Illinois gun show bans the selling of AR-15's.

Courtesy of WaPo:

It looked like many other small weekend shows across America: folding tables covered with handguns, rifles, parts, ammunition and war mementos, including helmets, patches, pistols and even vintage Nazi memorabilia. 

But no AR-15s. 

Organizers halted an advertised raffle that would have awarded an AR-15 to the winner, and vendors were told they would not be allowed to sell the weapon at the monthly show. 

Frank Cesare — of the Pioneer Valley Sportsman’s Association, which has hosted the show for more than 40 years — said the decision followed complaints the group received after the Parkland shooting and as gun-control advocates planned to protest. 

“We did the ban to try to calm the situation down and show them we are willing to work with them,” he said, referring to the protesters. 

Cesare said that the ban on AR-15s also would remain in place for April’s show and that the club is “waiting to see” what the mood is like before deciding on shows later in the year. But the move has forced the club into the gun culture war that has gained new energy across the United States since Parkland.

It may be a small gesture, and perhaps only a temporary one, but it is still more than we have seen in response to past mass shootings in this country.

And I have to say that if the Parkland students have their way this will certainly NOT be temporary, and it will only be the beginning. 

My confidence in their abilities grows by the day.

So this happened on Wednesday.

Worshippers clutching AR-15 rifles and some wearing bullet crowns, participated in a commitment ceremony today at World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, in Newfoundland, Pa. The event led a nearby school to cancel classes for the day. Photos @jacquelinelarma pic.twitter.com/GXzrZeK41z

— AP Images (@AP_Images) February 28, 2018

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

Women dressed in white and men in dark suits gripped the guns, which they had been urged to bring unloaded to the church in the rural Pocono Mountains, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Philadelphia. Many celebrants wore crowns – some made of bullets – while church officials dressed in flowing bright pink and white garments to go with their armaments. 

A spokesman for the church, now headed by the Reverend Hyung Jin Moon after the death of his father and church founder, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, said the marriage blessing ceremony had been planned long before a man with an AR-15 massacred 17 students and school staff in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14. 

Students from an elementary school near the church were relocated for the day to distance them from the gun-toting couples at the ceremony, according to the Wallenpaupack School District website. 

Moon said in a statement that the staff of the Florida school should have been armed, an option President Donald Trump has said should be explored nationwide and which teacher unions have criticized.

Every once in awhile you see a story for which you almost cannot form the words to express your utter dismay.

This is one such story.

Cults are terrifying on their own.

But a cult that also exalts assault weapons, well that is just an entirely new level of terrifying.  

Radiologist explains the difference between an AR-15 and a handgun.

Courtesy of The Atlantic:  

As I opened the CT scan last week to read the next case, I was baffled. The history simply read “gunshot wound.” I have been a radiologist in one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation for 13 years, and have diagnosed thousands of handgun injuries to the brain, lung, liver, spleen, bowel, and other vital organs. I thought that I knew all that I needed to know about gunshot wounds, but the specific pattern of injury on my computer screen was one that I had seen only once before. 

In a typical handgun injury that I diagnose almost daily, a bullet leaves a laceration through an organ like the liver. To a radiologist, it appears as a linear, thin, grey bullet track through the organ. There may be bleeding and some bullet fragments. 

I was looking at a CT scan of one of the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who had been brought to the trauma center during my call shift. The organ looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgehammer, with extensive bleeding. How could a gunshot wound have caused this much damage? 

The reaction in the emergency room was the same. One of the trauma surgeons opened a young victim in the operating room, and found only shreds of the organ that had been hit by a bullet from an AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle which delivers a devastatingly lethal, high-velocity bullet to the victim. There was nothing left to repair, and utterly, devastatingly, nothing that could be done to fix the problem. The injury was fatal.

The doctor goes on to explain that the higher velocity of the Ar-15 bullets allows them to essentially rip through the human body and obliterate internal organs, and even cause enough damage that a victim can bleed out quickly even if no major arteries are damaged. 

In short though both a handgun and an assault rifle are designed to kill human beings, however an AR-15 is designed to ensure the death of its victims even if they receive prompts medical care.

So why in the hell would that weapon be available to individuals NOT entering a war zone?

Yet another school shooting, this time in Florida, which left at least 17 dead. It just never stops.

That is footage from inside a classroom in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

These are sombody's babies hiding behind desks and screaming in terror as they listen to their schoolmates being slaughtered right outside their room.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

At least 17 people were killed when a teen opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle at a high school in Parkland, Florida, on Wednesday afternoon, officials said. 

