Drawing: 2232 — Another vigil

by Jack Brummet

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The Congressional sit-in continues

By Jack Brummet, National Affairs Ed.

[image by Minnesota artist, Only Junk]

It's exciting to see another outbreak of sanity in The Capitol in this congressional sit-in. Hats off to John Lewis, Katherine Clark (yeah, Lewis and Clark), and the caucus. Dems sitting in at 4 AM. What's next? Occupy The Capitol, a new March on Washington? One small step back to sanity?  The camel's back is hanging on by a couple of fractured vertebrae.

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Orlando Fallen

click to enlarge

The names of the fallen released so far:

• Edward Sotomayor Jr 
• Stanley Almodovar III 
• Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo 
• Juan Ramon Guerrero 
• Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera 
• Peter O Gonzalez-Cruz 
• Luis S Vielma 
• Kimberly Morris 
• Eddie Jamoldroy Justice 
• Darryl Roman Burt II 
• Deonka Deidra Drayton 
• Alejandro Barrios Martinez 
• Anthony Luis Laureanodisla 
• Jean Carlos Mendez Perez 
• Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez 
• Amanda Alvear 
• Martin Benitez Torres 
• Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon 
• Mercedez Marisol Flores 
• Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado 
• Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez 
• Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez 
• Oscar A Aracena-Montero 
• Enrique L Rios Jr 
• Miguel Angel Honorato 
• Javier Jorge-Reyes 
• Joel Rayon Paniagua 
• Jason Benjamin Josaphat 
• Cory James Connell 
• Juan P Rivera Velazquez 
• Luis Daniel Conde 
• Shane Evan Tomlinson 
• Juan Chevez-Martinez 
• Jerald Arthur Wright 
• Leroy Valentin Fernandez 
• Tevin Eugene Crosby 
• Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega 
• Jean C Nives Rodriguez 
• Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala 
• Brenda Lee Marquez McCool 
• Yilmary Rodriguez Sulivan 
• Christopher Andrew Leinonen 
• Angel L Candelario-Padro 
• Frank Hernandez 
• Paul Terrell Henry 

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Girls with guns: The Drexel Institute Girls Rifle Team

By Jack Brummet, 2nd Amendment Ed.

This is a photograph of The Drexel Institute Girls' Rifle Team, circa 1925. Drexel, in Philly, later became (and still us) Drexel University.  

My high school, Kent-Meridian, had a Rod & Gun Club, but we were (back then) a farm town. How about your school?

I wonder if they still have these clubs? I remember people bringing rifles to school, and--I think I remember--their teacher locking them up until they were going out. I don't know where they went to shoot ( I don't remember any [fishing] rods, just guns).

Maybe they went out to the gravel pits, the powerlines, or Ravensdale, Buckley, Hobart, or Cumberland. Those were pretty normal places to go shoot, drink beer, just escape from adults, or smoke pot.

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Drawing: Faces #1292 — Bystanders

By Jack Brummet

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Is Bernie Sanders soft on guns? Probably.

By Jack Brummet, 2nd Amendment Ed.

For quite a while, I've wondered why Sanders' supporters—a generally pretty left-leaning group of people—have such a blind spot for his stance on guns.  And a couple of other issues, like immigration.  It seems at odds with what I perceive of as his supporters' core values.  I guess not, eh?

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Backyard firing ranges in Florida

By Jack Brummet, 2nd Amendment Ed.

Backyard firing ranges are legal in Florida, and in March, a Florida House committee--uh--shot down a bill outlawing them.  Firing on private property, including urban and residential areas, is legal except if you shoot over a public right-of-way or an occupied dwelling.

"Negligent” gunfire, is still illegal, but is only a misdemeanor.  [reported by BayNews9.com, St. Petersburg, March 25, 2015]

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A 1962 National Rifle Association cartoon campaign

By Jack Brummet, 2nd Amendment Ed.

In 1962, the #NRA wanted to improve their image by creating a cartoon spokesman who offered rhymed messages.  The campaign did not last long.

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A quirky but effective gun safety video, using dildos in lieu of guns

By Mona Goldwater and Jack Brummet

Jack: Quite possibly the best gun safety video ever! Not anti-gun, just focused on keeping guns locked up. These guys at Evolve are just great!

Mona: No political/2nd amendment ranting, just a funny and kinky PSA about gun safety. Brilliant.

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Eleanor Roosevelt and her gun

By Mona Goldwater, Women in politics ed.

Eleanor Roosevelt wanted to drive her own car and wanted a pistol for protection.  She refused to  travel with Secret Service agents, police escorts, or a chauffeur.

