How the Gun Industry Profits Off the Carnage its Product Creates

It's one of the gun lobby's and firearms industry's most successful scams; the "fear buying" marketing campaign. The way it works is this, you convince a certain cowardly subset of the population that there's some imminent threat to their safety or that the government is minutes away from scooping up all their guns and said cowardly subset will run out in a fit of panic buying, like people who get into fights over water before a big storm.

And how do we know it's the same subset every time? Because the numbers are too contradictory any other way. After a string of high profile and extremely shocking killings in 2013, it started to look like some real action was about to take place in the arena of gun safety. That this didn't happen is a matter of national shame, but the panic buying set in, making 2013 a banner year for firearms sales.

So, did everyone run out and buy a lot of guns and ammunition? Actually, no. Hardly anyone did. A study launched by the General Social Survey showed that gun ownership was actually at a 40-year low. Logic dictates that these are the same panicky grandmas out buying guns in a Pavlovian response to perceived danger -- danger that the guns would become illegal, danger that some other unhinged shooter would attack them, or both. And the gun-buying was in no way rational. If you're extremely skilled, you might be able to use two firearms at once, but record sales after record sales, combined with the number of gun-owning households in free fall, suggests these people have a lot more guns than two, which means a lot more guns than they can use at any given time.

So the "safety" conferred by gun ownership starts to look a lot more talismanic than utilitarian. In other words, the "guns keep you safe" argument basically becomes superstition.

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The Marketers of Fear

Maybe it got lost in the annual post-Holiday news outage, but Yahoo! News reported on the second day of the new year that a study by the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) Center at Texas State University shows a definite uptick in the occurrence of mass shootings in the United States. According to the report, investigators counted only those sorts of crimes that immediately come to mind when you hear the term "mass shooting." These are a separate sort of crime, distinguished by more than the death tolls.

"Researchers considered only active shootings in public settings where the primary motive appeared to be mass murder and at least one of the victims was unrelated to the suspect. Shootings during crimes such as bank robberies, drug deals, and gang violence were excluded," Yahoo reported -- i.e., crimes where the sole purpose was to kill people. Incidences rose from five a year in 2000-2008 to sixteen a year in the period of 2009-2012.

Of course, this undercuts the gunners' claims that the opposite is true. And even those claims are cherrypicked. They cite the work of Northeastern University Lipman Family Professor of Criminology, Law and Public Policy James Alan Fox. Fox does not weed out the "bank robberies, drug deals, and gang violence" that ALERRT did. He does, however, recommend gun control policies -- a fact the gun apologists conveniently skip over.

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Busting the Myth of the Victorious Gun Lobby

You're familiar with the narrative by now. One year after the Sandy Hook Massacre, where gunman Adam Lanza took the lives of twenty young children and six adults, Americans are no safer from gun violence than they were before. Worse, because conservatives are reactionaries and their first impulse is to respond to liberal arguments with contrarian dickishness, legislation has been passed in more Republican areas that actually loosen gun laws. The narrative is, as one Washington Post blogger put it, that "gun control is losing, badly."

But the chart above is from that very blogger's post. A Gallup poll shows that the appetite for stricter gun control is still there. It is, in fact, quite easily the most popular opinion, beating the "no change" crowd by more than 10 points and soaring over those who want to weaken gun laws by 36 points. Further, gun ownership is down from an all-time high of 51% of respondents to an anemic 37% -- with a particularly steep decline since Sandy Hook. If we could have a national referendum on gun safety right now, strengthening gun laws would win in a landslide.

Mitt Romney wishes he could've been "losing" like this. He would've been losing all the way to the White House.

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With Plastic Gun Ban, Congress Votes to Kill a Cherished Gun Lobby Argument

Bad news for the people who think the Second Amendment term "well-regulated" means "not to be regulated." A long-standing gun regulation will be formally renewed at the White House today, proving that even the Tea Party-dominated House of Representatives sees allowing certain weapons to be legally owned would be ridiculously and needlessly pro-criminal.

