In response to all the talk about gun control, Donald Trump goes off on a bizarre Twitter rant that ends up embracing the NRA.

I will always remember the time I spent today with courageous students, teachers and families. So much love in the midst of so much pain. We must not let them down. We must keep our children safe!!

Full Listening Session: https://t.co/x5VenyQX5p pic.twitter.com/CAPfX5odIp

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018

So this was Trump's tweet from last night after he met with numerous survivors of school shootings.

It sounds like he wants to do something, right?

But then Trump must have watched the coverage of his "listening session" and that CNN town hall last night. And the old Trump once again reared it's ugly orange tinted head.

I never said “give teachers guns” like was stated on Fake News @CNN & @NBC. What I said was to look at the possibility of giving “concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience - only the best. 20% of teachers, a lot, would now be able to

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018

....immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions. Highly trained teachers would also serve as a deterrent to the cowards that do this. Far more assets at much less cost than guards. A “gun free” school is a magnet for bad people. ATTACKS WOULD END!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018

Okay well this is interesting because Trump is essentially lying and then calling himself out on that lie IN THE SAME TWEET.

But wait, there's more.

....History shows that a school shooting lasts, on average, 3 minutes. It takes police & first responders approximately 5 to 8 minutes to get to site of crime. Highly trained, gun adept, teachers/coaches would solve the problem instantly, before police arrive. GREAT DETERRENT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018

....If a potential “sicko shooter” knows that a school has a large number of very weapons talented teachers (and others) who will be instantly shooting, the sicko will NEVER attack that school. Cowards won’t go there...problem solved. Must be offensive, defense alone won’t work!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018

This is an NRA fantasy with essentially no foothold in reality.

And teachers are almost universally against it.

Courtesy of Politico:   

But education groups are virtually unanimously opposed to the idea, which they say is asking teachers and principals to do too much. 

“This is bar none, the worst theory of action I’ve ever heard,” Shanna Peeples, a former National Teacher of the Year award winner, wrote on Twitter.

I can tell you from first hand experience that people do not always react in a predictable fashion to a crisis situation, and that sometimes even training does not prevent bad decision making.

We have all seen video of trained police officers panicking when confronted with a gunman, and firing erratically or firing unnecessarily.

Just imagine that every school in the country had poorly trained armed teachers milling around in the hallways dealing with sometimes out of control students, and stressful situations.

School shootings would become an almost daily occurrence.

However Trump DID offer to support a couple of potentially helpful policies.

I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue - I hope!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018

That response is of course woefully lacking in its effectiveness to deal the crisis at hand, and before you allow yourselves to feel a little hopeful that Trump could be persuaded to do more, he followed that tweet up with this one.

What many people don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, is that Wayne, Chris and the folks who work so hard at the @NRA are Great People and Great American Patriots. They love our Country and will do the right thing. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018

And that is how the dream dies.

Keep in mind that during the 2016 election cycle the NRA spent 20 million dollars attacking Hillary Clinton, and donated 11 million to the Trump campaign. (Source.)

Trump is not going to bite the hand that feds him, especially since in a round about way that hand was quite likely Russian.

After church shooting military adds more than 4,000 names of domestic abusers to FBI's background checklist.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:  

More than 4,000 names have been added to the country's list of ex-military members banned from owning firearms since the Sutherland Springs massacre last November, a CNN report has found. 

In the aftermath of the tragedy, the US Air Force came under fire after admitting it failed to submit the gunman's name to the FBI's background check system - even though he had been kicked out of the military for assaulting his wife, which should have prevented him from owning a firearm under federal law. 

Still, the ex-airman was able to purchase a semiautomatic rifle that he used to kill 26 people and injure 20 others at the First Baptist Church church in Texas, exposing a massive hole in the nation's background check system. 

Since then, 4,284 names have been added to the FBI's list of dishonorably discharged military personnel banned from owning firearms - an increase of 38 per cent. 

It is the law that anyone who receives a dishonorable or misconduct discharge should automatically get banned from owning a firearm. 

The number of banned servicemen once stood at 11,000 but has now jumped to 15,583.

That certainly seems like a significant portion of the ex-military members don't you think?

