop?" she asked. "It needs to stop."

Her grandson was the 27th CPS student slain since last fall.

He was pronounced dead of a gunshot wound to the abdomen at 1 a.m. Tuesday at the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital. The other boy was in stable condition Monday at Comer.

Also worrisome is that several students were scared about talking to the police.

But just because the youth saw the shooters doesn't mean police can pick them up, one detective said Tuesday, as he and other officers kept steady vigil on the block.

"We know who did it. But these kids have to live here. Getting them to agree to identify the shooters is another matter," the detective said. "That boy died over a bike."

How is it that teens in Chicago, and across the country, can obtain a firearm so easily?

Could it be that lax gun laws in Illinois and across the nation allow gun traffickers to flood our communities with weapons? Yes, that is indeed the problem.

The solution then is to cut off the source of illegal guns being trafficked into mostly urban areas. That means that policies such as requiring background checks on all gun purchases, limiting handgun purchases to one per month, and requiring gun owners to report to law enforcement officials any lost or stolen guns must be implemented.

Such common sense measures don't take away anyone's "right" to own a gun, and instead keep firearms from falling into the wrong hands, such as teens and gang members, who continue to use illegal guns to kill with reckless abandon.

"When it gets nasty - get down to business."

Watch Video: Carrying a Concealed Machine Gun — The Gun Industry Continues to Innovate Deadly Weapons For a Massacre

A supporter of GunGuys sent us this video from the "ShotShow" in 2008, the gun industry's show and tell event where new products (read deadly weapons) are unveiled. The following video demonstrates a prototype concealed machine gun that folds up into your back pocket, and in a rather chilling fashion, looks like a flashlight that when you "walk the dog, take the garbage out, check the mail" can be used in case any trouble arises on your way to the mailbox.

Although the video claims the company, "Magpul Industrial Corp," only created the concealed machine gun just to experiment with what it could create and innovate, make no mistake about it that if the gun industry feels they can make money by marketing such a weapon, they would.

Basically, all the company would have to do to legally sell the weapon is convert it from a fully automatic machine gun into a semi-automatic assault rifle which the gun industry routinely does to a host of military-style weapons. ("Semi-automatic" assault weapons simply mean that one pull of the trigger fires only one bullet, versus "automatic weapons" or machine guns that fire multiple rounds as long as the trigger is squeezed).

The gun industry already sells a host of assault pistols and easy to conceal handguns that use high-capacity ammunition magazines that can hold up to 30 rounds. According to the gun industry profiteers, why not improve on the idea and create an assault rifle that doubles as a flashlight, "just in case you need it?" Why settle for just a deadly handgun?

Author Tom Diaz, a senior policy analyst for the Violence Policy Center and author of "Making A Killing," says that increased lethality is the nicotine of the gun industry. The gun industry's new and improved products are designed, manufactured, and marketed to make firearms deadlier. The industry's "innovations" are what sells guns and consumers, just like in other industries, seek out more powerful, sleeker, and compact products.

Most disturbing to us is the last line in the video when a young man demonstrates the compact machine guns and says:

"When it gets nasty? Get down to business."

Mayor Bloomberg Wins Another Battle

June 6, 2008

An editorial in the New York Times on June 6, 2008 titled "Combating Illegal Guns" says that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's campaign against rogue gun dealers is showing positive results.

The Times editorial states:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign against illegal guns won a notable victory this week when a Georgia gun dealer decided to default rather than go to trial in a civil lawsuit that accused him of illegally selling handguns that were later used to commit crimes in New York.

The last-minute retreat by the dealer, Jay Wallace, is new vindication of Mr. Bloomberg’s strategy for holding irresponsible gun dealers accountable. It is part of the mayor’s larger battle against atrocious federal laws that shield the gun industry from having to account for the crimes committed with guns that they provide.

Mr. Wallace’s decision paves the way for court appointment of a federal monitor to oversee guns sales at his store. Twenty other dealers have settled lawsuits filed by the city in this manner.

In 2006, New York sued 27 gun dealers in Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio, claiming their lax screening practices and illegal guns sales created a public nuisance in the city.