CNN: The Senate voted unanimously on Monday to renew a 10-year ban on guns that cannot be picked up by metal detectors commonly found in airports, court houses and government buildings.

The law, which prohibits firearms made mostly of plastic, was set to expire at day's end.

It had drawn renewed attention recently due to its pending expiration and the advent of mainly non-metalic handguns produced by 3-D printers.

The House acted last week, and now the measure goes to President Barack Obama for his signature.

In a world where bottles of shampoo are perceived as a serious danger of terrorism, an undetectable firearm ban was really a no-brainer. And the current guns are undetectable, despite a steel fig leaf designed to create a loophole in law. "Currently, plastic guns made using 3-D printers comply with the law by inserting a removable metal block," CNN reports. "That has led to worries plastic guns could pass through metal detectors without being flagged by simply removing the block."

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What We Know About Sandy Hook

The official police investigation into the killer behind the Sandy Hook massacre has closed and the final report offer frustratingly few answers. Authorities found no evidence that he'd ever spoken about any plans to commit the crime to anyone else, but that this crime was committed for reasons we'll never know. He'd had no contact with anyone at the school, so it couldn't have been some argument or feud. And the "violent video games" theory? Adam Lanza seemed obsessed with only one video game in particular, according to CNN.

But while many of his video games were violent, others were not. For months before the killings at Sandy Hook, he would go to a movie theater on weekends to play the dance game "Dance Dance Revolution" for hours, the report recounts.

Maybe he was playing violent video games at home. But so do plenty of other people. Only one went out and committed an unimaginably horrific crime. If a video game drove him to a murderous state of mind, there's more evidence that video game was "Dance Dance Revolution" than "Call of Duty."

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Murder as a By-Product of Rightwing Fearmongering

Josh Marshall writes that the BS storm surrounding Obamacare right now has become a "white noise of derp and mendacity" -- i.e., there's so much spin and propaganda here that it all sort of cancels itself out, at least in terms of specificity. There's a lot of criticism out there, but there isn't any single line of attack. Apparently, piling on over the rocky rollout hasn't seemed to have been enough to do much of anything. More is needed. The volume mut be increase. The anger must be red-hot. The rightwing herd must be driven to  panic.The derp must peg the stupidometer.

And that's just what Republicans are planning to do -- if they can manage to settle on one single messaging strategy. Marshall warns us of one narrative that seems to be forming on the right: "Top Republicans are now making a concerted effort to convince the public that Obamacare 'navigators', people trained to help people navigate the new system, will steal their identities and private personal information."

They're diving on testimony from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and -- surprise! -- taking it out of context to induce hysteria. On Nov. 6, Sebelius was asked whether it was a requirement that the Obamacare "navigators" undergo a criminal background check. She said there wasn't a federal requirement, but that they were farming the job out to private contractors. Those entities have "the responsibility to screen their individual navigators and make sure that they are sufficiently trained for the job."

Who are these fly-by-night organizations filled with unchecked felons? According to the report, "local United Way chapters, higher education institutions and the like."

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Shutting Down Debate at Gunpoint

Here's a fun item from over the weekend. While you were doing whatever it was you were doing yesterday, a fine and not at all cowardly group of Texans who are not at all lunatics were busy doing this:

ThinkProgress: On Saturday, nearly 40 armed men, women, and children waited outside a Dallas, Texas area restaurant to protest a membership meeting for the state chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a gun safety advocacy group formed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

According to a spokeswoman for Moms Demand Action (MDA), the moms were inside the Blue Mesa Grill when members of Open Carry Texas (OCT) — an open carry advocacy group — “pull[ed] up in the parking lot and start[ed] getting guns out of their trunks.” The group then waited in the parking lot for the four MDA members to come out. The spokeswoman said that the restaurant manager did not want to call 911, for fear of “inciting a riot” and waited for the gun advocates to leave. The group moved to a nearby Hooters after approximately two hours.

