Jim Wright

Jim Wright

 

@Richard Ruth asked in the previous post:

"So, Jim, what do you think is the catalyst for such obsessive 'protection' of firearms? Why do you think people freak out so viscerally?"

You're looking for a simple answer, there isn't one.

Increasingly America is a toxic combination of fear, ignorance, deliberate stupidity (note the word "deliberate") and sullen anti-intellectualism, confirmation bias, unrelenting media campaigns of hate and xenophobia designed specifically to shape public opinion, widespread extremist apocalyptic religions who declare greed and intolerance and selfishness the path to salvation, and more than anything a pervasive habit of endless pessimism.

For these people, the glass is ALWAYS half empty, the world is ALWAYS going to hell, disaster is ALWAYS just around the corner.

Over the last few decades, and especially since 911, we have become a nation of cutters. We hack at our own flesh with mean abandon and we revel in our imagined misery, moaning endlessly about a "war" on whatever it is we hold most important today.

Hope, dreams, optimism, idealism, daring, confident assurance, positivity, QUIET courage, these are outdated ideas, worthy only of contempt, shouted down in almost any forum of Americans who would rather wallow in imagined misery instead of rising to the challenge.

No matter how much they have, it's never enough. We have to have more. More. More. We have to have bigger cars and bigger houses, bigger guns, bigger military, bigger flags, bigger food. You see it everywhere, supersize me.

No matter how much they have it's never enough. It's never enough because they measure satisfaction in comparison to others. That is to say they have been conditioned from birth by a culture of selfishness to believe freedom and liberty and happiness are finite, there's only so much to go around, and if others get more they are firmly convinced they get less. And they can't stand that idea.

When others gain rights, these people literally, LITERALLY, see that as theft.

This is the very crux of our current division, it drives everything from immigration reform to marriage. This is the reason Congress is deadlocked. This is the mindset of the "your gay marriage ruins my traditional marriage" argument. That mindset ONLY makes sense if you believe you can't be happy if others are happy. You can't be free if others are free. And this is the cornerstone, the very cornerstone, of their religion: Heaven isn't Heaven if everybody gets to go. Heaven is ONLY Heaven if only the people just like me get to go and everybody else burns forever in eternal torment. And that's EXACTLY how they see America. Exactly.

Ultimately, it comes down to fear.

Fundamentally there are two types of people, those who see the unknown future as grand adventure and those who see it as a terrifying abyss. The later type clutch their guns to their chests and peer into the darkness with fear and suspicion. For them a gun is power, security, strength against the darkness. Any perceived threat is an assault on their very manhood, their very concept of themselves. This is why reason and logic will not work, because their fears are rooted in the illogical and primitive part of their minds.

You can not reason with them, they are not reasonable people.

They see the future coming and it scares the hell out of them.

RSN: Sea Shepherd to Deploy Drones to Stop Massive Whale Slaughter, Obama Didn't Destabilize Iraq, et al

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Andy Borowitz | Morning After Tea Party Win, House G.O.P. Proposes End to Social Security, Return to Child Labor, Gun Rights for Pets

Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "The morning after Tuesday's stunning Tea Party victory in Virginia, House Republicans unveiled a sweeping new legislative agenda, proposing an end to Social Security, a return to child labor, and unprecedented gun rights for pets."
READ MORE
Robert Parry | Obama Didn't Destabilize Iraq
Robert Parry, Consortium News
Parry writes: "As Islamic militants gain ground in Iraq, Official Washington's neocons and the mainstream media are blaming President Obama for ending the U.S. military occupation, but they ignore their own role in destabilizing Iraq with the 2003 invasion."
READ MORE
Juan Cole | Looming War of Shiite, Kurdish, Extremist-Sunni Militias
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] is apparently keeping control of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city of 2 million, and advanced to take Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, where they held a huge Sunni prayer session."
READ MORE
William J. Astore | The Militarized Realities of Fortress America
William J. Astore, TomDispatch
Astore writes: "I spent four college years in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) and then served 20 years in the U.S. Air Force."
READ MORE
Trickle Down Surveillance
Nathan Freed Wessler, Al Jazeera America
Wessler writes: "This sort of invasive surveillance raises serious questions about whether our tax dollars are funding violations of the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment."
READ MORE
Deal Aims to Ban Drilling in Gorilla Preserve
Associated Press
Excerpt: "An agreement announced Wednesday between a London-based oil company and a wildlife protection group could prevent oil drilling in a national park in Africa where 200 endangered mountain gorillas live."
READ MORE

Sea Shepherd to Deploy Drones to Stop Massive Whale Slaughter
David Kirby, Takepart.com
Kirby reports: "In recent years, the annual dolphin hunts in Taiji, Japan, have garnered headlines worldwide and sparked outrage among activists, scientists, celebrities, and diplomats. But half a world away, in the North Atlantic nation of the Faeroe Islands, a similar slaughter has received far less scrutiny."
READ MORE

The Right to Bear Arms

Another senseless tragedy.....

