Category: Gun Laws

Another Day, Another Shooting

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This one was at a UPS complex in Birmingham, Alabama:

A recently-fired UPS employee on Tuesday shot dead two supervisors at the company facility where he had worked in Birmingham, Alabama before turning the gun on himself, police said.

The gunman, who was wearing a brown UPS uniform, had been terminated earlier this month and had learned a day earlier that he had lost his appeal to get his job back, police said, adding that his motive was not immediately clear. Police had earlier said that the man was fired yesterday.

The shooting occurred shortly before 9:30 a.m. at a large, brick UPS service center atop a hill in the Inglenook section of Birmingham, close to the airport, police said.

Yep, the American gun fetish is such a good thing.

I get that, barring a nigh apocalyptic change in American body politic, we will not see any meaningful change in our gun control regimes.

The gun nuts own our country, the rest of us just live in it.

To quote Tom Tomorrow, “The occasional horrific civilian massacre is just the price the rest of us have to pay ……… Over and over again, apparently.

Nope, no Racism Here

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A Wisconsin militia group is planning send armed representatives to target black voters on election day:

A visit to the group’s Facebook page features makes it clear exactly who they are targeting. All of the pictures on the page feature African-Americans. The group is trying to get African-Americans who may have outstanding warrants arrested in order to keep them from voting. The group wants people to report those they suspect of having warrants out on them to the police on election day, “Do the community a favor and keep an eye out for people wanted on warrants and report them to the police on election day.”

The “poll watchers” also plan on harassing and following people who they suspect of being wanted on warrants to their homes. The plan seems to be to use the police to intimidate African-Americans into not voting in November’s election.

The group admits that they are targeting Democrats. They aren’t exactly subtle in making it clear that they are targeting African-American voters. The scheme is an attempt to intimidate African-American voters while getting around the Voting Rights Act. The point of this campaign isn’t to get felons off the streets. The “poll watchers” are trying to keep African-Americans away from the polls.

The party of Abraham Lincoln is now the party of Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest.

My first thought was that there ought to be a law against this.

My second thought was Google it and see if there is a law against this.

It turns out that there is, 18 U.S. Code § 594:

Whoever intimidates, threatens, coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other person to vote or to vote as he may choose, or of causing such other person to vote for, or not to vote for, any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, or Resident Commissioner, at any election held solely or in part for the purpose of electing such candidate, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

 I might suggest that these guys might need some scrutiny from Federal authorities.

I’m just saying.

(BTW, I did Google this story, and the word “Hoax” and got nothing but right wingers kvetching)

Open Carry This!

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Local Coverage

In an eerie echo of the actions that led Ronald Reagan to sign into California law what was then the most restrictive gun law in the United States, the the Huey Newton gun club is staging open carry demonstrations:

A Texas gun club named after one of the founders of the Black Panthers Party marched in Dallas on Wednesday to protest against police brutality, KTXA-TV reported.

 Around two dozen members of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club carried rifles and red, black and green flags as they marched through the city’s south side, sometimes chanting in support of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old man killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 9.

 “If they don’t get these killer cops and corrupt cops under control,” a member identifying himself as Commander Drew X was quoted as saying. “What happened in Ferguson is going to be nationwide.”

 The club’s leader, Huey Freeman, said Wednesday’s march would be the first step in a campaign of “civilian patrols” through the area. The state’s open carry law allows “long gun” owners to display them unless it is meant “to cause alarm.”

 “We believe we can police ourselves and bring security to our community, ridding our community of black-on-black crime, violence, police terror, etcetera, etcetera,” Freeman told KXAS-TV.

Needless to say, I do not approve of open carry protests, but I do find a bit of schadenfreude in the the undoubted freakout that is going on in Dallas about black men open carrying.

It Figures that Texas Would Go Further than the NRA Could Tolerate

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What could possibly go wrong with serving alcohol at gun shows?

The National Rifle Association sent out an alert to its members late Monday warning that an initiative in Texas to allow alcohol at gun shows could backfire and have a “devastating impact” on NRA events.

 The warning came after the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission proposed a new set of rules last week that would allow alcohol to be served at gun shows across the state. The catch was that organizers of the events had to disable all firearms on display, ban live ammunition, and prohibit buyers from taking possession of their weapons on site.

