Saturday, March 3, 2012

Afraid of Firearms

via TTAG, where they love this guy. I actually do too. In a talented way he musically portrays the pro-gun lies. What do you think?

Arizona Gets Tough on Gun Crime - In Certain Cases

Arthur J. Tineo



The Washington Post reports on yet another school shooting. Normally when an adult shoots at or near a school he gets little more than a warning. Gun owners love to give each other the benefit of the doubt. But when you're in Arizona and you look like Mr. Tineo, you can be sure to pay for your crimes.

Bail was set Friday at $2 million for a man accused of firing a rifle at a southeastern Arizona high school, injuring a 17-year-old boy who was watching a baseball game.


The student suffered minor cuts from flying glass when the car he was in was shot at Thursday afternoon.


Tineo, of Willcox, was booked into Cochise County Jail on suspicion of three counts of attempted murder, plus charges of assault, endangerment, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, prohibited possession of a firearm, disorderly conduct with a weapon, and discharging a weapon within city limits.


Weaver said Thursday that it appeared Tineo was firing indiscriminately.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Romney Pandering to the Gun Extremists




For Willard to stand there and thank this loon for saying that the federal government poses a physical threat to him and his family is truly appalling -- a dereliction of duty -- and should instantly disqualify him from the presidency. Seriously. The idea that you need to own a concealed weapon to fight off the FBI and ATF is beyond crazy -- it's black helicopter, Clinton-killed-Vince-Foster, McVeigh-Was-Right crazy.

The Need For Safe Storage laws


While new details emerge about the possible motives in Monday’s school shooting in Ohio, another question remains: Will there be legal consequences against the owner of the handgun used to kill three people and injure two others?

As Ohio state law stands today, the answer is likely no.

Officials say T.J. Lane, a 17-year-old high school sophomore, confessed to the killings at Chardon High School, located about 30 miles east of Cleveland. County prosecutors say they plan to try Mr. Lane as an adult, resulting in a possible maximum sentence of life in prison.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Lane stole the gun, a Ruger .22-caliber Mark III target pistol, from an uncle who legally purchased the weapon in August 2010 from a gun shop in Mentor, Ohio. Lane’s grandparents noticed the gun missing this week from a barn they owned.

It is not yet certain if the handgun was properly stored, had its ammunition removed, or was secured with locks preventing its use — all factors that that gun safety advocates say are critical in preventing gun access by children.
What's your opinion? Have you noticed there's often no attempt to involve the owner of a gun used by child shooters? Why is that?

Please leave a comment.

Colin's Reaction to the Ohio Shooting

Thursday, March 1, 2012

A really good reason for gun control....

One picture is worth a thousand words...

School 'utterly devastated' after boy killed by a cricket ball

OK, how many school shootings have there been in the US in the last week?

Seriously, what do you expect when deadly weapons are epidemic?

Anyway, for those of you who would point out shit about drownings, hammer deaths, and so on--I bring you this story from the UK.

School 'utterly devastated' after boy killed by ball

A 16-year-old died after apparently being hit with a cricket ball at Portchester School, Bournemouth, on Monday. Needless to say, since cricket is the English national sport somewhat like baseball is in the US, shouldn't there be more deaths by cricket ball?

Add in that the police are investigating that this could have been a result of a brawl.

Not to mention that this was a specialist sports college. That meant all sorts of athletic equipment was tossed about in what could have been a slaughter caused by various forms of sporting equipment.

Let's be realistic, cricket is more like gun ownership in the US. There should be many more deaths by cricket ball given that comparison.

But there isn't.

Could it be that the usual inanimate object to deadly weapon analogy made by gun loons is seriously flawed?

Seriously, how many mass cricket ball massacres have you heard about?

For that matter, this is a pretty rare occurrence. While a cricket ball will hurt like hell if one hits you (they are like hardballs), rarely are they deadly. Former England captain, Mike Gatting, took a hit to the nose and is still alive to tell the tale.

In fact, people get hit quite a bit by cricket balls with minimal bodily injury: let alone fatality.

The reality is that guns aren't just "inanimate objects" they are deadly weapons which, when used properly, can result in serious bodily injury or death.

After all, isn't that the real reason that gun loons want them? To make up for their inadequacies elsewhere?

Cleaning Guns While Drinking


Life magazine ad courtesy of Boing Boing

Monkees' Front Man Davy Jones Dies at 66

School Shootings and Where the Guns Come From


A list of some school shootings and where authorities believe the students obtained guns:

Interesting cases. Here's an example.