15 year-old wants to prove to friends a rifle is not loaded, puts it in his mouth, it fires

July 4, 2013

By Anomaly

 

According to investigators, a 15 year-old boy from Logan County, Oklahoma, put a rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger, thinking it was unloaded. The boy relayed to officers that he was not trying to kill himself. Authorities in the country said the teen was trying to prove to friends that the gun was not loaded, then stuck in his mouth then fired. The boy is in critical condition.




Watch courtesy of KFOR:


LINK


Doctors may not be able to remove the bullet as it might prompt excessive bleeding. TPM reports, “The incident occurred at a friend’s house, where Logan County Sheriff’s Department Capt. Richard Stephens said the homeowners “left the scene knowing full well the boys had a firearm and were likely to use it.”

FON gun tips time!: Never point a gun at something you don’t want to destroy.



http://freakoutnation.com/2013/07/04/15-year-old-wants-to-prove-to-friends-a-rifle-is-not-loaded-puts-it-in-his-mouth-it-fires/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=15-year-old-wants-to-prove-to-friends-a-rifle-is-not-loaded-puts-it-in-his-mouth-it-fires
 

"Daddy, what's this?"

When can we talk about GUNS?

Lady Liberals

"Daddy, what's this?"

Justin Stanfield Thomas, who served as a member of the Green Berets during the Iraq war, and the boy were visiting a former roommate in Prescott Valley, Arizona. The friend, who was allegedly not expecting the visit, did not have his gun locked away at the time. 

Army veteran shot and killed by 4-year-old son

By Arturo Garcia
Saturday, June 8, 2013 17:40 EDT

 

A 35-year-old Army veteran died after being accidentally shot by his 4-year-old son while visiting a friend, KNXV-TV reported on Friday.

Police told the station that Justin Stanfield Thomas, who served as a member of the Green Berets during the Iraq war, and the boy were visiting a former roommate in Prescott Valley, Arizona. The friend, who was allegedly not expecting the visit, did not have his gun locked away at the time.

“Within minutes the little boy found the gun, said ‘Daddy, what’s this?’,” a neighbor, Jeremy Hartt, said to KNXV. “Then, it went off.”

A 35-year-old Army veteran died after being accidentally shot by his 4-year-old son while visiting a friend, KNXV-TV reported on Friday.

Police told the station that Justin Stanfield Thomas, who served as a member of the Green Berets during the Iraq war, and the boy were visiting a former roommate in Prescott Valley, Arizona. The friend, who was allegedly not expecting the visit, did not have his gun locked away at the time.

“Within minutes the little boy found the gun, said ‘Daddy, what’s this?’,” a neighbor, Jeremy Hartt, said to KNXV. “Then, it went off.”





 http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/08/army-veteran-shot-and-killed-by-4-year-old-son/

 

N.J. father arrested after son, 4, shot and killed playmate

How can we justify this?

N.J. father arrested after son, 4, shot and killed playmate
By Tina Susman

May 14, 2013, 8:37 a.m.

The father of a 4-year-old boy who shot and killed his 6-year-old playmate after finding a loaded .22-caliber rifle in his parents' home has been arrested after officials found "multiple" unsecured weapons accessible to children in the New Jersey house.

Anthony Senatore, 33, was arrested Monday evening and charged with several counts of endangering the welfare of children, the acting prosecutor in Atlantic County, Jim McClain, announced in a statement.

According to the charges, which also include one count of being a disorderly person for allegedly allowing minors to access a firearm, Senatore had at least three weapons in his house in addition to the rifle that his son was holding on April 8 when he fatally shot his neighbor, Brandon Holt, in the head.

The other guns in the house, where three children ages 4, 8 and 12 live, included two Harrington & Richardson shotguns and a Remington 12-gauge shotgun, officials said. All were found "unsecured and in close proximity to ammunition and accessible to Senatore's own children," McClain said.

Senatore was released during the night on $100,000 bail.

The investigation was turned over to the Atlantic County prosecutor's office, apparently because Senatore's family has ties to law enforcement in Ocean County, where the shooting occurred. The New Jersey Star-Ledger said Senatore's mother and grandfather had retired from the Ocean County prosecutor's office. His father was a detective in another New Jersey county.

The shooting occurred April 8 on a quiet, suburban street in Toms River, about 70 miles south of New York City. Witnesses said the 4-year-old was outside playing with Brandon on the warm spring evening when he wandered inside his house and came out with the loaded weapon. The gun went off, hitting Brandon, who was in a go-cart about 45 feet away. Brandon died in a hospital the next day.
It was the second time in three days that a child had gotten hold of a loaded weapon and shot someone. Three days before Brandon died, a 4-year-old in Tennessee shot and killed a woman during a cookout.

