HomoQuotable - Gwen Patton

"We don’t want people to hurt us, we want people to run away from us, and the best way we have found to do that is to be armed. Now if someone tries to attack us, we can defend ourselves. Ideally we don’t want any altercation at all, but if there is a perception that the gay person on the street could have a concealed gun, it might make the perpetrator think twice. Guns can be a very useful tool, but society has turned them into something they are not. They aren’t the boogeyman. So some think of us as traitors. But at the end of the day, it’s about recognizing that the government shouldn’t be taking our rights away – our rights to be armed, and our rights to be happy and with the person we love." - Gwen Patton, head of Pink Pistols, in a Fox News article about "growing" LGBT support for the Second Amendment.

Quote Of The Day - Arkansas GOP

"We need to let those who will come in the future to represent us [know] that we are serious. The 2nd amendment means nothing unless those in power believe you would have no problem simply walking up and shooting them if they got too far out of line and stopped responding as representatives. It seems that we are unable to muster that belief in any of our representatives on a state or federal level, but we have to have something, something costly, something that they will fear that we will use if they step out of line."- From this month's official newsletter of the Benton County, Arkansas GOP.

CONNECTICUT: Gun Nuts Heckle Father Of Slain Sandy Hook Child

How low will teabaggers go? This low:

A false fire alarm, 45-minute waits to get into the Capitol complex, even the heckling of a bereaved parent of a Newtown shooting victim marked Monday's day-long legislative hearing on gun control. "The Second Amendment!" was shouted by several gun enthusiasts in the meeting room as Neil Heslin, holding a photo of his 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, asked why Bushmaster assault-style weapons are allowed to be sold in the state. "There are a lot of things that should be changed to prevent what happened," said Heslin, who grew up using guns and seemed undisturbed by the interruption of his testimony.

Beyond disgusting.

Petition Of The Day

Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto is supporting the teabagger petition drive to deport CNN host Piers Morgan for daring to speak in favor of gun control.  The wingnut Daily Caller captured a Twitter exchange between the two:

“Ironic U.S. gun rights campaign to deport me for ‘attacking 2nd Amendment rights’ – is my opinion not protected under 1st Amendment rights?,” Morgan tweeted. “Your opinion is protected, your presence in the U.S. is not. See Kleindienst v. Mandel (1972),” Taranto replied to Morgan. Taranto linked to transcripts from a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the U.S. Attorney General’s refusal to allow a foreign journalist into the United States did not violate the First Amendment. The case resulted from Nixon administration attorney general Richard Kleindienst’s refusal to grant a temporary nonimmigrant visa to Marxist Belgian journalist Ernest Mandel. Taranto’s tweet was praised by Twitter users who would like to send Morgan back to his native land.

The residents of Teabagistan sure have their priorities in order.

Editorial Of The Day

From the National Review:

The irreducible challenge the Second Amendment poses to gun restrictionists is that it does not bestow upon the people a right they previously lacked. It proscribes the government from infringing upon a right the people already have. It is not that the people are allowed to arm. It is that the government is disallowed to disarm them.

The practical consequence of living for nearly two and a half centuries under the almost universally benevolent protection of the Second Amendment is a society in which there are hundreds of millions of guns, in which 47 percent of families — and nearly as many Democrats as Republicans — own guns, and in which the dissent over the sacrosanctity of gun rights is heard largely because of the overrepresentation in the media of the coastal, urban Left.

Those upset with the order of things are welcome to try, and doomed to fail, to repeal the Second Amendment via the constitutional process. But the guns of America aren’t going anywhere any time soon, and generic calls to “do something” — even insofar as doing something is desirable — must reckon with this fact.

In other words: "Tough shit that all those kids got killed."

God Bless America

Decades old and nothing has changed. (Via JMG reader Dick)

Headline Of The Day

Honestly, officer! I wasn't going to shoot up the theater! I was actually just on my way to kill my boss! Pay no attention to those Colorado newspaper clippings you found in my car! Details. (Tipped by JMG reader Tee Jay)

Scoreboard

(Tipped by JMG reader Ray)

With My Rifle By My Side

New from Young Heart Books is With My Rifle By My Side, a children's guide to the importance of the Second Amendment and the right to blow away fellow humans. Unsurprisingly, the book is from God's Gentle People™. "Young Heart Books encourage the young to seek the Lord in prayer, worship in church, and love the liberties provided by the sacrifices of our country's forefathers so they may grow into tomorrow's American patriots." Glenn Beck is a big fan.

Obama's Coming For Yer Guns!