The suit navigates some tricky legal terrain. Bowing to the gun lobby three years ago, Congress passed a law to protect the gun industry from such lawsuits. A federal appeals court last month tossed out a city suit against gun makers and distributors. But the 2005 statute does not cover illegal gun sales, leaving room for the city to proceed against gun dealers.

The early evidence indicates that the city’s litigation is having an effect on the “iron pipeline” of illegal guns used to commit crimes in New York. A court filing in the city’s case shows a 75 percent drop in such guns coming from a sample of the dealers sued. Between 2006 and 2007, there was a 16 percent drop in the number of guns used in crimes in New York that were traced to any dealer in the states where the sued dealers are located.

The city’s success provides a model for other jurisdictions. There is also a lesson for Congress, which last year rebuffed Mr. Bloomberg’s effort to win repeal of the so-called Tiahrt amendment, a 5-year-old law that blocks access to a federal database that traces guns used in crime back to particular dealers. The city was able to file its civil lawsuit using trace data collected before the ban. But as time passes, that data will become less and less useful, making it even harder to stop gun dealers whose sleazy conduct results in violence.

It’s Campaign Season...

So the NRA Must be Using Fear Tactics Again

As it's long been said, there’s an explosive psychological element to the “gun rights” movement. Compare it, for instance, to requiring drivers and passengers to wear seat belts. No one argues that such laws are the first step to taking away your car, do they?

Or requiring infants to be in special car seats? Does that mean that you will have to register your car? Well, actually you do have to register your car. It’s called getting a license plate, and no one is trying to overturn license plate laws, are they?

But, of course, there is no NLA, National License Plate Association.

That brings us to 2008, and that means its an election year – and time for the NRA to start Halloween scare tactics early.

So, in a letter dated April 28, 2008, that we were forwarded, the million dollar a year vice president of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, warns that electing Barack Obama would mean that 90% of America’s gun shops would be forced to close.

(Scroll below to see LaPierre's deceptive letter).

Oh, and Obama would ban handguns, hunting ammunition, and probably arrest hunters and exile them to Mars, right Wayne?

Maybe the NRA logo should be a black U.N. helicopter whirring above self-proclaimed militia members.

America is in need of a lot of repair work in the coming years. Playing the fear game with guns won’t solve any of them.

Elite Eight?

Not Exactly

June 2nd, 2008 by Fat Charlie the Archangel @ 6:30 am| Posted @ iamtrex.com

[Above: Camp Curry, Yosemite National Park. Does this look like a place where you would need to pack heat to feel safe?]

Max Baucus, Montana.

Byron Dorgan, North Dakota.

Tim Johnson, South Dakota.

Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas.

Ben Nelson, Nebraska.

Mark Pryor, Arkansas.

Jon Tester, Montana.

Jim Webb, Virginia.

What do these eight Democratic Senators have in common?
On December 14, 2007, they were all insane.

That’s the day they joined 39 Republican Senators in signing a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, asking him to revise decades-old National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service regulations to allow the possession and carrying of concealed firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges by permit holders, to the same extent that the law of the state where the park is located would allow such persons to carry in state parks and wildlife refuges. Kempthorne, dutiful Bushie that he is, caused his department to issue proposed regulations on April 30 that would do just that.

This link will take you to the table of contents of the Federal Register for April 30; scroll down to “National Park Service” and you’ll find a link to the full text of the proposed regulation. You can find a copy of the letter here. You’ll note that, contrary to a number of new reports, including this one in last Friday’s Times, that say that 51 Senators, including nine Democrats, wrote to Kempthorne, there are only 47 signatures, including the Unholy Eight listed above.

Needless to say, the NRA thinks this is the greatest thing since cold beer. Other stakeholders, including the National Parks Conservation Association and the Association of National Park Rangers, think it’s not such a great idea. This article from the Portland Oregonian does, in my view, a pretty balanced job of laying out and assessing the arguments for and against.

My personal view is that the new rule is both unnecessary and goofy. But I got a problem that goes beyond the merits of this issue.

Look, we know that Republicans are going to pander to the NRA in an election year. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Republicans gotta pander. But what we don’t need is Democrats playing along, giving this insanity a patina of respectability. WTF were these eight Democrats thinking?

BTW, the comment period on the proposed regulations runs until June 30. You can comment online by going here. Sure would be nice if MoveOn would get an email blast out to its members, asking them to comment.