Senator sent personal letter to a shooting victim's parent claiming to support background checks just days before he voted against them. Douchebag level: Senator.

Courtesy of Think Progress:

Shortly before the a crucial Senate vote to expand background checks in gun transactions, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) sent a letter to the mother of a shooting victim claiming that he was “truly sorry” for her son’s death and that “strengthening background checks is something we agree on.” A few days later, he voted to kill the background checks bill. 

Caren Teves’ son Alex died during the Aurora theater mass shooting while shielding his girlfriend from the gun man’s bullets. She wrote a letter to Sen. Flake, in which she “invited him to our home to sit in our son’s chair, his empty chair” and “feel the emptiness and have dinner with us and discuss” guns. In response, Flake sent Teves a hand-written letter claiming that he supported one of the most important steps Congress could take to improve gun safety — expanding background checks.

It's true! Here is the actual letter:

Flake used the excuse that the bill “would expand background checks far beyond commercial sales to include almost all private transfers — including between friends and neighbors.”

This pissed Mark Kelly, Gabby Giffords husband, off and he responded thusly:

Kelly said Flake is mistaken and the bill would not do what the senator says. 

“It appears he hasn’t read the bill,” Kelly said.

You know here is what I think,

If your last name is "Flake" you would think that you would do EVERYTHING in your power to be anything but a flake.  Good thing his last name wasn't "Rapist."

I have heard murmuring that perhaps Kelly might challenge Flake during his next bid for reelection. My only question is, can I donate money now?

"If there's just one thing we can do to keep one father from having to bury his child, isn't that worth fighting for?" President Obama's must see speech yesterday in Connecticut.

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I think the next time Chris Matthews suggests that President Obama has not taken the lead on trying to pass gun legislation somebody should slap him upside his head.

Colorado continues to lead the way with gun control legislation. Go Colorado!

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

A series of sweeping gun-control measures in Colorado is on track to hit the governor's desk by the end of the month, with Democratic committees in the Legislature advancing all the bills despite a Capitol packed with hundreds of opponents and surrounded by cars circling the Capitol blaring their horns. 

Gun limits including expanded background checks and ammunition magazine limits were helped Monday by testimony from the husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and victims of mass shootings in Connecticut and suburban Denver. 

Colorado has become a focus point in the national debate over what new laws, if any, are needed to prevent gun violence after recent mass shootings, including an attack at an Aurora movie theater last summer – a massacre that brought to mind the Columbine High School shooting of 1999 for many in the state and across the nation. 

The seven gun-control measures cleared their committees on 3-2 party-line votes and are planned for debate by the full Senate by Friday. Four of the seven have already cleared the House, making it possible some of them will land on the desk of Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper within weeks. 

"I think they'll all pass. I really do," said Democratic Senate President John Morse. "And I think they all should pass. I think any of them failing doesn't make Colorado as safe as we could make Colorado." 

Besides the blaring car horns, the gun nuts also decided to take to the skies to advertise their displeasure:

A biplane flying above the Capitol Monday warned the governor, "HICK: DO NOT TAKE OUR GUNS!" 

Yeah nothing has an impact on legislation like banners on biplanes, don't you agree?

I see Colorado as a sort of legislative "canary in the mine shaft." If these laws get passed here, there is a strong chance that others states will feel emboldened to pass them as well.

At least that is my hope.

Do you remember how right after the shootings at Sandy Hook we had so many Republicans coming out and attempting to shame the President and others for suggesting that they were using the tragedy for political reasons, and that it was "too soon to start talking about gun control?" 

That was because they well knew that the memories of the American people are sometimes brief, and that with the passing of time the outrage and pain would subside. They hoped that if they could just delay things long enough, while also pointing towards numerous other contributors to the violence like mental health and video games, they might help their NRA overlords escape the impact of stringent new gun control laws.

Fortunately, at least in Colorado, that did not work for them. Let's hope that with Colorado setting the example it will not work for them nationally either.

Mother of Aurora shooting victim upset with John McCain's reaction at town hall. Husband would like a few minutes alone with the Senator.

As reported yesterday, John McCain made some rather insensitive remarks to a woman who attended one of his town halls, essentially telling her that she needed some "straight talk" and that she would NOT get the assault ban she was hoping for.

The video of the exchange made McCain look like an insensitive douchebag, and his office is claiming that it was edited to make him look bad:  

"This is an obvious case of selective editing to distort what Senator McCain actually said at Wednesday's town hall meeting," Rogers said. "As Senator McCain clearly said, his heart goes out to Mrs. Teves and her family and he is committed to working with members of both parties to try and prevent another senseless tragedy. And as he also said, Arizonans who come to his town hall meetings deserve to hear Senator McCain's honest opinion about this or any other issue, and the truth is that an assault weapons ban won't pass this Congress because of opposition from both political parties."

However the woman in question is not ready to let McCain off the hook quite so easily: 

“I was very surprised that a senator, who has been in office for over 30 years, would address a grieving mother, who just lost her son exactly seven months prior — yesterday was the 20th, I lost my son on 7-20-2012 — to tell me that I needed ‘some straight talk,’” Caren Teves said by phone.

