Big event in Missouri, one of the NRA’s prime fiefdoms:

TYRONE, Mo. – A door-to-door killing spree that left eight people dead in a rural Missouri community may have been triggered by the alleged gunman finding his mother dead in her home, the county coroner said Friday. The woman apparently died of natural causes.

The 36-year-old suspect was later found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound in his pickup in an adjoining county.

Texas County sheriff’s deputies found bodies in five separate residences in the Tyrone area of south-central Missouri after responding to a 911 call around 10:15 p.m. Thursday regarding a disturbance.

But, of course, guns don’t kill people, other people do. Most often other people with guns, but still…

What the hell, I hear you saying, it’s just more of the same ol’, same ol’. Like the nine month old accidentally killed by his five year old brother last month. Or the business as usual shootings in St. Louis and Kansas City. We’re used to it now. We read about it every day, shrug and go about our business. Nothing we can do about crime and human nature. Especially armed human nature.

But there is a reason that St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson is joining forces with the folks who are taking the Guns “R” Us constitutional amendment that voters approved last August to the state’s Supreme Court – and it’s not just because the ballot language was misleading. The irony is, I’m willing to bet, that lots of the folks who’ve been cavorting in that NRA bed are also the folks who have been the loudest about defending the police from the demands of anti-brutality protesters. Nothing like doing what you can to make working police less safe while posing four-square behind your friendly local policeman.  

In Northern Ireland what is known as the marching season takes place between April and August. There are lots of parades during this period. By far the most contentious are the Orange Walks, parades that take place mid-July and which commemorate the victory of Prince William of Orange over James II at the Battle of Boyne. This battle cemented the subjugation of Catholic Ireland to Protestant England, and Orange Walks have functioned to ensure that Catholic Irish don’t forget who it is who runs the show in the North.

The Orange walks are contentious because they focus unresolved tensions among two cultural groups that often view each other with suspicion and fear. The Orangemen represent the folks who have historically had the lion’s share of the meager Northern Ireland pie, a situation that is perhaps finally changing in the wake of  decades of civil strife known as the Troubles. Though the largely Catholic nationalist population is beginning to succeed in more equitably integrating into public and economic life, the tension between the groups persists and finds one of its most tangible and occasionally violent expressions in the Orange walks.

I bring this up because St. Louis County has recently had its own experience with civic unrest in the suburban city of Ferguson. As in Northern Ireland, the ongoing Ferguson protests express the conflict between culturally distinct, mutually suspicious groups, one of which  is historically privileged over the smaller, politically subordinate group. I’d also like to suggest that we saw the same impulse that animates the triumphalist Orange Walks surface in downtown St. Louis. I’m referring to the 40 open-carry advocates who paraded through St. Louis Saturday afternoon, sporting “pistols in holsters and long guns slung from their shoulders.”

Understand that I’m not directly comparing the sparsely attended open-carry march with the powerfully organized Orange marchers. I’m just pointing out that when people feel that their privileges are threatened, they’re apt to react defensively. The Orangemen, for instance, refuse to avoid nationalist areas or negotiate their passage; they insist on claiming right-of-way. So, in this context, ask yourself why white St. Louis gunmen feel it’s important to show off their guns in a predominently Black city? Just why is it necessary to, as one marcher put it, “exercise the newly codified rights in the Missouri Constitution” in such an in-your-face way?

Reasons for the march given by participants had to to with proselytizing for guns because, “more people with guns will ‘keep the streets safer’,” and, more tellingly, “we should always be prepared for an attack.”  Do these responses satisfy? One blogger has noted that the issue has lots to do with just who has the guns and is part of a larger pattern of cultural conflict:

It’s the same pattern you see with conservatives on a lot of issues pertaining to “rights.”  They love going on and on about “freedoms” and “Constitutional rights,” but what they really mean is that they’re fighting for these rights for only those who they feel should have them.

When they talk about religious rights, they mean Christian.  When they talk about protecting equal rights, they mean heterosexuals.  When they talk about shrinking government, they only mean laws that are preventing them from getting away with what they want to get away with.

So when they talk about “open carry rights” they’re really only talking about those people who they feel safe around.  Because I really can’t imagine a group of rural country folk sitting in their local diner feeling at ease with a group of 30 openly armed African-Americans strolling in.