MDA later released a statement calling OCT “gun bullies” who “disagree[d] with our goal of changing America’s gun laws and policies to protect our children and families.” The statement added that the members and restaurant customers were “terrified by what appeared to be an armed ambush.” A member of OCT responded by tweeting, “I guess I’m a #gunbullies #Comeandtakeit.”

So, on learning that they'd panicked innocent people, Mr. Second Amendment Hero here thought, "Good!" Clearly, that was the intent. There are two words to describe someone like that -- a thug or a prick. One does not rule out the other.

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America is Getting Tired of Your Cowardice and Your Guns

I suppose it's wrong to hope that gun extremists all wind up killing each other off. Still, it's not hard to imagine it happening. If there are two things that are hallmarks of the Second Amendment Hero, they're incredibly bad judgment and a yellow-streak a mile wide. After all, the obsessive need to carry a firearm with you every place you go and to collect arsenals of weapons and piles of ammunition is not evidence of an overabundance of courage. And bad judgment? Well,this comes to mind:

ThinkProgress: Earlier this month, two men decided to wander into a crowded farmers market in Appleton, Wisconsin each with an AR-15 assault rifle strapped across their back. They did not make it to the market. After several residents called 911, expressing concerns about the two gun-toting men. Police briefly detained the men, with at least one officer drawing his weapon after they determined that the assault rifles were real. The men were briefly handcuffed and detained but were eventually released without citations.

Although open carry is legal in Wisconsin, police say they stopped the men to prevent a panic — “walking into a farmers market filled with a couple thousand individuals would be a recipe for disaster.” Yet the a county attorney told the Appleton Post-Crescent that the men could not be charged because “they had not made it to the farmers market” at the point when they were stopped and the men are reportedly considering a lawsuit against the police. In video of the men’s encounter with the police, one of the men tells an officer that they are carrying a highly visible pair of assault rifles into a crowded public market for “self defense.”

Meanwhile, there's no shortage of concealed-carry dopes wandering around among the sweet corn, nursing their own paranoid fantasies of needing their sidearms at any moment for self-protection. And here come two clowns who look exactly like what you'd expect mass shooters to look like -- after all, that's why people called the cops on them in the first place. Take all this cowardice and mix it all together and you've turned a farmers' market into a powder keg -- for absolutely no good reason. These two Second Amendment Heroes may sue the cops for not allowing them to disturb the peace, because conservatives are opposed to frivolous lawsuits right up until they're not. When it comes to having government fail to enable their emotional instabilities, gun owners can get pretty whiny.

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Sorry Gun Fans, Reality Doesn't Work that Way

A recent news release is bad news for those who think everyone and their brother should be armed. From NPR:

Investigators now do not think there was a second shooter, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said late Monday evening. Throughout Monday, authorities had run down witness reports and other evidence indicating there might have been additional gunmen.

Aaron Alexis, acting alone, killed twelve people and died himself as a result of his rampage. And the fact that there was no second -- or third -- shooter is a terrible blow to the "arm everyone" argument, since it demonstrates panicked people aren't extremely good at identifying shooters. Second shooter reports had other shooters wearing uniforms with guns drawn wandering around, causing havoc. But these "shooters" were most likely law enforcement. Had any one of these witnesses been armed, the tragedy would likely have been aggravated. The panicked witness might've fired on law enforcement and, given the situation, there's no reason for the law enforcement personnel not to return fire.

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Guns, Colorado, and the War for Public Opinion

It was quite a long time ago, so I don't remember who said it. I wish I did, because it's stuck with me. John Kerry had just lost to George W. Bush and a radio show was doing a campaign post-mortem to figure out what went wrong for Democrats. The subject of marriage equality came up and a Democratic strategist dismissed the idea of retreating from that front to win elections. "I'd lose a thousand elections over gay marriage," he said. It wasn't John Kerry's position or the Democratic Party's, but it was the rank-and-file's. It's always the progressive wing that drags the Democrat Party into the future. And it always works out well in a historical sense. Progressives are the conscience of the party. You don't abandon what's right for political gain.

