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The White House has posted a photo of President Obama skeet shooting at Camp David this past August. Asked recently whether he had ever fired a gun, Obama told the New Republic, “Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time.”
In light of the pernicious narrative of the president personally confiscating AR-15s and other "scary" weaponry from the barbecue-stained hands of full-blooded American citizens, the White House had to do something to remind us all that President Obama is just as American as an American can be. After all, just look at that photo op. What pastime is more American than spending some quality time with a quality firearm?
Given the type of gun he's using and the sport, the photo op seems geared towards the responsible game/sport shooter and not the type of gun owner who loads up their AR-15 with as many tactical add-ons as possible. Still, it's a bit disconcerting in light of the president's address on Sandy Hook and his recent push for better gun control laws.
As I type this, I'm wondering when and where I'll encounter the inevitable snide comments about the president expecting a whole different concept of "skeet." I'm sure there'll also be questions from right-wing conspiracy theorists about the authenticity of the photo itself.
Meanwhile, scores of Americans are buying guns at a rapid clip. Between President Obama's 2009 inauguration and his re-election, over 67 million firearms found themselves a new home in the U.S. That number happens to dwarf the number of firearms sold in the seven years prior to the Obama Administration. The number of NICS background checks surpassed the 2 million mark in November 2012 and over 2.7 million background checks the following month.
The shop-worn narrative of Obama taking everyone's guns away is what keeps plenty of gun-owning Americans loyal customers of their local gun stores, expos and garage sales. Really, the NRA and gun manufacturers should be thanking the president for being the best gun salesman they've had in years.
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Yesterday was "Gun Appreciation Day" as gun lovers across the U.S. flocked to ranges, gun shows and exhibitions to
show that awful socialist Negro in the White House what forshow their appreciation for firearms. Well, the day was capped off by a few events definitely worth noting.
To start things off, I wouldn't want to be in Dr. Charles Bizilj's shoes right now. He has to deal with the loss of his son, something that happened largely of his own carelessness:
The teenager who worked at a gun show where 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj accidentally killed himself while shooting an Uzi testified today he twice suggested the boy's father pick a less powerful weapon for the boy to shoot.
But Christopher's father, Dr. Charles Bizilj, insisted that his son be allowed to fire the automatic weapon, Michael Spano told the court. Spano was 15 at the time of the 2008 Massachusetts gun expo and was put in charge of allowing people to fire the 9 mm Micro Uzi, a submachine gun that fires 20 rounds a second.
Former Pelham, Mass., police chief Edward Fleury is on trial for the boy's death because he organized the gun expo. He is charged with involuntary manslaughter. He has pleaded not guilty.
The most dramatic moment of the trial came Thursday when the court watched video recorded by Charles Bizilj of the boy handling the gun. The father, who was on the stand at the time, closed his eyes as the video showed the boy struggling to handle the gun's recoil. The barrel reared up and shot the boy in the head. The court room gasped and the boy's mother left the courtroom in tears.
The family may have to relive that moment again in painstaking detail. The prosecution has asked that the video be played again, this time frame by frame. The judge has not yet ruled on that request.
It's one thing to teach a young boy how to safely handle and shoot a low-powered .22 long rifle in a safe environment. It's another to let a boy fire a submachine gun known for being a handful in the hands of a full-grown adult.
But that's not all. With the gun control debate raging, accidental discharges seem to be getting more play in the news:
A 4-year-old child was injured when hit by bullet fragments Saturday morning after a gun accidentally discharges at a Tupelo gun show.
The child was hit by fragments from a bullet that went through a wall. Also, a man was grazed in the leg in the same accident.
Tupelo Police say both were treated at North Mississippi Medical Center. Neither suffered life threatening injuries.
A preliminary investigation indicated it was an accident and no charges are expected.
And yet another accidental discharge:
At least four people -- three in North Carolina and one in Indiana -- were injured after weapons went off at gun shows Saturday, officials said, at a time when there's been renewed discussion about private gun sales at such shows.
Dixie Gun and Knife Show attendees bolted, with at least one woman wiping out in the frenetic scene, after gunfire rang out around 1 p.m., as seen on video captured by CNN affiliate WRAL.
Police later explained that a a 36-year-old man from Wilmington, North Carolina, was unfastening the case of his 12-gauge shotgun on a table near the show entrance when it accidentally discharged. The man planned to sell the shotgun at the show.
The bird shot ended up injuring three people. One was a sheriff's deputy, who suffered a slight injury to his hand and was treated and released at a local hospital before returning immediately to work, said Joel Keith, chief of police of the North Carolina State Fair.