Sociologist Angela Stroud has investigated what makes gun ownership attractive to certain middle class white men. In her research concerning concealed carry, she concludes that “part of the appeal of carrying a concealed firearm is that it allows men to identify with hegemonic masculinity through fantasies of violence and self-defense.” I bet that she’d find that to be the case in spades when it comes to openly brandishing those guns in public. Stroud also identifies a specifically racial aspect to the appeal of guns, noting that:

No figure makes these men feel more physically vulnerable than the specter of the Black criminal. They ascribe a violent masculinity to men of color, and construct a sense of self in contradistinction. Because they assume that the Black men they encounter are potentially armed and dangerous, they want to carry a concealed handgun. Having a gun allows them to maintain a confidence that they are capable of responding to any threat …

See why it might be appealing to some to stage an open-carry parade just as the Ferguson demonstrations begin to cool down? When change is not welcome and conflict emerges, there are lots of folks who can’t help feeling that they should always be “prepared for an attack.” The flaunting of weapons on the part of individuals who are motivated by fantasies of fighting off violent threat is, however, potentially toxic. The blogger I quoted earlier perfectly describes the effect of open-carry laws:

The cultural effect of all these laws is to encourage a kind of hypervigilance that’s simultaneously paranoid and arrogant. It encourages armed citizens to seek confrontations and escalate them, confident that they can end them definitively.

In this context, it becomes difficult not to see a post-Ferguson celebration of open-carry as anything other than an invitation to “bring it on,” issued by frightened white men (and women)* trying their best to live up to an heroic, masculine, cultural ideal. I don’t want to labor the point, but in researching this post, I came across a Website maintained by a comic book author who calls himself D.W. Ulsterman (Northern Ireland is also known as Ulster), who asks:

Is it coincidence that a gathering of marchers who support the pro-2nd Amendment open carry laws of Missouri found nary a sign of Ferguson type protesters attempting to confront them?

WhooHooo! Real men arise and grab your guns! We’ll show those Fergunson types! With any luck, we too, just like Northern Ireland, can enjoy twenty or thirty years of well-armed tit-for-tat murder as we turn the culture wars from a metaphor to a reality.

* Stroud earlier interviewed several women who applied for open-carry licenses and concluded that women want guns in order “to feel as powerful as men in a culture where women are taught to feel vulnerable.” Same dynamic, slightly skewed.

N.B. Text edited slightly for clarity.

From an AP news article:

A Utah elementary school teacher who was carrying a concealed firearm at school was struck by fragments from a bullet and a porcelain toilet when her gun accidentally fired in a faculty bathroom on Thursday, officials said.

The sixth-grade teacher had a concealed-firearm permit and was within her legal rights to carry a gun while in a school in Utah, which, as the same article points out, is one of the few states to permit concealed carry in schools.

Wanna know what kind of fools think it’s a good thing to arm teachers? You don’t need to worry  about Utah. Just look no further than our own home state where legislators think that the only way to forestall a potential St. Valentine’s day massacre in our schools is to enable a repeat of the gunfight at the OK Corral instead. Missouri has been among the states permitting teachers the “privilege” of concealed carry for some time, but, as of this week, the state went further to institutionalize guns in public schools when the legislature overrode Governor Nixon’s veto of SB656 which encourages public schools to train and arm designated personnel. Just let me point out in passing that the teacher in Utah had undergone firearm training which is mandatory for concealed carry in Utah, and which has been given free of cost to many teachers there.

I’m sure many will dismiss the Utah occurrence with the bromide that accidents happen, adding that it’s worth the risk in order to enable an armed “good” guy to counter those “bad” guys when they show up. Even if one accepts this highly questionable formula (which, incidentally, seems to be the entire rationale for casually carrying guns), the idea of guns in schools raises several questions that go beyond the issues involved in adequately training teachers – itself a veritable minefield: Will teachers also go through mandatory mental health screening? Can the authorities guarantee that no teachers with anger management issues will be armed in schools? Do schools mandate that guns are locked up while teachers are in class – rendering the good guy response moot – or are they left accessible to children in purses, lockers, desk drawers, or, better yet, on the desk tops where they are to-hand when that bad guy appears? Doesn’t it stand to reason that when you fill schools with guns, there will be gun related accidents? After all, accidents happen. And it’s an obvious fact that accidents with guns have a high probability of inflicting harm.

