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From this Wednesday evening's The Daily Show, Jon Stewart took the bed-wetters over at Faux "News" to task for wanting to shred our Constitution and Bill of Rights, ever since the suspect was arrested for the Boston Marathon bombings.

As Stewart noted at the end of the segment, they're ready to rip just about every amendment to shreds, there is one of course that they're willing to defend -- the 2nd.

STEWART: God help us if the Muslims ever decide to form a well-regulated militia.

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How bad are things when former Rep. Jane Harman is sounding like the voice of reason when it comes to our treatment of terrorism suspects? From this week's Fox News Sunday, she and Bloody Bill Kristol sparred over whether the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing should be treated as an enemy combatant or read his rights and tried in civilian court.

I'm not sure what good Kristol thinks it's going to do to try to interrogate someone who apparently has been shot in the throat and can't communicate right now if they wanted to, but the right does seem to love stomping all over our Constitutional rights (unless it's guns, of course) at every given opportunity.

Steve Benen made some of the same points as Harman during her back and forth with Kristol in a post he wrote yesterday which described what a dangerous game these Republicans are playing: The legal process ahead for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev:

The broader question -- I'm reluctant to call it a "debate" since the path seems so obvious -- is what happens after that. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have some thoughts on the matter.

Two powerful GOP senators are calling on the Obama administration to treat the captured suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings as an "enemy combatant" and deny him counsel even though he is reportedly an American citizen. [...]

Regardless his citizenship status, McCain and Graham say Dzhokhar Tsarnaev gave up his rights to a criminal trial when he allegedly participated in the bombings.

"Under the Law of War we can hold this suspect as a potential enemy combatant not entitled to Miranda warnings or the appointment of counsel," McCain and Graham said.

McCain and Graham are playing a dangerous game here. In case anyone's forgotten, we're talking about an American citizen, captured on American soil, accused of committing a crime in America. These Republican senators are arguing, in effect, that none of this matters anymore.

The same week in which Senate Republicans insisted that the Second Amendment is sacrosanct, McCain and Graham are arguing that the Fourth Amendment is a nicety that the nation must no longer take seriously.

By all accounts, the Obama administration is prepared to ignore the senators' suggestion. [...]

That's encouraging. Even for those on the right who are indifferent to civil liberties, the fact remains that civilian trials for terrorist suspects have proven to be an effective method of trying, convicting, and sentencing criminals, including accused terrorists. Military commissions, meanwhile, have proven to be an ineffective method.

When it comes to national security, foreign policy, and counter-terrorism, McCain and Graham have a track record of being remarkably wrong with incredible consistency. The more the Obama administration ignores their advice, the better.

Double that for Bill Kristol. And note to Chris Wallace in regard to the clip above, please quit calling the United States "the homeland." It's creeping me out.

Transcript via Fox below the fold.

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In his New Rules segment this Friday, Bill Maher took a shot at all of the "gun nuts" out there who are so worried about their 2nd Amendment rights being stripped away, but who, along with a lot of liberals, haven't said anything about the National Defense Authorization Act quietly being passed by Congress, which actually is a threat to our civil liberties in this country.

Maher's right that this is a bi-partisan political problem, but I think the bigger problem with the complacency is that we've got a corporate media out there which for the most part is completely ignoring the problem. It's a shame we'll see it discussed on a comedy show like his but ignored on the "news."

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Jon Stewart took the hypocrites over at Fox apart again for their cries of tyranny over President Obama's executive orders on gun violence in America -- which, as Stewart pointed out, somehow the likes of Sean Hannity or Dana Perino had absolutely no problem with when their buddy Bush was issuing them.

He also gave a little history lesson to all of the wingnuts out there who believe that the 2nd Amendment gives them some protection from government tyranny and who are throwing out ridiculous hypotheticals like saying that the Jews having guns would have protected them from Hitler or that we wouldn't have had slavery if African Americans were allowed to have guns.

For anyone who missed it over the weekend, MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry had a rather interesting segment to open her show on Sunday, where she said conservatives haven't always been against gun control laws and the issue wasn't necessarily a partisan one. She gave viewers a little history lesson about the days when the Black Panthers were taking up arms on the streets of California and none other than conservative icon St. Ronnie Reagan was signing legislation to disarm them.

So... if we want to get conservatives to go along with some sort of gun control legislation, do we need to try to bring back the Black Panthers and get them back out there advocating for open carry? They all loved it when we had these TeaBirchers out there bringing guns to rallies and town hall meetings protesting the health care law. If Fox was going crazy over just a few of these New Black Panthers standing outside of a polling place, imagine how they'd act if we had the old Black Panther Party back, '60's style, armed and ready to stand up for their Second Amendment rights.