April 24, 2003: James Sheets, 14, shot and killed principal Eugene Segro in the crowded cafeteria at the Red Lion Area Junior High School in south-central Pennsylvania before killing himself. Police determined that Sheets used a key to take three guns from his stepfather's gun safe.
What's the solution? Safe storage laws and stiffer penalties for not properly maintaining control of your guns?

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

Texas 12-Year-Old Pulls Gun in School


A 12-year-old boy was taken into custody this week after witnesses reported that he pointed a loaded gun at a classmate during lunch at a rural East Texas junior high school.

After the incident, the 12-year-old put the gun in his pocket, but two coaches who heard about the confrontation took him to the school office, where he was held for deputies, according to Southeast Texas Today. The boy was sent to a juvenile detention center in nearby Hardin County; Southeast Texas Today reported that he was being held on aggravated assault charges.

It's too bad the teachers and janitors weren't armed, maybe they could have put a stop to this immediately.

But, at least they arrested the kid. He'll probably be charged as a adult and nobody will bother to look at his gun-nut dad. After all, daddy didn't do anything wrong, did he?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Arizona Executes Another Mentally Ill Prisoner


ABC reports on a case which could possibly make some less-committed anti-death-penalty folks question their beliefs. Not me, though.  I figure people who do stuff like this are mentally ill and should not be eligible for capital punishment.  What do you think?

The execution happened just a minute's drive away from the Blue Mist Motel, where on Jan. 13, 1984, he beat, stabbed and suffocated his adoptive mother, Roberta Moormann, 74, who sexually abused him into adulthood, according to defense lawyers.

He cut off her head, legs and arms, halved her torso, and flushed all her fingers down the toilet. He then went to various businesses asking if he could dispose of spoiled meat and animal guts before he threw most of her remains in trash bins and sewers throughout the dusty town, about 60 miles southeast of Phoenix.

Moormann was captured after he asked a corrections employee to dispose of what he said were dog bones.

He killed the woman while on a three-day "compassionate furlough" from the prison in Florence, where he was serving nine years to life for kidnapping and molesting an 8-year-old girl in 1972.

February Stats

click to make bigger

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Guns don't kill people: People and monkeys with guns kill people.

FOUR DEAD IN OH-HI-OH!

Who cares about three students dead in Ohio when they've killed more before?



You gotta shot a whole lot more before anyone takes any notice about school, or other mass shootings in the US they are so commonplace there.




And I have one thing to say to the people who want to make stupid comments about whether it semi-, fully-, automatic, or what the fuck.

The big difference is between whether you have to move you trigger finger.

There is something called muzzle climb with fully-automatic weapons which means the muzzle rises with each shot fired.

A semi-automatic weapon doesn't have that problem, which means the bullet may not be flying as fast, but they are more accurate.

but, what I really want to say to you if you are going to play games about what type of weapon it is:

EAT SHIT, ASSHOLE

Captain Beefheart Festival 2011-2012 - Final Night of the Living Van Vliet

Tonight is the final night of the First Annual Captain Beefheart Festival. Thanks to everyone who participated as poster, commenter or reader. We'll see you in December for Zappadan, which this year will segue into the 2nd Beefheart fistival.

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

Zen Comix has joined the festivities.






Possibly the greatest rock musician of all times, and certainly one of the most original and influential geniuses of the 20th century, Don Van Vliet, also known as Captain Beefheart, completely erased all musical dogmas and simply reinvented music on his own terms. Formally, his style blends Delta blues, free-jazz, cacophonous avantgarde and rock and roll, but what is unique about Van Vliet's music is the oblique, skewed, manic, unpredictable and demented structure of his compositions. The desert (where he grew up) could be a better key to understand his art than any of the influences that one can hear on his albums.

The NRA Lies and Gullible Gun Owners Repeat

From an op-ed in the Courier-Journal

But each year, the FBI reports at most about 200 legally justified self-defense homicides by private citizens nationwide, fewer than 1 percent of the 30,000 gun deaths.

Bill Maher on the Gun Culture

Another Karaoke Shooting

via Microdot, another karaoke shooting, this time in Houston. The last one was in Northern California.