A 54-year-old woman from Benson, North Carolina, was being treated a wound to her right torso at a local hospital, and a 50-year-old man from Durham, North Carolina, was treated for an injured left hand, Keith told reporters.
Even gun dealers are getting in on the accidental discharges:
Police in Medina say a gun dealer was checking out a semi-automatic handgun he'd bought Saturday when he accidentally pulled the trigger.
Police Chief Pat Berarducci says it appears the bullet struck the floor, then a longtime friend of the gun dealer. The man was wounded in the arm and leg.
Berarducci says the man was taken by helicopter to a Cleveland hospital. His condition isn't known.
Police say the gun's magazine had been removed from the firearm but one round remained in the chamber.
These incidents all happened at gun expos, places that offer a smorgasbord of firearms and relatively loose controls on purchases. In contrast to gun store purchases, gun expo sales are considered private transactions between individuals and thus aren't subject to background checks. Therefore, there's no Form 4473 to fill out. Making guns harder to purchase is something the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups are dead set against happening.
Meanwhile, it's easy to dismiss the above as simple accidents made by careless individuals, events that don't reflect on guns and gun ownership in a larger light. Too bad there are millions of careless individuals out there who choose to exercise their right to bear arms without knowing how to properly bear those arms. According to research performed by Dr. Arthur L. Kellermann, a gun kept in the home was 43 times more likely to be involved in the death of a member of the household than to be used in self-defense.
Kellerman's statistics were seen as a sneaky end-run around the gun control issue by having it reclassified as a health concern and subsequently squashed thanks to the efforts of NRA lobbyists. For their efforts, the Centers for Disease Control, which was responsible for funding Kellerman's findings, was fiscally cut off at the knees and told, in so many words, to stick with contagious diseases and brain injuries.
On a lighter note:
House Republicans gathering to discuss minority outreach picked an odd venue for the retreat — a former slave plantation.
Weary GOPers left Washington Wednesday for the Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Va., where they’re recuperating and focusing on unity after last year’s rough-and-tumble fiscal cliff fight with Democrats.
Panels will take place in the resort’s “Burwell Plantation” room, named after the family that once owned the plantation. The luxury resort is now owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz, a conservative political donor.
[...]
On tap for Friday morning is a forum to discuss “successful communication with minorities and women.”
Republican lawmakers also hope to address the looming battle against the Obama administration over a debt limit extension and budget cuts.
I'm not surprised. The trappings of a genteel antebellum establishment that once represented the pinnacle of Southern economic power is the perfect place for Republicans to discuss “successful communication with minorities and women.” It's a lot like the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, except instead of divvying up a continent, the GOP gets to feign cluelessness about those dangblasted minorities and womenfolk. -
What do you want to bet if this was a picture of a black man, with a Black Liberation flag hanging in the background, watching The New Black Panther Party on TV, surrounded by weapons, calling for black people to take up arms against the government, accusing the government of trying to take their guns away and calling it tyranny, we would have us some gun control legislation quick, fast and in a hurry?
Oh Redeye, you and I know full well that gun control bills would be flying out of the anuses of every Republican senator and representative on Capitol Hill if that ever happened. It's the reason Madame J. Edgar came up with COINTELPRO in the first place. Well, that and those dangblasted commies.
America's excessive fascination with guns transforms into abject fear whenever they end up in the hands of blacks, Latinos or any other vaguely threatening minority groups. Ironically, the whole idea of gun control was to keep guns out of the hands of those awful Negros and other assorted "undesirables" in the first place:
In the Haitian Revolution of the 1790s, the slave population successfully threw off their French masters, but the Revolution degenerated into a race war, aggravating existing fears in the French Louisiana colony, and among whites in the slave states of the United States. When the first U. S. official arrived in New Orleans in 1803 to take charge of this new American possession, the planters sought to have the existing free black militia disarmed, and otherwise exclude "free blacks from positions in which they were required to bear arms," including such non-military functions as slave-catching crews. The New Orleans city government also stopped whites from teaching fencing to free blacks, and then, when free blacks sought to teach fencing, similarly prohibited their efforts as well. [4]
It is not surprising that the first North American English colonies, then the states of the new republic, remained in dread fear of armed blacks, for slave revolts against slave owners often degenerated into less selective forms of racial warfare. The perception that free blacks were sympathetic to the plight of their enslaved brothers, and the dangerous example that "a Negro could be free" also caused the slave states to pass laws designed to disarm all blacks, both slave and free. Unlike the gun control laws passed after the Civil War, these antebellum statutes were for blacks alone. In Maryland, these prohibitions went so far as to prohibit free blacks from owning dogs without a license, and authorizing any white to kill an unlicensed dog owned by a free black, for fear that blacks would use dogs as weapons. Mississippi went further, and prohibited any ownership of a dog by a black person. [5]
Understandably, restrictions on slave possession of arms go back a very long way. While arms restrictions on free blacks predate it, these restrictions increased dramatically after Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831, a revolt that caused the South to become increasingly irrational in its fears. [6] Virginia's response to Turner's Rebellion prohibited free blacks "to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead..." The existing laws under which free blacks were occasionally licensed to possess or carry arms was also repealed, making arms possession completely illegal for free blacks.[7] But even before this action by the Virginia Legislature, in the aftermath of Turner's Rebellion, the discovery that a free black family possessed lead shot for use as scale weights, without powder or weapon in which to fire it, was considered sufficient reason for a frenzied mob to discuss summary execution of the owner. [8] The analogy to the current hysteria where mere possession of ammunition in some states without a firearms license may lead to jail time, should be obvious.