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President Ronald Reagan aims a rifle in Air Force One

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Ed.

President Ronald Reagan aims a rifle out a window of Air Force One, circa 1983.  I guess he armed up after the assassination attempt.  Source: unknown.

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Republicans for gun control

By Mona Goldwater, Societal Mores Ed.

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Gun control, the 2nd amendment, and the midnight knock at the door

By Mona Goldwater, Social Mores Ed.

These are all modest proposals, none of which involve banning guns or repealing the second amendment.

• Require a ballistics test be filed for all guns, public and private.

• Muskets and  Blunderbusses.  When the founding fathers wrote the constitution and amendments, they only knew of single loading arms like the musket and blunderbuss.  We know that Justices Scalia, Thomas, and others are fairly strict constitutionalists, who believe in interpreting the constitution according to the framer's intentions.  When the congress passed the second amendment, they could not even conceive of automatic weapons or multi-cartridge, quick change, ammunition clips.  Therefore we believe the amendment should be interpreted as applying to single shot, weapons, or to compromise, limit magazines to six or seven rounds, with no removable/quick load clips.

• The Barney Fife solution. Everyone gets one bullet, which must be carried apart from their weapon.

• Ammo Tax: $500 a bullet.  I think Chris Rock came up with a solution like this one.  Or maybe require that the casings of ammunition be made from gold. 

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Matt Drudge hits a new low (how is this even possible?)

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

Thanks Jeff Clinton for passing this along...

To add to the Alex Jones hysteria, Matt Drudge decides to jump the shark, and this is a new low for even him. . . He clearly does not understand the history or scope of executive orders, or recognize the fact that BHO--despite the gun and ammo buying hysteria that accompanied his election--has never been particularly anti-gun/2nd amendment. It's been a long time since Drudge broke anything important. His descent into total irrelevancy is now complete.

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All This Is That grants their 11th halo to Joe Scarborough

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

I've always liked Joe Scarborough.  We agree on virtually no political issues.  But last night, he did the big turnabout, as Lord Buckley would say.  This four-term, conservative congressman turned pundit (and host of Morning Joe, one of the best poltical shows on television), who was rated 100% by the NRA, broke ranks.   We're sending an All This Is That Halo to Joe:

Today, we as a nation grieve. Today, we as a people feel helpless. Helpless to stop these random acts of violence that seem to be getting less random by the day.

 

It may the geographic proximity of Newtown to my hometown, or the fact my children's ages average those of the 20 young children tragically killed on Friday, or the fact my second son has Aspergers, or the fact that too many other facts associated with Friday's nightmare strike so close to home. that for me, there is no escaping the horrors visited upon the children and teachers of Sandy Hook.

 

The events that occurred in a short, violent outburst on Friday, December 14, 2012, were so evil that no words that I know of have yet been invented to sufficiently describe the horror experienced by 20 precious first grade students, their heroic principal, their anguished parents or the shocked New England town that will never be the same.

 

There is no way to capture the final moments of these children's short lives or the loss and helplessness their parents must feel today. There is nothing they can do, there is nothing any of us can do, to ease their pain this morning, or to cause these little children to run back into the loving arms of their family members this Christmas season.

 

Soon, we will watch the burials of these babies. We will hold up their parents in prayer. And we will hold our own children tighter as we thank God every afternoon watching them walk off their school bus and into our arms.

 

But every American must know - from this day forward -  that nothing can ever be the same again.

 

We have said this before: after Columbine, after Arizona, after Aurora, after so many other numbing hours of murder and of massacre.

 

But let this be out true landmark; let Newtown be the hour after which, in the words of the New Testament, we did all we could to make all things new.

 

Politicians can no longer be allowed to defend the status quo. They must instead be forced to protect our children.

 

Parents can no longer take "No" for an answer from Washington when the topic turns to protecting children.

 

The violence we see spreading from shopping malls in Oregon, to movie theaters in Colorado, to college campuses in Virginia, to elementary schools in Connecticut, is being spawned by the toxic brew of a violent pop culture, a growing mental health crisis and the proliferation of combat-styled guns.

 

Though entrenched special interests will try to muddy the issues, the cause of these sickening mass shootings is no longer a mystery to common-sense Americans. And blessedly, there are more common-sense Americans than there are special interests, even if it doesn't always seem that way. Good luck to the gun lobbyist or Hollywood lawyer who tries to blunt the righteous anger of ten million parents by hiding behind a twisted reading of our Bill of Rights.