Fourteen others were wounded, five of whom suffering life-threatening injuries, hospital officials said. 

Authorities said the suspect, identified as 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, concealed himself in the crowd fleeing Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He was arrested in nearby Coral Springs and later charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

Cruz had recently been expelled from Douglas for disciplinary reasons and was enrolled elsewhere in the district, Broward County schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said. He took an Uber to campus on Wednesday, Runcie told NBC News.

The gunman was believed to have been armed with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle and multiple magazines, said Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel. It was unclear whether he had any other weapons, Israel said.

It's always an AR-15 in these school shootings, isn't it? 

That seems to be the weapon of choice for those who want to gun down innocent children in a school.

This is the eighteenth school shooting this year, and it is only February!

As was pointed out earlier THIS ONLY HAPPENS IN AMERICA.

We are the only place in the world where this happens with any kind of frequency, if at all.

And yet we refuse to do what is clearly necessary to stop all of this, and protect our citizens.

We cannot EVER call ourselves the greatest nation on earth if we cannot even protect our children while they are in school. Period!

Pizzagate gunman says "intel on this was not 100 percent." Gee, ya think?

Courtesy of ABC News: 

Three days after Edgar Maddison Welch allegedly opened fire in a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant, he spoke to The New York Times about the conspiracy known as “Pizzagate” and his intentions this past weekend. 

On Sunday, Welch told the Times, he drove 350 miles from his home in North Carolina to Washington, D.C., in order to look into claims -- proven to be fictitious -- that Comet Ping Pong, a restaurant in the capital, housed a child slavery ring. 

After entering the restaurant with an AR-15-style rifle and a .38 caliber handgun, firing at least one shot, and finding no evidence to corroborate the allegations he came to investigate, Welch surrendered to police, according to court documents.

Welch claims that he came armed to "to help rescue" the children he was sure were being held captive based on conspiracy theories he read online.

When he arrived and found no captive children I guess he just fired his gun out of.....frustration?

(I mean he brought it 350 miles. What is he going to do, not shoot it?)

Welch also had this to say:

“The intel on this wasn’t 100 percent,” Welch told the Times. “I regret how I handled the situation.”

Well there's an understatement for ya.

The gunman also added that he recently became very religious (Aha!) and that he still did not dismiss the claims made against the pizza joint and the DNC completely.

That is the real danger of fake news sites, and those who purposeful spread conspiracy theories, it is quite easy to plant a false narrative, much more difficult to correct it.

North Carolina gun rights group raffling off picture of Hillary Clinton with AR-15 and 1,000 rounds ammunition. WCGW?

And you wonder why we're pushing for stricter gun control legislation.

Courtesy of TPM: 

A North Carolina gun rights group is raffling off an AR-15, 1,000 rounds of ammunition and a portrait of Hillary Clinton to raise money for Republican congressional candidates, CBS News reported Thursday. 

In a post announcing the “Hillary Clinton Special,” Grass Roots North Carolina Treasurer Grant Gardner jokes that “what you do with the picture is between you and Hillary.” 

“We won’t tell you what to do with the photo, but when we ran a picture of Hillary on the front of our newsletter, we heard it was very popular at the range,” Gardner added.

That's right let's arm gun nuts and then encourage them to get used to shooting at the next President of the United States. 

Not exactly making a case for responsible gun ownership are they?

Colorado roofing company giving away AR-15's with each new roof.

Yes this image is on the home page of Weatherproof Roofing. NO I am not kidding. 

Courtesy of KRDO:

A roofing company in Castle Rock is offering a unique incentive to go through them to get your roof fixed. 

WeatherProof Roofing has begun a “Get a Roof, Get a Gun” promotion. 

Owner James Webb is giving out AR 15s to customers who choose services from WeatherProof Roofing. 

"We are the only roofing company in the country that is offering this. We figured we’d take a stand on what we believe," said Webb.

You know somehow celebrating having a new roof by receiving a gift which might require replacing it again seems a little odd to me.

I mean giving somebody an assault weapon is not like giving away a free toaster or coupons for a carwash to promote your company.

What happens if one of these customers gets drunk and starts shooting their promotional gift at cars driving by on the street, or finally gets fed up with the wife and decides that they know just the thing to finally shut her up?

Is the company legally at fault in a case like that?

