"Forget about the future...

let's get on with the past"

The old Wild West is part of our rich heritage and history books are filled with fascinating stories of gun-slinging outlaws and the tough guys who hunted them down.





Unbeknownst to most Americans, some form of open carry is legal in approximately 43 states and the gun lobby wants you to know it.
Hence, there are a growing number of public events across the country to get the gun crowd to come out of the closet (!) in the hopes of intimidating the public into accepting their dangerous worldview.

The real world implications of the open carry crusade is chilling.

Consider:

• Sipping hot chocolate with your toddler at Starbucks while a fellow patron openly displays a gun at the table next to you;
• Attending a church service with your entire family knowing that the fellow parishioner sitting next to you has a handgun tucked in his belt; or
• Boarding a crowded bus with your newborn child with upwards of 5 other passengers openly carrying weapons.

Unless this is the kind of world you want for you and your children, Americans’ need to pick up the phone to call state and federal lawmakers to voice outrage over the gun lobby’s extremist agenda.

It's ironic that today's parents are hyper-vigilant about what their children eat, whom they hang out with and whether they have sunscreen on.

Yet, in sharp contrast, there is remarkably little awareness or concern about the 280 million guns in civilian hands in our country—many of which are carried into countless public places each day where families frequent.

Next time you take your child on an outing with you, think about how many people within earshot may soon be openly carrying a gun as you wait in line at the aquarium, shop at the local grocery store, or sit in a theater watching a movie.

Unless American's wake up to this crisis and demand that guns laws effectively address the inherent dangers associated with carrying guns in public places, the seemingly far-fetched examples of every day outings turned into repeated encounters with armed citizens will become all to real.

After all, allowing a small group of armed gun owners -- versus trained law enforcement officers -- to make potentially life and death decisions about public safety in restaurants, churches, theaters and parks is a frightening prospect.

America is being held hostage by the gun lobby's extremist agenda to flood our country with firearms as evidenced by the recent passage of legislation allowing loaded guns in National Parks. It's time we turned back the clock on this deadly trend before America's children are sitting in school with armed teachers and the gun lobby's abnormal behavior becomes the new norm.

Meanwhile, there have been eight episodes of right-wing extremist violence in four and a half months.

We haven't gone four weeks since February without some poor guy -- always with a long history of mental illness, usually with a record of military service and/or domestic violence, and invariably jacked up on a toxic cocktail of white male privilege; us-versus-them enemy seeking; fury at women, blacks and/or Jews; and a belief that the world as he knew it was ending unless he took up arms -- taking out his gun and offing innocent Americans in a suicidal bid for glory.

thanks to:
gunguys
Orcinus

"Piece" be with you?

Dylan T. Lovan

Thursday, June 4, 2009. (AP Photo/Ed Reinke)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP)

A Kentucky pastor is inviting his flock to bring guns to church to celebrate the Fourth of July and the Second Amendment.

New Bethel Church is welcoming "responsible handgun owners" to wear their firearms inside the church June 27, a Saturday. An ad says there will be a handgun raffle, patriotic music and information on gun safety.

"We're just going to celebrate the upcoming theme of the birth of our nation," said pastor Ken Pagano. "And we're not ashamed to say that there was a strong belief in God and firearms - without that this country wouldn't be here."

The guns must be unloaded and private security will check visitors at the door, Pagano said.

He said recent church shootings, including the killing Sunday of a late-term abortion provider in Kansas, which he condemned, highlight the need to promote safe gun ownership. The New Bethel Church event was planned months before Dr. George Tiller was shot to death in a Wichita church.

Kentucky allows residents to openly carry guns in public with some restrictions. Gun owners carrying concealed weapons must have state-issued permits and can't take them to schools, jails or bars, among other exceptions.

Pagano's Protestant church, which attracts up to 150 people to Sunday services, is a member of the Assemblies of God. The former Marine and handgun instructor said he expected some backlash, but has heard only a "little bit" of criticism of the gun event.

John Phillips, an Arkansas pastor who was shot twice while leading a service at his former church in 1986, said a house of worship is no place for firearms.

"A church is designated as a safe haven, it's a place of worship," said Phillips, who was shot by a church member's relative for an unknown reason and still has a bullet lodged in his spine. "It is unconscionable to me to think that a church would be a place that you would even want to bring a weapon."

Phillips spoke out against a bill before the Arkansas General Assembly that would have permitted the carrying of guns in that state's churches. The bill failed in February.

Pagano, 50, said some members of his church were concerned that President Obama's administration could restrict gun ownership, and they supported the plan for the event when Pagano asked their opinion.