Of course Track Palin supposedly received an honorable discharge so one would not think that this list would have effected him, however I am certain that his actions since leaving the military have put him on a number of lists. 

American cities suing the Pentagon for failure to share information that would keep military criminals from buying guns.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:  

The cities of New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco are suing the U.S. Department of Defense over its legal failure to report service member crimes to the FBI and national gun background check database, multiple outlets reported Tuesday. 

For decades, the Pentagon has defied federal laws intended to keep firearms away from criminals like Devin Patrick Kelley, The New York Times notes. The 26-year-old was convicted of domestic assault before he purchased a rifle and killed dozens of people in Texas in November. Felonies and domestic violence convictions legally prohibit gun ownership. 

The democrat-led cities’ lawsuit now seeks to prevent more “senseless carnage” by requiring the Defense Department to fix other “deadly gaps” in the background check database and comply with existing reporting laws under federal court supervision, according to Reuters. It was filed Friday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. 

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said his city “relies on this reporting when making the crucial decision whether a license-to-carry applicant should be permitted to carry a firearm.” 

“We’re joining in this suit because reporting these records is absolutely critical to those decisions,” he said in a statement. “The background check system only works if it contains the proper records.”

Kind of a shame that you have to sue your own government in order to force them to provide information to keep US citizens safe. 

But of course we are talking access to guns here, and the only thing more American than that is mom's homemade apple pie and using the Stars and Stripes as seat covers for your pickup truck. 

Survivors of Charleston church shooting sue FBI over background checks.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:

The FBI is being sued by survivors of the Charleston church shooting, who say federal negligence enabled Dylann Roof to buy the .45-caliber handgun he used. 

Lawyers for three people who survived the attack and the estates of five who were slain inside the Emanuel AME Church say the FBI negligently failed to thoroughly check Roof's background before he bought the gun last year. 

If the agency had done its job, Roof's prior drug arrest would have shown up, and the bureau would have denied his purchase, the lawsuits filed Thursday allege. 

Attorney Andy Savage said Friday that his clients hope the litigation will lead to improvements in gun safety. 

"In this case, you had an unqualified purchaser that slipped through the cracks," Savage told The Associated Press. "And the result is what happened on June 17."

Well the pro-gun crowd is always arguing that we don't need any more gun restrictions we simply need to enforce the ones that we already have, so they should have no problem with this.

Of course if the case leads to a strengthening of enforcement procedures for those background checks I am sure they will find plenty of reason to bitch about it.

As expected all four of the gun control measures introduced in the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando failed in the Senate last night. All hail our NRA overlords.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Senators couldn't muster enough bipartisan support to pass a series of gun control measures Monday, the latest in a long string of failed attempts at enacting tighter curbs on firearms in the United States. 

Spurred by the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, senators from each party introduced the measures they said would have strengthened background checks and prevented suspected terrorists from obtaining weapons. 

But tough election year politics, paired with disputes over the effectiveness of each party's ideas, proved too powerful to break the longstanding partisan gridlock that's surrounded gun issues for years. 

The result was expected. A fifth option, set to be introduced and voted upon as early as Tuesday by moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins, has generated more optimism, but still faces long odds at passage.

It's unlikely that last option will pass either.

Let's face it the NRA completely controls the Republicans in the House and the Senate and as long as they do there will never be any progress on protecting Americans from being gunned down in the streets with military style weapons.

Right about now I bet you are all wondering what Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer thinks of all of this. (I'm just kidding I doubt anybody really cares at all, but he's going to tell you anyway.)

🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻#Repost @dakotameyer0317 with @repostapp ・・・ Guns are what’s to blame in America for all the violence.  Guns kill people.  Guns are evil.  This is the Democratic Party’s battle cry.  Not terrorism, not mental health, not the result of almost eight years of this administration dividing and turning groups against each other, but the guns.  It was not the guns in San Bernardino December 2, 2015 where 12 people died and 22 were wounded and it was surely not the guns on July 16, 2015 in Chattanooga where 4 Marines and 1 Sailor died with 2 others wounded.  These were both Islamic Extremist attacks and were labeled as such by all parties including the current administration.  It was not the guns in Colorado Springs November 27, 2015 when 2 civilians and a police officer were killed and 9 more people were injured including 5 police officers.  And, it was not the guns in Charleston on July 17, 2015 when 9 people were killed in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.  Both of these shooting were hate crime related.  So I ask, why is the nightclub shooting approximately one week ago about guns?  The shooter was known to be of concern by the government and even sent so far as to call 911 and pledge his allegiance to ISIS prior to the shooting.  This was the worst mass shooting in our nation’s history by an Islamic terrorist and we are sitting here talking about guns when we need to talk about terrorism and mental health. Now, after a lengthy Democrat filibuster, 2 bills are to be introduced to the U.S. Senate floor for a vote.  First and most interesting, refuse gun ownership to those listed on the “terror watch list” list. Do you know the criteria for being placed on the no terror watch list? No? No one else does either.  There are 1.5 million people currently listed on the list.  The shooter in Orlando was but Secretary Clinton and her staff had him removed, well done.  The other is expanding background checks which quite honestly is mostly a political move to claim some sort of small victory for gun control if past. Continued in comments... #dakotameyer0317

A photo posted by Bristol Palin (@bsmp2) on Jun 20, 2016 at 5:22pm PDT

As you can see Meyer is now using Bristol's Instagram account as a soapbox for his opinions which now include attacks on Hillary Clinton and the promotion of NRA propaganda.

So I guess it's safe to assume he is completely assimilated.

So much for all of that talk about honor.

President Obama is about to expand background checks on guns through executive order. Mark this in your calendars as the day the Right Wing goes ballistic.

Shut up, I gave you a chance.

Courtesy of the HuffPo: 

President Barack Obama's advisers are finalizing a proposal that would expand background checks on gun sales without congressional approval. 

White House adviser Valerie Jarrett says the president has asked his team to complete a proposal and submit it for his review "in short order." She says the recommendations will include measures to expand background checks. 

Jarrett spoke Wednesday night at a vigil for the victims of the Newtown shooting, according to a summary provided by the White House. 

After the mass shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, Obama said his team was looking for ways to tighten gun laws without a vote in Congress. White House officials have said they're exploring closing the so-called "gun show loophole" that allows people to buy weapons at gun shows and online without a background check. 

Holy shit is this going to drive the conservatives around the bend. 

But hey it's not like Obama did not give Congress plenty of time to pull their heads out of their asses and do this themselves.

Oh man is Christmas dinner going to get entertaining for those of us with conservative relatives.

According to FBI "Black Friday" broke the record for most background checks for gun purchases. Well that's troubling.

Courtesy of USA Today:  

More Americans had their backgrounds checked purchasing guns on Black Friday than any day on record, according to data released by the FBI this week. 

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System processed 185,345 requests on Nov. 27, one of the largest retail sales days in the country. 

"This was an approximate 5% increase over the 175,754 received on Black Friday 2014," wrote Stephen Fischer, the FBI's chief of multimedia productions. "The previous high for receipts were the 177,170 received on 12/21/2012." 

Previous spikes for background checks, conducted before a gun buyer can obtain a firearm, occurred after prominent mass shootings, like in December 2012 in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

So to be clear some of the same people involved in these displays of rational behaviors also purchased firearms.

Gee no wonder they call it "Black Friday."

So much in common.

Majority of Americans more afraid of gun violence than terrorism.

3,400: Americans who died by Terrorism since 2001 3,400: Americans who died by household Firearms since five weeks ago.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 9, 2015

Courtesy of McClatchy DC: 

When it comes to danger, voters are far more afraid of gun violence than terrorism. 

But like almost everything else this election season, there’s a partisan split, a new McClatchy-Marist poll finds. 

Overall, 63 percent of registered votes say they’re more worried that they or someone they know will be a victim of gun violence, while 29 percent more fear that they or a friend will fall prey to a terrorist attack. 

Democrats and independents lean heavily toward gun violence as the bigger threat, a sentiment reflected in the party’s push for stricter gun laws in the wake of mass shootings this year in Charleston, S.C., Rosenburg, Ore., and Lafayette, La. 

Democrats fear guns over terrorism by 77-15 percent. Independents fear gun violence over terrorism by 64-28 percent. 