Well of course not. This is America, where everybody deserves a chicken in every pot, an AR-15 in every gun rack, and a bullet in every intruder, barking dog, or nagging spouse.

These guys are just nonchalantly walking around the streets outside of the Republican convention.

Courtesy of Salon: 

A dozen armed white men marched around outside the Republican National Convention in downtown Cleveland on Monday afternoon. 

Salon spoke with the men, who call themselves the West Ohio Minutemen. 

Tim Alexander, 32, identified the group as a right-wing “militia,” and said they are from Mercer County, Ohio. 

“We’re tired of the way the country’s going,” Alexander explained. 

He condemned “the over-reaching government.” When asked what he meant by that, Alexander claimed that the U.S. government is using mass shootings to impose harsh gun control measures — although none have yet been passed. 

Alexander said he opposes all gun laws.

When asked what they do, they claimed that they "help people," and apparently they do so with the AR-15's, AK-47's and G3 assault rifles strapped to their chests.

How we have reached day three of this convention without anybody being shot or killed, is beyond me.

But if I had to guess I would attribute that to the incredible police presence.

The police even managed to rescue Alex Jones after he attempted to create a conflict with the other protesters and almost got his ass kicked.

Personally I might have actually allowed that to happen.

Guess that's why I'm not a cop.

Yet another mass shooting. This time in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Courtesy of CBS News: 

Four people are dead, including a suspected gunman, following a shooting spree in Colorado Springs on Saturday. 

Lt. Catherine Buckley says officers were responding to a report of shots being fired when they spotted a suspect matching the description of the person they were trying to find. Buckley says the suspect opened fire, and police fired back. 

CBS affiliate KKTV reported police were originally called to North Prospect Street at 8:45 a.m. on reports of gunshots. They found a deceased man sprawled on the side of the street, his backpack still on his back. 

Multiple witnesses told KKTV the suspect went on a shooting rampage in the minutes leading up to the gun battle with police outside a Wendy's. 

"I looked out my kitchen window and I saw a man in a green jacket firing an AR-15...waited a few seconds, went out my house, looked to my left and saw a man down the street, probably 50 feet. I started calling him and I called the cops," witness Matt Abshire told The Colorado Springs Gazette.

Mr. Abshire followed the suspect, reporting his location to the police and watching helplessly as he shot and killed two more victims.

Ultimately the police caught up with the suspect and he died in a hail of gunfire:  

Alisha Jaynes told KKTV she was at an ATM when she saw a man with a gun walking calmly down the street. 

"They yelled, 'Put the gun down,' and he turned around, and that's when they shot at him a good 20 times," she said. "There was a lot of gunfire.

Police say that there were three people shot and killed by the man, and then of course he lost his own life when he failed to respond to police commands to drop his weapon. 

Just another day, and another senseless shooting, in the "greatest nation on earth."

Hey remember that guy who is heading up the most recent Benghazi investigation? Yeah, well the Washington police would like to have a word with him.

.@TGowdySC stopped by today and we got a photo with my AR-15 #2A #SecondAmendment @TPPatriots @TeaPartyExpress pic.twitter.com/FhnAlyqTeW
— Congressman Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) April 16, 2015

Courtesy of The Hill:  

Police in Washington, D.C., have been referred materials for a possible investigation into two Republican congressmen who posed for a picture with an assault rifle in a House office building. 

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) last week tweeted a picture of himself and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the leader of the House's Benghazi investigation, holding an AR-15. 

Having the AR-15 in the District could be a violation of the city’s strict gun laws, and the city attorney general’s office has referred the matter to police, a spokesman told The Hill. 

"The matter has been referred to the Metropolitan Police Department for further investigation,” he said. 

Buck said in the tweet the assault rifle is his and the picture was taken after Gowdy “stopped by.”

According to Rep. Buck the gun is inoperable, and is really only a "beautiful, patriotic, paperweight."

A useless thing that keeps bills from moving through Congress? That sounds like every teabagging Republican in the House to me.

I seriously doubt anything will happen. After all these are Congressmen and nobody expects them to understand the law.

However I finally did put two and two together and figured out why Trey Gowdy looks so familiar.

I always wondered what happened to that kid from Deliverance.

The families of nine Sandy hook victims sue the estate of Adam Lanza's mother.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:

The families of nine people killed in the Newtown elementary school shooting have filed lawsuits against the estate of the gunman's mother. 

The lawsuits allege that Nancy Lanza incorrectly secured her legally owned Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, which her troubled adult son, Adam Lanza, used to kill 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, the Connecticut Post reported Friday. 