Marian McClure Taylor, executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, an umbrella organization for 11 Christian denominations in Kentucky, said Christian churches are promoters of peace, but "most allow for arms to be taken up under certain conditions."

Taylor said Pagano assured her the event would focus on promoting responsible gun ownership and any proceeds would go to charity.

"Those two commitments are consistent with the high value the Assemblies of God churches place on human life," she said in an e-mail message.

Pagano is encouraging church members to bring a canned good and a friend to the event. He said guns must be unloaded for insurance purposes and safety reasons.

He said the point was not to mix worship with guns, though he may reference some passages from the Bible.

"Firearms can be evil and they can be useful," he said. "We're just trying to promote responsible gun ownership and gun safety."

taking responsibility, how rare.

They call themselves "pro-life,"
as they incite, commit & defend acts of violence
like that which ended the life of Dr. Tiller in Kansas.

They call themselves pro-life, but they're anti-health,
first fighting child coverage, and now public options
that would actually make Americans healthier.

They call themselves pro-life, but what kind of life
is pro-torture, pro-war, pro-guns,
anti-safety regulations, anti-sex-education?

If they call themselves pro-life,
why are they so often against the living?




many thanks to the folks at Drinking Liberally NYC

Big Hate

While no one can argue that Bill O'Reilly
and his ilk are directly responsible
for the murder of Dr. George Tiller,
they certainly are responsible
for hanging a target on his back
and engaging in frighteningly
inflammatory rhetoric year after year,
arguably creating an environment where it is okay to demonize a medical professional performing a legally guaranteed and necessary medical procedure.

Not only did they make it okay for American citizens to demonize George Tiller, the result of their rhetoric is seen on message boards around the country where you can find Tiller's murder being justified and even praised.

According to Salon.com and ThinkProgress, O'Reilly began discussing Tiller on Febuary 25, 2005, and mentioned Tiller in 28 more episodes--frequently referring to him as "Dr. Tiller the Baby Killer."



To deny that electing a black man president hasn't aggravated this situation would be incredibly naive.

The owner of an Alabama abortion clinic that was once hit by a deadly bombing says protests at the clinic have increased since President Barack Obama's election.

Diane Derzis said Monday the fatal shooting of Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller appears to be part of a pattern that's taken hold since the vote last year. Derzis said she has been seeing more protesters outside her clinic in Birmingham, and their rhetoric is getting tougher.

Derzis believes some abortion opponents have gotten desperate since the election of Obama, who supports abortion rights.

Derzis owns New Woman All Women Health Care. It's the clinic bombed by Eric Rudolph in 1998, killing an off-duty police officer and critically injuring a nurse.



www.care2.com

States' Gun Rights: The Next Constitutional Battlefield

From Time Magazine











The right to bear arms
is famously and specifically
referenced in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Alas, for advocates of the right, the language of the amendment gets tangled up in the regulating of militias and the interpretation of commas. Now, a multi-state movement is trying to find more robust constitutional support in another amendment, which makes no mention of weaponry at all.


The 10th Amendment declares that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." It inspired the so-called "Sagebrush Rebellion" three decades ago that swept the West, preventing the federal takeover of public lands pushed by the Carter Administration and propelling the self-proclaimed Sagebrush Rebel, Ronald Reagan, to the Presidency. Now it is being invoked by pro-gun advocates to press for state rather than federal regulation of gun manufacturers. (See pictures of America's gun culture.)
more

Condi vs a fourth-grader now?

more of a challenge than debating her former boss, I suppose...

Our illustrious former Secretart of State may be adept at dodging tough questions -- but her skills were no match for fourth grader, Misha Lerner.

Looking like she'd

stuck her face in a bucket o' bees,

Rice made her first public appearance in Washington, D.C., since leaving office at a Jewish Primary Day School where she fielded students' questions that had been developed beforehand with the help of teachers but had not been screened by Rice, the Washington Post reported.

Then one student asked, "What do you think about what President Obama's administration was saying about the methods the Bush administration had used to get information from detainees?"

Apparently the question was toned down

from the student's original question.

"Let me just say that President Bush was very clear that he wanted to do everything he could to protect the country," Rice said.

"But he was also very clear that we would do nothing that was against the law or against our obligations internationally. I hope you understand that it was a very difficult time."

"I know you are but what am I?"

Seriously, there were no hard feelings, and Rice even posed for a solo photo op with the young student as they spoke about Russia, the Post reported.

I hope the children

don't have nightmares after this.

Everything is AMAzing - Louis CK