Republicans edge toward terrorism as the bigger threat, but only narrowly, by 50-45 percent over a fear of gun violence. 

African-American voters have the biggest concern about guns: 71 percent say they’re worried about being a victim of gun violence and only 13 percent are afraid of being caught in a terrorist attack. 

Finally people are starting to wake up to the reality of our gun culture.

And it looks as if Hillary's stance on gun control might be EXACTLY what the majority of voters are looking for in 2016.

I am going to hang my hat on the hope that we might actually make the same kind of positive headway addressing guns in this country under a President Hillary Clinton as we made under President Obama on LGBT rights.

FBI says that Dylann Roof should never have been able to purchase the gun he used to murder nine people in South Carolina.

Courtesy of NBC News: 

The FBI said Friday that the man accused of killing nine African American parishioners at a historically black church in Charleston should not have been able to purchase a gun. 

Officials said a background check failure allowed Dylann Roof to illegally purchase a .45-caliber Glock handgun on April 11, eight days after he turned 21, at Shooter's Choice in West Columbia, South Carolina . Roof had previously acknowledged drug possession, according to the FBI. 

Law enforcement officials had previously said the transaction was entirely legal, despite his pending drug charge. The weapon was purchased at the gun store which is 25 miles from his home. 

FBI director James B. Comey called that assessment "a mistake in a matter of heartbreaking importance".

It is important to note that if Roof's admission that he was in possession of illegal drugs had been forwarded to the FBI then federally mandated background checks would have discovered it and kept Roof from getting his hands on the gun that he used to murder nine innocent people in their own church.

In other words background checks DO work.

(There were earlier reports from Roof's uncle that he received the gun used in these attacks as a gift, but that was a false statement.)

Of course the argument will now be made that there are other ways of getting a gun that do not require background checks, such as gun shows for instance, but all that proves is that we need stricter gun control laws that cover any and all purchases of firearms.

The fact is that Dylann Roof was able to kill those people, on that day, with that weapon, because there was information not given to the FBI that would have prevented it.

Everything else is conjecture.

Even though he opposed expanding background checks for gun buyers, if you want to go shooting with Ted Cruz you can bet your ass you're getting one.

Courtesy of TPM:  

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) plans to take one lucky supporter with him on an upcoming "shooting excursion" as part of a recently launched fundraiser and sweepstakes for his presidential campaign. But there's a catch: the winner may have to endure a background check first. 

The caveat is an interesting one given that Cruz helped lead the effort to defeat a 2013 bill that would have expanded background checks for gun sales nationwide. The bill, which was championed by President Obama in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, ultimately went down after an intense lobbying effort from pro-gun groups. 

In an interview with TPM on Friday afternoon, Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler defended the contest's background check requirement and said it was "not inconsistent" with the senator's track record. 

Tyler said Cruz had not taken issue with current system of background checks, but specifically opposed the 2013 bill, which would have imposed them on sales between private individuals. 

Still, the background check for the contest may come as a surprise to some of Cruz's supporters.

Hey look Ted Cruz is perfectly okay with the mentally ill or people with criminal backgrounds getting guns and going on a shooting spree, just so long as none of them get close enough to put a bullet in his pudgy ass. 

Possibly the best description of the Open Carry advocates that I have ever read.

Eric Liu founder of Citizen University and a former speechwriter for President Clinton, has written a rather compelling article on CNN concerning the 2nd Amendment, school shootings, and Open Carry advocates.

Here are some of the highlights: 

A child was killed Friday because that child went to school. 

The shooting Friday at a high school in Marysville, Washington -- just miles from my home in Seattle -- is a tragedy on two levels. First, most profoundly, two people are dead, four others wounded, and the parents, relatives, friends, teachers and classmates of the shooter and his victims have had their lives grievously changed. 

But this is not the first school shooting in America this year. It is the 50th. It is the 87th since Sandy Hook, according to data compiled by the gun reform group Everytown For Safety. The other tragedy, then, is that gun violence -- in schools, in workplaces and across our communities -- has become virtually normal in America. 

It should not be. It cannot be. It is not normal, in a civilized nation, to have over 30,000 gun deaths a year. It is not normal, in a civilized nation, to expect educators and parents and first responders to have plans at the ready for a shooting at their school. It is not normal, in a civilized nation, to assert that the best solution to gun violence is for more people to have more access to more guns.

