Arizona Paranoia

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Last week I posted a piece entitled “The Lunatic Fringe” which was mildly critical of Arizona’s legislature, an elected body that seems to feel their only purpose for existing is to write legislation to make it easier for any miscreant to buy guns. (That was somewhat of an unfair characterization, because the legislature also expends energy trying to find ways to lower business taxes and taxes on the rich – and to find ways of harassing anyone who had the audacity to be born brown!) But providing the public with easy access to firearms remains the legislature’s top priority.

As mentioned in “The Lunatic Fringe,” our state legislature is in the process of passing a bill that would eliminate the requirement for people to have permits in order to carry concealed weapons. One legislator even referred to the ability to walk around armed as a “God-given right.” (The “lunatic” in the piece was a murderess and vigilante - and child killer - named Shawna Forde, but, for my money, the legislator who got her right to carry directly from God is also qualified to be in Shawna’s good company.)

The reason I dredge up this post from last week is that it generated an interesting response from an anonymous reader. The reader felt that the bill to eliminate the need for permits was some sort of plot. Basically it would result in increased crime, thereby giving the government an excuse to come kicking in doors and confiscating the guns of private citizens.

Can you say paranoid and delusional? The legislature hands the fringe a gift, and their first response is to shoot it!

The National Rifle Association, which boasts of zillions of citizen members but is primarily funded by gun manufacturers, profits by keeping the paranoids stirred up – and their public enemy number one is, of course, our federal government. Former President George H.W. Bush (the sensible Bush) angrily resigned from the NRA in 1994 because the organization had referred to federal agents in one of its mailings as “jackbooted government thugs.”

Now the unofficial NRA banter is that “Obama wants to take your guns away.” Never mind that there is absolutely nothing to back that statement up, it still stirs the rabble and sells guns and ammo – lots and lots of guns and ammo! Wayne La Pierre, the executive director of the NRA, undoubtedly fell to his knees and thanked the ghost of Charlton Heston when Obama was elected! Demonizing a black, liberal Democrat to an army of knuckle-draggers has been a piece of cake for his propaganda machine. NRA board member and rocker Ted Nugent is probably hitting notes that he only dreamed of before! Obama makes a much scarier boogey man than John McCain ever could have been.

Related Factoid: An article in this morning’s Drudge Report entitled “Federal Agents Hunt for Guns One House at a Time,” which discussed the flood of U.S. arms into Mexico, noted that “Mexican officials in 2008 asked federal agents to trace the origins of more than 7,500 firearms recovered at crime scenes in Mexico. Most of them were traced back to Texas, California, and Arizona.”

Gotta love the buffoons in the Arizona State Legislature - surely each and every one proudly carries an NRA membership card!

The Deadly Lunatic Fringe

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

There is an awful story out of Arizona that has made its way into the national news. A forty-one-year-old barfly named Shawna Forde and two male accomplices dressed up as federal agents a couple of weeks ago and forced their way into the home of an immigrant family whom they suspected were involved in illegal drug trafficking. They weren't out to to make a citizen's arrest and clean up the drug trade, rather, they were looking for the male resident's purported stash of drug money to help Ms. Forde fund her vigilante group, the Minutemen American Defense. When the male resident (father) questioned why one of the "federal agent's" gun had tape on the handle, he was shot and killed. Before the smoke cleared, the man's nine-year-old daughter was also dead, her mother seriously wounded, and one of Forde's gang wounded.

Shawna Forde, a recent transplant to Arizona from the state of Washington, had been a member of the better known (and larger) Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, but that organization had booted her because of her bizarre behavior. She then formed her own group, and appears to have been funding it through robberies. Forde liked to proclaim that groups like hers were necessary because the government wasn't doing its job of protecting our border with Mexico.

A nine-year-old girl and her father were killed so that Shawna Forde and her drinking buddies could go out and help the government enforce the law.

Granted, every state in the union has some lunatics, many of whom have a strong racist of nativist bent, but poor, parched Arizona seems to get far more than its share. That phenomenon is due in part to the long border that Arizona shares with Mexico, and most certainly is also a product of the state's obsession with firearms.

A bill quickly making its way through the Arizona legislature would do away with the need for permits to carry a concealed weapon. That would also kill the need for special firearms training that had been required before a person could get a permit. One state senator referred to the "God-given right" to carry weapons without having to get any type of special permission from the government. Not only will this bill result in more unstable people being armed, it will also impact the state's spiraling budget crisis because training fees and permit fees for carrying concealed weapons will be lost. The bill is a loser on every level - and it is certain to pass with ease.

There is a second bill in the legislature that also seems destined for passage. The one will prevent property owners, tenants, employers, and businesses from prohibiting the storage or transport of lawfully possessed firearms in locked and privately-owned vehicles parked in a parking lot, parking garage, or other designated parking area. The concept of private property be damned - the "God-given: right to be armed trumps everything! (Actually, this bill may help to conserve energy. Now when a disgruntled employee wants to get even with the boss or his co-workers, he won't have to drive all the way home to get his guns!)

In fact, the primary purpose of the current Arizona legislature is to craft bills eliminating all manner of restrictions and controls on gun ownership. Arizona is well on its way to becoming a haven for every Shawna Forde in America.

There was a poll at CNN.com this morning on the question: Should people on US terrorist watch list be allowed to buy guns? Unbelievably, 11% of respondents (36,004) stated that they should!

Is America nuts, or is it just me?