One example of the increasing fear of armed blacks is the 1834 change to the Tennessee Constitution, where Article XI, 26 of the 1796 Tennessee Constitution was revised from: "That the freemen of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence," [9] to: "That the free white men of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence." [10] [emphasis added] It is not clear what motivated this change, other than Turner's bloody insurrection. The year before, the Tennessee Supreme Court had recognized the right to bear arms as an individual guarantee, but there is nothing in that decision that touches on the subject of race. [11]
Ardent gun lovers will go as far as threaten to commit mass murder or contemplate treason to maintain their "God-given" right to own as many AR-15s, Calicos and SKSs as their budgets and dwelling spaces allow. These same people wouldn't hesitate to talk up coups de tat, revolutions and even breaking away from the U.S. if they don't get their way. All of this, just to keep gun control off the table.
Add blacks to the equation and the tone suddenly shifts. You'll start hearing millions of reasons why black Americans shouldn't have guns. You'll have reams of crime statistics thrown in your face by "race realists" who use data to bolster their beliefs and validate their theories. Listen long enough and you'll hear talk of RaHoWa - race wars that aim to "purify" the nation of its supposed "filth." You start with a white American spending hours in his basement caressing his gun collection and you end with Algiers Point.
Fear - that's the main active ingredient in the potion whipped up by certain pro-gun advocates, lobbyists and self-proclaimed militia organizers, an ever-present element that's literally driving this country to the brink of psychotic collapse. Only the gun manufacturers seem to benefit - every time gun nuts hear a rumor about the scary black guy in office taking their guns away, they buy more of them. It's a lovely racket as long as you have enough lawyers on hand to keep your business distanced from what your buyers do with your product.
Fear of what black Americans might do in masse if they ever got the sense to do as their WASP gun-loving brethren are doing is what historically drove - and continues to drive - efforts to keep themselves armed to the teeth and efforts to keep blacks and other minorities perpetually disarmed and perpetually vulnerable. History is a great tool for figuring out America's peculiarities when it comes to gun ownership. Without it, it would be a lot easier to swallow the assumption that stockpiling guns is a sure-fire sign of liberty. -
My guess is that we're going to get a law anyway, and my hope is that it will consist of small measures that might have some tiny actual effect, like restrictions on magazine capacity. I'd also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once. Would it work? Would people do it? I have no idea; all I can say is that both these things would be more effective than banning rifles with pistol grips.
The above quoted comes courtesy of Megan McArdle's lengthy essay on the futility of stopping the Adam Lanzas of the world from dealing death to innocents. You can just visualize poor Megan sighing in despair over a mocha latte while typing out another paean to the overall uselessness of gun control on her Macbook Air.
Meanwhile, others are visualizing the spectacle of young schoolchildren being trained to zerg rush gunmen in utter disregard of their otherwise natural inclination to run away from the bad guy with the gun:
Are you kidding me? You think gun control is impractical, so your plan is to turn the entire national population, including young children, into a standby suicide squad? Through private initiative, of course. It's way more feasible than gun control!
Unless I am missing a very subtle parody of libertarianism, McArdle's plan to teach children to launch banzai charges against mass murderers is the single worst solution to any problem I have ever seen offered in a major publication. Newsweek, I award this essay no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Actually, the single worst solution to this particular problem is allowing teachers and janitors to carry guns inside schools, but this ranks a close second.
Even the Department of Homeland Security would call a "time out" on this. Zerg rushing a gunman is perhaps one of the worst things you could do - not only are you putting your life at risk for little gain, there's no guarantee that people will break out of "bystander mode" and reconcile numerical strength in numbers with a lowered chance of dying. That's hard for even grown men and women to do and yet we expect it from our children.
