I've always been a vocal opponent of foolhardy gun control efforts, most recently the poorly conceived magazine ban straw man that's been passed around here.
Today's announcement by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which calls for a consistent national background check before gun purchase is just long overdue common sense. We need to Fix Gun Checks NOW.
And this is personal for me, because I've got Tea Party Patriots passing around my children's home address in an effort to intimidate me. I don't think those people ought to have any guns at all.
I grew up on the Iowa/Minnesota border in a town of seven hundred, forty miles from the nearest interstate ramp. Every boy gets a BB gun in the first few years of gradeschool, a preteen with a .22 rifle is completely unremarkable, and teenagers pursue ducks and geese with shotguns as soon as they're large enough to handle the recoil.
My son is in his early teens and he's on this path. The BB gun was long ago turned over to his little sister and his single shot rifle is accompanied by a Winchester Model 37 shotgun that I got brand new back in the 1970s. Gun safety comes first - I didn't get him the rifle until he consistently demonstrated the mindfulness needed to not accidentally point the BB gun at me or his sister. Equal rights are in effect, she's just younger than him so timing wise a rifle of her own will probably happen this summer.
So I'm not in any sense anti-gun, however ...
Take a look at David Neiwert's interactive map of 'isolated incidents' - terror directed at 'liberal' and 'government' targets the last two years. Yes, that David Neiwert, author of The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized The American Right.
Then compare it to the Tea Party Nationalism map by the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights.
No matter where you look it lines up - hate talk from the national level from Glenn Beck, then hate talk from his little immitators, then we get a police shoot out with a liberal hunter, and nine year old Christina Taylor Green takes a fatal bullet in the back.
Loughner is a cypher, a mentally ill young man spouting right wing conspiracy theories, and lacking the clear cut connection to right wing hate speech seen in Byron Williams' attempted "liberal hunt".
There isn't any doubt like that when it comes to Shawna Forde. This Arizona Minuteman executed nine year old Brisenia Flores with a point blank shot to the head during an attempted robbery of her parents. They believed the Flores family home had either drugs or money which they could steal to fund their private war against immigrants.
Brisenia Flores
This blogspot comment was forwarded to me a few days ago by the VileTweets crew. I know them, we talk on Twitter, and there are a group of extremists with intimate ties to the Tea Party Patriots who think I'm behind their operation. The last line is what matters - my ex wife's first name, and they've made it clear in other ways they have her last name and they think they have the address where she and my children live.
Some of these guys have already had personal visits from agents attached to the FBI Hate Crimes group, specifically because one of them threatened me last September. They're still not stopping.
The plan to thwart gun violence is very simple.
Step One: Get all the names of people who should be prohibited from buying a gun into the background check system.
Step Two: Close the loopholes in the background check system by requiring a background check for every gun sale.
The next little girl to get shot could be mine ... or yours. We need legislation drafted and passed quickly. I just hope that "get all the names" part of the plan isn't limited to just criminal background checks. We've got a handful of agitators from the fringe right who are attempting to trigger Stochastic Terrorism. They need to be schooled on the rights and responsibilities of living in a civil society.