The Republican-led House of Representatives has moved a bill through committee that would mandate all Americans to own at least one gun or rifle. Titled “The 2nd Amendment Preservation Act”, the law would provide for civil penalties of up to $1,000 per person in a household where no gun is owned.
Under the law, all citizens must own a firearm with no exception. This has prompted protests from a variety of groups representing the disabled, the poor and those who do not wish to own guns.
“We must protect the freedom our Founders have given us and only by not allowing people to just do what they want when it comes to the 2nd Amendment, can we keep that freedom,” explained Rep. Eric Cantor.
Most controversial is the lack of an age limit in the law. Taken as written, mandatory gun ownership would technically apply to children, including toddlers and even infants. Backers of the bill have said it is not an oversight, it was intentional and meant to enforce respect for the 2nd Amendment and gun education from cradle to grave.
Gun manufacturers see this as an enormous business opportunity, opening up huge new markets for their products in the U.S.. “We’ve already been looking into manufacturing and cross-branding child-sized handguns with some of their favorite characters,” says Colt’s Manufacturing Company’s President of Marketing, Ralph Lewin. “Some early concepts we see as fun include the Scooby Shooter and the Sponge Bob Snub Nose.”
Parents groups are outraged at the concept of all children in a school carrying guns. “Putting a gun in a bully’s hand is just plain crazy,” said a statement from the National PTA. Rep. Steve King of Iowa responded, “There’s nothing crazy about it, a bully may have a gun but so will the kid he wants to bully. What better way to keep the peace than for everyone to have a gun at any time or place?”
Anti-abortion groups have seized on this as a way to prevent abortions. “An unborn American is still an American and entitled to all of our rights including owning a gun to protect its own life. How many doctors would go ahead with performing an abortion if they were looking down the barrel of a .45?” asked Focus on the Family’s founder, Dr. James Dobson.
The National Rifle Association is using its powerful influence and money to convince Democrats, especially those in red states, to sign onto the legislation and help override Obama’s anticipated veto.
“It’s a very easy argument to make,” NRA’s executive vice president Wayne LaPierre expressed. “If there are more people carrying torches in a forest, there will be fewer fires. If there are more people carrying guns in a city, there will be fewer shootings. Even a mentally challenged five year old could understand that reasoning and why should he be looked at as any different or less responsible with a firearm than those of us who support this bill?”
I’m lately having a hard time distinguishing between republican ideas and parodies of republican ideas. Everyone must carry a gun. Criminalize love between a man and a woman, and of course they must both be of the same race, preferrably white, preferrably christian, and preferrably wealthy. I’m all for the Republicans saying what’s on their minds, because what comes out is such rediculous clap-trap. It would be entertaining if it werent so potentially damaging to our society if it were taken seriously. It seems as if all republicans now have the mindset of an arch-conservative from texas.
Is anyone wondering about these killings in TX, likely by the TX aryans? How has this not been linked this problem to our lack of gun control? Background checks? Gun shows? What? This is running concurrent with arming our schools. Guns didn’t save the DA and they can’t stop anyone in a school. Piss them off and the crazies will heave a bomb through a window—-oh, lets put bars on the windows!
Haven’t we perverted our legal system to put black men in jail by larger than reasonable numbers for smaller than reasonable crimes? So now we have a white prison backlash? Ha! And their answer is it’s ok to shoot the government. Is our southwest becoming the reality they wanted? Vigilanty, prairie justice, lynchings, take the law into your own hands, guns in the saloons.
In Chicago, we have gangs; we have guns; we have problems. But we don’t have this. We don’t shoot our law enforcement. Gang members are lost in their turf wars and hopelessness; they don’t much care who is caught in their line of fire as they protect their turf. The rest of us are not at all like them. Our gangs don’t scare me as much as this trend of guns everywhere; “normal” people carrying concealed weapons-everywhere. Our guns are in our ghettos; they aren’t everywhere.
It would be my hope that the msm would make the point about gun control, about guns as a solution to anger and about the idea that government is the enemy.
food, here (link below) is an absolutely chilling article on the Aryan Brotherhood. I had read it before these Texas killings. It sets up the background story to explain how these guys are virtually manufactured as skilled assassins within the prison system.
Your comments are so true — about gun control, anger and violence, and viewing the government as the enemy. To that I would add serious prison reform and the elimination of for-profit prisons.
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/19/inside_the_aryan_brotherhoods_prison_heroin_empire_partner/
Kes, Wow! A hell of a story. And this news hopefully will get bigger. For-profit-prisons; bet I know how the money makers on these vote. The cons/neocons will make this worse.
You’ve got that right, food!
And yes, wasn’t that an article on the Aryan Brotherhood? Scary stuff there.
Foodchain, your comment is so on the money! The GOP has committed to this strategy of firing up paranoia, racism and hatred amongst the less educated, lower income whites to get their support and don’t care at all about the blowback from whipping up these people.
If someone is a white power type in a red state, all they hear is “You’re right for feeling the way you do!” from their Repub leaders. It is sick, it’s treasonous and yet in the twisted mentality of equivalency, that’s just the same as Dems espousing equal rights and tolerance.