Sandy Hook did a hell of a number on the overall psyche of rabid gun owners and supporters. The NRA took a moment, but they eventually managed to find a narrative that would allow them to support gun ownership with a straight face. Now you have rank assholes convincing themselves that Sandy Hook was actually an elaborate hoax designed just so President Obama could declare those nasty-looking AR-15s illegal and send the spiritual successors of the Waffen-Schutzstaffel into the homes of patriotic Americans everywhere to destroy their ability to defend themselves, their country and the idea of Freedom™ (which, oddly enough, is encapsulated in the ability to own lots and lots of guns). A lone bald eagle sheds a solitary tear in front of a strategically placed American flag.
Well, at least you have the youngsters doing their part to protect their fellow students from future Sandy Hooks. Sorry, kid - only the adults get to pack heat in the schoolhouse. -
When there are laws that effectively gives card blanche to murder someone in cold blood, as long as you claim you were "in fear for your life," exist, you'll get cases like these:
A co-worker who witnessed the shooting said Rainey had knocked on Roop’s door, but received no answer. While Rainey was walking down the drive-way, Roop pulled up in his pickup truck and asked why Rainey was at his house. Rainey explained that he was selling steak and seafood. The witness said Roop then pulled out a black handgun and shot Rainey. As Rainey lay on the ground, Roop fired another bullet into the back of his head. Roop later told police that he shot Rainey in the head “for effect” and that he had three no trespassing signs on his property. Roop said he feared for his life. “I’m not going to give him the chance to do something to me,” he told police. “I was in fear.”
Yeah, he was in fear of being sold bad meat and seafood by a door-to-door salesman.
The good news is 52-year-old Kenneth Bailey Roop was arrested and is now charged with second-degree murder. Apparently he thought SYG would give him card blanche to live out a Gran Torino moment, except Walt Kowalski exercised more self-control than this clown. According to his neighbors, Roop's fantasy of blowing a trespasser off his lawn was a long time coming:
Roop’s neighbors described him as “the neighborhood crazy.” Roop has a concealed weapons permit and approximately 14 firearms.
Those naturally against gun control already have an argument waiting in the wings for stories like these: guys like Roop and the now-infamous James Holmes are the exception, not the rule. Too bad we've been seeing a lot of exceptions lately.
It's ridiculously easy for the ill-tempered and sociopathic to obtain firearms and organizations like the NRA are willing to look the other way while not only claiming these people to be "exceptions," but also politically kneecap anyone who stands up to the organization, never mind how its perceived power is inversely proportional to its actual power:
We do absolutely anything they ask and we NEVER cross them—which includes asking permission to cosponsor any bills endorsed by the Humane Society (the answer is usually no) and complying with their demand to oppose the DISCLOSE Act, neither of which have anything to do with guns. They've completely shut down the debate over gun control. It's really incredible. I'm not sure when we decided that a Democrat in a marginal district who loses his A rating from the NRA automatically loses reelection. Because it's not like we do everything other partisan organizations like the Chamber [of Commerce] or NAM [National Association of Manufacturers] tell us to...
I'm not a big fan of gun control, but I absolutely hate how the president bunted on the issue. On one hand, I can understand why he declined to use the Aurora, CO. shootings as a springboard for discussing anything that remotely looks like a renewed push for gun control. On the other hand, he missed an opportunity to have a conversation that's needed having for quite some time.
Pandering to the NRA is the probably worst part of my job. I can justify the rest of it—not just to keep the seat, but because I believe most of the positions he takes are consistent with what his constituents want. But sucking up to the NRA when something like Colorado happens is hard to stomach.
As long as gun ownership rights trump the rights of folks like Nicholas Rainey to stay alive, we'll keep seeing scenarios like this one play out throughout the country.
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Before James Holmes set about gunning down unsuspecting moviegoers in an Aurora, CO theater, he went on a shopping spree, legally purchasing the following from online and brick and mortar gun shops over the course of four months:
- Smith & Wesson M&P15 .223 Rifle (has the appearance of an AR-15)
- Two .40 caliber Glock pistols
- Remington 870 pump-action shotgun
- Blackhawk urban assault vest
- Blackhawk Omega Elite triple pistol magazine
- Blackhawk Omega Elite M16 magazine pouch
- Blackhawk Be-Wharned silver knife
- 6000 rounds of ammunition
He also managed to pass all of the background checks and didn't have anything that would set off red flags. However, he did manage to spook the owner of a gun range with a bizarre voice message:
Holmes, 24, emailed an application to join the Lead Valley Range in Byers on June 25 in which he said he was not a user of illegal drugs or a convicted felon, said owner Glenn Rotkovich.
But when Rotkovich called to invite him to a mandatory orientation the following week, he said he heard Holmes' voice mail greeting that was "bizarre -- guttural, freakish at best."