Liu goes on to discuss the epidemic of gun violence in this country and how simple laws such as mandatory background checks could have a significant impact on the number of people killed each year and that a growing number of Americans are starting to see that.

However it was his description of the Open Carry advocates that really caught my eye:  

When middle-aged "open-carry" activists walk into Kroger with semi-automatic rifles slung over their shoulders, they aren't exercising their rights with an ethic of responsibility. They're trying to intimidate their way to respect and esteem. They're acting out, demanding attention and rejecting curbs on their desires. That's not being a citizen. It's being a toddler. 

We the people get to decide whether that's normal. Whether it's acceptable or laughable to brandish firearms in the produce aisle. Whether it's tolerable or disgraceful that we average more than one school shooting a week now. Laws like background checks can help set a tone for what's OK. But ultimately, with our family and friends and neighbors, each one of us must decide what kind of civilization we expect in the United States.

In my opinion that is not only well written but it is also spot on in identifying the fact that Americans now accept as normal behaviors, and policies, that are in fact teetering on the edge of lunacy.

The idea that we should all be armed, and that the solution to dangerous people having guns is to make sure that supposedly non-dangerous people have guns as well, is madness.

And yet thanks to the NRA and Ammosexuals that has now become a normal, and widely accepted, way to view life in America.

This has to stop, and it has to stop now. 

No more Mrs. Nice Giffords. Gabby gets mean.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Gabby Giffords, irreproachable figure of sympathy, has fashioned an improbable new role for herself this election year: ruthless attack dog. 

The former Democratic congresswoman, whose recovery from a gunshot wound to the head captivated the country, has unleashed some of the nastiest ads of the campaign season, going after GOP candidates in Arizona and New Hampshire with attacks even some left-leaning commentators say go too far. And Republicans on the receiving end are largely helpless to hit back, knowing a fight with the much-admired survivor is not one they’re likely to win. 

One take no prisoners ad targets Republican Martha McSally who is running for Giffords old congressional seat. The ad features a mother talking about the death of her daughter and husband, and ends by pointing out that McSally opposes laws making it harder for stalkers to get access to guns. 

Here is the ad:

Ouch! that one is certain to leave a mark.

And it is no secret as to why Giffords is so aggressively going after McSally:

During her unsuccessful 2012 campaign, McSally ran TV commercials comparing herself to Giffords. The Giffords team fumed, and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, released a terse statement declaring, “Martha McSally is no Gabby Giffords.” 

Another anti-McSally ad features a woman named Carol who says her daughter was killed by a criminal who bought a firearm at a gun show and didn’t receive a background check — a check, she states, that McSally would oppose. 

“To McSally, it’s just politics,” Carol says as she clutches a picture of her deceased daughter. “To me, it’s personal.” 

Okay maybe it's just me, but in my opinion if a woman gets shot point blank in the head, and battles back for years to relearn how to walk, how to speak, and how to function as a normal person, she can get just as angry, just as mean, and just as partisan, as she wants in working to make sure that what happened to her NEVER happens to another person in this country. 

I think Gabby is a hero, and she is doing the hard job that most of our politicians are too cowardly to do themselves.

Arguably the most powerful nerd in the world enters the gun control debate in a major way.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast: 

It was reported Monday that Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and incredibly wealthy guy, and with his wife, Melinda, have given $1 million to Initiative 594 in Washington state. The ballot initiative, if passed by voters on November 4 (and it currently enjoys overwhelming support), will require universal background checks for all firearm purchases in the state. 

Gates is only the latest Washington billionaire to give to the effort, with original Amazon investor Nick Hanauer providing crucial early funding, and more recently upping his overall donation to $1.4 million. Additionally, Gates’s Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, has provided $500,000 for the cause. 

But Gates’s fame brings more attention and further legitimizes the initiative in a way that almost nobody else could. Once the Gates Foundation made it a priority to combat malaria around the world in 2000, it brought down deaths due to the insect-borne disease by 20 percent in 11 years, saving the lives of 1 million African children in the process. 