But let’s get back to that good guys with guns with guns vs. bad guys with guns argument. There are certainly true stores about armed good guys thwarting bad guys with guns – just as there are also anecdotes about situations where armed good guys are either ineffective or make the problem  worse. So lets look at what happens when folks try to analyse the issue  systematically:

One of the largest and most recent studies on gun violence in America concludes that widespread gun ownership is the driving force behind violence. The study compiles data from all fifty states between 1981 and 2010 to examine the relationship between gun ownership and homicide. After accounting for national trends in violent crime as well as eighteen control variables, the study concludes, “For each percentage point increase in gun ownership the firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9%.” This research is consistent with evidence showing that even in “gun utopias” such as Israel and Switzerland, more guns means more violence.  

Another large study compared 91 case workplaces with 205 control workplaces and found that workers whose job sites allow guns are about five times more likely to be killed on the job than are those whose workplaces prohibit all firearms.

Given the weight of evidence demonstrating the danger of carrying guns in public settings, it is extremely unlikely that more guns would make schools safer.

And in case statistics don’t convince you that arming random citizens to fight madmen and criminals is a bad idea:

A 20/20 segment, “If I Only Had a Gun,” showed just how hopeless the average person is in reacting effectively to high-stress situations. In the segment, students with varying levels of firearm experience were given hands-on police training exceeding the level required by half the states in order to obtain a concealed carry permit. Each of these students was subsequently exposed to a manufactured but realistic scenario in which, unbeknownst to them, a man entered their classroom and begin [sic] firing fake bullets at the lecturer and students.

In each one of the cases, the reaction by the good guy with a gun was abysmal. The first participant, who had significant firing experience, couldn’t even get the gun out of his holster. The second participant exposed her body to the assailant and was shot in the head. The third, paralyzed with fear, couldn’t draw his weapon and was shot by the assailant almost immediately. The final participant, who had hundreds of hours of experience with firearms, was unable to draw his weapon and was shot at point blank range.

Of course SB656 goes a lot further than just encouraging schools to arm personnel:

It also allows anyone with a concealed weapons permit to carry guns openly, even in cities or towns with bans against the open carrying of firearms. The age to obtain a concealed weapons permit also will drop from 21 to 19.

Looks like we’ve got two choices: welcome to the wild, wild West, or sayonara Missouri. Personally, I’m considering the latter. There’s something less than compelling about remaining in a state about which a commentator can write that “if there were a competition to see which Republican-led state legislature can govern in the least responsible way possible, Missouri would have to be considered a credible contender.”

 

As you probably know, some of the truly wretched bills vetoed by Governor Nixon from the last legislative session have been resuscitated for consideration during the new session. One of the most mindbendingly stupid is the nullification/gun rights bill that State Senator Brian “Mad Dog” Nieves (R-26) has resubmitted with some (very) minor revisions. (There is also a House version introduced by Rep. Doug Funderbunk (R-103), HB1439; the same critique (i.e., mindbendingly stupid) applies here as well.)

Nieves’ bill, The Second Amendment Preservation Act, SB613, would, in short, not only try to make agents enforcing federal laws subject to arrest, but it would arm “designated personnel” in schools and allow open carry for all holders of a concealed weapon permit, even in jurisdictions that explicitly ban the practice. So the deluded fools dont just want to – unconstitutionally – gut federal law, but they’re determined not to respect local government either. Poor, naive me – here all along, I thought these tenther types were supposed to be doing it all in the name of bringing government back home. Go figure …

Of course, as this sort of idiocy always does, the new gun rights bill has attracted derisive national attention. Today it’s Steve Benen who is pointing the finger of shame. Here’s a sample of the type of prose we can expect to see lots more of in the coming weeks:

Even in an era of Republican radicalism, this is just nuts.

This new proposal isn’t identical to the one Nixon vetoed in July, but it’s no less offensive. It would declare federal laws that “tax firearms and create a chilling effect on gun ownership, require registering or tracking of firearms or forbid the use of guns by law-abiding citizens” to be null and void in the state of Missouri.

It would be up to Missouri to decide whether federal gun laws are acceptable. If federal officials enter Missouri to enforce federal laws that Missouri doesn’t like, they would have to be accompanied by a county sheriff when executing a warrant – or face criminal charges themselves.

To be clear, this is not in a legal gray area. This isn’t a judgment call. It’s not a question that could go either way if tested in the courts. Rather, the question of whether states can reject federal laws they don’t like was decided in the middle of the 19th century – and it was a dispute the nullification crowd lost.

That such a bill even passed the Missouri legislature at all is something of a disgrace. That the same idea is being considered again adds insult to injury.