Police in Camden, N.J., are still investigating the shooting last Friday of a 12-year-old boy by an 11-year-old. The shooting victim was struck in the face but was expected to recover. An initial investigation indicated that the shooting was an accident, but police were looking into how the 11-year-old got hold of the firearm.

The state Senate is expected to vote Monday on new gun control measures introduced in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre and after several shootings in New Jersey.

Key changes would be a mandatory waiting period, which would require people to wait seven days before buying a gun after obtaining a weapons permit. Advocates of the waiting time, known as a "cooling-off" period, say it would reduce the chance of someone who is angry being able to get a gun quickly and use it in the heat of the moment.

Prospective gun owners who apply for permits also would be required to undergo training, and state police would receive electronic notices of all online ammunition sales.

Arming the Streets in MA

PLEASE SHARE AND REPOST--Use the "Invite" Tool to invite your friends. All of 'em. We can win this!

The "Gun Owners Action League," the "official state assocation of the NRA," is pushing legislation here in MA that would eliminate the current requirement to renew firearms licenses every six years. The ostensible reason is the backlog. This is happening right now!!!

 

But have a look at the GOAL web site, and that lovely image of various firearms on their home page. Especially the one at the right.
...

http://www.goal.org/index.html

It might remind you of this one:

http://www.businessinsider.com/cnn-the-connecticut-shooter-used-a-bushmaster-rifle-like-the-dc-snipers-2012-12

It's more than apparent what this organization's goals are. The innocuously-titled bill is a smokescreen. And I find it downright reprehensible that today, December 14th, they updated their web site to inform us that the Speaker is inclined to help them.

You'll find more details in the letter I've written, below. What I'm suggesting is that we ALL call our state senators and representatives--along with Speaker DeLeo's legislative aid and the Governor--and demand that they stop cow-towing to the NRA and push for MORE, not LESS, regulation.

Will you make a call or four on Monday between 10 am and 12 pm?

Because they are. From the December GOAL newsletter: GOAL Executive Director Jim Wallace reported at the end of the last legislative session that the unrelenting phone calls from GOAL members to their state legislators were starting to be noticed by house leadership."

C'mon. It's time to start pushing back! It's time for US to be "noticed."

Governor Deval Patrick: 617.725.4005
Speaker Robert DeLeo: 617-722-2500
Find your state Sentor and Rep:
http://www.malegislature.gov/

Here's the text of my letter:

The Honorable Deval Patrick, Governor
The Honorable William Galvin, Massachusetts House of Representatives
The Honorable Brian Joyce, Massachusetts Senate
The Honorable Robert DeLeo, Speaker, Massachusetts House of Representatives
Mr. Andrew Keegan, Legislative Aid to Speaker DeLeo

Gentlemen:

I write to you in reference to the “emergency legislation, ” HD.4613, “An Act Associated with Incurring Fines for Delayed Firearms License Renewal,” cosponsored by Representative George Peterson and Senator Richard Moore. Their bill is currently in the State Senate awaiting concurrence before it can be sent to the Committee on Public Safety. According to an update on the Gun Owners’ Action League web site—dated today, oddly enough—Speaker DeLeo “has agreed to help us look into this matter.”

Before proceeding, I urge you have a look at the GOAL web site (goal.org). The homepage features a high-quality graphic depicting certain firearms along with the text, “the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.” Prominent among the weapons pictured is a rifle which bears a striking resemblance to the .223 Bushmaster used today in the massacre of Connecticut schoolchildren. The goals of this organization (the official branch of the NRA here in the Commonwealth) are obvious—and they are odious. Again, take a long, hard look at that image. Chilling, isn’t it?

The legislation itself is specifically designed to circumvent the renewal process. While complaints regarding the backlog of weapons licenses may be valid, simply eliminating the renewal process altogether, which is what this legislation calls for, is no way to proceed. GOAL, and its NRA parent, are simply using the current situation as a ruse whereby to accomplish one of their long-term goals. Don’t buy it.

If anything, today’s outrage should cause us to look into more, and not less, regulation. According to the Boston Herald, "The state issued 7,100 gun permits in November [2012] alone, compared with 4,300 for the same month in 2011." It’s extremely difficult for many of us, today, to see this as a positive development.

Messrs Patrick, Joyce, and Galvin, I publicly endorsed your candidacies and happily gave you my vote. Your stance on this bill will help to establish that I was right to do so. Please do all that you can to prevent this legislation from being enacted, and please let me know at your earliest convenience what your position is.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Respectfully,
Michael Horan
Stoughton Democratic Town Committee
Stoughton Town Meeting, Precinct 5
Warden, Trinity Episcopal Parish, Stoughton
Occupy Boston

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

Most folks don't pay much attention to the Supreme Court Justices, so Ms. Strochlic has sumarized a few of Justice Scalia's recent breathtaking comments.