Gates has the ability to grab headlines and make an issue go viral with the constant media coverage he receives, and the financial ability, if he wins, to fund similar efforts around the country. His involvement could be the answer to the public health crisis that makes American children 93 percent of those murdered in the 26 high-income countries around the world.

You know I have been looking for some good news on the gun control issue, and this could really be it. 

If Gates really decides to take this on it could be a game changer.

And I truly hope that he does.

Wayne LaPierre on Navy Shipyard shooting. "There were not enough good guys with guns."

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Courtesy of Press Pass: 

In his first television interview since the mass shooting last Monday in which gunman Aaron Alexis killed 12 people, LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, described the Navy Yard as a military facility that was “largely left unprotected.” 

LaPierre said more personnel who work at military facilities, including retired military personnel, should be armed so they are able to stop attacks such as the one at the Navy Yard. 

“We need to look at letting the men and women that know firearms and are trained in them, do what they do best, which is protect and survive,” he said. 

LaPierre also vehemently criticized the flaws in the nation’s treatment of the mentally ill, especially of those mentally ill people who try to buy guns. “They need to be committed is what they need to be, and if they’re committed, they’re not at the Navy Yard,” he said. 

“I’ve been into this whole (background) check business for 20-some years; I’ve said the system is broken for 20 years and nobody listens,” he said. “It’s broken in terms of our military bases…. On the gun check, the NRA supported the gun check because we thought the mental records would be in the (national instant check) system, we thought criminals would be in the system. And we thought they would be prosecuted.” 

He said that the records of those adjudicated to be dangerous are not entered into the national instant check system for gun buyers. “So the Aurora shooter in Colorado gets checked and is cleared, the Tucson shooter gets checked and gets cleared, Aaron Alexis go through the federal and state check and gets cleared,” LaPierre said because the nation’s mental health system doesn’t detect a dangerous person such as Alexis.

So the fault for this incident falls to the mental health community for not notifying the Federal government so that Alexis could not pass a background check?   Are these the same universal background checks that LaPierre was vehemently arguing against earlier this year?

La Pierre referred to the mental health system as "completely broken" as if its entire function was to identify potentially dangerous individuals and keep them off of the streets. That is not the function of the mental health community. It is to provide services for "mental health."

In other words it is designed to help people function with their mental disabilities in a way that provides them with the most normalized life possible and allows them to live in the least restrictive environment possible for them.

Getting somebody committed against their will is no easy task nor should it be. To do that you have to have quite a lot of documentation to substantiate the need. In this case there did not seem to be enough.

I agree that the mental health system needs work, but what it needs mostly is more funding. Funding by the way that Obamacare, you know the law that Republicans keep trying to defund,  would help to put in place:

And the Republicans will have the stomach and stones to vote very soon here to defund the Affordable Care Act, which, says University of Chicago health-care expert Harold Pollack, “is the most important change to mental-health and substance-abuse policy in decades,” for two reasons. First, the expansion of Medicaid to all citizens with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty line will mean that millions of people will be able to afford mental-health care who simply couldn’t before. And second, the ACA requires that coverage of mental illness and substance abuse be offered by insurers “at parity” to more traditional medical treatments. Up to now, these treatments have been more expensive, less likely to be covered, and so on.

Gee, perhaps LaPierre needs to take his need for more mental health services case to the Republicans and tell them to leave Obamacare the fuck alone!

However even if there were more money for mental health, that does NOT mean it would have stopped this shooter, as Aaron Alexis did not fall into the appropriate category to deny him access to firearms as the law stands right now:

Federal law prohibits felons and domestic violence misdemeanants from purchasing or possessing a firearm. None of Alexis' criminal behavior fell under this category.

Though Alexis was being treated by the government for mental illness, he was never adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution. The national policy tools that we have just don't cut it. 

Despite the numerous, glaring red flags in Aaron Alexis' background, he was a "law-abiding gun owner" as far as our National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) was concerned. And too few states have gone beyond the weak federal standard to prevent people like him from getting guns.

So no Mr. LaPierre the mental health community are not the ones who deserve the blame here, nor are the creators of video games, the fault lies with the impotent restrictions that determine who can and who cannot have a gun in this country.

You know the restrictions that the NRA has made it their mission to keep as easy to get around as possible.