Couldn’t have said it better – although it’s too bad anyone has to say it all, not to mention saying it every six months.

Have you been thinking that the GOP-dominated Missouri lege’s unconstitutional efforts to “nullify” federal laws prove that that body is populated by idiots? The following tidbits – both of which are, by the way, pure hearsay – indicate that you might be right. You can take these gems for what they’re worth – I can’t confirm either, but they’re too funny to ignore.

According to an unnamed Democratic legislator, one of the not-so-bright GOP lights in Jefferson City – whose name he could not remember – prominently proclaimed the right to nullify federal laws because, get this, Missouri was a state before there was a federal government. Yep. I’ve often suspected that lots of the state-level GOPers were dead ignorant, but this takes the cake.

And that crazy gun bill that our GOPers are pushing? According to another source, even the NRA lobbyists have informally, when approached on the topic in the halls of the statehouse, refused to endorse it. The word is that they act like it’s poison.

Actually, there is some evidence that the hearsay about the NRA’s disquiet with Missouri’s extreme law may be true – as the New York Times reports:

The National Rifle Association, which has praised Mr. Nixon in the past for signing pro-gun legislation, has been silent about the new bill. Repeated calls to the organization were not returned.

Goes to show that when you let ignorant and crazy people write laws, you may get laws so obviously crazy that even ideological fellow travelers don’t want to be associated with them.

Sadly, several Democrats have indicated that they might be willing to vote to override the veto of this bill – not because they believe it’s a good idea, but because they’re so afraid of the gun nuts among their constituents that they believe they can’t afford to vote against gun enabling legislation. It doesn’t seem to bother them that allowing this bill to stand will force the state to pay the costs of the inevitable court challenges, but perhaps if someone pointed out to them that they might not lose NRA points if they voted against overriding Governor Nixon’s veto, it might help sway their minds?  

By “we” I mean Missouri. And if you want to see what the insane clown posse that runs the statehouse has done to our reputation, check out this front page article on DailyKos. What’ll you find there? Remember Bill Clinton’s recent quip about states where it’s easier to get a gun than to get health insurance? Here’s proof that our legislators think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

There’s a post over at Think Progress about Missouri GOP Senator Roy Blunt’s assessment of the chances for rational gun control legislation. While conventional wisdom holds that while we won’t see a ban on semi-automatic weapons as long as the GOP holds the House, only idiots and conspiracy nutjobs (same thing maybe?) will hold out against laws that would expand background checks to the point where they might finally be effective. However, Blunt, whose opinion matters since he is part of the Senate GOP leadership, says expanded background checks aren’t likely to happen and adds:

“… I’m not for a law that would mean that two neighbors couldn’t be able to trade shot guns….most of my energy is going on the mental health side.”

Of course, there’s no indication that such trades would be proscribed. In fact, legislation now in process seeks to reassure Republicans on that topic:

However, the sources emphasize they are trying to work through this sticky issue so that Republicans, especially Coburn, are comfortable that it would address privacy concerns of gun owners, and would have clear exemptions for situations where a background check should not be needed. The most common example of that scenario is a grandfather or uncle giving guns they already own to a grandson or nephew.

One can only hope that there will be as much care to insure that the final proposals are not so watered down that they are, as has been the case in much gun control legislation in the past, rendered ineffective. Requiring that such exchanges be reported so that the ownership of guns can be traced is crucial. As one comment to the Think Progress post noted, there is no guarantee that the “neighbor” with whom Blunt’s innocent gun owner trades (or sells) his firearm would be able to pass a background check.

Dicey ground indeed, since this issue trespasses on black-helicopter, tin-foil hat territory – all those loons who live in fear of big gum’ment and the Obama facist, socialist, communist dictatorship are sure that if the powers that be know who has guns they will surely confiscate them just before they send half the country to the concentration camps they have been secretly building. Especially dicey from my point of view since nobody has bothered to explain to me why crazy people should be dictating policy, particularly when their lunacy points us in directions that have the potential to drag us into a violent, armed vigilante environment.

These are, of course, in spite of what he says, probably not the types of questions that really bother Senator Blunt – although it’s equally probable that he’s more than willing to use such fears to his advantage. When you get down to it, though, Blunt’s always been more of a cash on the barrelhead kind of guy. Think Progress agrees that he’s likely moved by more straightforward considerations:

Unfortunately, 40 percent of firearm sales occur at “gun shows, flea markets, private sales, through newspaper advertisements, and online purchasers” without any background reviews. Blunt, who is the second highest recipient of NRA donations in the Senate (his career receipts total more than $51,000), is hoping to keep it that way.