 

Our government rightly obsesses day and night over how to prevent the next 9/11 from being launched from a cave in Afghanistan or a training base in Yemen. But perhaps now is the time to begin obsessing over how to stop the next attack on a movie theater,  a shopping mall, a college campus or a first grade class.

 

The battle we now must fight, and the battle we must now win is for the safety and sanity of our children, and that is the war at home.

 

It's not all about guns, or all about violent movies and videogames. But we must no longer allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. And we must not excuse total inaction by arguing that no single action can solve the problem and save our children.

 

I am a conservative Republican who received the NRA's highest ratings over 4 terms in Congress. I saw the debate over guns as a powerful, symbolic struggle between individual rights and government control. In the years after Waco and Ruby Ridge, the symbolism of that debate seemed even more powerful to my colleagues and me.

 

But the symbols of that ideological struggle have since been shattered by the harvest sown from violent, mind-numbing video games and gruesome Hollywood movies that dangerously desensitizes those who struggle with mental health challenges. Add military-styled weapons and high capacity magazines to that equation and tragedy can never be too far behind.

 

There is no easy ideological way forward. If it were only so simple as to blame Hollywood or the NRA, then our task could be completed in no time. But I come to you this morning with a heavy heart and no easy answers. Still, I have spent the past few days grasping for solutions and struggling for answers, while daring to question my long held beliefs on these subjects.

 

I have always taken a libertarian's approach to Hollywood's 1st Amendment rights and gun collectors' 2nd Amendment rights. I stood by those libertarian beliefs after Columbine, Aurora and Arizona. Those young men who slaughtered innocents were crazy, after all, and they would have found another way to kill their victims if their guns of choice were not available.

 

But last Friday a chilling thought crossed my mind as I saw the Times Square ticker over ABC spit out the news of yet another tragic shooting in yet another tortured town by yet another twisted son of that community.

 

How could it be that I knew within seconds of reading that scrolling headline that the shooter would be an isolated middle class white male who spent his days on his computer playing video games? How did I know that it was far more likely that he had a mental condition than a rational motive? And how did I know the end of this story before the real reporting even began?

 

I knew the ending of that story because I've seen it all too often before. I also knew that day that the ideologies of my past career were no longer relevant to the future that I want for my children.

 

Friday changed everything. It must change everything. We All must begin anew and demand that Washington's old way of doing business is no longer acceptable.

 

Entertainment moguls do not have an absolute right to glorify murder while spreading mayhem in young minds across America.

 

And our Bill of Rights does not guarantee gun manufacturers the absolute right to sell military-styled high-caliber semi-automatic combat assault rifles with high capacity magazines to whoever the hell they want.

 

It is time for Congress to put children before deadly dogmas. It's time for politicians to start focusing more on protecting our school yards than putting together their next fundraiser. And it's time Washington stops trying to win endless wars overseas and instead starts focusing on winning the war at home.

 

We have already given up too much ground across America. We have already ceded too many schoolyards and shopping malls, movie theaters and college campuses. We will give no more ground.

 

Abraham Lincoln once said of this great   and powerful nation. 

"From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia.could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide."

 

For the sake of my four children, I choose life. And I choose change. It is time to turn over the tables inside the temple, for the sake of our children and for the sake of this great nation that we love.

Copyright (C) 2012 by All This Is That. All This Is That contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We make these materials available to advance the understanding of political, economic, literary, artistic, and social issues. In some cases we satirize, parody, or lampoon materials from other sources. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for by section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit for research, educational, and entertainment purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', please read and follow our Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license and attribute the work to All This Is That, along with our URL (http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com).

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Freedom In Peril, a dated (and chilling-for either side!) but well-made piece of NRA propaganda

By Jack Brummet, Bill of Rights Editor

"Freedom In Peril - Guarding the second amendment in the 21st century"  is a pamphlet put out by the National Rifle Association.  The propaganda first appeared in 2006.  It is beautifully designed and illustrated.  It gives you a pretty clear picture of just where the NRA stands (as if you didn't know already).  Without going into particulars on the merits of the second amendment debate, I will say events in the last few years (say, since about 1968) and the arms debate makes me remember Kris Kristofferson's lyric:

"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose"

You can read the pamphlet here.

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Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd's "The Knotted Gun"

by Mona Goldwater, 2nd Amendment Editor

In 1980 Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd created a sculpture usually called “Non violence” or “The knotted gun”:

When the artist learned that his friend, John Lennon, had been murdered, he became so upset and angry over this senseless death and the many other outbursts of unnecessary violence that he went to his studio and started working on the “non-violence” project. “My first sketches in three dimensions were rather rough and simple, but the important thing was that the idea of the knotted barrel was with me from the very start,” he said.