 The changes would override the current protocol, in which alcohol-serving venues are made to suspend the sale of alcohol throughout the preparation and duration of a gun show.

 But what might appear to be a relaxation of regulations on the gun show industry has not been well-received by the NRA. In an alert posted Monday by the organization’s lobbying arm, the NRA asked its members to take action because the changes “could actually end these events as we know them”.

If there was a place that was too deep in the crazy for the NRA, it would be Texas.

I Know that Some People are Offended, but I Approve

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In a a primary in Arizona, one candidate has invoked Trayvon Martin in describing another candidate’s support for stand your ground:

An Arizona candidate for Congress has sent out a mailer displaying the image of Trayvon Martin to attack her opponent’s record as a state lawmaker.

 Mary Rose Wilcox used the mailer to slam her opponent, Ruben Gallego, in the Democratic primary for Arizona’s 7th Congressional District in Phoenix, according to The Arizona Republic, which posted a copy of it.

 “America doesn’t need more Trayvon Martin tragedies,” the mailer reads, underneath a portrait of Martin in a hoodie. On the next page it lists Gallego’s support for “Stand Your Ground” legislation and what it describes as his B+ record from the National Rifle Association.

More of this, please.

If we ever want to push against against the NRA and other ammosexuals, we must extract a political price on people who find capitulating to 2nd amendment extremist, and the best place to do this is in the primaries.

It is is a good thing for supporting the NRA is turned into a liability at the primary level.

It’s the first step to standing up to the ammosexuals.

To quote former Reagan staffer James Baker,  “F%$# ’em, the won’t vote for us anyway.”

Well, This is Prize

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It turns out that the NRA’s chief counsel, and close confident of NRA chief Wayne LaPierre, is a murderer:

Shortly before dark on the evening of April 17, 1963, Robert J. Dowlut went looking for a gun inside the city cemetery in South Bend, Indiana. Making his way through the headstones, he stopped in front of the abandoned Studebaker family mausoleum. He knelt by the front right corner of the blocky gray monument and lifted a stone from the damp ground. Then, as one of the two police detectives accompanying him later testified, the 17-year-old “used his hands and did some digging.” He unearthed a revolver and ammunition. As Dowlut would later tell a judge, the detectives then took the gun, “jammed it in my hand,” and photographed him. “They were real happy.”

Two days earlier, a woman named Anna Marie Yocum had been murdered in her South Bend home. An autopsy determined she had been shot three times, once through the chest and twice in the back, likely at close range as she’d either fled or fallen down the stairs from her apartment. Two .45-caliber bullets had pierced her heart.

………

The following morning, Dowlut was charged with first-degree murder. A year and a half later, a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder. Before the judge handed down a life sentence, he asked the defendant if there was any reason why he shouldn’t be put away. Dowlut replied, “I am not guilty.” A day later, the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City registered Dowlut, now 19, as prisoner number 33848.

Less than six years later, Robert Dowlut would be a free man—his murder conviction thrown out by the Indiana Supreme Court because of a flawed police investigation. The court ordered a new trial, but one never took place. Dowlut would return to the Army and go on to earn college and law degrees. Then he would embark on a career that put him at the epicenter of the movement to transform America’s gun laws.

Today, the 68-year-old Dowlut is the general counsel of the National Rifle Association. As the NRA’s top lawyer, he has been a key architect of the gun lobby’s campaign to define the legal interpretation of the Second Amendment. He helped oversee the NRA’s effort to strike down Chicago’s handgun ban in the 2010 Supreme Court case McDonald v. Chicago, and he is the longtime secretary of the organization’s Civil Rights Defense Fund, which has spent millions assisting gun owners in court and sponsoring gun rights researchers. Dowlut’s journal articles have been cited by federal judges and are quoted by pro-gun activists. Chris W. Cox, the executive director of the NRA’s lobbying operation, has praised him as “a longtime distinguished Second Amendment scholar.” Dowlut’s behind-the-scenes legal work may have done as much to tighten the NRA’s grip on gun policy as its blustery talking heads and provocative PR campaigns.

