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This is the second time I've heard Chris Wallace repeat this remark that the Boston residents on lockdown during the manhunt last week would have been safer if they were just more heavily armed. The first time was right around the same time Arkansas state Rep. Nate Bell sent out this tweet, on one of other the Faux "News" morning shows. The second time was during his interview with Rep. Dianne Feinstein on Fox News Sunday, who pushed back sternly at Wallace's assertion.

From Politicususa: Dianne Feinstein Calls BS on the Right’s Fantasy That Assault Weapons Can Stop Terrorists:

The thing that the right doesn’t seem to understand is that the Boston manhunt makes the case for why everyone should not have an assault weapon. The bombers were able to kill a campus police officer because they had the element of surprise. They were able to carjack and rob someone due to the element of surprise. A panicked population armed with assault weapons is likely to take law enforcement’s focus off of the bombers, because they would be dealing with every trigger happy scared individual who fired their gun. The last thing law enforcement needed during the search for the bombers was more people running around with guns.

Arming more people with assault weapons would help terrorists by distracting law enforcement. Sen. Feinstein was correct. If people wanted to feel safe there are literally thousands of guns that they could own.

The idea that assault weapons in the hands of regular citizens can stop terrorism is more NRA action movie fantasy.

The reality is that a scared and on edge population armed with assault weapons probably would have resulted in more death and destruction, but this is something that the NRA and their congressional lackeys don’t want to discuss.

Full transcript below the fold.

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Conservative radio host Dana Loesch on Thursday argued that classifying certain guns as assault rifles was silly because "if you stab someone with a spoon it can be qualified as an assault weapon."

Following Thursday's revelations that Newtown shooter Adam Lanza had fired over 150 rounds with an AR-15 in less than five minutes, Loesch appeared on CNN to argue that it was a "false premise" that Lanza had used an assault weapon.

"We are talking about semi-automatic weapons," the former Breitbart editor explained. "I do not own a military-style assault weapon. Just because, what, a firearm looks scary then you call it military assault? Do you realize that one of my children has a BB gun that looks like an AR-15? Is that going to be considered a military-style assault weapon? It sounds silly and uneducated."

CNN host Piers Morgan noted that Lanza had "in the space of 300 seconds using an AR-15, killed 26 people. He had magazines with 30 bullets."

"Anyone can reload!" Loesch shouted.

"Are you telling me that doesn't qualify as an assault weapon?" Morgan asked.

"By the technical definition, no, Piers," Loesch shot back. "Oh, anything can be qualified as an assault weapon. If you stab someone with a spoon, it can be qualified as an assault weapon."

"So you're equating stabbing someone with a spoon with shooting dead 26 people?" Morgan wondered.

Liberal CNN contributor Van Jones said that Loesch's argument was part of the "conscious strategy on the part of the pro-gun folks to constantly bring things back around to things that don't make any sense."

"You're talking about people stabbing people with spoons," Jones observed. "If that were the problem that we had in America -- stabbing people with spoons -- we wouldn't be talking about this right now. What we're talking about is funeral after funeral after funeral. What we're talking about is children being gunned down. And what we're talking about is common-sense measures, not confiscating guns."

(h/t: Media Matters)

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As Igor Volsky at Think Progress noted yesterday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) got called out during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing when repeating the NRA's talking points about why background checks for all gun purchases supposedly won't work. It was nice to see someone stand up to Graham and the bullying we've seen from him during these hearings.

Police Chief Embarrasses Lindsey Graham At Gun Hearing:

During a heated exchange at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) proposed assault weapons ban on Wednesday, Edward Flynn pointedly interrupted Graham’s claims that the federal government is failing to deter individuals from misrepresenting themselves in the background check process by failing to prosecute people who were rejected from purchasing a weapon as a result of their false claims.

Flynn argued that rather than embark on a “paper chase,” law enforcement officials are focused on preventing people from purchasing guns illegally, eliciting loud applause from the audience:

GRAHAM: When almost 80,000 people fail a background check and 44 people are prosecuted, what kind of deterrent is that? I mean, the law obviously is not seeing that as important…. We absolutely do nothing to enforce the laws on the books…

FLYNN: Just for the record, from my point of view, the point of a background check…

GRAHAM: How many cases have you made? How many cases have you made?