For additional background, here Wikipedia.

Eight of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s Wildest Comments

Oct 6, 2012 

The Supreme Court justice tosses judicial restraint—or any sort of restraint—out the window when he weighs in on sodomy, abortion, immigrants, and other controversial topics. By Nina Strochlic.

The Supreme Court’s rulings, often in complex, difficult cases, have historically redefined racial and gender rights. So it’s more than a little disconcerting to hear Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dub decisions on the most debated issues of the century as “easy.” Scalia is known to be the ruling court’s most extreme right-wing “literalist” or “textualist,” meaning he casts his vote in accordance to a bare-bones definition of the Constitution. On Monday he aired his views on a number of hot-button topics, from homosexuality to abortion.

 

Here’s a look at some of the quotes that have secured his notoriety as the most outspoken justice sitting on the nation’s most powerful court.

“Easy”
Justice Scalia made his views abundantly clear earlier this week at a Washington, D.C., book signing hosted by the American Enterprise Institute. “The death penalty? Give me a break. It’s easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the Constitution prevented restrictions on abortion,” he said. “Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state.”

“Vaffanculo”
Scalia didn’t appreciate a reporter from the Boston Herald asking him in 2006 how he responds to critics who say his religion impairs his fairness in rulings. “To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’” Scalia reportedly said, flicking his right hand from under his chin. In Italian, this not-so subtle phrase means “f--k off” and the accompanying hand flick is equally rude. “You’re not going to print that are you?” he apparently asked in an interaction that occurred, it’s worth noting, inside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross at Sunday mass.

“Unwanted Immigrants”

When President Obama passed the DREAM Act, allowing young immigrants to obtain legal citizenship, Arizona created its own immigration law, contradicting some of the newly minted federal mandates. The state law was struck down by the Supreme Court—a decision with which Scalia did not agree, going so far as to suggest that the state should secede. “If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State,” he wrote. But he also used 19th-century restrictions on freed slaves as backup for his decision, saying that, back in the day, “State laws not only provided for the removal of unwanted immigrants but also imposed penalties on unlawfully present aliens and those who aided their immigration.”

Paul Morigi / Getty Images

“60 hours in a bakery”
You might say sodomy is one of Scalia’s “easiest” decisions. Justice Scalia dissented on the case that outlawed anti-sodomy laws in Texas, and compared the act to a very strange, and mostly offensive, array of things. “[The Texas anti-sodomy statute] undoubtedly imposes constraints on liberty,” he wrote in his support of the state’s laws. “So do laws prohibiting prostitution, recreational use of heroin, and, for that matter, working more than 60 hours per week in a bakery.” But he didn’t stop there, saying, “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity,” along with any other law “based on moral choices,” are now “called into question” by the court’s decision.

“Hand-held rocket launchers”
Justice Scalia sat down with Fox News’s Chris Wallace to discuss the recent massacre in Aurora, Colo. An ardent proponent of the right to bear arms, Scalia upheld the right of Americans to arm themselves with anything that can be “hand-carried,” which apparently could go way past what the Founding Fathers could have ever imagined. “It doesn’t apply to cannons—but I suppose there are hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes, that will have to be decided,” he said.

“Troposphere, whatever”

Scalia is known for his unbridled outspokenness, which he occasionally shows off even in the nation’s highest courtroom. In 2006, the Supreme Court heard a case involving global warming. When discussing the pollutants in the environment, Scalia mistakenly referred to the troposphere as the stratosphere and was corrected by the plaintiff’s representation. Snapping back, he made clear his views on the matter: “Troposphere, whatever. I told you before I’m not a scientist. That’s why I don’t want to have to deal with global warming, to tell you the truth.”

“A cross, a star of David and a Muslim half moon”

In oral arguments over erecting a cross in honor of all of America’s war dead, Justice Scalia offered a comeback to those who thought the cross only represented Christianity. “What would you have them erect?” Scalia asked. “A cross–some conglomerate of a cross, a star of David, and you know, a Muslim half moon [sic] and star?” The lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union got some laughs from the audience with his response to the fumbling solution offered by the justice. “Well, Justice Scalia, if I may go to your first point. The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of Christians. I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew.”

“Display their genitals”
Justice Scalia might want to keep some ideas to himself lest anyone think it wise to take him up on it. Arguing that barring fully nude dancers in Indiana doesn’t violate freedom of expression, Scalia let his imagination run wild. “The purpose of Indiana’s nudity law would be violated, I think, if 60,000 fully consenting adults crowded into the Hoosier Dome to display their genitals to one another, even if there were not an offended innocent in the crowd.”

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.
Nina Strochlic is a reporter and researcher for Newsweek/The Daily Beast.

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/06/8-of-supreme-court-justice-antonin-scalia-s-wildest-comments.html