NJ state senator wants to ban toy guns

I don't have to tell you which party this moonbat legislator comes from, do I? From Joisey:

A New Jersey senator wants to make it illegal to sell or give to anyone under age 18 toy guns that look so realistic they can be mistaken for a real firearm.

"The margin between a child's stupid mistake and a tragic ending is far too thin," said Sen. Nicholas Scutari.

Scutari, D-Union, introduced the proposal in late June and plans to push it when the Legislature reconvenes late this year. He said the bill stems from an incident in a Union Township where four students were suspended after bringing a cap gun to school.

"We need to stress to our children that guns are not toys, but deadly weapons which should always be regarded with extreme caution and handled with respect," Scutari said. "Restricting access to imitation firearms will help to drive that point home."

Actually, moron, guns are not toys, but TOY guns are TOYS! Continuing:

Violators would face a fine of up to $1,000 and up to six months in prison.

Little Johnny buys a water pistol with his allowance and winds up in the hoosegow. Brilliant.

New Jersey must have officially run out of all other problems with which to deal, if they're now turning to banning toy guns.

"Texas State Lawmaker Opposing Deadly Force Bill Shoots Would-Be Thief"

I'm wondering if this guy is so anti-Second Amendment now. Knowing the "good enough for me, but not for thee" attitude of liberal lawmakers, I suspect his views are unchanged. From FNC:

A state lawmaker who opposed a bill giving Texans stronger right to defend themselves with deadly force pulled a gun and shot a man he says was trying to steal copper wiring from a construction site, police said Monday.

Rep. Borris Miles told police he was fixing a leak on the second floor of the Houston house he's building Sunday night when he heard a noise downstairs and saw two men trying to steal the copper. After Miles confronted the pair, one of the men threw a pocketknife at him, Houston Police spokesman Victor Senties.

Miles, a former law enforcement officer, shot the man in the left leg, police said. The wounded suspect was being treated at a Houston hospital. Police were trying to identify the other suspect.

Charges of aggravated robbery are pending against the wounded suspect, Senties said.

Police said Miles, who is in his freshman term, is licensed to carry a concealed weapon. No charges have been filed against Miles, Senties said.

Miles, a Democrat, voted against a bill that gives Texans stronger legal right to defend themselves with deadly force in their homes, vehicles, and workplaces. The so-called "castle doctrine," passed by the Legislature this year, states that a person has no duty to retreat from an intruder before using deadly force. The law goes into effect Sept. 1.

Isn't it beyond stupid that our politicians feel compelled to "allow" us to take on an intruder in our home? Sorry, but I don't need some detached-from-reality legislator's permission to defend myself, my family, or my possessions from thugs!

D.C. politician robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin. Just how effective is D.C.'s total gun ban (which, by the way, was recently ruled unconstitutional by a federal court)? It's so effective that their deputy mayor for education was held up by two armed (i.e. with guns) robbers. Details here.

The NRA rubs salt in the wound by accurately observing the following:

Just how worthless is Washington, D.C.’s gun ban? It’s so bad in our nation’s capitol that a deputy mayor was recently robbed at gunpoint.

Victor Reinoso is lucky to be alive today, but do you think he’ll be speaking out about the pointlessness of D.C.’s gun ban? Not if he wants to keep his job, he won’t.

Criminals don’t care about gun laws … anymore than they care about D.C.’s complete gun ban.

Ultimately, Victor Reinoso’s robbery probably won’t mean much when it comes to public policy in Washington, D.C. After all, they’ve already stuck with the ban for 30 years- what’s one more innocent victim?

Ouch.

Sub shop customer, retired Marine, renders armed robbers "toes up"

UPDATE (7:12 A.M. EST): I don't know how I missed it, but the customer who gave a couple of armed punks their celestial dirt nap is a retired Marine. In the span of two days, we've had two elderly Marines teach lawbreaking vermin a lesson (see pickpocket story yesterday).

Chalk one up for the Second Amendment here. Piggybacking on yesterday's story about law-abiding citizens not putting up with criminals is this one from south Florida (via Hot Air):

This is what licensed carry is all about.

According to investigators, two armed men entered the restaurant, pointing guns and demanding money. One customer turned around and saw a gun pointed at his face. Plantation police said that’s when the customer took the law into his own hands.

“As the customer was being forced into the restroom at gunpoint, the customer, who was in fear for his life and legally armed, shot the robbery suspects,” said Plantation Police Dept. Spokesman Robert Rittig.
Police said one of the suspects was fatally shot in the head. The other man was shot in the chest and was able to run nearly 300 yards into a nearby Bank Atlantic parking lot while trying to escape, police said.

Click to watch a video report. It may be the only time you hear a reporter describe someone who shoots and kills in legitimate self-defense as “legally armed and well within his rights.”