The fault for the shooting lies with them, and more specifically, as the face of the NRA, it lies with Wayne LaPierre. 

Same contractor that failed to vet Edward Snowden effectively also vetted the Navy Shipyard shooter. Anybody see a pattern?

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

USIS, the Falls Church government contractor that handled the background check for National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, said Thursday that it also vetted Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis for his ­secret-level clearance in 2007. 

The company, which is under criminal investigation over whether it misled the government about the thoroughness of its background checks, said earlier this week that it had not handled Alexis’s case. 

USIS spokesman Ray Howell said the company got new information Thursday. 

“Today we were informed that in 2007, USIS conducted a background check of Aaron Alexis” for the Office of Personnel Management, Howell said in a statement. “We are contractually prohibited from retaining case information gathered as part of the background checks we conduct for OPM and therefore are unable to comment further on the nature or scope of this or any other background check.” 

USIS, which was spun off from the federal government in the 1990s, has become the largest private provider of government background checks. With 7,000 employees, the company handles about 45 percent of all background checks for the OPM, congressional staffers say. 

Despite the investigation, there was no indication that USIS did anything improper when it vetted Alexis. 

Seriously? But the guy had two different episodes where he misused a firearm, how could that NOT have raised red flags?

Government officials said this week that the 2007 background check uncovered an incident in which Alexis shot out the tires of a car. 

The 2004 incident was characterized as “malicious mischief.” Two other run-ins with law enforcement and reports of more serious mental-health issues occurred years after the initial background check.

You know if firing a weapon within city limits which results in property damage, but could have also resulted in the taking of life, is classified as "malicious mischief" I think that almost says more about our acceptance of gun violence than it does about the vetting provided by this agency.

However the fact that both Snowden and Alexis were vetted by the same contractor makes me think that this whole background check thing needs to be performed by government agencies and NOT a third party. Especially this third party.

However it is also impossible to give the Navy a pass since the incident in 2010, where he fired shots inside his apartment in response to noisy neighbors, and which resulted in his "honorable" discharge from the Navy, happened on their watch. As did the Newport police report that he was "hearing voices."

I don't know, perhaps the new criteria should be that if somebody demonstrates a tendency to fire a weapon indiscriminately when upset or angry, they DON'T get a job with the government.

I'm just saying.

President Obama just did something to piss off the NRA again. Yeah I know, what's new?

Courtesy of the Houston Chronicle: 

Striving to take action where Congress would not, the Obama administration announced new steps Thursday on gun control, curbing the import of military surplus weapons and proposing to close a little-known loophole that lets felons and others circumvent background checks by registering guns to corporations. 

Four months after a gun control drive collapsed spectacularly in the Senate, President Barack Obama added two more executive actions to a list of 23 steps the White House determined Obama could take on his own to reduce gun violence. With the political world focused on Mideast tensions and looming fiscal battles, the move signaled Obama's intent to show he hasn't lost sight of the cause he took up after 20 first graders and six adults were gunned down last year in an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. 

Vice President Joe Biden, Obama's point-man on gun control after the Newtown tragedy thrust guns into the national spotlight, unveiled the new actions Thursday at the White House. 

"It's simple, it's straightforward, it's common sense," Biden said in the Roosevelt Room. 

One new policy will end a government practice that lets military weapons, sold or donated by the U.S. to allies, be reimported into the U.S. by private entities, where some may end up on the streets. The White House said the U.S. has approved 250,000 of those guns to be reimported since 2005; under the new policy, only museums and a few other entities like the government will be eligible to reimport military-grade firearms. 

The Obama administration is also proposing a federal rule to stop those who would be ineligible to pass a background check from skirting the law by registering certain guns, like machine guns and short-barreled shotguns, to a corporation or trust. The new rule would require people associated with those entities, like beneficiaries and trustees, to undergo the same type of fingerprint-based background checks as individuals if they want to register those types of guns.

Keeping at least some of the military style weapons off the streets and stopping from felons from getting their hands on guns, seems reasonable right?

Wrong? Not if you're the NRA.

The National Rifle Association dismissed the administration's moves as misdirected, arguing that background checks for corporations and a ban on reimporting outdated guns wouldn't keep criminals from getting weapons. 