FLYNN: It doesn’t matter, it’s a paper thing. I want to stop 76,000 people from getting guns illegally. That’s what a background check does. If you think we’re going to do paperwork prosecutions, you’re wrong. [...] We don’t make those cases. We have priorities. We make gun cases. We make 2,000 gun cases a year, senator, that’s our priority. We’re not in a paper chase. We’re trying to prevent the wrong people from buying guns. That’s why we do background checks. If you think I’m going to do a paper chase, then you think I’m going to misuse my resources.

[...] Indeed, the “low number of prosecutions in 2010, the most recent year for which data are available, is consistent with other years” and is often seen as a poor use of resources. Prosecutors must prove that “the person knew they were lying when they tried to purchase the firearm” in order to secure a conviction which “usually carries a maximum sentence of just six months.”

UPDATE: The Rev. Al Sharpton spoke to Chief Flynn following his testimony and got his reaction to the heated exchange he had with Graham during the hearing. Flynn expressed his frustration over his dealings with Graham and I wanted to share at least this short portion of his conversation with Sharpton about the hearing:

FLYNN: And I found extraordinarily frustrating as I sat there... every one of those Senators with Lindsey Graham got up there and said, oh, we respect your work and oh, we're so sorry about the tragedy in Newtown, but, oh by the way, we're not going to do anything about it. Well, that's unacceptable. And you can't help but become a little agitated when somebody engages in a piece of sophistry that says, look over here, nobody prosecuted these people for filling out their paperwork wrong. No, but we've locked up thousands of gun offenders and the paperwork that was done prevented hundreds of thousands of more from getting guns illegally. So the background check worked.

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I'm fairly sure Graham knows that, but as long as he's worried about some TeaBircher giving him a primary challenge, he's going to continue with the sophistry.

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Two men were arrested in Ohio on Wednesday after their target practice with an AK-47 assault rifle accidentally shot up a woman's home and nearly hit a officer who was responding to reports of gunfire.

Mary Kuruc told WEWS that her daughter discovered a bullet hole in the siding of their Montville Township home and other holes inside the house. After calling 911, Montville Police Sgt. Matt Neil began investigating and the home was hit again.

"We noticed a second bullet hole, followed the trajectory of it and noticed the bullet landed in the microwave," Kuruc recalled.

Neil found himself in the line of fire as he tried to track down where the bullets were coming from.

"When I get about a half mile back in the field up on a hill, gunfire started again, and started hearing rounds go over my head," the officer explained.

Neil called for backup and police discovered two men who thought they were safely shooting at paper targets, but the bullets were skipping off the ground and riddling the suburban neighborhood.

"They were drinking alcohol, they had some drugs on them and they were just outside, in their backyard shooting paper targets," Neil said. “They felt because they were shooting at a downward angle, that it would have been OK.”

Police suspect that "dozens" of shots were fired and have asked other residents to come forward if their homes were hit.

Two men, 53-year-old Mark Bornino and 45-year-old R. Daniel Volpone, were arrested and are facing felony charges. Police seized an AK-47 with two high-capacity magazines, three handguns, over 700 rounds of ammunition and some marijuana.

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I'm not sure why 'Gun Appreciation Day' organizer Larry Ward decided it was a good idea to come on and spar with the Rev. Al Sharpton over the legacy of MLK and whether he would have approved of his upcoming event, which is scheduled just before the holiday honoring Dr. King, but all I can say is, it wasn't pretty.

Ward appeared on CNN last week and made the ridiculous statement that "slavery would not have happened if slaves were armed" and pretended that his event "honors the legacy of Dr. King." Sharpton took apart that and the rest of his arguments quite nicely during this interview.

WATCH: Gun Appreciation Day organizer insists he’s honoring MLK’s legacy, Sharpton responds:

Ward joined Rev. Al Sharpton on PoliticsNation to defend his controversial comments about King, and Sharpton argued vigorously about King’s legacy, pointing out that the civil rights leader preached non-violence and was killed by a gun. [...]

Ward justified his argument by pointing out that King once applied for and was denied a gun permit, but Sharpton added that King later said he was glad he had been turned down for the permit and that he would never carry a gun again.