So, you see, Roy’s just trying to do his best to earn his keep.

Addenda:  Don’t think I missed Blunt’s use of the NRA’s standard “mental health” red herring. An effective use of background checks is desirable precisely because it would help keep guns out of the hands of those with a violent mental health or criminal background. A violently disturbed person with a gun will do lots more damage than one without, and, equivocate though the various NRA proxies may, there’s no way to deny that fact.

Also, of course, compared to identifying potentially violent, mentally-ill folks who need treatment without violating the individual privacy and other rights of a far wider set of individuals, expanding background checks and creating reliable databases for that purpose is easy-peasy. Which is not to say that expanded treatment options for the mentally ill aren’t good things in themselves as long as folks like Blunt (i.e., Republicans) are willing to allocate adequate funding to make them happen in a sustainable fashion, a situation that strikes me as about as likely as my cat learning to fly.

Years ago I remember folks debating whether John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism disqualified him to be president. After all, the argument went, if he is a good man, then he must take his religion seriously and defer to the dictates of the Pope on policy issues. Did we really want to surender control of the country to il Papa?

We all know how that came out and the revisited arguments seem quaint. Today, however, we have another “Pope” who demands the allegiance of politicians. And to man, most Republicans and, sadly, some Democrats offer it up unthinkingly. I’m speaking of Mr. Wayne LaPierre, President of the NRA.

Even GOP politicians I suspect know better tread softly around the gun lobby, whose main representative Mr. LaPierre is. Take, for instance, Senator Roy Blunt. In the aftermath of Newtown Blunt was quick to genuflect in the direction of the NRA. His response to the tragedy? Shift the conversation to the issue of mental illness, a variation on the time-honored NRA refrain of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Easy, of course, to overlook the fact that guns make it soooooo much easier for people to kill other people.

A week or so after the tragedy and just after Mr. LaPierre’s formal statement on the Newtown shootings, an hilarious recitation of the full range of time-honored NRA crap, the true believers began to crawl out from under the rocks where they had been hiding, waiting for the righteous dudgeon aroused by the shooting of little children to abate. Their remedy for gun violence? Counter bad people with guns with good people with guns.

But who are the good people?  Missouri legislators think they know. They quickly announced their intention to introduce legislation that would arm teachers. At about the same time a somewhat disturbing story hit the news. Remember the Vermont teacher who turned in his bushmaster semiautomatic rifle and requested a mental health evaluation? But according to one lawmaker, Republican Rep. Stanley Cox, of Sedalia, people “might think twice about attacking schools if they knew that teachers or administrators could be carrying guns.” That’ll be a real deterrent to a suicide minded shooter for sure, not to mention fantasy-addled schizophrenics. It’s hard to see the upside of turning our schools into the wild West.  

A recent guest commentary in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch attempted to justify the American “gun culture” by claiming that it had been intended by the founding fathers to insure that citizens would always have the option of revolution against oppressive government. Put aside the fact that folks who manage to get a right to armed revolution (a right to treason?) out of the second amendment’s mention of a well-regulated militia might be the victims of their own overactive imagination (and, what, out of idle curiosity, do they make of the words “well-regulated”). It’s enough to just think for a minute abut those types on the fringe right who are convinced that the Affordable Health Care Act is the last word in oppressive dictatorship, designed to institute death panels and take their Medicare away. Do we want these ignorant and volatile individuals armed with military weapons and hot to march on Washington?

One of the halllmarks of a civilized nation is the ability of citizens to leave their homes without fear of random violence – and without arming themselves to fend off, for instance, angry old men who think that “stand your ground” legislation means you can shoot teenagers who play their music too loud. We are not a vigilante nation, but a nation of laws. We depend on laws and equip police and other agencies to enforce them so that we can enjoy a peaceful life. If this system fails to meet our needs, we examine our laws, our policing and our courts and make reforms as necessary. Second amendment rights are not exempt from those laws and appropriate regulation, nor should they be. All of which means that it would be a shame if the quasi-religious allegiance that the GOP and some weak-spined Democratic politicians offer to the money-bags of the gun lobby allows our country to become an anything goes, every man for himself, gun-toting hell-hole.