"The Obama administration has once again completely missed the mark when it comes to stopping violent crime," said NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam. "This administration should get serious about prosecuting violent criminals who misuse guns and stop focusing its efforts on law-abiding gun owners."

Does he mean those law abiding felons who are finding loopholes that allow them to have weapons to be used in committing more crimes? Is that who this NRA jerk is referring to?

These people don't care how many innocent lives are killed due to their insistence that every man woman, and child have access to a gun in this country, they simply want to move merchandise.

I swear drug dealers have more compassion then these bastards demonstrate.

I am glad that President Obama is not letting this go. He promised he would do something after Newtown, and it looks like he is doing his best to keep that promise.

Just imagine how much more he could accomplish if the NRA did not own the Republican party.

81% of Republicans support background checks for gun ownership. You know once Obama is out of office that is.

Courtesy of Talking Points Memo:

A whopping 81 percent of Republicans favor background checks for private gun sales, according to a Pew Research poll released Thursday. 

But just 57 percent of Republicans said they wanted a background checks bill to pass. 

“Many of those who have reservations about the bill express concerns that it includes other restrictions beyond background checks, or that it opens a ‘slippery slope’ toward more government power,” the survey concluded. 

In other words they would be all for the idea of background checks if there was somebody else besides that "Socialist Muslim Commie" in the White House.  After all they are convinced, despite every thing he has ever said, that he is coming to take away their guns so they cannot protect themselves against the great government take over.


Overall, 81 percent of Americans support broader background checks, the survey said. The partisan differences were minimal: 83 percent of Democrats and 80 percent of independents. 

But a majority of the public, 56 percent, has soured on the prospects of Congress passing new gun control laws this year.

So essentially the Republicans have done what they set out to do, which is to slow the process down until they have out lasted the public's passion for stricter gun laws after the Sandy Hook massacre.

Their success should make ALL of us sick to our stomachs and get us fired up to replace these obstructionists with politicians who are not working for the NRA but rather for the American people.

Rachel Maddow discusses the continuing gun violence in this country and conducts an emotional interview with the father of a victim of the Sandy Hook massacre.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

You know seeing somebody as professional as Rachel Maddow become so overcome with emotion that she can barely finish the interview made this even more poignant and gut wrenching.

If your eyes are dry at the end then you are a stronger person than I.

Attorney General Eric Holder tells Kansas that their little state law allowing them to ignore federal gun legislation is unconstitutional. Whoops!

"Here's an idea, why don't you actually read the Constitution."

Courtesy of The Kansas City Star:  

A new state law that says guns made in Kansas are immune from federal regulations inside the state is unconstitutional, Attorney General Eric Holder said. 

“In purporting to override federal law and to criminalize the official acts of federal officers, (the law) directly conflicts with federal law and is therefore unconstitutional,” Holder wrote to Gov. Sam Brownback in a letter dated April 26. 

The law (Senate Bill 102) was passed overwhelmingly by both chambers of the Legislature and signed last month by Brownback. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wichita on Thursday released a copy of Holder’s letter. 

“Federal officers who are responsible for enforcing federal laws and regulations in order to maintain public safety cannot be forced to choose between the risk of criminal prosecution by a state and the continued performance of their federal duties,” Holder wrote. 

Holder cited the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution in saying Kansas may not prevent federal employees and officials from carrying out their responsibilities. 

In his letter, he also wrote that federal agencies “will continue to execute their duties to enforce all federal firearms laws and regulations.” 

“Moreover, the United States will take all appropriate action, including litigation,” he wrote, “to prevent the State of Kansas from interfering with the activities of federal officials enforcing federal law.” 

Booyah bitches!

There are a number of other Republican run states taking similar action, including Alaska, so I have to imagine that Holder has sent out quite a number of these letters. Or soon will have.

You know it never fails to amaze me that these Teabagging assholes, who are ALWAYS bitching that everything President Obama is doing is unconstitutional., have absolutely NO idea what the Constitution even says!

It is like the ONLY amendment that they can quote is the 2nd, and they really don't even understand THAT one!

In fact if I'm not mistaken I believe that Jon Stewart did a segment on the Right's willingness to discard MOST of the Amendments in deference to the 2nd.