Ward continued to push the issue as a civil right. “Dr.King fought for equal opportunity, and we look at cities like Chicago and New York that have a majority of minorities in it right now and those cities themselves do not grant the same access the same equal opportunity that somebody in Texas would have to defend themselves.”

Sharpton and Ward discussed Ward’s claim that slavery wouldn’t have happened if slaves could own guns. When Sharpton pointed out that armed slave rebellions of the early 19th century failed to liberate any slaves, Ward continued his argument that gun ownership is a civil right and that citizens have the right to use whatever weapons the government uses against them.

Ward also tried to distance Gun Appreciation Day from the Newtown shooting. ”This Gun Appreciation Day, just so we’re clear, is not in reaction to the shooting in Newtown,” Ward said. “It’s in reaction to the reaction.”

When asked if Gun Appreciation Day included appreciating high capacity ammunition and automatic weapons, Ward said, “Absolutely,” adding that he believes that “any ban on a semi-automatic weapon would not have changed the outcome of what happened in Newtown.”

According to ABC News, "Ward represents conservative clients through his firm, Political Media; Revolution PAC, the libertarian group launched by Ron Paul supporters, is one of his biggest." Color me not shocked given Ron Paul's history. Looks like he's doing his best to make sure he raises his profile by getting some face time in the corporate media with this stunt.

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Democratic Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on Sunday suggested that assault weapons may be used in so many mass shootings because of their depiction in video games, but he stopped short of calling for reinstating a ban on those military-style, urban-warfare firearms.

CNN host Candy Crowley on Sunday reminded Hickenlooper that he had said there was very little that could be done to stop a determined mass killer after the theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado this year and asked him if he still felt that way after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut last week.

"That's true," the Colorado governor agreed. "What you can do is expand your capacity, your framework within a state or within the country to have more people paying attention and trying to detect folks that are unstable on the verge of real trouble, try to catch them at a certain level."

"But certainly the culture of violence -- and look at the level of violence in our media, video games," he added. "The depiction of assault weapons again and again. There might well be some direct connection between people who have mental instability and when they go over the edge, they transpose themselves, they become part of one of those videos games. And perhaps that's why all these assault weapons are used."

But Hickenlooper dodged Crowley's question when she asked if it was time for "a law banning either these high-capacity magazines or, again, re-instituting the ban on assault weapons."

"The access to guns is going to get discussed," he insisted. "Our country is based on -- that Second Amendment has been shown repeatedly, it does protect people's rights bear arms, to have guns. You know, my grandfather taught me how to shoot and clean a 12-gauge shotgun and showed me how to hunt and I've shown my son. I mean, that tradition is very powerful throughout this country."

"But, you know, discussion around assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and what type of -- should there be wait? You know, one of the things we're doing in Colorado is looking at expanding the time if someone's had a mental-illness hold, expanding the time they have to wait before they can get access to a firearm. Those kinds of things, I think those discussions are going to happen, I mean, in real time over the next couple of months."

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During his interview with Piers Morgan on CNN this Thursday evening, Mitt Romney doubled down on his assertion that changing the gun laws would not have made any difference in the Aurora massacre. While we can't stop every crazy person out there who wants to harm their fellow citizens, as Think Progress noted this week, there are things the Congress can do which would limit the amount of gun violence.

Five Things Congress Could Do In Response To The Aurora Theater Shootings:

Here are five ideas for legislation Congress could enact to help limit gun violence:

1. Regulate ammunition sales. “Everything that the [Colorado theater shooting] suspect did was legal,” says Andy Pelosi of States United to Prevent Gun Violence, “Which is scary, that you can acquire that type of firepower. I think we need to take a hard look at ammunition sales.” Currently, criminals can legally get their hands on high-capacity gun magazines and armor-piercing bullets over the Internet. Such ammunition is not needed for hunting, and unnecessary for nearly any exercise in self defense. In fact, as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pointed out, those bullets are most dangerous for police officers. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has committed to reintroducing legislation that would regulate such ammunition clips.

2. Increase mental illness reporting. After the horrible shooting at Virginia Tech, the state changed the structure of reporting mentally ill patients to the gun registry, including those who seek outpatient mental health services instead of just those who have been committed. Just four years out from when the law was passed, the number of mentally ill people who are blocked from obtaining a firearm in Virginia doubled. Other states haven’t been so vigilant. In fact, many states are incredibly slow to report even those mentally ill people who check in for inpatient services.

