Holy Sh*t

Link.

Rock on, La Pierre!

I spent a good chunk of the morning cooling my hebilels at Best Buy while a pleasant and seemingly intelligent techie failed to solve my problem (they didn't charge me).  What with all the distractions, I found I couldn't do much except thumb through my Twitter feed.  Which meant that I experienced the full force of the Twitterstorm against the notorious Wayne LaPierre and his almost comically ill-timed speech blaming gun death on, well on everybody except Wayne LaPierre.

Honestly, it was a bit like watching a swarm of live bees.  For example  (some are RTs):

BillmonL, The NRA bans guns at its National Meeting....crazy, but not suicidal.  Robert Reich, NRA will soon recommend we arm every child.  Bruce Bartlett, Columbine had an armed guard at school.   John Fugelsang (who?),There's only one reason you'll need 30 rounds for hunting and it's Zombie Deer (sic--30 rounds stops a zombie?).   Jamison Foser (who?),  Every teacher should keep a bag of cobras under their desk.  Daniel Drezner (quoting), "Once you start shooting in a classroom, somebody's gonna get hurt."Ana Marie Cox, LaPierre's finger-pops of insanity: my new thing.  Harry Shearer, Skip the guards.  Just arm the kids.   A certain Wayne LaPierreanoid (possibly a psuedonym?), If you see anyone who u suspect is mentally ill, please report their location to the #NRAhotline.  If they start moving away, u know what to do. Barry Ritholtz; JACKASS CONTEST OF THE YEAR ENDS IN A BLOWOUT VICTORY.

Finally, @jackshafer counsels us to "check out the last 48 minutes of @DavidFrum's twitter feed."  I think he means "we need a federal agent at every marriage proposal...country & western concert...Hallowe'en party...cancer hospital... teen birthday party.... gun range...high school prom...muffler shop ... library ... zoo ... Dunkin' Donuts ... hospital ... Christian college ... dog groomer ... dental clinic .,. yacht club ... swimming pool ... in every taxicab ... we need a federal agent to protect every little girl with a stupid relative."    There are more, but perhaps you get the drift.

But Nothing to do with G*ns, Right?

Firt up on my Flipboard this morning: an Onion headline, the one that reads:

Nation Celebrates Full Week Without Deadly Mass Shooting

Next up: an early report on the Times Square outburst. Next: a story on how there were 19 shootings in Chicago last night.

"Maybe they should have said 'a full day," observed Mrs. Buce.  "Or 'an hour.'"

Gun Violence: Some Context

Back to back in my Google reader tonight, two good posts on the declining (sic) incidence of violence, particularly gun violence, in the  United States.  Read first Patrick J. Egan, and then Kieran Healy.  For more perspective, here's Harold Pollack, recounting how he tracked 200 consecutive  homicides in Illinois in 2005.

Tom Coburn: Gun-control Moderate

Sen. Tom Coburn is catching flac for having said "It's just a good thing I can't pack a gun on the Senate floor," as if there was something inflammatory (or explosive?) about that kind of talk.   No flac from me.  No; I'm impresssed that Coburn has done something that the serious gun nuts will never do, ever.  He's actually acknowledged that there may be some limit to second-amendment rights.

I have often wondered how far the "arms" part of the "right to bear arms" extends.  The proton pack?  Slimerizer?  A fully configured nuclear submarine?  I don't recall that I've ever heard the gun nuts ever admit to any limit of any sort.   It's a bit like the Republicans who won't entertain the possibility of a ten-to-one ratio of cuts to taxes.  You get the sense they'd say the same thing to 100 to one, or 1,000 to one or--anyway,  Coburn has done the unthinkable in suggesting as to weapons, there might actually be a limit.

Of course, Coburn didn't go so far as to say say that he actually approved of a limit on the packing of Senatorial heat.  And why should he?  Is there anything in the second amendment that that actually says a senator should not be allowed to carry his gat, his persuader, his rod, his piece into the chamber if he damn well pleases?

I suppose the nearest thing to a good argument you could advance is from pre-Constitutional tradition: as I recall the conventional definition of the "aisle" in a legislative chamber is that it should be wide enough that swords cannot reach across it.  I suppose we could adapt the same principle to modern times by letting the Republicans sit in Virginia, the Democrats in  Maryland.  Or, if we are using fully configured proton packs, maybe New Jersey.

Factoid: The Death of Children

I'm running around doing a bunch of other stuff today but here's a factoid on child death, from Aaron Carroll:

...in 2005, guns were were in involved in almost 85% of homicides and more than 45% of suicides in children aged 5-19 years, not to mention many accidents.

I should add that gun safety is another one of those issues on which I am squishy wet. I know there are countries (e.g., Switzerland) with high gun availability and low gun crime, and places with (e.g., Mexico) with stiff gun laws and plenty of gun crime.

I do think that support for gun freedom is vastly overrated. It's another one of those issues where a small cabal of insiders have learned how to make themselves rich by scaring the hell out of everybody else.   Sadly, perhaps for related reasons, I suspect that a vast expansion of gun safety laws would not accomplish much of what proponents hope.

My cousin Peter, deceased, was an anti-gun guy who used to teach gun safety classes on the theory that if you're going to do it, at least do it right. Wish I knew what he could have added to this story.

And I do wonder what the intent of the Founding Fathers was with respect to proton packs.