More on the Change in VA Gun Law


via Mad Mike

It comes as no surprise that the Virginia governor is a republican tried and true, as he signed off on the legislation despite the fact that the vast majority of the state’s residents were opposed to this repeal.
I don't know what I like better, Mike's observation or that wonderful pro-gun propaganda of a graphic.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

No More One Gun a Month - VA Gov. Bob McDonnell Signed It - Del. Scott Lingamfelter Put the Spin on It

Gov. Bob McDonnell






Del. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Prince William and sponsor of the repeal bill, said the one-handgun limit didn’t accomplish much for law enforcement.

“I think Virginians deserve effective laws, and one handgun a month has been overtaken by technology and improved background checks,” he said. “Criminals don’t go into gun stores, stand there in the bright light, hand over their driver’s license and stand there and wait for the vendor to see if they have a criminal record.”
You see, when you're a gun-rights advocate, you've got "right" on your side and you can say and do anything you like. In his lame justification of the new law, the Delegate is pretending that limiting purchases to one a month has something to do with criminals buying guns from FFL dealers.  Obviously this is not the case. What he said about criminals not standing in the light and handing over their documents has absolutely nothing to do with it.

What the law did was to limit the so-called law abiding citizens from buying more than one at a time.  Those people include criminals and traffickers who haven't been caught yet as well as straw purchasers who turn the guns they buy over to criminals immediately.  Other laws which conveniently interweave into this prohibit registration of guns and licensing of gun buyers, therefore those straw purchasers easily escape detection.

This is Virginia.  This is a backward state run by right-wing lunatics and populated by red-neck gun lovers, who, whether they're in the majority or not, are certainly more powerful and more influential than the liberal, progressive, intelligent and reasonable people of Virginia.

It's a sad story about a step backwards.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Even 'Gun Nuts' Can Oppose This


David Horsley is an Amarillo author and freelance writer. He teaches English at West Texas A and M University.





After what amounts to a love paean to guns, the author makes some good points.

College administrators didn’t want the law. They felt their students would be less safe, rather than more safe, if the law had passed.

Next, there was almost universal opposition to the law by peace officers who currently serve at our colleges and universities across Texas. They felt adding guns to a mixture of college students, occasional all-night partying and beer bongs might produce an unintended fizz.

College students themselves didn’t want guns on campus, either. Campus polls conducted across the state were almost unanimous in rejecting the bill.

So you have to wonder: If university administrators didn’t want guns, campus police didn’t want guns and students didn’t want guns, who did want guns on campuses?

The answer seems to be the Texas Legislature and a few influential backers.
What's your opinion? Is the push for guns on campus in various states an example of NRA and gun-lobby bullying?

Please leave a comment.

Guns on Campus in Arizona


The Faculty Executive Council of the Maricopa Community College Faculty Association (MCCFA) approved spending up to $20,000 on issue advocacy to oppose guns-on-campus legislation in Dec. 2011, and started a “Safe Campuses” campaign against SB 1474 as it again heads to a vote in the legislature.

“We are not opposed to guns in general and believe that there are appropriate times and places for firearms,” says Dr. Barry F. Vaughan, public information officer for the MCCFA, “However, we do not believe that guns belong in the classroom or on college campuses.”

Vaughan believes a campus is a learning community, a place to freely express oneself and hold academic debate and sophisticated discussion in a humane manner. Adding guns into the academic equation doesn’t make sense to him.
First off, who do you think is more intelligent and better trained in logical thinking, the University professors or the gun-rights advocates? Secondly, who has more at stake?

I'm afraid places like Arizona are hopeless when it comes to rational, responsible decisions which best serve the Common Good.

What's your opinion?

Please leave a comment.

PA Man Attempts to Break Girfriend Out of Jail





on a young man who came into the police station with a gun to try and break his girlfriend out. She'd been arrested earlier in the evening for drunk and disorderly.

Stewart was asked to leave and did so, but returned seconds later and fought with two officers as they tried to take him in custody, police said. During the struggle, Stewart pulled a fully-loaded gun out and although officers were able to wrestle it away from him before any shots were fired, a bullet was ejected from the gun somehow during the struggle.

One of the big false arguments of the gun fanatics is that gun free zones attract miscreants because they know there'll be no resistance.  Well, it just so happens that the Upper Darby Police Station has more incidents than your average gun-free college campus.

This is not the first time the Upper Darby police station has been a "battleground," according to Chitwood. In August 2004, there was a man who was shot and killed in the lobby by police and one of the officers involved was himself injured by friendly fire during the incident.

