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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) says that he would like to weaken existing gun control laws with any new legislation by decreasing the number of background checks required for people who apply for concealed carry permits in multiple states.

During an interview on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked Rubio if his filibuster of a bill to expand background checks to include gun shows and Internet sales meant that he would also vote against the final bipartisan legislation.

"Well to be fair, I haven't read it in its totality, but I can tell you this, I am very skeptical of any plan that deals with the Second Amendment because invariably these gun laws end up impeding on the rights of people to bear arms who are law abiding and do nothing to keep criminals from buying them," the Florida Republican opined. "Criminals don't care what the law is."

"You have supported background checks in the Florida legislature," Wallace pointed out.

"Yeah," Rubio replied. "But those background checks in Florida are for people who have concealed weapons permits. If you have a concealed weapons permit, you do background check. I have no problem with that."

"But are they going to honor that in all 50 states? If someone goes to another state to buy a gun, do I have to undergo another background check or will my concealed weapons permit be de facto proof that I am not a criminal? These are the sorts of things that I hope we'll talk about."

According to The Washington Post, gun rights lobbyists and pro-gun lawmakers are hoping to weaken existing gun laws by amending a background checks bill in the Senate.

"Most worrisome to those who advocate new gun limits is an expected amendment that would achieve one of the National Rifle Association’s biggest goals: a 'national reciprocity' arrangement, in which a gun owner who receives a permit to carry a concealed weapon in any one state would then be allowed to do that anywhere in the country," the Post's Karen Tumulty and Ed O’Keefe wrote on Friday.

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A gun owner in Florida was arrested on Wednesday after he opened fire at a suspected Walmart shoplifter because he said he felt threatened and wanted to "mark" the man's car for police.

As unarmed 42-year-old Eddie McKee allegedly ran from an Orange City Walmart with stolen merchandise, 35-year-old Jose Martinez pulled out his gun and fired at least five bullets, according to WKMG.

"I saw one black gentleman running from the parking lot, he dove in his car," a caller told 911. "And there were two older gentlemen chasing him down. One drew a gun, ripped open the guys car door and screamed, 'Freeze, freeze, don't move!' And then fired shots."

Bullets riddled McKee's vehicle, hitting the trunk and shattering the back window. Two other cars were also hit by gunfire.

Martinez told WKMG that he was shocked that police arrested him because he thought no one other than the shoplifter was in danger. He said he just wanted to mark the man's car for police.

Orange City police argued that surveillance video showed that the gun owner was never in danger because McKee was in the process of fleeing when the shooting occurred.

Martinez has permit to carry a concealed weapon in Florida, but was charged with aggravated assault and shooting into an occupied vehicle, both felonies.

McKee faced a misdemeanor charge after police caught up with him in DeLand.

I saw these videos posted over at Digby's place earlier this week and thought they were worth sharing. For anyone that believes NRA head Wayne LaPierre's argument that "a good guy with a gun" necessarily makes anyone any safer, maybe they should give this report from ABC a look.

I don't have much to add to what either Brad Friedman or Digby had to say in either of their posts on this, so just go follow the links here for more on why LaPierre's solution with just putting more guns in more people's hands to prevent mass shootings is not likely to do an ounce of good.

As Steve Benen noted, when politicians get caught accidentally telling the truth the "unexpected candor can be revealing." I'd say that's putting it lightly in this case. Here's more from Blue Girl that sent him the tip on this. They are setting up tragedies and they know it, but they Just. Don't. Care.:

I can not, for the life of me, figure out why any lawmaker gleefully pursues legislation that will, if enacted, most certainly result in suffering, death and heartache for someone who lives in their district -- unless they are just so craven and venal that human life is expendable if it is lost in the service of pissing off liberals. I am honestly starting to believe that today's republicans have devolved that far, to the point that "pissing off liberals" is the only stimulus to which they can muster a response.

Go read the rest but here's more from the Des Moines Register -- House Republican, caught on tape, jokes of ‘give a handgun to a schizophrenic bill’:

A snafu during a legislative debate where a microphone was turned on captured banter between two Iowa GOP leaders, who also joked about a “give-a-handgun-to-a-schizophrenic bill.”

Republicans this week revived a proposal that would allow Iowans to carry weapons in public without permission from a sheriff, without background checks and without training requirements.

The legislation, House Study bill 219, is known as “Alaska carry,” which is law in Alaska, Arizona, Vermont and Wyoming. Rep. Erik Helland, R-Johnston, is listed as one of the three legislators on a subcommittee assigned the bill.

Helland is the House majority whip. Rep. Jeff Kaufmann, R-Wilton, who made the schizophrenic remark, is the speaker pro tem. Also in the conversation is Rep. Steve Lukan, R-New Vienna who is also an assistant majority leader.

The conversation begins with jokes between the members that they’re going to pull Rep. Ron Jorgenson, R-Sioux City, from leading debate on House File 525, a controversial union collective bargaining bill. Debate halted for more than two hours because of a technical issue that the representatives joked was Jorgenson’s fault. [...]

Here’s the conversation: The audio can be found here at around the 1 hour and 1 minute mark:

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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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