3. Background checks, every time. Gun law advocates know that the shooting in Colorado isn’t an isolated incident. Pelosi told ThinkProgress that “30 people are killed a day from guns, and many of those are purchased illegally.” Mayor Bloomberg has called on legislators to close loopholes regarding background checks, especially at gun shows. The gun show loophole and private sale loophole allow people to circumvent the regular requirements to check on the mental health and criminal record of gun purchasers. Only 17 states have such laws in effect (Colorado is one — they closed the loophole by ballot initiative in 2000), but Congress has taken no federal action to follow suit.

4. Restrict mail-order sales, step-up reporting. From 1968 until 1986, ammunition was regulated, and the mail order sale of bullets was illegal. Then, the NRA lobbied to have the law changed. When the Mcclure Volkmer Act passed, mail order sales were legalized, record-keeping requirements were repealed, and ammunition was deregulated. That was before the Internet age anonymous online ordering. Now, someone can purchase 6,000 rounds of ammunition in just a “few keystrokes.” The alleged gunman in Colorado never came face-to-face with a salesman when he bought his bullets and ballistic gear. However, a gun range owner described a “bizarre” encounter over the phone with the suspect that prompted the man to bar him from using the gun range. In the age of Internet anonymity, there are less opportunities for someone to monitor erratic behavior or sense ulterior motives.

5. Ban assault weapons. The alleged gunman in the Aurora theater used a gun that, until 2004, was illegal. That’s when Congress allowed the assault weapons ban to expire, opening the market up for military-style assault firearms. Such military-style guns (the Aurora gunman’s is the civilian equivalent to the military’s M-16) are designed to be concealed. They also have a much higher ammunition capacity. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has called on her colleagues to reinstall this ban.

Left to their own devices, people with severe mental troubles who want to hurt others will usually find a way to do so. The government will never be able to prevent every incident, every place in the country from happening every time. But there are certainly ways that the government is able to limit the loss of life, help the troubled perpetrators, and ensure that psychopaths cannot have absolute free reign — all without taking away the right of an average, sane citizen to own a firearm.

Transcript of Romney repeating the NRA's talking points on CNN below the fold.

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After NRA lobbyist Wayne LaPierre attacked MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell at this year’s CPAC, O’Donnell responded in his Rewrite segment and pretty well ripped LaPierre to shreds for his part in contributing to the number of deaths after that tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in Tucson, Arizona.

O’DONNELL: Time for tonight’s Rewrite. In Washington during the Conservative Political Action Committee better known as CPAC, I actually made an appearance of sorts. It happened while Washington’s lobbyist in favor of murderers’ rights to always use the gun of their choice, Wayne LaPierre, the Executive Vice President of the NRA, was speaking about the calls for gun and ammunition control in the aftermath of the Tucson massacre.

(cut to video)

You just heard the NRA’s lie, now some facts. A Justice Department study on the federal assault weapons ban, which was law for 10 years found “Gun murders declined 10.3 percent in states without preexisting assault weapons bans.” 10.3 percent. Another study by the Justice Department in 2004 concluded “If the ban is lifted, gun and magazine manufacturers may reintroduce assault weapons models and large capacity magazines, perhaps in substantial numbers.”

And that is exactly what the merchants of death did; reintroduced assault weapons and the high capacity magazines that allowed Jared Loughner to take 31 shots, 31, before he had to stop and reload.

On the NRA’s web site, gun violence cheerleader Wayne LaPierre says “It’s time to acknowledge what we know in our hearts to be true.” That “The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.”

Wayne, there was a good guy on the scene that day, in Tucson with a gun, but there wasn’t anything he could do. It was too dangerous to fire. He could have hit an innocent bystander. A good guy with a gun did not stop Jared Loughner.

It was the moment that Loughner had to reload that he became stoppable and he was stopped by a 61 year old woman who wrestled another high capacity magazine out of his hand as he tried to reload, and an unarmed 74 year old man, who had already been grazed by one of Loughner’s bullets. The second, the second Jared Loughner had to stop and reload, he became an unarmed man.

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