It makes you wonder when, within weeks of Jared Loughner killing 6 people and wounding 14, including Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, the Arizona legislature designated the Colt single action revolver the Official State Weapon. Real class there, guys.
But why not? According to the proclamation, written by industry lobbyist Todd Rathner, the Colt revolver was "historically important to the founding of the state and to the survival of the state.'' What he really meant to say was, "The Colt massacred a lot of Indians, including women and children, and then helped us steal their land."
Rathner's bill also points out that the Colt was used by officers at the Bisbee mines for "security." That also needs a little clarification: What he should've said was, "In 1917 nearly 2,000 'deputies' of Phelps Dodge Mining Company rounded up almost 1,200 striking miners in Bisbee, loaded them into stifling hot boxcars, and shipped their sorry asses to the middle of New Mexico -- breaking the strike and the union."
Their captors had snatched them from their homes and abandoned them in the middle of the New Mexico desert. They had no food or water, only the clothes on their backs. It was the largest mass kidnapping in Arizona history. ~ Tom Sheridan, Arizona: A History, p. 193.
Sure, let's celebrate
that! And while we're at it, let's officially endorse a corporation, effectively giving the Colt Manufacturing Company naming rights to Arizona --
and sanctioning violence to solve our problems. That's clearly the message of Ron Gould's latest ad:
You say you don't like Obamacare? Just blast it to smithereens! Problem solved. Forget about debate, procedure, elections, and the Constitution -- load up some buckshot.
Gould is a whacked-out (as if I had to say that) state Senator from Yuma who's running for Congress in the GOP primary against incumbent Paul Gosar. Gould's ad is reminiscent of Republican Pamela Gorman's looney 2010 TV spot where, like the "Chicks Who Love Guns" scene in Jackie Brown, she shoots up shit in the desert with a machine gun: "Conservative Christian, and a pretty fair shot!" (Embedding has been disabled, but the ad is still at YouTube.)
The laughable Gorman lost; let's hope the insufferable Bible-quoting Gould suffers the same result. Last year, when the legislature was gutting healthcare, throwing tens of thousands of families out of the program, including patients who'd been promised life-saving organ transplants, Gould was the "Christian" who said, "I have no sympathy for people who don't pay their way in life." Real Jesus of you, Gould.
The loud guns in Gould's ad are no doubt meant to keep viewers from trying to follow his logic, because it doesn't exist. His very first comment is, "We want our borders protected; if they [i.e., Feds] don't do it, we will." Then in the same breath he says, "We want government out of our lives." A-hem, three things:
1. Gould reminds you of the dingbats at the 2010 town halls who held up signs saying, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare!" He wants the Feds to protect the border, but then he says he doesn't want them here. That's an old Arizona story of course -- goobers who want Uncle Sam to erect dams, subsidize ranchers, and build military bases, but "stay out of our hair!"
2. In case you haven't notice, Gould, the Obama administration has sent more than twice as many border agents to the area than Bush. Immigration and crime along the Arizona border are down considerably, more than 40 percent in the Tucson region, the nation's busiest crossing.
3. "Keep government out of our lives" -- except, of course, when it comes to sticking your laws into women's undies. Gould's been a primary sponsor on just about every anti-abortion measure the legislature has passed, including bills like SB 1365, which allows businesses to opt out of contraception coverage for religious reasons.
So, the hell with our goofy beep-beep roadrunner State Bird, who's always darting out in front of cars and doesn't beep-beep anyway. Since the message here is, "If you've got a problem, shoot it," let's declare drones the State Bird! Heck, we've already got a half dozen of the $20 million fancy flying machines patrolling the Arizona-Mexico border, costing more than $3,000/hour to operate.
Homeland Security Department and GAO statistics reveal that drones along the U.S. borders have led to the detention of 238 drug smugglers and 4,865 undocumented immigrants over the past six years. The latter number represents less than 2% of the total of all illegal migrants caught along the southwest border in fiscal year 2011 alone. IVN.us
What a deal! We're gutting schools, police, healthcare, and every other social service, but we can shell out billions to catch 2% of border jumpers. A boondoggle like that is surely worthy of Official Arizona status.