A Liberal Take on Gun Lobbying - Updated

Brian Morton, a columnist for the Baltimore City Paper, talks about "Gun Lobbying":

It was surprising but not necessarily a surprise when Mother Jones magazine recently uncovered the true identity of a woman, Mary Lou Sapone, who spent the better part of 10 years as a paid spy inside the anti-gun violence movement.

No, Brian, it's simply the "Anti-gun movement". Violence has nothing to do with the agenda of the above named groups. No matter how much lipstick you put on that pig, it's still a pig.

It wasn't a surprise to me that the National Rifle Association would do such a thing, because during my two years working for Jim and Sarah Brady, and then a year as a board member of what is now Maryland Ceasefire, I saw the gun lobby's antics up close and in my face.

Do tell.

Nearly any time we put on any kind of public event, the NRA would send its hired-gun "PR firm," the Mercury Group, to stake out our press conferences, report releases, or fundraisers with their camerapeople. And just like Bill O'Reilly's ambush producers, they would try and disrupt the event by shouting leading questions based on studies from their favorite researchers. Quite often they would yell things like, "Considering John Lott's study that the availability of guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens reduces crime, why do you . . . ?"

In other words, they wanted facts instead of emotional rhetoric and fantastic exaggerations? Amazing.

The surprising thing about this is that even as the NRA is getting just about everything it ever dreamed of--George W. Bush signed the law immunizing gun manufacturers against lawsuits, and the Supreme Court overturned Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban, citing an "individual rights" interpretation of the Second Amendment--it still acts like the paranoid guy under the stairs and pays money to spy on its political opposition. It's kind of sad.

No, it's called "doing what you're here to do", and that means keeping up with anti-gun bigots like yourself who would like nothing more than to repeal the Second Amendment. Just because some truly "common sense" gun laws have been passed, it doesn't mean more anti-gun legislation isn't in the works. It is, and we know it.

When 58-year-old Jim Adkisson got tired of all the liberals he felt were taking away jobs and wrecking society, he allegedly loaded up with 76 shells and a shotgun he bought at a pawnshop and headed for a liberal Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tenn., to shoot it up. It's the sort of crime the NRA, months from now, will argue that could be prevented "if you let law-abiding citizens carry guns to church."

[snip]

But the NRA won't be saying anything right now because, when there are senseless mass shootings, the NRA doesn't answer the phone.

More like "the NRA doesn't dance in the blood of the dead", like those organizations you mention above. All it takes is one loon with a lot of firepower, and your people break out in song, the conga line grows by the minute, all in an effort to get more money.

I'm hoping, now that the Supreme Court has overturned D.C.'s gun ban, the city passes real gun licensing and registration for all handguns in the city. Register all the weapons, license all the owners (just like cars), and require testing and safe storage, and then see the gun lobby's head explode.

Just like cars? Here's a quick quiz for ya, sparky: What's the difference between a gun and a car?

Answer: Driving is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. That's because it's not a right, unlike keeping and bearing arms.

"Criminals will still get guns," they'll scream. "All this will do is inconvenience law - abiding citizens," they'll holler.

Scream and holler? Not likely. There's no reason to scream and holler when your facts are right. And, they are. Those statements are true, and they always will be, until we do the right thing and get those who misuse guns off the streets and into jail, where they belong.

Update: Thirdpower has more.

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