Adam Lanza killed his mother at their Newtown home before carrying out the school shooting and committing suicide as police arrived. 

The lawsuits seek to collect on Nancy Lanza's homeowner's insurance, the Connecticut Post reported. Bridgeport lawyer Josh Koskoff, representing eight of the families suing, said homeowner's insurance applies when a person is injured as a result of an unsecured firearm in a home being accessed by a third party. 

'With this many claimants, the money ends up being a symbolic gesture, but it serves as an important reminder that people who keep firearms in the home must be scrupulous about securing their weapons,' Koskoff said in a statement, adding that the policy is estimated to be worth between $1 million and $1.5 million. 

I am not usually a huge fan of lawsuits but anything that might help convince gun owners to keep their guns out of the hands of those who might use them to do harm is a good idea in my book.

Koskoff is also suing, on behalf of these families, the manufacturer of the Bushmaster AR-15 that Lanza used during his killing spree as well. It will likely not do anything to stop them from manufacturing them, but once again somebody needs to do something.

Of all of the things that will haunt me for the remainder of my days, the fact that we as a nation were unable to respond in an aggressive manner with new gun control legislation in the wake of this massacre is one I will never find peace with.

If the murder of 20 innocent children was not enough to bring common sense to our gun laws, then clearly nothing ever will.

For a mere $1,200.00 Ammosexuals can now make their own AR-15s at home with no government oversight, or regulation whatsoever. Oh, that's not a good thing.

California State Senator Kevin de Leon holding what he calls a "ghost gun."

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

A gun rights advocate has invented a 3-D printer that will allow amateur gunsmiths to create AR-15 assault rifles without serial numbers or the hassle of a background check, WIRED reports. 

Earlier this year, Cody Wilson demonstrated that anyone could use a 3-D printer to print a gun. 

“If 3-D printing means anything, if the digital revolution and 3-D printing revolution have any interesting terminus, it’s because we will all have access to greater means of production — just like these cameras and computers that we have enable us to become cultural producers outside of the monopoly schemes of the legacy players, so too with material things, and that must, of course, include guns,” Wilson told We Are Change. 

“To not think that it included guns, to be surprised by that, means that you’re just kind of drinking the Kool-Aid,” he added. 

According to Wired, his new project in DIY gunsmithing is even more ambitious — now, he is using a PC-connected milling machine, dubbed “the Ghost Gunner,” to print the component of an AR-15 rifle called the “lower receiver.” 

The lower receiver is the most heavily regulated component of the AR-15, as it is the body of the gun that connects all of the assault rifle’s other parts. For $1,200, Wilson’s company, Defense Distributed, will sell anyone a computer-numerically-controlled mill that will allow them to print the lower receiver. 

They can then purchase the other, less relegated elements of the AR-15 — such as the stock, magazine, and barrel — from online gun shops and create a fully functional automatic weapon that contains no serial number and required no background check. Such weapons are sometimes referred to as “ghost guns” — hence, the name of Wilson’s mill.

So essentially this technology allows individuals who really do not want anybody to know which weapons they have, or how many, to simply manufacture them on their own.

And gee which sort of individual might find that idea REALLY attractive?

Honest, upstanding citizens who only want to take the weapons to the firing range on Sundays to express their God given 2nd Amendment rights?

Or perhaps nefarious individuals who would like access to weapons that cannot be traced forensically back to a buyer, gun shop, or manufacturer?

Yeah, I am going to guess the latter.

Federal judge upholds Maryland gun laws. Oh this is certainly going to give Wayne LaPierre a bad case of the vapors.

Courtesy of the Washington Times:  

A federal judge has upheld a package of strict firearms regulations that went into effect in Maryland last year. 

In a 47-page opinion issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake said the law “seeks to address a serious risk of harm to law enforcement officers and the public from the greater power to injure and kill presented by assault weapons and large capacity magazines.” 

Judge Blake, appointed by President Clinton, agreed with lawyers for the state, who held that assault weapons and large-capacity magazines “fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual arms.” She also pointed out that the plaintiffs could not produce a single example in which an assault weapon or more than 10 rounds of ammunition were “used or useful” in an instance of self-defense in Maryland. 

The opinion cites statistics showing that ownership of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines is comparatively rare and yet they are “disproportionately represented in mass shootings” as well as the murders of law-enforcement personnel. 

