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 NRA Rides Again!

by Pa Rock
Outraged Citizen

Most third graders know the score when it comes to the violence spilling out of Mexico. There is a huge market for their illegal drugs in the United States, and that market creates enormous amounts of cash. The drug cartels of Mexico are fighting each other to control the drug trade and to rake in all of that easy gringo money. One of the things that they spend their ill-gotten wealth on is guns so that they can keep fighting and killing each other - as well as innocent bystanders on both sides of the border.

And where do they get those guns? Why, from the gun-craziest country in the world, the United States of America.

So, here's the flowchart: illegal drugs go north, money goes south, money goes back north to buy guns, guns go south, and death spreads exponentially. Of course it's that simple - ask any third grader!

President Obama has it figured out. He said we are going to disrupt the flow of drugs heading north and cripple the flow of guns making their way south. The Department of Homeland Security will begin to focus on both ends of the illegal traffic. It's a good plan, and it's about time! Ask any third grader.

But the NRA and its head tool, Wayne LaPierre, don't see it that way. Wayne's first big lie is that the Mexicans are being armed by other countries and not by God's chosen gun-toting (and gun-peddling) Americans. He also sees this sudden move by our government to protect its citizens as some sinister forerunner to gun control. Ask any third grader and he will tell you that ole Wayne is full of horseshit.

The primary constituent and funder of the National Rifle Association is, was, and always will be the gun manufacturers - and those boys want to see every human on the planet armed to the teeth with everything from little derringers to fully automatic assault weapons. It's marketing. It's evil marketing.

More guns do not make anyone safer. More guns equal more danger. Ask any third grader, or ask any parent of a child who died from being curious about a gun he or she came across in their home - a gun that had been purchased to make the home a safer place for the family to live.

The National Rifle Association wants to protect its Mexican gun market - but at what cost? It's not about constitutional rights, it's not about protection. It's about profits, plain and simple. Ask any sentinent being.

The Killing Rage

by Pa Rock
Social Commentator

Two weeks ago four policemen were murdered by an unemployed parolee in Oakland, California. Yesterday thirteen people were shot and killed by a fellow who had just lost his job in Binghamton, New York. And today in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, three policemen were gunned down and two others seriously wounded by a paranoid young man who believed President Obama was going to take his guns away.

It would be a cheap shot to note all of that violent death and surmise that America is going nuts. The sad truth is, that when it comes to our guns, this country has been nuts for a very long time.

The National Rifle Association, a tool of gun manufacturers, and its mouthpiece, Wayne LaPierre, have been stirring the rabble for years with tales of jackbooted police officers and liberal politicians kicking in the doors of honest citizens and trying to take away their guns. They intentionally keep the paranoia raging because that sells guns. Any sensible legislation that tries to place some controls on who can own what types of guns is shouted down as being un-American. And not only have gun manufactures and distributors blanketed America with their deadly insanity, they have now targeted Mexico and are complicit in arming the drug cartels.

This morning Roland Poplawski, a twenty-three-year-old young man in Pittsburgh, PA, opened fire on several policemen with his AK 47 assault rifle. Wayne LaPierre, or Glenn Beck, or Bill O'Reilly, or Sean Hannity, or Karl Rove, or Ann Coulter, or some other great talker had convinced him that President Obama was going to take his guns away. What a shame that somebody hadn't taken them away - three families wouldn't be grieving tonight if that had happened.

Roland, did you really need those guns in your quiet neighborhood? President Obama wasn't going to get your guns. Those people lied to you. But the state of Pennsylvania did get your guns, and now you will never get them back. You didn't need them where you were living, but you will sorely regret not having them where you are going.