Beyond the obvious reasons for this -- e.i., winning elections for the sake of winning elections is nihilism -- there is a longer term reward. If you stand up for what's right when the odds are against you, history remembers that courage and you own that issue forever. It wasn't conservatives who marched with Martin Luther King, as much as they like to pretend the opposite. It was liberals. The conservative attitude toward King was summed up by Ronald Reagan, who argued that King was on the wrong side of the law and, therefore, the wrong side of history. "It's the sort of great tragedy when we begin compromising with law and order and people started choosing which laws they would break," Reagan said, referring to the campaign of civil disobedience that challenged segregation by breaking Jim Crow laws. Being an authoritarian party, order is more important to Republicans than justice.

At the time, King was a deeply unpopular figure, but progressives stuck with him and now the left is rewarded for that courage. The percentage of African-Americans who vote Republican is so tiny that they're basically the crank demographic. You can call it karma if you want, but it's just the obvious result of making the right call -- when you stand on the right side of history, public opinion eventually comes to you. It has to.

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The Difference Between 'Gun Grabbing' and 'Common Sense Policing'? Skin Color.

Way back when, the National Rifle Association was for gun control. Of course, that was back when the Black Panthers were "patrolling" the streets with loaded weapons. California Gov. Ronald Reagan was alarmed by the Panther's armed patrols and their increasingly bellicose rhetoric about using their Second Amendment rights to fight an oppressive government (sound familiar?) and passed the Mumford Act, which prohibited carrying loaded weapons in public -- with the NRA's help and blessing. That's right, the NRA helped make concealed carry illegal in California.

But of course, it was because of the scary black people that guns needed to be controlled. Once the anti-government armed-militia talk shifted from urban blacks to rural whites, it also went from dangerous sedition to admirable patriotism. In fact, in the years since, the NRA has used the spectre of street crime and gang violence to frighten whites into buying guns. They never really dropped the scary black people messaging, it just shifted from "they shouldn't have guns" to "they have guns, so you need them too." This idea is so ingrained in gun culture that ads and articles in gun magazines seem to assume that "legitimate" gun owners are white.

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When Gun Nuts Abandon Guns as Their Method of 'Tyrant-Killing'

For a while now, I've been arguing that the gun lobby's and Tea Party's interpretation of the Second Amendment amounts to advocating terrorism. There's no small amount of bullying thuggishness in the threat to start shooting "tyrants" if you don't get your way. They would have us believe that the founders intended that constitutionality be tested not by the courts, but by wild-eyed, poorly-informed loons who believe that "unconstitutional" means "something I don't agree with." And that the remedy for an unconstitutional law or act isn't to reverse it in the judiciary, but to start blasting. Luckily, people who feel the need to hide behind piles of guns and ammo aren't exactly paragons of courage, so the threat had remained a threat.

Until now.

New York Times: Two letters that contained threats to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — one addressed to him, the other to a lobbyist who works on his gun control campaign — have tested positive for the deadly poison ricin, the authorities said on Wednesday.

The first letter was opened at a New York City mail center in Lower Manhattan on Friday, the police said. Although staff members at the mail center do not appear to have become ill, several police officers who came into contact with the letter’s contents “indicated some mild symptoms the next day, including diarrhea,” and they are being treated in hospitals, the New York Police Department’s spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said on Wednesday afternoon. “They’re being checked out as a precaution.”

The second letter, which was opened on Sunday in Washington, was addressed to Mark Glaze, the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group Mr. Bloomberg helps run and finances, officials said. Mr. Glaze opened the letter, an official said. No injuries were reported, Mr. Browne said.