It identified the number as belonging to "James," so Rotkovich said he left a message.
He left two other messages but eventually told his staff to watch out for Holmes at the July 1 orientation and not to accept him into the club, Rotkovich said. His comments were first reported by Fox News.
"There's something weird here," Rotkovich said he concluded.
Indeed, but I'm sure he didn't think much about it until the tragedy unfolded.
No one outside of the armed forces needs a 100-round capacity magazine for their .223 (or 5.56mm NATO) rifles. Gun enthusiasts can argue about the desire to be able to purchase whatever they want, under the argument of psychopaths like these being rare and responsible gun owners being legion. These folks will argue against making it harder for law abiding citizens to purchase implements to exercise their Second Amendment rights on account of one or a few nutcases.
On the other hand, you can look at the 12 people who died and the 59 that were injured and see a very compelling rationale for stricter gun control laws.
I get the gist of gun control, but I think it won't do much to prevent any of these tragedies from happening. Frankly, if anyone has the motivation for hurting or/and killing someone, they'll find a way to do it. Timothy McVeigh did it with a rental truck full of fertilizer turned into an improvised bomb.
The way if feel about gun control is this: guns are a tool, with the unfortunate sole purpose of killing/maiming/injuring people. How a gun is used depends on who's behind the trigger. In the right hands, it's used to protect life and property. In the wrong hands, it's used to murder and intimidate. The "right" and "wrong" hands depends on your own personal interpretation -- you wouldn't necessary consider "cops" to be "right hands" in many circumstances.
What gets me is how people talk about gun control by focusing solely on the types of guns being used and not the people behind the trigger. Unless it's attached to some automated travesty like a drone, guns generally can't fire by themselves. It takes someone with the motivation to use it, good or evil.
One argument I hear about is that more limited access to guns will make it much harder for people to get access to them, especially in the heat of the moment. For someone who wants to put a cap in someone's ass right then and there, that might work. For the psychopath who's methodically piecing together an arsenal of weapons over a few month's time, maybe not. He did it with a clean background and aside from his application-gone-awry at a gun range, he didn't raise any serious red flags until it was too late.
Perhaps a national database that tracks purchases of firearms, ammunition and accessories might work. Then again, all you're doing is collecting names and the names of most of these psychopaths don't pop up on them because they have yet to do anything that would warrant setting off any red flags in the first place. Not only that, people who take the Second Amendment extraordinarily seriously will flip their shit at the mere suggestion of a national database. Also, the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 made sure such a list wouldn't come into existence unless the act itself was dropped.
With gun control, there's always the possibility of fueling an epidemic of guns being sold illegally on the black market, although if you're already into that sort of thing, this probably won't change anything for you. This, too, will make those people flip their shit.
I would like to see more stringent restrictions placed on firearms, but I realize that until gun enthusiasts, the majority who turn out to be rather conservative, find sufficient political capital (perhaps in the form of a stellar rise in black American gun ownership...?) to come out for stronger gun control, not much will change. A tragedy like this will only cause those who already love guns to the point of fetishism to buy even more guns. They're keeping their powder dry, waiting for the day they can play out childhood Cowboys and Injuns with real ammo.
Gun owners who dream about facing off, toe to toe with James Holmes are doing just that -- dreaming. Not even the best trained weapons experts would have been able to get a clear shot in a dark, smoke filled movie theater filled with screaming, scared, panicked people scrambling for cover. Even if they did, chances are they wouldn't have been able to hit any vital areas due to the body armor.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney doesn't think now's the right time to talk about gun control. Contrary to the Landed One's beliefs, now is the time to talk about it and we sure don't need Mitt's permission to do it. -
Today, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was held in both civil and criminal contempt by the House of Representatives.
Washington (CNN) -- The House of Representatives voted Thursday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for refusing to turn over documents tied to the botched Fast and Furious gun-running sting -- a discredited operation that has become a sharp point of contention between Democrats and Republicans in Washington.
The House approved a pair of criminal and civil measures against the attorney general, marking the first time in American history that the head of the Justice Department has been held in contempt by Congress.
House members approved the criminal contempt measure in a 255-67 vote. Almost every House Republican backed the measure, along with 17 Democrats. Shortly thereafter, the civil measure passed in a sharply polarized 258-95 vote.
A large number of Democrats -- including members of the Congressional Black Caucus and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- walked off the House floor in protest and refused to participate in the criminal contempt vote. A slightly smaller number of Democrats appeared to boycott the vote on the civil measure as well.
