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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