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I’ve grown fond of Gary McCoy’s cartoon work. His artistic style has great balance (cartooning is tougher than it looks), and he makes statements that hurt oh so good. Pain, after all, is the basis of humor.
A case in point.
Used by special permission of Gary McCoy © 2008
The truth hurts, doesn’t Mrs. Brady. And Mr. Obama. And Mr. Moore. And Mr. Helmke. And Mr. Sugarman.
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Whenever there is an episode of gun violence, the regular suspect groups all send an email that amplifies their position on gun control. Some have a degree of sense. SAF sent one after the NIU shooting making the typical and correct point that the shooter knew he would not meet resistance because his victims were in a “gun free zone.”
(As an aside, I must ask is the term “gun free zone” really applicable? Seems anyone determined enough to commit mass murder on their suicide day will make the phrase instantly nonsensical.)
On schedule, an email arrived from the Brady Campaign, and was filled with all their typical talking points, with particular emphasis on their financial donation call to action. However, it contained a curious piece of intellectual bait-and-switch, saying:
Congress’ passing and the President’s signing of the NICS improvement Amendments Act to strengthen the Brady background checks system was a positive first step. Now, we need to close the gun show loophole.
For those not attuned to the endless debate on gun control, the Brady’s and other bunches maintain that gun shows are leakage points for guns into the criminal underworld. They repeat this assertion despite evidence indicating gun shows are not a significant outlet.
More to the point, the 2008 Valentine Day Massacre was committed using registered guns bought through normal retail outlets. News reports state that at least two of the firearms in possession by the NIU nut-case were legally owned and supposedly acquire through normal retail channels.
Thus the Brady’s are attempting to skew public perception of a non-problem (gun shows) by inappropriately tying it to a murder committed by a maniac with non-gun-show firearms.
What news channels are also reporting (to my shocked amazement) is that the murdering Mr. Kazmierczak was “off is medication.” Though the details are not yet fully exposed, this likely means he was withdrawing from one or more psychotropics.
So were Harris and Klebold when they shot-up Columbine High School.
So were most of the recorded mass shooters in North America over the last two decades.
If people believe guns should be banned because someone might kill another human being with them, then that same logic dictates that psychotropics should be banned as well since withdraw rage (documented by the manufacturers of these drugs) demonstratably does the same.
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I live for irony, and it finds me daily. But sometimes it breaches the line that separates irony from absurdity.
There is a certain snake by the name of Senator Don Perata. I know Don, having sat with him in a corporate board while he engineered a few million in corporate welfare. I have talked him down in front of reporters. In other words, I’ve been so close to him so often that my doctor insists on conducting frequent tests for slime infections.
Like most politicians, Don has one game he most enjoys playing, that being gun control. Don has never seen a gun control proposal that didn’t make him moisten his Depends. In California he has attempted to ban guns, tax ammunition into an unaffordable commodity, and has told many false tales about threats of violence from NRA members (he loves to tell that story to reporters, but whenever challenged to produce police reports on these ancient incidents, he or his demonic staffers demur).
So imagine my giggle fit when news broke that Don “The Bay Area Bagman” Perata had been carjacked … at gunpoint. All his efforts to disarm the general populace (I say “general” because Don has at least one handgun and the rarest of Bay Area artifacts, a concealed carry permit) seem to have been for naught.
The carjackers were prototypical street thugs. They were men in their 20’s. They worked in tandem (one walking up to the car, and another boxing Don in with another vehicle). They held their gun “gansta” style (sloppily sideways). They were dedicated criminals who most likely:
In short, they willingly violated every law Don Perata enacted. Meanwhile my buddy Rich, a Vietnam vet, father of two, grandfather of three, who has held a job all of his life, paid his taxes, and has never broken a law more serious than speeding … he has obeyed all of those laws.
Perata never has “gotten it.” Don never stops long enough to separate chaff and understand the motivations and rationalizations of criminals. He fails to perform simple logic and isolate the good guys from the bad.
And now Don had a thug shove a gun up his nose while Rich and I chuckled. We laughed because we know the incident will not help clarify the issue for Perata. Some skulls are too thick.
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The test of a nation comes when its established principles are challenged and survive.
Today the United States Supreme Court accepted the Heller (formerly Parker) case, which is a pure test of the intent and original meaning of the constitution’s Second Amendment. This provision, poorly authored as it may have been, preserves the right of the average citizen to own (i.e. “keep”) and use (i.e. “bear”) arms.
I’ve written about this case and Second Amendment origins often enough, so today I want to explore this notion of protecting principles. Oft cited originalism for the Second Amendment shows it was considered a “natural right”, one that was inherent in the act of being (the founding fathers alternately attributed the right as God given, but God has not proffered an opinion on the Heller case, so his opinion is irrelevant).
Indeed, many rights embedded in the Constitution of of that ilk. It was and still is believed that for any sense of freedom to exists, certain rights must be preserved, even when they are generally unpopular (with upwards of 50% of all U.S. homes owning one or more firearms, the right seems to be very popular — certainly more popular than any television program on which Rosie O’Donnell appears). This includes instances of free speech that are patently offensive (but enough about any televised utterance from Rosie O’Donnell).
Take the Ku Klux Klan … and take them far, far away please. It is difficult to conceive of any form of speech more objectionable than the blathering of a Grand Wizard or similarly syphilitic intellect. Yet if I did not defend the right of Klansman to spew their perturbed pondering, then by default I grant the government the right to censor this blog, an occurrence that would make certain detractors delirious with glee, but which would certain ignite a second American revolution.
The Heller case then becomes not a test of gun control — that is the side show. It is a test to determine if the fundamental philosophy of a nation will be preserved. The founding question in this case is “do natural rights exist and are they sacred above the control of the national government?” Were the Supremes to rule against the individual rights theory of firearm ownership, they would be ruling against the very ideology of the nation and thus against the nation itself.
The Heller case is thus a pivotal moment in American history. The outcome will determine if the United States, as originally conceived, will continue, or if it will slowly parish under the vagaries of the judicial branch.
Choose wisely Roberts, Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer and Alito.
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Is web traffic an indicator of public sentiment? If so, measuring the visitors of the sites for top proponents and opponents of the gun owner’s rights organizations might be an indicator of the changing appeal to gun control, a topic once again raising its slimy head among Democrats.
Compete.com indicates that the NRA receives more than six times to the number of unique visitors than the Brady Campaign. Worse still for Sarah Brady and other people of suspect character is that their web site traffic is dropping faster than congressional approval ratings, with people transit down over 60% in the last year (NRA up slightly).
Click on the image to visit the source web site.
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