No Guns Allowed in This Church

via TTAG from Ann Althouse

click to make bigger

“This is a place of peace. Weapons are allowed inside only after they have been hammered into plowshares.”

Kooky Wisconsin Politicians

via Microdot

full story

Rep. Joel Kleefisch, the Oconomowoc area Republican who is one of Scott Walker's biggest cheerleaders (he's married to the lieutenant governor, after all), thinks Wisconsin ought to make it legal to start shooting sandhill cranes.

What's your opinion? Does that look like a game bird to you?

Please leave a comment.

Australian School Answering Machine

This is a real answering machine message:

Iran is a Threat

via TYWKIWDBI

Each star on this map marks the location of a military base of the United States - in Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and into the ...stans. The blue in the center (not well distinguished from the Caspian Sea and other water) is Iran.

[I]magine if the blue in that map were the U.S... and the large red areas were Mexico and Canada... and the stars represented Iranian military bases. Then further imagine that Iranian political leaders and media figures routinely told their population that it was the U.S. that was an aggressive, threatening power that had to be stopped: the mocking condemnations of that level of propaganda would be endless. Yet American political officials and commentators feel free to insist, with a straight face, that Iran is an aggressor nation posing a serious threat to the U.S.: such a serious threat, in fact, that war may be necessary to stop it.

Let me be quite clear here; I'm not saying that the Iranian leadership are good guys. I'm just using the graphic to show that there might be reasons for them to feel threatened.

Pro-gun Superiority

One of the latter entries in a fascinating comment thread on my Facebook page.

Gary Wilson also commented on Mikeb302000's Wall post.

Gary wrote: "inferior? I'm inferior because I don't live in fear? Because i live in peace with my neighbors? Because I don't live in a crime ridden ghetto infested with ghouls? I'd be embarrassed to admit I had a gun in each room. And if I lived in such squaller that I needed a gun in each room, I'd move. I go away for the day and don't even lock my door. No, not a gated community.

Seriously, a gun in each room? You poor pathetic paranoid sample of humanity. How terrible it must be to live in paralyzing fear. How many do you carry with you to church? Just protection? From what? You need serious help! You seem to be exactly the type of person that should not be allowed to have a firearm. I wish you knew the peace I know."

Another Lawful Gun Owner Goes Berserk - South Dakota

Fox News reports

An old grudge that spanned more than a half-century may have led a 73-year-old man to fatally shoot his long-ago classmate at his South Dakota home, according to a court affidavit filed Thursday.

Carl V. Ericsson, of Watertown, was denied bond Thursday during his first court appearance on a first-degree murder charge. The former high school sports star is accused of shooting retired Madison High School teacher and track coach Norman Johnson, 72, after Johnson answered the door at his house on Tuesday evening in Madison.

I guess this story could also argue for the PERMANENT loss of gun rights. Some unfit gun owners NEVER stop being a danger to themselves and others.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Josh Horwitz on the Secret Market Segments of the Gun Manufacturers

Josh Horwitz continues to sound the alarm about the lies and deception of the NRA and NSSF. We talked about his last post in this series, in which he showed how NICS background checks do not equal gun sales, in spite of what we keep hearing.

Basically he's asking a question. If the gun lobby and gun manufacturers are going to such great lengths to conceal the exact numbers of sales, what are they up to? Why all the obfuscation?

The smoke and mirrors game the gun lobby plays with bogus "sales data" allows them to promote the infamous "More Guns, Less Crime" mantra of now-discredited "researcher" (and current Fox News commentator) John Lott while cloaking a far darker truth. Namely, that -- faced with a stagnant customer base that has declined precipitously over the past 35 years -- the gun industry has purposely and continuously manufactured firearms for one of its most important market segments: traffickers and prohibited purchasers (i.e., children, criminals, the dangerously mentally ill, domestic abusers, etc.). And all in the name of profit.

Now, I don't want to say I told you so, but I told you so. In meeting rooms from Smith and Wesson's in Massachusetts to Freedom Arms' in Wyoming you've got eager beaver sales managers calculating the number of guns that will end up in the hands of criminals and passing these requirements to the production teams.

That's how it's done in America, all in the name of freedom and profit.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.