"Both letters were identical in content, bore references to the debate over gun regulation and contained written threats to Mayor Bloomberg," the report tells us.

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Using the Threat of Violence to Shut Down Debate

You didn't have to be Nostradamus to see it coming, but I'll take credit for it anyway. When Mayors Against Illegal Guns announced they'd be holding rallies in eight states Mother's Day weekend, I wrote, "Expect armed goons to show up to at least one of these, because if there’s anything the gun nuts really lack, it’s class and a nose for good PR." Lo and behold, at a rally in Pennsylvania, said goons showed up.

PhillyBurbs.com: As victims of gun violence spoke about how universal background checks might have saved a loved one’s life, pro-gun supporters jeered and yelled remarks Saturday in Morrisville’s Williamson Park.

Steve Kesselman of Holland raised his voice above the crowd to briefly talk about the loss of his 20-year-old son from a deadly shotgun blast after an argument last year. 

“My son is dead! His mother cannot enjoy him anymore because of gun violence! Universal background checks is all we’re looking for. I have nothing against guns!” Kesselman yelled into the microphone.

“Do you believe in unicorns?!” a pro-gun supporter yelled from the crowd.

"Gun owners from groups such as Concerned Gun Owners of Bucks County, the National Rifle Association and a New Jersey group called the NJ2As gathered at Williamson Park before the marchers arrived," according to the report. "Many wore guns and rifles."

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A Child-Killer Twice as Deadly as Cancer

Mediaite's Tommy Christopher believes he's seeing an epidemic of child-related shootings in recent days. He identifies twelve accidental shootings by children -- nine involving toddlers -- in the month of April. And the string of tragedies continues, with news of a three year-old boy shooting and killing himself in Florida with his uncle's 9mm. Although the gun was left carelessly in a backpack, the state had deemed Jeffrey Walker a "responsible gun owner" and granted him a concealed carry permit. The uncle's gun, no doubt carried out of concern for safety, did absolutely nothing to protect his loved ones against a child's curiosity. This Officially Responsible Gun Owner was arrested and charged with culpable negligence for exposing a minor to a firearm -- a felony.

Christopher's list of incidents is horrifying, including a ten-month-old infant shot in the face by a three year-old and a "four year-old who shot and killed his aunt in a room full of adults, including a sheriff’s deputy who was also a school resource officer."

Christopher includes in his report a "disturbing statistic" from a story about a six year-old shot in the chest by her brother:

According to the Children’s Defense Fund, one-third of all households with children younger than 18 have a gun, and more than 40 percent of gun-owning households with children store their guns unlocked.

The fund also reported that 22 percent of children with gun-owning parents handled guns in their homes without their parents’ knowledge.

Which begs the question: is this a sudden epidemic child-related gun violence or is this just the bloody background noise to American life -- a constant string of tragedies that have become so normal here that we don't give it any more thought than car accidents?

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Poll Shows Guns, Immigration 'Top Priorities' for Voters -- Queue the Rightwing Spin

 

It's a poll that sure to get a lot off attention -- and spin -- from the right. A new Gallup poll shows that most voters rate "reducing gun violence" and "reforming immigration" as top priorities. The problem is that this percentage is on the lower end of the scale from economic issues.

Part of the problem is that Gallup gives their analysis of the poll the completely inaccurate title of "Americans Give Guns, Immigration Reform Low Priority." The poll shows that 55% of Americans rate gun violence and 50% rate immigration reform as "top priorities" and 20% and 32% think that the respective issues are of medium priority. It's hard to see how those numbers are bad news for people advocating for either issue. It's just that fewer are rating those issues as priorities over economic issues. People don't think immigration and gun violence are "low priority," as Gallup's headline would make it seem. Majorities think they're high priority. In fact, Gallup specifically asked in they were low priority and the response was overwhelming. Only 13% believe that immigration reform is a low priority, while 17% believe the same about gun violence.