Attendees at this week's NRA convention are convinced that the president is going to make gun ownership illegal. Because Fox News told them so!

NRA: We Need More Guns In The Projects

Less than 24 hours after Thursday's handgun ruling by the Supreme Court, the NRA sued the city of San Francisco to overturn its ban on guns in public housing projects. Interestingly, another pro-gun group joined the suit on behalf of a gay man living in the projects who says he needs a gun to protect himself from bashing.

The National Rifle Association sued the city of San Francisco on Friday to overturn its ban on handguns in public housing, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a handgun ban in the nation's capital. The legal action follows a similar lawsuit against the city of Chicago over its handgun ban, filed within hours of Thursday's high court ruling.

In San Francisco, the NRA was joined by the Washington state-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and a gun owner who lives in the city's Valencia Gardens housing project. The gun owner, who is gay, says he keeps the weapon to defend himself from "sexual orientation hate crimes." He was not identified in the complaint because he said he fears retaliation.

Mayor Gavin Newsom said the city will "vigorously fight the NRA" and defended the ban as good for public safety. "Is there anyone out there who really believes that we need more guns in public housing?" Newsom said. "I can't for the life of me sit back and roll over on this. We will absolutely defend the rights of the housing authority."

I have a feeling that the NRA likes the idea of more guns in the projects for reasons outside of their stated mission.

Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Guns

In a judgment that gun advocates are calling as historic as Brown V. Board of Education, the Supreme Court today issued its first ever ruling on the Second Amendment,saying that the long-contested amendment does protect the right of individuals to own handguns, not merely a "well-regulated militia."

Americans have a right to keep a gun at home for self-defense, the Supreme Court ruled today in striking down part of a handgun ban in the District of Columbia.

By a 5-4 vote, the court concluded that the 2nd Amendment and its famous right "to keep and bear arms" protects the gun rights of individuals, rather than just a state's right to maintain a militia. Justice Antonin Scalia, speaking for the court, said the history of the 2nd Amendment shows its authors intended to protect the "right of the people" as individuals to have weapons, both to defend themselves and their community.

The ruling is the first in the high court's long history to strike down a gun law based on the 2nd Amendment. But the court's ruling appeared to be narrow. Scalia stressed that nothing in today's decision casts doubts on laws that forbid felons or the mentally ill from having guns.

He also said the government can strictly regulate when and where people have guns. For example, he said guns may be prohibited near schools and in or near government buildings. "Like most rights, the right secured by the 2nd Amendment is not unlimited," Scalia said.

But the four dissenters faulted the majority for opening the door to legal challenges to various gun-control measures. Justice John Paul Stevens, speaking for the dissenters, said the 2nd Amendment "was adopted to protect the right of the people of each of the several states to maintain a well-regulated militia."

"The court is making new law today" to extend this right to individuals acting on their own, Stevens said.

The White House issued a statement calling the case historic. "The president strongly agrees with the Supreme Court's historic decision today that the 2nd Amendment protects the individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms," it said. "This has been the administration's long-held view. The president is also pleased that the court concluded that the D.C. firearm laws violate that right.

John McCain is over the moon, having been party to a friend of the court brief in support of individual gun ownership. John Lennon, JFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr. were not available for comment.

A Well-Regulated (Queer) Militia...

The Pink Pistols, a group of gay gun owners, were among 68 groups that today filed briefs at the Supreme Court in its hearing to overturn Washington, DC's ban on handguns.

A Washington resident who wants to keep handguns at home for protection is challenging the 32-year-old ban as a violation of his constitutional rights. A federal appeals court in Washington agreed that the city cannot ban handguns.

The court has not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment in the 216 years since its ratification. The basic issue for the justices is whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

Even if the court determines there is an individual right, the justices still will have to decide whether the District's ban can stand and how to evaluate other gun control laws."Does that make it unreasonable for a city with a very high crime rate...to say no handguns here?" Justice Stephen Breyer asked the attorneys.

On the other side, Chief Justice John Roberts asked at one point: "What is reasonable about a ban on possession" of handguns? The case drew 68 briefs from outside groups, most opposed to the ban.

Among them were Pink Pistols - a national LGBT gun club - and Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty. Pink Pistols, which according to its Web site, has 43 chapters nationwide, said that guns should be allowed in homes for self-defense purposes. "More anti-gay hate crimes occur in the home than in any other location," the Pink Pistols said in their brief.

As the story notes, the Supreme Court has not ruled authoritatively on the Second Amendment since its institution in 1791. And it's about time they do. In this situation, I hope the Pink Pistols and the others lose.