Wednesday, December 26, 2012

"Only Outlaws Will Have Guns"

By Carl

I'm starting to think that NRA bromide might not be such a bad thing:
WEBSTER – An ex-con killed two firefighters with the same caliber and make military-style rifle used in the Connecticut school massacre after typing a note pledging to burn down his neighborhood and “do what I like doing best, killing people,” police said Tuesday as another body, believed to be the gunman’s missing sister, was found. 
William Spengler, 62, who served 17 years in prison for manslaughter in the 1980 hammer slaying of his grandmother, set his house afire before dawn Christmas Eve before taking a revolver, a shotgun and a semiautomatic rifle to a sniper position outside, Police Chief Gerald Pickering said.

Now, here's the thing: Spengler should have been clearly ineligible to have weapons of any kind...after all, we live in a country where if you're an ex-con, you can be purged from voting rolls, even if your debt to society is completely paid.

It seems likely that Spengler, who spent 17 years in prison for bldugeoning his 92 year old grandmother to dead with a hammer, owned these weapons legally. He was off parole in 2006, presumably his "debt" being paid.

This is the world Wayne La Pierre and the fascists who are NRA members want you to live in. You have trouble voting. Felons can carry guns. It looks to me as if the only people who amass these kinds of weapons ARE outlaws, and the mere fact that you own any assault or semi-automatic weaponry ought to make you suspect in any kind of polite society.

Really, who needs a Bushmaster to hunt deer? I know those antlers can be pretty intimidating, but think of it as a giant hat rack and you should be fine shooting with your little Remington rifle. You are in no danger, and it's not like the fight is a fair one anyway.

La Pierre spoke last week of having a registry of the mentally unstable. For my part, he has a seed of that registry if he just lists his membership roles. Any sane person would have quit after his egregious press "conference" and subsequent appearance on Meet The Press Sunday.

But isn't it interesting that he'd rather have a government-compiled list of people's private medical information than a government-compiled list of weapons that will kill someone.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind)

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5 Comments:

  • I just believe assault weapons should NOT be carried around publicly. Our government doesn't allow its armed forces servicemen to carry assault weapons off military bases into civilian areas. Why are mostly untrained civilians with paranoia issues allowed to emerge from their personal properties without some type of warning to announce a possible public safety concern? Perhaps we as nation should require gun manufacturers to put safety mechanisms onto weapons like we have made the automobile, aircraft, boat, toy manufacturers to protect public safety. Embedding sensors into gun barrels (If a gun owner should try to render the sensor useless he would also destroy his guns capabilities) would allow guns to be monitored and warn officials if it enters a no gun zone like schools, factories, shopping centers isn't farfetched. All manufacturers of various types have had to find a way to address safety concerns because their product was fatal to innocent victims. The extra cost by the manufacturer would be absorbed by weapon buyers. Of course this IDEA would only work with newly manufactured weapons. I'm sure there is a intelligent whiz out there that could think of a way to put sensors in already manufactured weapons. There would be tough criminal charges doled to gun owners if their weapon is carried into a no gun zone.

    By Blogger ninewolfl, at 9:53 AM  

  • I doubt seriously that it was the NRA types that wanted people like Bill to have a weapon after being convicted of killing of his grandmother. More likely it was the bleeding heart liberals that would have lobbied for Bill to be treated just like any other citzen after completing his state sponsered rehabilitation. Wouldn't want to hurt his feelings by not trusting him to own a weapon. If NRA types had of had their way Bill would have never seen the outside of the prison after killing granny.

    By Blogger manapp99, at 11:14 AM  

  • The premise of your post is incorrect, because Spengler did not possess the guns legally. As a felon, he was forbidden by law to possess them, although obviously he obtained them despite gun laws forbidding him from having them. See this article, which refers to Spengler as " a felon who wasn’t allowed to possess weapons."

    By Anonymous blogreader, at 12:04 PM  

  • re:
    >>I doubt seriously that it was
    >>the NRA types that wanted people
    >>like Bill to have a weapon

    Really? You haven't talked to many NRA types then. Every one I've talked to is ferociously opposed to any and all gummint regulations regarding guns.

    re:
    >>More likely it was the bleeding
    >>heart liberals that would have
    >>lobbied for Bill to be treated
    >>just like any other citzen

    No, actually, we Liberals are strongly for justice. For example, we'd like to see the war criminals Bush and Cheney face trial at the Hague.

    By Blogger Marc McDonald, at 3:24 PM  

  • Don't forget Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and I would throw in Ollie North while we're at it.

    No, felons can't legally buy guns and falsifying documents to hide that you are a felon or under treatment for mental illness is in itself a felony.

    One point I have to make is that these semi-automatic weapons, shotguns, pistols and rifles are NOT, NOT, NOT military or "assault' weapons and differ from hunting or sporting weapons only in appearance and perhaps magazine capacity. Real military assault rifles are fully automatic machine guns or machine pistols and have been banned in the US since the 1930's. Effectively so, although Ted Nugent seems to have some special Mojo. These things fire one round for every seperate pull of the trigger --- bang, bang bang, not ratatatatat as they say in the comic books.

    I bring this up only in the interest of accuracy, of not giving the NRA types something to grab onto and because some are advocating a return to a ban that was jimmied and rigged so that hardly anything was banned. Only some weapons and magazines assembled offshore and made after a future date were banned. Everything else was grandfathered in and the stores and catalogs remained jammed to the rafters with AK-47s and others.

    We need to be careful as to what we are told is substantive gun control and that we don't get fooled again.

    By Blogger Capt. Fogg, at 1:01 PM  

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