For more on what Harris-Perry was talking about here and what went down with the Black Panthers in the '60's, check out this article from The Atlantic from back in Sept. of 2011: The Secret History of Guns:

The Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked to control guns. The Founding Fathers? They required gun ownership—and regulated it. And no group has more fiercely advocated the right to bear loaded weapons in public than the Black Panthers—the true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement. In the battle over gun rights in America, both sides have distorted history and the law, and there’s no resolution in sight.

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Lou Dobbs continues to prove that his move from CNN to Fox Business Channel was not good for him or for anyone still watching him if they would like to be presented with some semblance of the truth instead of perpetual fearmongering. In the wake of the Aurora massacre, one of the topics on this Friday's show was gun control, whether it be the possibility of new gun control laws being passed in America, or one of the right's favorite conspiracy theories, which is that the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty is going to take away everyone's guns.

And who better to bring in to weigh in on the topic, than discredited gun "researcher" John Lott. Media Matters has a long list of posts on Lott which you can read here. And Digby wrote about this nut back in 2006 here: Resurrection.

As Dobbs reported on the show, the U.N. failed to meet the deadline which was this Friday due to 51 Senators refusing to vote for it: Global arms treaty hits resistance as deadline ticks down:

Negotiators at the United Nations worked to complete a treaty to regulate the global arms trade by a Friday night deadline but faced resistance from some nations, including Iran, Syria and North Korea, and a request for more time from the United States.

The treaty aims to halt the cross-border flow of weapons and ammunition that has fueled violent conflicts around the world.

But some countries made clear their unhappiness with the restrictions in the treaty, which requires approval from all 193 United Nations members. And the Obama administration said it needed to study the text, which has gone through a series of revisions in a four-week negotiating process.

Complicating the politics of the negotiation, 51 U.S. senators have joined gun rights advocates in opposing the treaty, which they fear would infringe 2nd Amendment rights to bear arms.

The senators, in letters to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, expressed "grave concern" that the treaty could affect Americans’ ability to buy arms. Arms-control advocates contend that the worry is groundless. [...]

[Updated 5:24 p.m. Friday July 27: U.N. members ultimately failed to reach agreement by the Friday deadline. The conference chairman, Ambassador Roberto Garcia Moritan, said that despite the stalemate,“we certainly are going to have a treaty in 2012,” the Associated Press reported.]

Think Progress has more debunking their U.N. conspiracy theory here: The Right-Wing’s Favorite New Conspiracy: The U.N. Is After Your Guns:

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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 Sharron Angle went on ABC News and basically reiterated her "Second Amendment remedies" statements and repeated that if Republicans don't like the election results, they may end up turning to their guns, or armed insurrection, Rachel Maddow asks, just what does a Republican political candidate have to say these days to finally be considered out of the mainstream?

MADDOW: What is over the line? What qualifies as an unacceptable position for a major party nominee to hold in this year's elections? What earns a reprimand from the party What earns other politicians distancing themselves from a position that is too extreme? What's too extreme? This year a lot of positions that used to be politically over the line seem to be viable. Positions like Social Security should be abolished. Women should be forced to bear their rapist's babies. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a bad idea.

Those positions, despite what they've been seen as in previous years, this year aren't necessarily seen as too controversial. But is there anything that is too far out there, too over the line? How about candidates saying if conservatives don't get what they want in this year's elections we should expect conservatives to use guns instead to get what they want? […]

ANGLE: I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems.

MADDOW: But if the vote isn't the cure, if the vote doesn't work against the Harry Reid problems then there's the second amendment. There's guns.

Just to make sure it is super clear that Sharron Angle is in fact threatening that conservatives should be expected to use guns to get their way if they don't get the results they want from the next election, in may Sharron Angle told the Reno Gazette-Journal “...the nation is arming. What are they arming for if it isn't that they are so distrustful of their government? They're afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways?... That's why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?”

What will be the next step? If conservatives don't get what they want in the election? Sharron Angle is warning that it will be conservatives using guns to try to get their way. This is not the hyperbole. There is no further context to these remarks. She keeps volunteering this quote over and over again. This is what she has been saying. [...]

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Committee are funding this campaign where the candidate says expect conservatives to try to use the second amendment, try to use guns to get what they want if they lose the election.

Given the opportunity to recant that now that she is the Republican Party's official nominee for senate, instead the candidate has essentially just reiterated it and laughed.

Is this considered a main stream position now? Everybody down with this idea? RNSC, RNC, are you guys okay with this? If this is now a main stream position that we should expect political, armed political violence in this country if conservatives don't get what they want in the next election, if this is a main stream position, what counts as over the line now?