What's your opinion? Don't you think there are enough incidents like this one in which the crazy shooter actually engages the police to debunk that claim of gun-free zones attracting problems?

Please leave a comment.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Captain Beefheart Festival 2011-2012 - 18th Night of the Living Van Vliet

Here's the explanation of the origin and the dates.

Thanks to Microdot for the title of the Festival.

Zen Comix has joined the festivities.

From Wikipedia:

Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) is the tenth studio album by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. Released in 1978, the album was produced by Captain Beefheart and Pete Johnson and released by Warner Bros. Records.

Shiny Beast emerged out of the production difficulties surrounding Bat Chain Puller, an album Captain Beefheart recorded for DiscReet and Virgin Records in 1976. DiscReet cofounders Herb Cohen and Frank Zappa feuded over the production of the album, because Cohen funded the production with Zappa's royalty checks.

Captain Beefheart recorded a new album, Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) due to Zappa withholding the master tapes of the original Bat Chain Puller album. Shiny Beast was praised by music critics.



Bat chain
Puller
Bat chain puller
Puller, puller

A chain with yellow lights
That glistens like oil beads
On its slick smooth trunk
That trails behind on tracks, and thumps
A wing hangs limp and retreats

Bat chain puller
Puller puller

Bulbs shoot from its snoot
And vanish into darkness
It whistles like a root snatched from dry earth
Sodbustin’ rakes with grey dust claws
Announces its coming in the morning
This train with grey tubes
That houses people’s very thoughts and belongings.

Bat chain puller
Puller puller

This train with grey tubes that houses people’s thoughts,
Their very remains and belongings.
A grey cloth patch
Caught with four threads
In the hollow wind of its stacks
Ripples felt fades and grey sparks clacks,
Lunging the cushioned thickets.
Pumpkins span the hills
With orange crayola patches.
Green inflated trees
Balloon up into marshmallow soot
That walks away in forty circles,
Caught in grey blisters
With twinkling lights and green sashes
Uuh
Pulled by rubber dolphins with gold yawning mouths
That blister and break in agony
In souls of rust
They kill gold sawdust into dust.

Bat chain puller,
Puller puller.

Ohio School Shooting

The placid campus of Chardon HS.



Today's shootings at Chardon High School were not the first in Northeast Ohio.


Police Chief Ralph Spotts said that incident  grew out of a fight that erupted Tuesday and resumed Wednesday afternoon in front of Superior Elementary School.
The most violent local school shooting happened at SuccessTech Academy in 2007, when suspended student Asa Coon returned to his downtown Cleveland high school and opened fire. The 14-year-old wounded two teachers and two fellow students before killing himself.
I'm sure this has nothing to do with the sick gun culture in Ohio and the terrible ease with which ANYONE can get ahold of a gun.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

The Gun Totem in Providence, Rhode Island


One wonders why we haven't seen this one on The Truth About Guns, whose founder lives in the Ocean State.

Standing in front of Providence’s Federal Courthouse in Rhode Island is an unusual monument constructed out of steel, concrete and 1000 used handguns. Dubbed the Gun Totem by its artist, Boris Bally, the imposing obelisk was constructed in 2001 with guns from a firearm buy-back program called Guns for Goods, founded by Dr. Michael P. Hirsch.

Emily Miller on Fox and Friends

via TTAG where of course they just love this DC gal and her gun. Naturally none of the Armed Intelligentsia had a problem with that ridiculous stat Emily threw out.  "46% of women are now reporting having a gun in the home."

Is This the Real Ron Paul?

suggested by Orlin Sellers

Hollywood Celebrities for Gun Control


Guns and Ammo has a post listing a number of Hollywood celebrities who favor gun control in spite of the fact that they profit from films exhorting gun violence.

Hollywood’s hypocrisy knows no bounds. While its multi-million dollar movie stars cash in on shoot ‘em up thrillers and cop dramas, they openly move to restrict gun ownership in this country. When the lights turn off and the cameras stop running, these stars put down their prop house guns and pick the Brady Campaign banner. When a fortune is made on the portrayal of guns on the silver and small screen and that cash turns into donations to the anti-gun lobby, it should make every Second Amendment supporter think: Where is my money really going?