BTW, it’s not just this guy, but also Harlon Carter, installed after the Cincinnati Coup at the NRA as Executive VP, who also murdered someone.

It really is remarkable just how much the intersection between groups “NRA leadership” and “law abiding citizens” is a null set.

Not the Onion: Open Carry Group Protest at Dealey Plaza

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A pink rifle, a guy complaining about the English not celebrating July 4, a preacher decrying sexual immorality, and (of course) a memorial to John F Kennedy at the spot he was shot.

No, I am not joking here,

They actually thought that it was a good idea to pack heat on Dealy Plaza as a way to win hearts and minds:

As they’ve been doing on each third Saturday for months, advocates for the open carrying of firearms gathered — semiautomatic weapons in tow — at Dealey Plaza over the weekend. As usual the demonstrators, who call themselves Come and Take It Dallas, handed out literature and preened with their armaments of choice.

Seriously. Really?

Time for Some Schadenfreude

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There was an open carry demonstration in Richmond, VA, and only two people showed up:

More than 300 people were invited on Facebook to walk down Cary Street on July Fourth with handguns, rifles and other so-called “long guns” proudly displayed.

 Two showed up — and they were the organizers of the midday event in the family-oriented Carytown shopping district.

 “I don’t know why,” said organizer Jason Spitzer, 29, when asked to explain the low turnout for what he described as an Independence Day demonstration to “spread Constitutional awareness” of Americans’ Second Amendment right to bear arms.

 “But even if nobody came I’d still walk,” the Chesterfield County steel mill worker said, holding a large American flag in his hands, with a rifle slung over his shoulder and a holstered handgun on his hip. “It’s the Fourth of July and I love my country.”

 But with turnout so low, the shoppers and diners along Cary Street weren’t quite sure what to make of the two-man march, which might very well have gone unnoticed were it not outnumbered by two television crews and a photographer in tow.

BTW, I’m with the Institute for Philosophy in Public Life on the appropriate response if some of the open carry terrorists show up to your school/restaurant/laundromat, leave the area immediately without making an effort to pay:

The questions that concerns me now is how we bystanders should react when people come into a store with guns. There really is no legitimate way of determining intent. Even if the people with guns are carrying a sign claiming to be activists (which they do not do), they could be lying, just setting us all up for slaughter. And since there is no way to know what is on their minds, all we have are our instincts, but as we all should know, our instincts are often racist, classist, and frequently mistaken. So, what should we do?

My proposal is as follows: we should all leave. Immediately. Leave the food on the table in the restaurant. Leave the groceries in the cart, in the aisle. Stop talking or engaging in the exchange. Just leave, unceremoniously, and fast.

But here is the key part: don’t pay. Stopping to pay in the presence of a person with a gun means risking your and your loved ones’ lives; money shouldn’t trump this. It doesn’t matter if you ate the meal. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just received food from the deli counter that can’t be resold. It doesn’t matter if you just got a haircut. Leave. If the business loses money, so be it. They can make the activists pay.

Following this procedure has several advantages. First, it protects people. Second, it forces the businesses to really choose where their loyalties are. If the second amendment is as important as people claim, then people should be willing to pay for it. God knows, free speech is tremendously expensive. If it weren’t, I’d be reading this on ESPN during prime time, not posting this on Blogger.

Third, this proposal has the added advantage of taking the activists seriously. Most gun-rights activists describe a world of tremendous dangers. Guns, they repeatedly tell us, are the only thing between home invasion, rape, murder, and government intrusion. Okay, well if that’s true, then we bystanders should be equally afraid, and react instantaneously to keep away the chaos and the violence. We learned to be afraid from the gun-rights supporters. They have gotten everything they wanted.

This is an unbelievably appropriate response.

Yeah, Like this Wasn’t Predictable

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While I make jokes about the small penis brigade who carry long arms (Rifles and Shotguns) in public, in Georgia, we now see Georgia’s open carry laws which have created a crop of people who have pistols on their hips, and fantasies of killing someone in thier heads:

On the first day of the new Georgia Safe Carry Protection Act, a misunderstanding between two armed men in a convenience store Tuesday led to a drawn firearm and a man’s arrest.

“Essentially, it involved one customer with a gun on his hip when a second customer entered with a gun on his hip,” said Valdosta Police Chief Brian Childress.