17 Democrats voted along with Republicans on the criminal contempt measure. 21 Democrats did likewise on the civil contempt measure. NBC News' Frank Thorpe thoughtfully provided a list of names:
And there you have it. Concerned Democrats who chafe at this display of Blue Dog dumbassery can organize a movement to replace these people with actual Democrats. Speaking of which, dozens of Democrats walked off the House floor in protest of the civil and criminal contempt votes.
So, what happens next?
Unlike a contempt charge at the county courthouse, AG Holder isn't gonna spend 30 or 60 days cooling his heels in the pokey. But Darrell Issa and crew can push him to resign under the assumption Holder's been tarred and feathered good over this "disgrace." The GOP can also use this to further de-legitimize the Obama administration's authority and run it out on a rail come this Election Day:
...the next step would be to send the contempt citation against Holder to the local U.S. attorney for enforcement. Traditionally the Justice Department doesn't pursue criminal contempt of Congress cases against its own administration.
If, as history suggests, the Justice Department won't prosecute a criminal case against Holder, the House could hire its own lawyer and file a civil lawsuit in federal court. Such a case could lead to an order for Holder to turn over the documents. But the federal District Court in Washington has been reluctant to rush into such cases.
The hopes of the House winning a legal resolution before the November elections are dim. And the authority behind House subpoenas or contempt citations traditionally are considered to expire when that Congress ends, according to the Congressional Research Service. That happens in January 2013.
In any event, if Obama loses his re-election bid the case becomes moot. If Obama wins and Republicans retain control of the House, they could vote to restart the fight. But Holder might no longer be in office.
A contempt of Congress vote against Holder probably would amplify calls from some Republicans for his resignation. Although the administration's shown no signs of that so far, it's widely believed, even among Holder's close associates, that he doesn't intend to return should Obama win a second term. When asked about it, Holder has been noncommittal.
However, in issuing these contempt measures, the GOP once again verified that it would go to great lengths just to see the president and attorney general bum-rushed out of office by any means necessary. It also has plenty of racial overtones. A lot of people want to see Holder, a black guy, fail in order to validate their beliefs of black American men being incapable of managing leadership positions unless they happen to be both conservative as all get out and under the total and complete tutelage of the GOP (Cain, Thomas, Steele, West, etc). If they can't get Obama to go down in flames, Holder will do just nicely. Even better if they both go down.
Holder happens to be the first black U.S. Attorney General. He also happens to be the first AG to be held in contempt by Congress. Funny how that works out. Even funnier is this excruciatingly detailed account on how the GOP's narrative of the "Fast and Furious" operation isn't what it appears to be at a close glance. -
From 2006 to 2010, the BATF ran a program that essentially walked millions of firearms into the tender loving hands of Mexican cartel members, with the purpose of nabbing straw purchasers and gun runners on the U.S. side. It was a good idea at the time (to them), at least until a Border Patrol agent was killed. After that, the wheels pretty much fell off that wagon.
Today, Darrell Issa intends to use a program crafted during the Bush administration to collect the scalps of one U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and a certain U.S. president. If you want a great indication of how eager Issa is to bend the Obama administration over his knee, note that he's asking for a partial investigation that covers the program from 2009 and onward. Remember, the program started back in 2006.
President Obama is also under fire for exercising executive privilege on behalf of Holder, obstinately to prevent sensitive documents and transcripts from being released under subpoena. Now some are accusing the Obama administration of "covering up the truth."
Somewhere on the House floor is the corpse of Brian Terry, propped up and placed behind glass to elicit heartstring tugs and politically motivated sympathy.
Allow yours truly to direct you to more detailed commentary on Fast and Furious and the ongoing attempts to legally lynch the president and U.S. attorney general with high-tech rope:
- Redeye's Front Page: "The "Fast and Furious" legal lynching of President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder"
- "The Rant" by Tom Degan: "The Importance of Being Eric"
- Digby's Hullabaloo: "Issa goes down the rabbit hole"
- Field Negro: "The Sequel" -
It's been established throughout history that there's nothing scarier to many Americans than the sight of a black man with a gun, let alone a large group of black men armed to the teeth. Often ignored is how gun ownership by white Americans surpasses other ethnic groups by a factor of 2.5 to 1. A black man with a gun is scary to many whites, but a white man with a gun is even scarier to most blacks, especially considering past and present news. If Trayvon Martin was alive, he'd attest to that very fact himself.
In fact, it was the New Black Panther Party agitating for "alternative justice" in regards to George Zimmerman that spurred on white American alarm, which included an offer by a Neo-Nazi group to keep an eye out on "anyone" who could potentially "cause problems." The Daily Caller recently glommed on a feature in the NBPP spring edition newsletter where columnist Chawn Kweli lamented how the election of President Barack Obama into office has yet to produce any visibly positive results for the black community. Given the backlash over having a man of distinctive color in the Oval Office and Trayvon Martin's death as a bellwether for ethnic relations in the U.S., I can understand this sentiment. It does seem as though Obama hasn't done enough, if anything, for the plight of black Americans in supposedly "post-racial" America.
