"Carolyn McCarthy readies gun control bill"
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47338.html
"Gun control activists cried it was time to reform weapons laws in the United States, almost immediately after a gunman killed six and injured 14 more, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in Arizona on Saturday."
But I was a little surprised by the desire to limit free speech. I guess I shouldn't have been. From CNN:
"Shooting prompts legislation to protect lawmakers, officials" by Mark Preston
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/09/shooting-prompts-legislation-to-protect-lawmakers-officials/
"Rep. Robert Brady, D-Pennsylvania, said he will introduce legislation making it a federal crime for a person to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a Member of Congress or federal official."
This is crazy, just crazy. This is basic First Amendment stuff. Furthermore, if it is a good idea to ban such speech, what makes congressmen so damn special? Re-read Animal Farm. We're all equal. Except those damn pigs (politicians, but I repeat myself) who are more equal than the rest of us.
"As for support for the bill, Brady said, 'Why would you be against it?'" I'll tell you why: Because speech is not illegal.
I also have to comment on the flak that Sarah Palin is taking for using crosshairs on her website. What is wrong with left-wing commentators? Honestly, would any reasonable person think she was advocating that her supports kill these congressmen? Of course not. Furthermore, I don't recall left-wing commentators yelling about civility when a film was made about killing George Bush in 2006. I don't recall left-wing commentators recoiling in horror when Barack Obama said this, in 2008: "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."
So who is this right-wing individual who gunned down Giffords for political reasons? In short, he's a nutjob. He's not a Tea Party member at all, contrary to what idiots like Paul Krugman think. Krugman's piece tells us a lot more about Krugman (completely blind to facts, always looking to blame the other side based on pure speculation) than it does about events in Tuscon.
His name is Jared Lee Loughner. And if anything he's a left-wing whack job. A former friend, Catie Parker, said he was "left wing, quite liberal. & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy" based on when she knew him in 2007.
Loughner was also a pot smoker. Any chance these left wing legislators will try to ban pot like they want to ban guns? From the Stranger:
"Reefer Madness" by Dan Savage
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/01/09/reefer-madness
As this article points out:
"Marijuana is illegal—illegal to grow, sell, distribute—and federal, state, and local governments spend billions of dollars annually trying to stamp out pot. And yet pot remains cheap and readily available. They can't keep it out of prisons. Yes, some people shouldn't smoke pot, just as some people shouldn't, oh, own guns."
The article points out something that seems counter-intuitive at first but is actually quite logical when you think about it:
"Look, David, pot is as accessible as it is because it's illegal. So long as it's illegal to sell pot to anyone, an unlicensed pot dealer has no incentive to make distinctions between selling to a child or a nut or a responsible adult. Indeed, he has an incentive to sell to anyone, to move his supply. But if pot dealers were licensed to sell their product—if pot dealers had licenses they could lose—they would be very careful not to sell pot to children or nuts, just as bar owners with liquor licenses to lose are careful not to serve minors or over-serve drunks."
For even more information, take a look at some of Loughners YouTube videos. From boingboing:
"The YouTube videos of Arizona shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner, with full text transcripts"
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/08/youtube-videos-of-ar.html
Summary: This dude is crazy.
Even more about the shooter, from Redstate.com:
"The Media & The Shooter" by Erick Erickson
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/01/09/the-media-the-shooter/
"Let’s be crystal clear: this is the supposedly objective news media doing this, not the openly, partisan left, though it is fueling the media witch hunt. And from what we now know, it is not just media malpractice, but a lie."
This article summarizes a lot of information that indicates, quite clearly, that Loughner was not an agent of the Tea Party but a left-wing nut job. That doesn't even matter, though, so much as the fact that he was plain crazy. I don't think these murders had anything to do with left-wing or right-wing.
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