Clearly this woman does not feel that the Senator understood her pain nor  offered her any hope of getting something serious done about the gun violence that ended her son's life.

But while SHE was simply disappointed her husband was simply livid: “The Senator owes my wife an apology - he is lucky I wasn’t there,” Tom Teves wrote in an email to TPM late Thursday. “He was a ‘tough guy’ with a grieving Mom - that is not who I want leading my country! The sad fact is I used to have a great deal of respect for the Senator McCain, not anymore.”

Father of shooting victim not pleased with Senator McCain's response to his wife.

 You know Mr. Teves looks like a pretty healthy specimen, I am guessing that old man McCain might want to take pans NOT to piss him off.

Part of Mr. Teves anger at the Arizona Senator stems from a response he received from McCain's office to an earlier letter: 

Teves said her husband recently wrote McCain a letter addressing the Aurora shooting, which took the lives of their son and 11 other people. But she said McCain’s office responded with a impersonal form letter that focused on an an entirely different massacre: the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Neither McCain nor his staff approached her after the town hall event, she added. 

“I was surprised at that,” Teves said. “It takes a lot for me to just get out of bed every morning. I mean, this is still so new and so fresh, that my son was murdered. And I just expected a little more respect from someone who’s been in office over 30 years, and his staff. Between that and the form letter that we received, it’s just, it’s appalling.”

I guess the McCain camp might as well just go ahead and blame the response to their letter on "bad editing as well, right?

You know I have probably said this before, but it certainly bears repeating, "Fuck John McCain!"

Colorado, home of the deadly Aurora theater shooting, passes a number of strict gun control bills. Update!

Courtesy of MSN News:  

Lawmakers in Colorado, where a gunman burst into a theater last year for a deadly shooting, narrowly passed a handful of gun control bills, signaling a political shift under pressure from the White House. 

"Enough is enough. I'm sick and tired of bloodshed," said Democratic Rep. Rhonda Fields, who sponsored a state bill limiting the size of ammunition magazines. Fields, whose son was fatally shot in 2005, represents the district where the theater gunman opened fire. 

Vice President Joe Biden called some lawmakers personally before the vote. Democratic Rep. Dominick Moreno said the vice president "emphasized the importance of Colorado's role in shaping national policy around this issue." 

While the issue of gun control faces a difficult time in the U.S. Congress amid opposition from most Republicans and even some of President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats, some states are moving ahead with their own measures. New York state earlier this year passed some of the strictest gun control measures in the country. 

The Colorado gun control measures go next to the state Senate, where they'll need even more support against opposition from many Republicans. 

The state's Democratic-controlled House approved bills on ammunition restrictions; background checks on all gun purchases, including those between private sellers and firearms bought online; a ban on concealed firearms at colleges and stadiums; and a requirement that gun purchasers pay for their own background checks. The ammunition restrictions measure would limit magazines to 15 rounds for firearms, and eight for shotguns.

 As one can imagine the Republicans did their best to stop or slow the progress of these measures.

Republicans argued that the proposals restrict the right to bear firearms guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and that they won't prevent mass shootings like the ones in Colorado and December's attack at a Connecticut school. 

"This bill will never keep evil people from doing evil things," said Republican Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg. 

Republicans also said students should have the right to defend themselves. 

It makes sense that the first of the new strict gun control laws, except for New York of course, would come from the states that suffered the most tragic circumstances due to the lack of them.

Personally I feel that this is just the beginning, and that there are going to be many more states instituting their own restrictions in advance of the ones that the federal government is likely to hand down in the very near future.

Of course for every state that sees the writing on the wall and realizes what they must do, there is another that reacts in panic to the idea of new gun restrictions. Like my own state of Alaska for example:

A bill in the Alaska House that would criminalize federal gun regulation is on track to be scheduled for a vote. 

HB69, by House Speaker Mike Chenault, was moved from the House Judiciary Committee on Monday. 

The bill would make it a felony offense for federal officers to attempt to enforce any new federal laws that attempt to limit gun ownership in Alaska. 

The bill has garnered broad support among House Republicans and become a symbol in the fight against federal overreach. But a legislative attorney has said he believes much of the bill is unconstitutional. 

Just like a Republican from Alaska to decide to fight what he sees as an attack on the 2nd Amendment with his own unconstitutional bill. What was he suggesting? That our State Troopers arrest federal agents for enforcing federal laws?

And here I thought only those in the South were interested in fomenting a new civil war.

What this dipshit fails to recognize is that the mood in the country has shifted, and if a place like Colorado can implement new laws like this then so can many other states previously believed to be gun friendly.  One can only hope that it will not take too many more senseless deaths to convince the rest of the nation, that allowing everybody to own a gun with few restrictions is not the way to keep people safe.

Even in Alaska.

Update: It looks like Missouri refuses to let Alaska out crazy them.

Courtesy of the Business Insider:  

A state representative has proposed a bill that would make it a class D felony for any member of the General Assembly to propose legislation "that further restricts an individual's right to bear arms." 

The bill was sponsored by Republican Rep. Mike Leara. 

So they want to arrest lawmakers for making laws? Wow! Now that is a level of wing-nuttery that may set a new precedent for lunacy.