Fame is a powerful weapon, and it’s hard to believe that these celebs have anti-gun leanings. But they do.
I don't know if it's fair to call that hypocrisy. Perhaps these people, unlike the gun-rights advocates, know how to separate fantasy from reality. In the fantasy world of film, anything goes, but in the real world of common-sense legislation to diminish gun violence, we need to be more responsible than the folks at Guns and Ammo would like.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

North Korean Shooting Sports


North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un aims a rifle at the Sporting Bullet Factory, built in 1996 at the order of the North's late leader Kim Jong-il. The factory produces "sporting bullets" for developing military sports. Its exact location is undisclosed. Undated picture released by the North's KCNA news agency in Pyongyang, on February 23, 2012. Wonder what sort of computers those are, and what they're running? (REUTERS/KCNA)

Georgia Judge Brandishes Weapon in Court



The bizarre conduct occurred Wednesday during a bond hearing and a request for a temporary protective order against Scott Sugarman, a former Hall County sheriff's deputy who was recently arrested on a number of charges, including rape and aggravated assault with a handgun. Sugarman has pleaded not guilty.

The woman who filed the charges against Sugarman was on the witness stand and had testified Sugarman had abused her and, on one occasion, had put a gun to her head. During the latter part of her testimony, the woman was not being cooperative, Langley said.

Barrett told the woman she was "killing her case" and pulled out his gun and, feigning to offer it to her, said, "You might as well shoot your lawyer," Langley said.
If I understood the story right, it seems there's some doubt if he'll even be investigated. Please, tell me why he shouldn't be removed from the bench, disbarred and stripped of his gun rights?

Tennessee Night Club Shooting



Police in West Tennessee say one man was killed and 19 other people were injured early Sunday when gunmen opened fire in a nightclub.

Jackson Police Lt. Tyreece Miller said officers were called to the Karma Lounge in downtown Jackson at about 2 a.m. Sunday. They arrived to find one man dead, 17 people with gunshot wounds and two who were trampled.

Miller said a dispute between several people led to the shooting at the business, which had advertised a Lane College/Lemoyne-Owen College after-game party on Saturday night. Evidence so far indicates at least three people used handguns to fire into the crowd.
Tennessee is one of the states where they continually try to loosen the gun laws. Do you see a connection between that and stories like this?

Please leave a comment.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Dad Arrested for Child's Drawing

via Mr. G Guy, with whom I rarely agree. This is an exception.



What I take from this story is that we need federal gun control laws. The mish-mash of sometimes conflicting regulations we have now allow for some states to charge 9-year-olds with crimes, leaving the parents out of it, while other states arrest parents for a kid's drawing.

The laws need to be consistent. What's your opinion?

Please leave a comment.

The Arab American News Endorses Ron Paul




via The Arab American News suggested by Orlin Sellers

But Paul's consistent voice and unwavering commitment to restoring American ideals at a time when telling the truth to power has indeed become a revolutionary act makes him a voice worthy of our support in this Tuesday's Michigan primary election. With so few dynamic, true public servants in Washington like Paul in this increasingly fascist era of corporations-as-people, we must support those that remain with all of our political fervor going forward.
I have already acquiesced to the common-sense advice of my many liberal friends about voting for Ron Paul, but I must admit, given the other more typically slimy politicians he's up against, I find him extremely refreshing.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Romney the Koch Fiend


VA Tech Families Want to Keep 1-gun-a-month Law


Newsleader.com reports on what should be no surprise to anyone.

Parents of Virginia Tech survivors and victims of the 2007 campus massacre urged Gov. Bob McDonnell on Saturday to keep in place a law that allows the purchase of only one handgun a month.

A bill repealing the law is likely headed to the governor's desk, and McDonnell has previously said he would sign it. The one-gun-a-month-law has been in place since the early 1990s.
What's your opinion? Isn't the one-gun-a-month law one of the most sensible as well as one that would affect lawful gun owners the least?

What is wrong with the gun-rights fanatics that they oppose even something like this?

Please leave a comment.

Starbucks Shooting - Cops Involved in Murder Suicide




A Hamilton police sergeant was found dead inside his sport utility vehicle late last night in an apparent suicide, hours after he allegedly shot and seriously wounded a Beverly police officer, officials said.

A late-night police search culminated back at the scene of the first shooting, outside a Starbucks off Route 1A in Beverly, where the body of Sergeant Ken Nagy was discovered in his Saab SUV.
The obvious inference is that trained and qualified people sometimes go off the rails. This is true of law enforcement as well as civilian gun owners.

My contention is the percentage is too high and certain reasonable restrictions would bring it down.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.