At approximately 3 p.m. Tuesday, police responded to a call regarding a customer dispute at the Enmark on the corner of Park Avenue and North Lee Street.

A man carrying a holstered firearm entered the store to make a purchase. Another customer, also with a holstered firearm, approached him and demanded to see his identification and firearms license, according to the Valdosta Police Department report.

The customer making demands for ID pulled his firearm from its holster but never pointed it at the other customer, who said he was not obligated to show any permits or identification.

He demanded the man’s ID again. Undeterred by the drawn gun, the man paid for his items, left the store and called for police.

Gee, hoocoodanode that this would have happened?

Hoodcoodanode that this would happen from day one?

I dunno, pretty much EVERYONE coodanode?

Quote of the Day

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If a thousand armed Blacks had gathered in one place, pointing rifles at federal officers, and two of them later cold-bloodedly assassinated policemen, the federal response would touch every Black neighborhood in America. But the armed white Right gets a pass. Racists are resources to those in power. “The national security state’s legitimacy is based on (white) mass fear and loathing of the Other.”

—Glen Ford at the Black Agenda Report

Another School Shooting

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Click for full size pop up


Another day, another shooting

We just had spree killing at a school:

The first bell had just trilled at Troutdale’s Reynolds High School Tuesday morning when the sound of something like fireworks erupted in a locker room by the school gymnasium.

 Moments later, a vice principal came over the loudspeaker –“This is not a drill” — and teachers ran through hallways, yelling at students to lock themselves in classrooms and hide.

 A “lone gunman” shot and killed freshman Emilio Hoffman, then was found dead a few minutes later in a nearby bathroom. It is the 74th school shooting in the United States since the mass killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012.

December 14, 2012 to today is 543 days, or 77½ weeks, or just under 18 months.

77½ weeks⁄74 shootings. That’s about 1 shooting a week, just at public schools.

Think about it.  When you add in various spree killings and act of right wing terrorism that don’t involve school children, Vegas last week, Washington Naval Yard, Isla Vista, and that salon killing in upstate New York, and you end up with more than one shooting a week since Sandy Hook.

Note that this is without any incidents in the state of Texas.

And how many have there been in all of western Europe over that time?

We are insane as a society.

Anyone Surprised that the Vegas Gunman are Tied in with Camp Bundy?

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Roll Tape!

The Secretary of the Interior has observed that alleged terrorists Jerad and Amanda Miller spent time at the Clive Bundy ranch, or as Wonkette notes, “Oh Look Some Bundy Ranchers Did A Vegas Spree Killing, For Freedom.”

The Bundies have been tryinb very hard to pretend that the Millers were never a part of the protest, but see the tape of Mr. Miller on the Bundy Ranch.

There is a point where right wing American Caucasian entitlement crosses the line to terrorism, and the Millers, and to my mind the Bundys and their fellow travelers are both over that line.

An aggressive investigation of everyone involved with threatening law enforcement and BLM personnel is necessary.

Well, at Least Someone Has Put the Fear of God into the NRA

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Following the National Rifle Association’s declaring the Texas open carry maniacs weird, said maniacs organized a mass destruction of their NRA cards, and the NRA responded by folding like a bunch of overcooked cauliflower:

The National Rifle Association is walking back its statement criticizing gun activists who carry loaded assault weapons in public as a form of protest, with the NRA’s top lobbyist apologizing and calling the statement “a mistake.”

In recent months Open Carry Texas and several other gun activist groups have made headlines for openly carrying loaded assault weapons in public and into restaurants in the Dallas area. This tactic of attempting to “normalize” open carry of rifles has spectacularly backfired, as gun violence group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America has persuaded several restaurant chains where open carry rallies were staged to ask customers not to bring firearms into their businesses.

On June 2, Mother Jones reported on a statement on the NRA’s website that criticized the open carry protests as “downright weird” and suggested that the practice was “downright scary” to onlookers and “counterproductive for the gun owning community.” The Mother Jones report was widely circulated in media as it was an aberration from the NRA’s typical absolutist position on firearm issues. Open Carry Texas called the NRA’s statement “disgusting and disrespectful” and some gun activists cut up their NRA membership cards.

