Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Put Your Leadership Where Your Mouth Is, George

They said it:

“It makes no sense for assault weapons to be around our society.”
George W. Bush
1999

"The president supports the current [assault weapons ban] law, and he supports reauthorization of the current law."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan
April 2003


Yet here we are, fifteen working days left before the end of the current session of congress and the assault weapon ban due to expire on September 15 with no effort being made to preserve this popular and reasonable restraint on gun violence.

Now, am I naive enough to believe that Bush would buck the NRA during an election year and support the extension of a law supported by 70% of the American public and more than 60% of gun owners?

Nope. So here is a call to action.



Bonus: fun with concealed weapons.

-- A Georgia woman was arrested after pointing her concealed handgun at another mother during an argument over their eleven- year-old daughter's basketball game at school;

-- A Michigan man was arrested for threatening to shoot two other men with his concealed handgun during a dispute over clearing trash off his property;

-- A Virginia man was arrested for carrying a concealed handgun into an elementary school, where it was left in an unattended backpack in the classroom until a teacher noticed it;

-- An Alabama man accidentally shot himself and a bystander in a movie theater showing "102 Dalmatians," when the concealed handgun fell out of his pocket;

-- A Pennsylvania man shot and killed a neighbor with a concealed handgun during an argument over where to dump snow that was being shoveled off the property.