Gallup even admits to comparing specific apples to very broad oranges:

"Creating jobs" and "helping the economy grow" are of course broad and diffuse goals that do not easily translate into specific legislation. And even though there is significant consensus across party lines that these two issues should be given high priority, there are fundamental party disagreements on the broad approach that can be taken to achieve these goals. These disagreements no doubt have kept the Congress and the president from moving forward on these issues -- but to the degree that these elected representatives feel it is their duty to follow the wishes of those they represent, they would renew their focus on efforts to come to consensus on reaching these goals."

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If the Right Doesn't Like Being Suspected of Terrorism, They Should Stop Talking Like Terrorists

I’m not sure how to start this one, but I know where I want to go with it. So let’s just jump right in.

Associated Press: FBI officials said Monday they foiled a terrorist attack being planned in a small western Minnesota town, but they offered no details about the exact targets of the attack _ or the motive of the man accused of having a cache of explosives and weapons in a mobile home.

The FBI said "the lives of several local residents were potentially saved" with the arrest of Buford Rogers, 24, who made his first appearance Monday in U.S. District Court in St. Paul on one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Rogers, of Montevideo, was arrested Friday after authorities searched a mobile home he’s associated with and found Molotov cocktails, suspected pipe bombs and firearms, according to a court affidavit.

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports via Twitter that the FBI told him Buford is a "militia type" -- meaning one of those rightwing extremist domestic terrorists we’ve all been assured are imaginary. And that’s enough to trigger a whine from the right. The wingnut blog Jammie Wearing Fool would like to inform you that the real victim here is the Tea Party.

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NRA Turns to the Tried and Failed Politics of the Tea Party

In some ways, new NRA president Jim Porter is the best thing to happen to the common sense regulators’ side of the argument. He approaches the issue with the same subtlety and finesse of a brain surgeon with a sledge hammer. He seems to be an all or nothing, slash and burn type, who practices rightwing politics of exclusion. Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence says that Porter drags the National Rifle Association even farther "into the extremist camp."

"With Jim Porter, they’ve gone full crazy," he says.

He also represents just about every failed approach to national politics imaginable. At the NRA convention this weekend, he called for a "culture war" -- I guess because rightwing culture wars have gone so swimmingly lately. And yes, he is far outside the mainstream.

Talking Points Memo: Porter has called President Barack Obama a “fake president,” Attorney General Eric Holder “rabidly un-American” and the U.S. Civil War the “War of Northern Aggression.” On Friday, he repeated his call for training every U.S. citizen in the use of standard military firearms, to allow them to defend themselves against tyranny.

As I’ve pointed out before, calling for the taking up of arms to "fight tyranny" is just a more pleasant-sounding way of endorsing the assassination and murder of your fellow Americans. And "War of northern aggression" means exactly what it seems to mean; a revisionist take that puts the north at fault in the Civil War, completely ignoring and -- even denying -- the role of racism and slavery in launching that war. The exclusionist aim straight at white voters is unmistakable here and it’s the same tactic that’s cost Republicans black voters nearly universally. "Fake president" is an obvious birther reference. At a time when the Republican Party is trying to shed these tendencies, Porter drags them back in. I doubt he’s making many friends over at GOP HQ.

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If You're a Criminal and You Want a Gun, the GOP is Here to Help

Yesterday, news of a confrontation over gun control was making the rounds. According to Greg Sargent, Democrats were sending the story around to columnists and bloggers, making sure they got wind of it. It’s not surprising, it’s a helluva story.

NBC News: Bringing the national gun debate to a tiny New England town on Tuesday, the daughter of the slain principal of Sandy Hook Elementary confronted Sen. Kelly Ayotte at the lawmaker’s first town hall meeting since she voted against expanded background checks on all commercial gun sales.