The NRA’s top lobbyist, Chris Cox, appeared on the NRA’s radio show Cam & Company on June 3 to repudiate the NRA’s article criticizing the open carry movement. Cox said that the statement was “a mistake” and that “it shouldn’t have happened,” adding “our job is not to criticize the lawful behavior of fellow gun owners.” Cox also blamed the statement on a “staffer” who Cox said “expressed his personal opinion.” Referencing media interest in the statement, Cox termed it a “distraction.”

I’m beginning to think that we should start having people of color showing up at NRA meetings and maybe NRA headquarters, doing open carry.

See what that does to the state of their underwear.

How Much of a F%$#tard Gun Fondler do You Have to Be to Have the NRA Call You a F%$#tard Gun Fondler?

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Well, now we know:

The nation’s staunchest defender of the Second Amendment has told gun activists in Texas who insist on carrying assault-style rifles in public places to knock it off.

In a statement issued late last week, the National Rifle Association (NRA) called out so-called “open carry” groups in Texas that have been frightening restaurant customers and motorists by approaching them while carrying AK-47s and AR-15s.

The NRA applauded Texas for a “robust gun culture,” but noted that a number of activists had “crossed the line from enthusiasm to downright foolishness.”
“Now we love AR-15s and AKs as much as anybody, and we know that these sorts of semiautomatic carbines are among the most popular, fastest selling firearms in America today,” the statement said. “Texas, independent-minded and liberty-loving place that it is, doesn’t ban the carrying of loaded long guns in public, nor does it require a permit for this activity. Yet some so-called firearm advocates seem determined to change this.”

 “[I]t is a rare sight to see someone sidle up next to you in line for lunch with a 7.62 rifle slung across his chest, much less a whole gaggle of folks descending on the same public venue with similar arms,” the NRA continued. “Let’s not mince words, not only is it rare, it’s downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one’s cause, it can be downright scary.”

(emphasis original)

Seriously, this like that classic moment in Iron Man 3, when one of the henchmen says, “”Honesty, I hate working here they are so weird!” and runs away.

I’m Not Sure What I Can Say About the Santa Barbara Shootings

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But I do agree with the response of Richard Martinez, the the father of one of the victims, Chris­topher Michaels-Martinez, makes a powerful and heartfelt statement

He’s asking members of Congress to stop calling him to offer condolences but nothing more for the death of his only child, Chris­topher Michaels-Martinez, who was killed in the rampage Friday in Santa Barbara, Calif.

 “I don’t care about your sympathy. I don’t give a s— that you feel sorry for me,” Richard Martinez said during an extensive interview, his face flushed as tears rolled down. “Get to work and do something. I’ll tell the president the same thing if he calls me. Getting a call from a politician doesn’t impress me.”

 Saying that “we are all to blame” for the death of his 20-year-old son, Martinez urged the public to join him in demanding “immediate action” from members of Congress and President Obama to curb gun violence by passing stricter gun-
control laws.

 “Today, I’m going to ask every person I can find to send a postcard to every politician they can think of with three words on it: ‘Not one more,’ ” he said Tuesday. “People are looking for something to do. I’m asking people to stand up for something. Enough is enough.”

Of course the small number of people who possess a lethal juxtaposition of small penisises and revenge fantasies have immediately jumped on the grieving father, because they are deeply evil ratf%$#s.

Rahter unsurprisingly, Joe the Plumber led the hit parade:

I am sorry you lost your child. I myself have a son and daughter and the one thing I never want to go through, is what you are going through now. But:

 As harsh as this sounds – your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.

I am not particularly surprised that this is not the worst thing said so far, but the worst thing said so far actually stunned me:

F%$# him. He is a piece of shit. His tragedy sucks, but he blamed me for it and wants to take away my rights. The guy is trying to take away my rights to protect my family. F%$# him every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

(%$# mine)

This is Todd Kincannon, who is perhaps the perfect demonstration about how the people who have been drawn to the NRA’s increasing insanity are a priori (in a Kantian sense) unsuited to possess anything more dangerous than a plastic spoon,

I know that there are responsible firearm owners out there, but the folks that the NRA speaks to are not in that group.