The NBPP wonders if black Americans should stop relying on The Ballot and start using The Bullet to get their points across. I believe that could end up backfiring in a bad way. Blacks taking up The Bullet in significant numbers would be the stuff of survivalist/race realist/"real American" militia dreams, as it would be Card Blanche for those groups to finally put an end to America's "black problem" once and for all. Yes, plenty of people still think this way. In a country where weapons stockpiling is often a first response to any crisis, armed protest could be an especially bloody affair.
The beauty of Martin Luther King Jr's non-violent movement was that it took away any justification for opponents to respond to those organized gatherings with shocking amounts of violence. Actually, that's the beauty of any non-violent protest -- the armed-to-the-teeth group that does the beating (and occasionally, shooting) winds up the pariah/bad guy while the general public is outraged and shocked into supporting the unarmed group. It worked for Mohandas Gandhi, MLK Jr's Civil Rights movement, the suffragettes and currently, the Occupy Wall Street movement, although it's becoming not as effective due to a unique circumstance involving today's media.
Now, arm those same people and the armed group, usually law enforcement or some other state/corporate-backed group, now has justification for opening a can of whip-ass on that group. Once those folks start attacking the agents of orderly society, they receive a lot less sympathy from others. It's what the Palestinians have to deal with every time Hamas or Hezbollah does something against the IDF or the Israeli population. It's easy to convince people that someone or some group had it coming.
Considering how prevalent the narrative of blacks as criminals and dangerous beings is, it's extraordinarily easy to cast any black group that uses The Bullet as bad guys who must be stopped at all cost, to the exclusion of any message they happen to have. It's how the FBI's COINTELPRO was allowed to "neutralize" the original Black Panthers and other likeminded groups.
Something to think about: black gangs like the Piru, Crips and Gangsters Disciples are considered less harmful than the Black Panthers ever were. Now, give those groups a sense of unity with one another and a political focus, and suddenly they become targets for "neutralization." Not trying to go the conspiracy theory route, but it's something for people to chew on.
I'm not trying to persuade people into being passive and defenseless, but going the way of The Bullet™ out of frustration is a route that often dead ends at many dead and the clock of progress turned back a long ways. Who's to say that an armed response from black America wouldn't result in a frightened white American populace cosigning on the revival of segregation or worse still, a systematic genocide covered under the blanket of the War on Terror, with black Americans who display the slightest amount of uprightness being tagged a terrorist and fit for termination, accordingly?
Then again, who's to say that an armed response from black America wouldn't result in black Americans finally gaining some begrudging respect from a populace and a government that's done all it can to ignore and disrespect them, or hell, even their own slice of land in which they could peacefully govern autonomously and also once-and-for-all prove preconceived notions of black governance resulting in automatic failure wrong? The Native Americans who once had total control over parts of this nation could attest to how that turned out and how the U.S. is still bent on letting that problem "solve itself" via hands-off, slow-motion genocide
Still, I wouldn't mind if more black Americans who are able to own and carry firearms did so, if only to give those who are intent on doing them harm some pause. However, if black Americans were to suddenly purchase firearms, apply for concealed carry permits and open carry in significant numbers, the same people who are all about the right to bear arms as clearly delineated in the 2nd Amendment may very well end up being the first to advocate some sort of gun control scheme applied solely towards black Americans and other groups whom gun ownership is deemed undesirable by the majority. Laws that prohibit those with felony criminal records from gun ownership already behave this way, especially if you consider how black American men are more likely to have one than their white counterparts.
Meanwhile, I'm not throwing in the towel on The Ballot or Barack Obama. Given the political realities that came crashing down six months after his term began, the man has had to tread light in order to keep the appearance of being the entire nation's president and not just one who caters to "his own people.*" Once he secures his second term and becomes a "lame duck" who can afford to not give a damn, that's when people can accurately determine whether he has the heart to go to bat for black Americans. Keep in mind that black Americans shouldn't rely solely on the president when it comes to creating political change.
George Zimmerman's verdict could be the ultimate test of which way black Americans will turn. If he's convicted and sentenced to a reasonable prison term, blacks may be more inclined to stick with The Ballot. If he's pronounced "not guilty" and set free, there's a strong chance The Bullet will be the choice of many black Americans frustrated with a process that seems hell-bent on frustrating and destroying them.