“Upon review of all the parties’ evidence, the court seriously doubts that the banned assault long guns are commonly possessed for lawful purposes, particularly self-defense in the home, which is at the core of the Second Amendment right, and is inclined to find the weapons fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual,” Judge Blake wrote. 

Hard to disagree with this decision. Unless of course you are an Ammosexual who thinks that having a military style weapon is the only way that you can express your manliness.

I have to imagine that the NRA is going to drop a load of ammunition in their pants over this on.

Police officers brings AR-15 to elementary school. Child does what children do. And rifle does what rifles do. Three injured.

Courtesy of ABC News:  

Authorities are investigating after an accidental discharge of a weapon at an elementary school in Chino Wednesday morning. 

The incident happened at an outdoor assembly recognizing "Red Ribbon Week" at Newman Elementary School in Chino. 

Police said a student approached a police motorcycle that was on display and pulled the trigger of an AR-15 rifle that was locked into a weapons mount on the side of the motorcycle. The rifle was never removed from the mounting device. 

Police say two boys suffered minor injuries when they were struck by metal debris that came from the bullet disintegrating as it hit a metal plate where the barrel rests against the weapons mount. According to officials, that's meant to be a fail safe measure, which worked. 

A third student was assessed at the school and released to parents. 

"When I heard it, I heard a big bang," said 11-year-old Leo Castaneda. 

Castaneda says right before the gunshot, Chino police officers were hanging out with students as part of the drug prevention campaign activities. 

"The cops were playing with the kids...and giving out stickers and they weren't watching the armor, so the kid got hold of the gun and he shot it at the ground and he got startled by the noise and dropped it and started running through the field," said Castaneda. 

Police say they are trying to figure out how a young child was able to get access to the weapon. Many parents say they're just grateful no one was seriously injured or killed.

You know what might have been helpful here? More guns in this school.

Well, at least that is the position of a certain gun lobby.

I think this does a pretty good job of illustrating the insanity of the NRA's position that arming teachers and putting more guns into a school as a method for reducing school shootings.

The fact is that children are inquisitive creatures, which essentially is their job, and the lure of weaponry in their school will be almost impossible for them to resist. And no trained educator would expect them to do so.

If school districts nation wide were to take the NRA's recommendation that teachers in our public schools should be armed the obvious result would be an uptick in school shootings that would more than likely make what we have seen in the last twenty years seem insignificant by comparison.

There is a reason that parents childproof their home, and a school should be the safest possible environment for our children, and for the most part it is.

How about we keep it that way?

AR-15 stolen from house of North Carolina Congresswoman, and 2nd Amendment advocate, Renee Ellmers. I am sure the person who took it will only use it to promote freedom, right?

Courtesy of the Newsobserver:

U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers’ husband reported an AR-15 rifle stolen from the family’s home in Dunn last week, according to a police report. 

The weapon had been left leaning against a gun locker in an unlocked garage on Kingsway Drive, the report said. 

The rifle, a gun case and a GPS, with a cumulative value of $1,100, were reported stolen, according to Chief J.D. Pope. Police think the theft happened on the night of Oct. 15. 

“According to the report, they had been out target shooting and brought the gun back and leaned it against the gun safe,” Pope said. “ … The garage door was left unsecured, according to the report.” 

The case remains under investigation and likely will be treated as a burglary, he said. Ellmers’ husband, Brent Ellmers, was listed as the victim, Pope said. 

As you have probably already guessed Ellmers received an endorsement from the NRA back in 2010, and of course has voted against any silly bills that might impede a patriotic citizen from getting their hands on military style weapons, and even spoke out about President Obama's desire to introduce some reasonable restrictions: 

"President Obama is once again exploiting a tragedy for political gain and eroding our constitutional rights for the sake of an extreme liberal agenda. We need to have a serious discussion on how we can prevent troubled individuals from carrying out their insane intentions. But attacking our legal rights and liberties through abusive executive orders destroys the very principles that have protected our citizens from oppressive government power for over 236 years."

So EVERYBODY in the country has the right to own a gun in Rep. Ellmers opinion. Unless of course they are a troubled individual with "insane intentions."

Hmm, I wonder what the mental condition is of the person now in possession of her family's AR-15? Kind of too late to evaluate that now isn't it?

Perhaps somebody should have told Rep. Ellmers that the only thing that REALLY stops a bad guy with a gun, is somebody keeping him from getting that gun in the first place.

P.S. By the way can YOU guess who endorsed Ellmers back in 2010? I betcha can!