I would add that it appears that the shooter was closely tied into the pick-up artist/mens rights community, which is a group of people who make furries seem sane.

Yes, they Are Completely Insane in Georgia

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Georgia has just legalized the carriage of handguns pretty much everywhere:

Pro- and anti-gun forces do not agree on much, but they do agree on the breathtaking sweep of the Georgia legislation allowing guns in bars, schools, restaurants, churches and airports that is now awaiting the signature of Gov. Nathan Deal.

Americans for Responsible Solutions, founded by Gabrielle Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman who was critically wounded in a mass shooting in 2011, calls it “the most extreme gun bill in America” and the “guns everywhere” legislation. The National Rifle Association, which lobbied for the bill, calls it “the most comprehensive pro-gun” bill in recent state history, and described the vote at the Capitol on Thursday as “a historic victory for the Second Amendment.”

………

The bill was opposed not only by gun-control groups, but also by the state’s police chiefs association and restaurant association, Episcopal and Catholic churches, and the federal Transportation Security Administration. A majority of Georgians also opposed it, according to several polls.

Guns in bars, guns in elementary schools, decriminalizing trying to bring guns on planes.

What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

Gun Control is More than Hitting the Target

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One of the facts about guns in the United States, and it is not acknowledged by either gun control advocates or opponents, is that something like ¼ of all gun owners are simply so stupid, or too negligent that their having access to a firearm is a hazard to themselves, their loved ones, and to society.

Case in point, actress, model, and wife of Miami Dolphins QB, Lauren Tannehill who left here AR-15 in a rental car:

A New York mom vacationing in South Florida was expecting a healthy dose of sun, surf and fun. Imagine her surprise when her daughter unzipped a bag in their rental Nissan Rogue and found a rifle — a big rifle. Looking just like the ones real soldiers use.

Horrified, she immediately called E-Z Rent-A-Car and then drove to the nearest police station.

And there would be one more surprise: The AR-15 semiautomatic had been left behind by model Lauren Tannehill, the wife of Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill.

“We got out of the car, we were kind of freaked out,” Judith Fleissig recalls of the moment this month when she and her daughter found the weapon. “I didn’t want to touch it.”

Fleissig on Jan. 6 turned over the gun to the closest police station, following the rental company’s recommendation, officials said.

………

“Though dangerous if it would have landed in the wrong hands, it’s not criminal,” Broward sheriff’s spokeswoman Keyla Concepción said. “They simply forgot it.”

Lauren Tannehill, 26, is a model who was featured on HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” a reality sports documentary television series. The couple married in January 2012.

A model in possession of an AR-15, the civilian’s version of the military’s M-16, may be incongruous to some. But it shouldn’t surprise Lauren Tannehill’s fans who view postings of her on Twitter.

I am not suggesting a solution here, I am simply suggewsting that there are way too many people who are simply too f%$#ed up to own firearms.

We want to keep firearms away from felons and the mentally ill, and I think that finding a way to keep them from the criminally stupid is a good idea as well.

Winner of This Week’s Award for Stupid Motherf%$#er With a Gun Is………

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 Jerome M. Hauer, commissioner of the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services,  who pulled his loaded Glock in a state office building and used the laser sight to point at locations on a map:

Jerome M. Hauer, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s director of homeland security, took out his handgun and used the laser sighting device attached to the barrel as a pointer in a presentation to a foreign delegation, according to public officials. It happened Oct. 24 in Albany at the highly secure state emergency operations center below State Police headquarters.

These officials, one of whom claimed to be an eyewitness, said that three Swedish emergency managers in the delegation were rattled when the gun’s laser tracked across one of their heads before Hauer found the map of New York, at which he wanted to point.

Hauer, commissioner of the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, was disabled by a stroke a few years ago and can be unsteady. He isn’t a law enforcement official. He carries the loaded 9-millimeter Glock in a holster into state buildings, an apparent violation of state law barring state employees from bringing weapons to the workplace, several witnesses say.

So, you have a guy who, “can be unsteady” from a stroke waving a gun around in a meeting in order to use it as a laser pointer.

Am I the only one to think that maybe this guy not only should not have a gun permit, but that he should not cut his own steak, because he is too out of it to use a sharp knife?

H/T Talking Points Memo.