Reuterswärd created many variations of the piece, the most famous being the one installed in 1985 in Malmo/Sweden. It is a bronze version of a .45-calibre revolver, in which the barrel is tied into a knot. The gun is cocked, but the knot bottles up any execution. 

Replicas of the sculpture have been installed in many countries since then, including one in Manhattan, on the grounds of the United Nations.

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R.J. Matson's take on the Stand Your Ground Defense

R.J. Matson,  the editorial cartoonist of the St. Louis Dispatch, published this cartoon earlier this week on the STAND YOUR GROUND DEFENSE [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 23, 2012]:

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All This Is That contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We make these materials available to advance the understanding of political, economic, literary, artistic, and social issues. In some cases we satirize, parody, or lampoon materials from other sources. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for by section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit for research, educational, and entertainment purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', please read and follow our Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license and attribute the work to All This Is That, along with our URL (http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com).

Heaters and the 2nd amendment in the news: two strange handgun stories from the South

By Jack Brummet, 2nd Amendment Editor

image from http://righthook.com/

Ten Year Old Boy Pulls .9MM on Woman
Who Threatened to Take His Halloween
Candy

[thanks to Dean Ericksen for passing this story along]

In a lot of ways, this is a heart-warming story, or at least it should be if you are pro-second amendment. We are always told by the gun lobby that we need guns to prevent crime and preserve our family and property.  This story is a great follow on to the story of the Texas sheriff (see below) who encouraged women this week to get a .45 for self defense (why such a big gun, reporters asked "Because you don't really have to aim, just point in the general direction and pull the trigger.").

This poor youth was just defending his property--and doing it with style and elan, with the ever popular .9mm with its 19 round magazine.  From The Augusta Chronicle:

A 10-year-old Aiken trick-or-treater pulled a gun on a woman who said she would take his candy on Halloween.

According to a police incident report, the 28-year-old victim told authorities she recognized some boys from her neighborhood while they were trick-or-treating about 6:30 p.m. Monday near Schroeder and George streets and jokingly told them she would take their candy.

One 10-year-old in the group of about 10 juveniles responded with “no you’re not …” and then pointed a 9 mm handgun at her.

According to Aiken Public Safety Lt. David Turno, the clip was not in the gun at the time, but the boy did have a loaded clip in his possession.

The boy’s brother, also 10, told authorities he also had a gun.  The second weapon was recovered Tuesday morning. The boy who pulled the weapon was brought to the police station where he was turned over to the custody of his parents.

Turno said the boys got the weapons from their grandfather without permission.

image from http://righthook.com/

South Carolina sheriff urges women to
get concealed weapons permits and
carry guns to protect themselves

A Spartanburg, South Carolina sheriff is urging women to get concealed weapons permits and carry guns to protect themselves.

County Sheriff Chuck Wright made the suggestion earlier this week when discussing the arrest of a suspect in an attempted rape last weekend.

Wright suggests women pack a .45-caliber gun because he says they wouldn’t have to be accurate, just close to the target. (Ed's note: especially if they use the optional .410 shotgun shells). 

Wright demonstrated a fanny pack at a news conference, saying that women could use them to carry their heaters while jogging.  The sheriff also encouraged women to walk in groups. And, finally, he said it’s better to carry a gun than mace.

The catalyst for all this, 46 year-old Walter Monroe Lance, was charged in Spartanburg Monday with kidnapping, sexual conduct and grand larceny for the attack in the park.

Just in case you ever need to know, tips from the New York Police on how to spot a hidden weapons:

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A tale of (failed) gun safety from Seattle

By Jack Brummet,  Second Amendment Editor

From yesterday's Seattle Police Department Blotter:

"On October 11th at approximately 4:30 p.m. officers responded to a 911 report of an accidental shooting at a residence in the 900 block of North 96th street. Preliminary investigation indicates that a father and his adult son were sitting together on the floor of the living room portion of the father’s apartment. They were showing each other their handguns and explaining to each other the proper way to safely load/unload and disassemble the different makes and models of each other’s handguns.

"The father had just finished showing his son how to properly make his gun safe and was about to hand the gun to the son when the father pulled the trigger. The gun discharged and a bullet struck the son in the upper thigh and buttocks area.

"(When the initial 911 call was made it was reported that the son had accidently shot himself).

"SFD responded to the scene and transported the victim to Harborview Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.

"This remains an active and on-going investigation."
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