Had that customer been in D.C., he'd probably be dead by now. Instead, the world is one thug lighter than it was before the incident (with the other thug presumably heading to prison).

Former ambassador: Disarm America

And you leftards accuse Bush of wanting a police state? Excerpt from the Toledo Blade:

Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.

Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest. When hunters submit a request for their weapons, federal, state, and local checks would be made to establish that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last time they withdrew their weapons. In the process, arsenal staff would take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was not obviously unhinged.
It would have to be the case that the term “hunting weapon” did not include anti-tank ordnance, assault weapons, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, or other weapons of war.

All antique or interesting non-hunting weapons would be required to be delivered to a local or regional museum, also to be under strict 24-hour-a-day guard. There they would be on display, if the owner desired, as part of an interesting exhibit of antique American weapons, as family heirlooms from proud wars past or as part of collections.

Gun dealers could continue their work, selling hunting and antique firearms. They would be required to maintain very tight inventories. Any gun sold would be delivered immediately by the dealer to the nearest arsenal or the museum, not to the buyer.

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for “carrying.”

Yep, nothing jerks a tear from the ol' eye like such naked displays of pursuit of freedom: forming special police squads who invade every American home to search for guns; police stop-and-frisk people at random (so long as we're not profiling, I guess), incarcerate people for exercising their Second Amendment rights.

You've heard the expression that "if you ban guns, only criminals will have them"? Well, under this #sshat's scenario, otherwise innocent Americans who don't submit to his police state will become instant criminals. Only in the backwards and logically-starved world of diplomacy would this moonbatty idea make any sense.

"The High Cost of Easily Accessible Beans"

Van Helsing at Moonbattery nails this one out of the park.

It is common knowledge that beans cause the dreadful phenomenon known as flatulence, a major contributor to the global warming that will soon embroil us all in a sweaty apocalypse. Nonetheless, beans are readily available to anyone who wants to purchase them, despite the absence of explicit Constitutional protection as we have for firearms. So far as I know, beans are not even regulated.

Now we see the consequences:
...
The picture is of movie star Hugh Grant, assaulting a photographer with a tub of baked beans. Grant was subsequently arrested.

It's time for us to ask ourselves: would this incident have occurred if beans were subject to prudent federal regulation?

They can have my black beans when they pry the can from my cold, dead fingers! :-D

Eisner's Congressional ally in "feeling, not thinking"

From Hot Air:

I wish I could show you the bill (H.R. 1859) but the text isn’t online at Thomas yet. It’s probably identical or nearly identical to this bill, which she (Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-NY) introduced in February, to reinstate the assault-weapons ban. Tucker Carlson scrounged up a copy and put a simple question to her: since she’s so worried about weapons with barrel shrouds, could she at least explain to the viewers what a “barrel shroud” is?

This is why Eisner’s so hot for the “emotional, story-driven” approach.

The video is provided in the link. The short answer to the question that McCarthy (ironic name, no?) was asked is "No, I haven't a freaking clue."

Exit (yet rhetorical and sarcastic) question: Who would have thought that a legislator would propose a bill, intended for us idiot peons, that the legislator himself/herself didn't even understand?

How NOT to prove your point

As the Washington comPost was trying to rustle up some foreigners' opinions on our Second Amendment rights, I think they did themselves a great disservice by undermining their own point thusly (from Newsbusters):

But (author Molly) Moore’s article turned unintentionally comic when she quoted an Iraqi praising the gun-control policies of....Saddam Hussein. "But America has terrorism and they are exporting it to us. We did not have this violence in the Saddam era because the law was so tough on guns."

Perhaps it’s not surprising for a liberal newspaper to use a terrible mass shooting as an opportunity for pro-Saddam Iraqis to condemn how the United States has ruined their paradise. But it’s hardly a poster for the Brady Campaign’s gun-control aims – and Saddam’s dictatorship is hardly a model of nonviolence. (It can, however, illustrate the gun-rights crowd’s belief in guns as a bulwark against dictatorship.)

Pardon me for just a moment...

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

OK...*snort*...*sniffle*...*chuckle*...I'm back. Thanks for bearing with me! Man, was that freakin' hilarious or what?

Eisner proves CLOWNS definition of liberalism

Leftard media moron Michael Eisner, formerly of ABC/Disney, agrees with us here at the Crush Liberalism Objective World News Service (aka CLOWNS): Liberalism is a "feeling, not thinking" ideology. Eisner's admission:

“I’ve always wanted to do position through story on the ridiculousness of having guns and automatic weapons in our society. And it’s been very much obviously in the news, sadly, sadly. But when you’re in a public company and you’re in Washington — I was just saying “Don’t fight the NRA” — or you’re in a big company where your major constituencies are middle Americans, and where you don’t own the company, you’re working for your shareholders, you’ve got to be very careful. And we pushed through same-sex health insurance, some very advanced things… But we never could do the kind of material that I can now do because nobody can tell me I can’t do it. So I think the solution is to get the public, in an emotional, story-driven way, behind the goal of an abolition of handguns and automatic weapons.