Indeed, the BS about “a good guy with a gun” stopping a bad guy is so obviously BS. Bad guys shoot first and surprise, even the DA who was armed in TX was shot while carrying his own gun. You can’t stop a gunman from killing by having a gun because until he shoots, he’s not a bad guy with a gun. The NRA knows this and is sociopathic in their twisting the danger of guns into safety. As I wrote above, it’s the same logic as having more people with torches in a forest making for less forest fires. Crazy.
It is no surprise that in the same gun crazy red states like TX, you find so many hostile people with guns.
I was thinking this morning, after once again seeing a poll showing that those in Red states opposing gun control and those in Blue and Purple states supporting it, that there should be a nationally televised debate on gun control between Wayne LaPierre and perhaps a Dem Senator or House member supporting gun control (it would be improper to have Obama or Biden debate an NRA hack). Let’s get the arguments out in front of the public in a way that they can be side-by-side and lies and BS can be exploded. I bet the nation would tune into something as heated as that and they could become educated and activated to pressure their Senators and Reps as a dividend.
AdLib, I think I could make a suggestion as to who would be a great spokesman for sanity. Here’s Mike Thompson’s response to the NRA:
Excellent point, Kes! This is the same thinking that has forced all of us to take off our shoes at airports, trying to address a previous attack instead of anticipating the next one.
So while billions would be spent placing policemen at schools where they would not be stopping crimes that are going on each day, they won’t be at the mall, the amusement park, the park or wherever the next mass murderer appears.
The NRA wants an America drowning in guns and every proposal of theirs is intended to make the worship and predominance of guns, greater and greater.
They are terrorists, IMO. That’s all they deal in, using terror to advance their deadly agenda.
Ad, you know what would be too funny? Joe Scarborough, who (I think for ratings) has espoused gun control, should debate Wayne LaPierre! Watching Joe steer through that wreckage would be terrific!
This feels so sadistic, but if the shootings of southern/southwestern law and justice officials continue, the gun control discussion escalates into a much better discussion that wipes out the government haters and the anti gun control advocates. The growing prepper movement, the militia–re Tim McVeigh,the survivalists, and these growing cartels seeping over our borders and the Aryan Brotherhood all speak to our absurd position on the 2nd amendment which even our Supreme Court most likely would not support at these levels.
We seem still to be these people: “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” – Winston Churchill.
I’m truly sorry we need extremes but if so, then let’s get on with it instead of these children, wives and other innocents being killed daily.
Damn it! I thought I had come up with a ridiculous parody for April’s Fools Day and wouldn’t you know that some mentally disturbed Republicans in GA would prove it to be a true story? This just appeared on our news widget:
http://news.yahoo.com/georgia-town-passes-law-requiring-residents-own-guns-023241647.html
Lucky for them I didn’t write about the Republicans choosing a racist and misogynist baboon as their Presidential Nominee in 2016. Uh oh…
Ha Ad, I was just about to post that article. I had heard this from gun nuts awhile back, but didn’t believe. Amazing huh?
They say they won’t enforce the law. OK then, why bother to make it a law then? I guess they’re trying this as a preventative scare tactic. What fools.
Ad, did you see my post about your April fools joke.
I gave you a link, too.
Hey Nirek, yes that’s the story I posted above. It came out after I posted this so I was kind of whiplashed to see that a city version of my satire was actually adopted as law!
How far can things go in this country until the people supporting these crazy extremists say, “That’s too extreme for me”?
They actually have put themselves in a place that is beyond parody, AdLib. And beyond rationality… And sanity… And…etc., etc….
Who didn’t see this coming? What’s next? Forcing all Americans to learn Spanish? Reversing the pay structure for all corporations so the receptionist has an off shore bank account and the CEO qualifies for food stamps? Losing our right to choose making abortion impossible to obtain legally? Oh, wait, that is happening. Sorry, I strayed too far…
Happy April Fools Day, Takeinaplay and nice to see you!
Indeed, it is challenging to think of a preposterous infringement on the rights of Americans without nailing an actual item on the Republican wish list!
Only on April Fool’s Day can I construct a nightmare game of “one of these things is not like the other”. Normally all of the scenarios I mentioned would be too far fetched to pass muster, even on April Fool’s Day. However, in the current political environment all bets are off.
Ad Lib, this was the best AFD story I’ve heard since the NPR broadcast about people getting surgery on their eyes so they can see 3D movies without needing special glasses. Even though everyone seemed to get that you were pulling one on us, I was impressed at the effort. Nicely done!
Oh crap, I’ve got to come up with a thousand dollars! Better yet I will come up with a thousand pounds of my dogs’ crap and deliver that to the Republican House of Representatives. Won’t take long to get enough either!
April Fools! To some of us that is just one day out of the year but too many celebrate it all year round. Guess who?
Sally, I think the GOP is truly from Bizarro World, for them, April’s Fools Day is the one day of the year they don’t say completely asinine things or pass insane laws, the other 364 days of the year…
Good one Adlib. But you know what? It is not far from the truth.
Thanks Sue! That’s what makes for a good April’s Fools Day prank, coming up with something so outrageous…the GOP is wholly capable of proposing it next month.
I think I smell an April Fool’s joke here! 😉
You have a great sniffer, KT! Happy April Fools Day to you!
Is there no end to the ignorance of some of these GOPers?
Happy April Fools Day, Nirek!
Good joke, Ad. You got me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/01/nelson-georgia-family-protection-ordinance_n_2995657.html
Now read this and see why I posted the ignorance statement.