*That blog post on tribalism and how it affects politics in America is still forthcoming. -
Malcolm Hines walked out of prison in 2007 with a plan to get his life straight. Unlike most other ex-convicts, he had a bit of seed money with which he opened his own shoe store, and he did just that in a depressed, retail-starved and crime-ridden area that most others would have given a pass to. Given how many of the stores in the area had been robbed at some point or another and how the police department proved itself to be highly ineffectual in catching these criminals, it only made sense for store owners to keep some measure of protection with them.
Except Hines couldn't do that, because his status as a twice-convicted felon prohibited him from owning any firearms. Nevertheless, his sister legally purchased a shotgun and left it at the store for protection. It was a gesture that would come back to bite him in the ass.
Hines was arrested March 28 after a dispute with a customer. A teenager bought a pair of New Balance 2000 sneakers. But Hines mistakenly gave him a mismatched pair — one from an adult pair, worth $140, another from a child’s pair, worth $70.
In this case, the law is an ass, but the law is the law, although I have to wonder if any stipulation would have been made if Hines had been another color. Given the ethnically-imbalanced justice system of this country, it's a fair question to ask.
The customer returned to the shop and got into an argument with Hines, who asked to see a receipt before providing the match for the more expensive shoe. The boy didn’t have one and left, saying, “We’ll be back, you’ll see,” according to Hines’s telling.
The teenager came back with his father and another man. According to court documents, the father said Hines stepped into a closet next to the cash register. The man said he heard the racking of a shotgun slide and saw a barrel peeking from the closet door. Hines said he stepped into the closet after seeing the teenager hold his hand in his pocket as if he was holding a pistol — Hines had been robbed at gunpoint five days earlier — but said he didn’t even know the shotgun was there.
After the three left, they alerted police, who got a search warrant and discovered the shotgun hidden at the back of the closet, tucked behind a water heater.
During a three-day trial in October, Hines’s sister-in-law testified under an immunity deal that she had purchased the shotgun legally in Maryland and brought it to City Beats for protection. She said Hines did not know the gun was in the shop, but a jury convicted him. Sentencing is set for Dec. 9 before Superior Court Judge Robert I. Richter; Hines faces a minimum sentence of three years.
Maupin said that Hines’s arrest was “unfortunate” but that officers had no choice.
Of course, there are those who ask why Hines chose to open a shop in such a shitty area. Or how Hines managed to hold onto $10,000 in blue-chip stocks after a drug conviction, where the usual procedures are to assume that all assets are "tainted" with drug money and are therefore subject to seizure. Or perhaps why his sister left a shotgun in the store in the first place.
18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) mandates that anyone convicted in any court for any crime for which imprisonment exceeds one year is barred from possessing a firearm. There's no set time limit for such disenfranchisement. 18 U.S.C. §§ 921(a)(20) and (a)(33)(B)(ii) essentially leaves the restoration of firearm ownership up to the states. Some states don't restore firearms ownership to ex-convicts, no matter how long ago their convictions were. I've been looking into whether the District of Columbia allows for restoration of gun ownership rights, but I haven't found anything as of yet. If D.C. doesn't offer that option, then Hines is practically barred from being near a gun for life. Not good if you want to stay in business in rough territory.
In other words, Hines was put between a rock in a hard place: risk his life to maintain his freedom or risk his freedom to maintain his life. It was a split-second decision that's now cost him his freedom. And the aftermath?
Since Hines’s arrest, there have been some changes at City Beats. Cameras monitor the sales floor. No one works alone in the shop.
But, Hines said, people in the neighborhood know there’s no longer a gun inside. “They gotta have in their mind that if they come in the store, you can’t pull a gun on us,” Hines said. “Without people thinking there’s some repercussions . . . they would definitely try to take advantage.”
On Sunday, his wife, Sherita McLamore-Hines, closed the shop as usual at 5 p.m., then proceeded to review inventory with her son and nephew.
About two hours later, a familiar customer knocked on the shop’s glass door, cash in hand. McLamore-Hines let him in, hoping to make one more sale. But after the man stepped in, three men wearing ski masks came in behind him. One of the men held a gun to McLamore-Hines’s head and cleaned out the cash register as she crouched behind the counter.
Police had not made any arrests in the case.
I don't expect them to. Knowing a place like MLK, Jr. Avenue, it's probably a Lost Cause as far as law enforcement is concerned, so there's minimum effort to protect shop owners and their livelihoods. They're on their own here.
This is the story of a man who tried to do things the straight, narrow and right way, only to find himself in even more trouble. Sometimes, you just can't win for losing.
Metafilter had this story posted, but it got axed thanks to their rather fickle standards for a "good post." Fortunately, I caught it just in time to repost it here. Their loss.
Showing posts with label gun control. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gun control. Show all posts
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