Yeah, that whole "appealing to logic and reason" thingy is sooooooooo yesterday. The MSM and CLOWNS just seem to go together, don't they?

NYT breathlessly runs hit piece targeting Second Amendment

Well now...that didn't take long, now did it? From the Old Gray Hag:

Yesterday’s mass shooting at Virginia Tech — the worst in American history — is another horrifying reminder that some of the gravest dangers Americans face come from killers at home armed with guns that are frighteningly easy to obtain...
...Our hearts and the hearts of all Americans go out to the victims and their families. Sympathy was not enough at the time of Columbine, and eight years later it is not enough. What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage and such unbearable loss.

As Bull Dog Pundit notes, "In one sentence they say is that it is 'premature to draw too many lessons,' yet they then go on to say that stronger laws are needed over 'lethal weapons,' even though nothing is known about how he got them."

Does it even matter to these people that the VT shooter allegedly bought his guns illegally? Gun control would stop legal purchases of firearms by law-abiding citizens, but it would do nothing to stop illegal purchases by law-breakers. But hey, why worry about practicality, when we can feel good about ourselves by "doing something" (or appearing as though we are) about the problem?

Victory for constitutionalists

From MSNBC:

In the most important ruling on gun control in 70 years, a federal appeals court Friday for the first time used the Second Amendment to strike down a gun law.

In a 2-1 decision, the court overturned the District of Columbia’s long-standing handgun ban, rejecting the city’s argument that the Second Amendment right to bear arms applied only to militias.

The majority held that the activities protected by the Second Amendment “are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent” on enrollment in a militia.

The ruling is a victory for Tom Palmer, a Washington resident who was once assaulted and wants a gun in the house for self-defense.

"The fact is that the criminals don't obey the law and they do have guns," he said. "It's the law-abiding citizens who are disarmed by this law."

He was one of six who went to court to challenge the city's gun law, passed as an anti-crime measure 30 years ago. It outlaws handguns or rifles except for residents with permits, mainly police or security guards.

Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty said the ruling could put more guns in the hands of young people. "I am personally deeply disappointed and quite frankly outraged by today's decision," he said. "Today's decision flies in the face of laws that have helped decrease gun violence in the District of Columbia."

Gun violence has decreased in DC? That's news to me. It must be all those law-abiding criminals who were disheartened when the ban took place. Anywho, continuing:

The ruling revives a long fight over the 27 words of the Second Amendment: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Gun control advocates argue that the phrase "well-regulated militia" means that owning a gun is a group right, subject to restriction.

But the court essentially said the right to bear arms is an individual right for private activities, including self-defense.

“The district’s definition of the militia is just too narrow,” Judge Laurence Silberman wrote for the majority. “There are too many instances of ‘bear arms’ indicating private use to conclude that the drafters intended only a military sense.”

That's one thing that has always annoyed me about the left. You have to be a really obtuse boob to conclude that of the original Bill of Rights, all but one were written for individual rights and the one exception (the Second Amendment) was written for groups only. As if the Constitution needed to clarify that the military had a right to use weapons?? Anywho:

Judge Karen Henderson dissented, writing that the Second Amendment does not apply to the District of Columbia because it is not a state.

Silberman wrote that the Second Amendment is still “subject to the same sort of reasonable restrictions that have been recognized as limiting, for instance, the First Amendment.”

Such restrictions might include gun registration, firearms testing to promote public safety or restrictions on gun ownership for criminals or those deemed mentally ill.

That's a dissent that is completely inconsistent and incoherent. First of all, she says that the Second Amendment doesn't apply to D.C. because D.C. isn't a state. OK, then neither does the First Amendment (free speech, free press, etc.) or the rest of the Bill of Rights, for that matter! Tell that b#tch to shut up, since she no longer has a First Amendment right to flap her gums. Hell, neither does Congress...and the Washington comPost! Wow...come to think of it, that Silberman chick may be on to something here!

OK, after telling us that DC doesn't have to abide by the Constitution, she then says that restrictions can be placed on the rights that DC...well, that DC doesn't have. Oooooooooo-kay then. I swear, if I didn't know any better, I would guess that the judge had her mind made up in advance and was trying to craft an opinion around her predetermined ruling! Nah...that never happens.

DC says they will appeal. It will be interesting to see if SCOTUS will hear it, and if so, which way the 5-4 ruling will go (since the four libs will side with DC, the four conservatives will side with the gun owner, and Kennedy will flip a coin).