Erica Lafferty, who first met with the Republican senator in Washington earlier this month after she opposed the compromise negotiated by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., was visibly angry as she spoke into the microphone at the meeting, which drew more than 100 people who came to condemn or support Ayotte’s vote.

"You had mentioned that day the burden on owners of gun stores that the expanded background checks would harm. I am just wondering why the burden of my mother being gunned down in the halls of her elementary school isn’t more important than that," said Lafferty, whose mother Dawn Hochsprung was gunned down by Newtown shooter Adam Lanza.

Ayotte responded at the Warren, N.H., meeting: "Erica, I, certainly let me just say -- I’m obviously so sorry."

"And, um, I think that ultimately when we look at what happened in Sandy Hook, I understand that’s what drove this whole discussion -- all of us want to make sure that doesn’t happen again," Ayotte said.

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Arizona Offers the Very Latest in Stupid Gun Laws

It’s one of those things that make very little sense at first glance. In the state where former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords suffered a catastrophic gunshot wound and several others were killed at the hand of an over-armed gunman, an effort to destroy unwanted guns and keep them off the streets is torpedoed by a soft-on-crime governor and legislature.

Associated Press: Arizona cities and counties that hold community gun buyback events will have to sell the surrendered weapons instead of destroying them under a bill Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law Monday.

The bill was championed by Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature who argued that municipalities were skirting a 2010 law that was tightened last year and requires police to sell seized weapons to federally licensed dealers. They argued that destroying property turned over to the government is a waste of taxpayer resources.

Democrats who argued against the bill said it usurps local control and goes against the wishes of people who turn over their unwanted weapons to keep them out of the hands of children or thieves.

Buybacks are popular among some police and elected officials who either pay cash or hand out gift cards in exchange for weapons. Tucson and other Arizona communities destroyed weapons from the events, arguing that because the guns were voluntarily surrendered, the laws concerning weapons seized by authorities didn’t apply.

Apparently, some people had trouble understanding the word "seized." Oddly enough (this being Arizona, after all), a lot of the legislators probably support "English-only" legislation. It’d be easier to take them seriously if they actually understood the language themselves.

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Soft-on-Crime Anti-Background Check Vote Does Damage

With the retirement of Sen. Joe Lieberman, it looked like the era of Three Amigos might be over. By joining up with John McCain and Lindsey Graham, Lieberman joined a team of three Senators who were the source of some very bad ideas -- most of them involving throwing fistfuls or money at the Pentagon and Israel, backing military action as the only solution to pretty much every foreign policy problem, and attacking anyone unwilling to throw money and start shooting as muddleheaded, weak-in-the-face-of-terrorism wusses. It looked the Three Amigos had become two and America was in severe danger of benefiting from the loss. But along came young New Hampshire Republican Kelly Ayotte and the Two Amigos were Three again. Brainless militarism once again had three guaranteed advocates.

But the new lineup may not be long-lasting -- at least, not if the newest compañera keeps ignoring the will of her constituents.

Huffington Post: A new poll has New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) down a total of 15 points from her previous approval rating in a survey that followed her vote against requiring background checks for firearms purchases.

Ayotte's plunge underscores the changing politics around gun control and gun safety. In years past, lawmakers worried that a vote for gun control would bring the anger of the National Rifle Association. In the new reality, votes against gun control also carry a political risk, as the Ayotte poll indicates.

A full three-quarters of New Hampshire voters support such background checks, along with 56 percent of Republicans, according to Public Policy Polling. A WMUR Granite State Poll taken in January and February found that more than 9 in 10 state residents supported implementing background checks at gun shows.

"In October, the last time that PPP surveyed voters about Ayotte, she had a 48-35 approval rating," Huffington Post reports. "She has now tumbled underwater, with 46 percent disapproving and 44 percent approving. The 11-point surge in disapproval threatens Ayotte's 2016 reelection, when she could face popular Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan. Ayotte won her 2010 race by 23 points, but in a hypothetical matchup against Hassan trails 46-44."

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