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Rachel Maddow points out for us that despite Representatives Louie Gohmert and Trent Franks' fantasies about more guns equaling there being any less crime, in the states where we have more lenient gun laws, the opposite is true.

These idiots want to take us back to some version of the Wild Wild West and pretend that if everyone has the ability to shoot each other, somehow fewer people would end up being shot.

Rep. Gohmert apparently thinks that having guns on the House floor is a good idea as well.

Texas Republican Louie Gohmert Drafting Legislation To Let Guns on House Floor:

To Louie Gohmert, the answer to violence is more guns, and allowing members of congress to carry them on the House floor.“It’d be a good thing for members of Congress who want to carry a weapon in the District,” he said. “I know friends that walk home from the Capitol. There’s no security for us,” he said, adding that the measure would deter people from attacking members. “There is some protection in having protection.”He said there were times during the health care debate last year that he felt afraid, including when a stranger approached him on the street and started screaming at him.

Gohmert’s staff is preparing a bill that would allow guns. Of course, what do you expect from a man who believes women come to the United States to have “terror babies” and to whom comparing Obama to Hitler is “brilliant.”

And Rep. Trent Franks thinks if we'd just had one more shooter during that tragedy in Arizona, all would have been well.

Trent Franks: 'I Wish There Had Been One More Gun' In Tucson -- There was, and he almost shot the wrong person.

Here's more from Rachel Maddow's blog on why more guns in the hands of citizens doesn't ever equal less people being killed with guns with some stats on states and gun ownership.

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MSNBC's Chris Jansing talks to the NRA's Wayne LaPierre about the decision by the Supreme Court today that the Second Amendment right "applies equally to the federal government and the states".

Justices extend gun owner rights nationwide:

The Supreme Court held Monday that Americans have the right to own a gun for self-defense anywhere they live, advancing a recent trend by the John Roberts-led bench to embrace gun rights.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices cast doubt on handgun bans in the Chicago area, but signaled that some limitations on the Constitution's "right to keep and bear arms" could survive legal challenges.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, said that the Second Amendment right "applies equally to the federal government and the states."

The court was split along familiar ideological lines, with five conservative-moderate justices in favor of gun rights and four liberals opposed. Chief Justice Roberts voted with the majority.

...The ruling seemed unlikely to resolve questions and ongoing legal challenges about precisely what sort of gun control laws are permissible.

...Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, said his politically powerful group "will continue to work at every level to insure that defiant city councils and cynical politicians do not transform this constitutional victory into a practical defeat through Byzantine regulations and restrictions."

Of course LaPierre doesn't want any restrictions on gun ownership at all and compared anyone who does to someone wanting to restrict "the individual right of religion, or speech or the right to vote, or any other great fundamental core freedom we have as American citizens." I hate to break it to LaPierre but there are restrictions on our other Constitutional rights, but heaven forbid that might get in the way of his demagoguery.

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Lindsey Graham as I already noted is terribly worried about the constitutional rights of gun owners but when it comes to someone being arrested that's accused of an act of terrorism, not so much. The one area I'd say I probably agree with him on is that there are all kinds of people on that watch list that don't belong on there. I remember reading about Ted Kennedy finding his name on it when Bush was still running the show and have watched lots of segments where everyone that shares a common name is winding up there.

After getting to watch some of the reair of that Senate hearing, Graham's statements were worse than the media reported. If only he had as much concern for someone accused of terrorism as he is for those targeted by this watch list. Somehow Graham doesn't seem capable of making the same rationalizations when it comes to someone who has been charged and not yet convicted of terrorism and the need for the rule of law in case they happen to be innocent and the respect for our Constitution when it comes to terrorism cases as he makes for gun owners. Apparently the Constitution only matters for Graham when it's an issue he can score political points on.

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My, my, isn't this special? The St. Louis tea bagger Dana Loesch has now made her way from Fox News to CNN. John Roberts asks if the tone of the rhetoric at the town halls is getting dangerous. Ron Reagan Jr. replies that it has, and points out that a gun was dropped out of one of the participant's pockets at an Arizona town hall meeting. Dana Loesch defends it by saying that maybe they have a concealed-carry license. Oh...I see Dana. That license makes what happened alright in your right wing nutter world.

Would you still be defending that person being that irresponsible if that was a loaded gun, and it went off when they dropped it?

I've got a friend who is my accountant, and who has a conceal/carry license. When getting my taxes done a little while back she went on endlessly about all the classes and hoops she had to jump through with learning about gun safety to get her license. She was actually pretty proud of how she did and how she already knew how to safely handle a gun, since all of her family are hunters and they taught her from a young age a lot of the things she was required to know in those classes.

I have not read up on what the laws are to be allowed to retain a license to carry a concealed weapon since I have no desire to do so myself. If there is not something written into any states' laws already that says if you drop a loaded gun in a crowd of people and they can prove you did it, and you don't lose your right to carry a concealed weapon, then there's something wrong with our concealed/carry laws.

Anyone who has been through the program you have to go through to get that license would know better than to allow a gun to be unsecured in a manner where it's allowed to just fall out of wherever you're holding it and hit the ground. Ms. Loesch's argument that maybe this person had a permit looks ridiculous to me for that reason alone. The opposite is true of responsible gun owners who go through the safety program for that license, and the likelihood of someone who had the license allowing something that irresponsible to happen.

Of course Loesch has no idea whether they had a license or not. She just threw that out there from the land of her butt to defend them bringing a gun there in the first place. And the big, thuggish union guys at the St. Louis meeting she went to scared her, so maybe she would have been better off having a gun there herself as well. Just who would you have shot Dana had you had that gun you're saying would have protected you? Somehow you managed to make it out of there alive and onto our TV screens without pulling a gun on anyone yourself. Ron Reagan thankfully added a bit of sanity to this segment when he wasn't being talked over.

Full transcript below the fold.

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From Real Time Nov. 14, 2008.

The one part of the economy that is doing well I swear to god is the gun industry. Since Obama got elected gun sales have shot up because there's a, you know, this is, I read this in USA Today, a survey of Americans, how they felt about Obama's election, 67% proud, 59% excited, 30% pessimistic, 27% afraid. So we'd like to f#%k with those people right now. The people who are afraid. A little something we call Obama World.

In Obama World all guns will be confiscated and melted down to make a giant statue of Allah.

The National Anthem will be changed from the Star Spangled Banner to Gin and Juice.

The colors of the American flag will be changed from red, white and blue to black, black and leopard print.

The Department of Health and Human services will now be the Department of Earth, Wind and Fire.

And the Obama Cabinet will consist of Shaft, Dolemite, Foxy Brown, Mandingo, Cleopatra Jones, Superfly and Blacula.

And finally the government will listen in on your phone calls, search you without a warrant, arrest you without charges and hold you without a trial. Oh wait, that's now.