Imagine this scenario: you’re taking your third-grader to school and you look over and there’s a guy in front of the school with a handgun strapped to his hip. What do you do? Is this a crazy guy who is going to start shooting the place up? Is it just a gun-loving lady making a point about her Second Amendment […]

Back in March I wrote about white nationalist Kyle Bristow’s support of Attorney General Bill Schuette’s effort to maintain Michigan’s bigoted ban on same-sex marriage. Bristow filed an amicus brief in support of Schuette’s appeal of a federal court ruling declaring the ban unconstitutional on behalf of an extremist group called the “Traditionalist Youth Network LLC”. At I wrote at […]

There should be an IQ test for getting a gun permit Ted Nugent’s wife Shemane Nugent was arrested yesterday when security agents found a gun in her luggage at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Why did she have a gun in her carry-on luggage? Because she forgot she was carrying it. Just putting this question out there: If you’re too goddam […]

Calling all artists! Harbor Country Progress is putting together an art show on gun violence in America at their office/gallery in Union Pier, Michigan in the very southwest corner of the state. The show is titled GUNS? They are soliciting artwork from artists around the country. Here’s the schedule: Submissions being accepted now via email to gunstheartshow@gmail.com. Deadline for submissions […]

Actions speak louder than words

As Michigan Republicans continue their corporatist agenda of eviscerating the middle class, destroying unions, harming public employees and taking women’s rights back to the middle of the last century, Michigan Democrats are proposing important pieces of legislation that solve actual problems.

The first comes from Representatives Jim Townsend, Vicki Barnett, and Andy Schor. They are introducing a package of legislation designed to reduce gun violence in our state and to increase public safety. A separate package of bills will be introduced by State Representatives Gretchen Driskell, Jeff Irwin, Adam Zemke and state Senator Rebekah Warren that will reverse some of the restrictions Republicans have put on women’s health care, educate women about health care options, support rape survivors and address health care inequities women face.

Details after the jump.

Has Conan O’Brien gone to work writing talking points for Congress???

You know how all those gun shops are running out of ammo to buy? Well, two Republicans in Congress have figured out why: Obama is buying it all.

No, seriously.

Click through if you don’t believe me.

Meanwhile Rosa Parks is turning in her grave

You might remember last year about this time Ted Nugent was on the stump, campaigning for billionaire Mitt Romney. At the time, he said “[I]f you want more of those kinds of evil, anti-American people in the Supreme Court then don’t get involved and let Obama take office again. Because I’ll tell you this right now, if Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

Well, it’s a year later and this misogynistic clown is still free to roam the streets and pollute our airways. This year, he’s back on the road with his band in his “Ted Nugent Black Power 2013” tour.

Click through for the audio of Nugent comparing himself to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

What’s next? Secession?

Since the Newtown Massacre, there have been thousands of additional gun-related deaths in this country. It stimulated a national debate with a heighted push for sensible gun regulation. In response to this debate, Michigan Republicans have introduced legislation that would make it a felony to enforce any federal laws that attempt to regulate gun ownership.

Details after the jump.

This past week, I spoke to former Governor Howard Dean on a wide range of topics. My chief interest was to get his impressions about current gun control measures being considered in Congress. During his run for governor in Vermont, Gov. Dean received high ratings from the NRA. Yet, recently, he has been highly critical of that group, saying that they are “populated by crazy people”.

It’s also the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War and, at a time when there was nearly unanimous support for that war, Gov. Dean was one of the most outspoken opponents. Finally, Gov. has come out in favor of the sequester so I wanted to ask him more about that.

Enjoy (after the jump.)

Because with only 1,565,390 students in class, what could POSSIBLY go wrong?

It’s hard to say which the most freakish element of this story is. Is it that some Michigan Republicans want to allow concealed weapons to be carried in our children’s classrooms? Or is it that a tea party PAC is offering free gun classes to get teachers trained so that they can?

Follow me after the jump for all of the right wing insanity.

The Second Amendment wasn’t intended to include gun fetishists

One of the most disingenuous claims by the gun fetishists lobby is that assault weapons are protected by the Second Amendment. This, of course, is not true. The Second Amendment was never intended to allow for the unregulated promulgation of weaponry throughout our country and our communities. That is, in fact, the reason the phrase “well regulated militia” is part of it. What is, to me, the most galling are the laughable justifications they use to defend their bizarre obsession with owning and shooting weapons that so closely resemble those used by our military men and women.

But, we are a rational society and the time when a tiny minority of people who get a thrill out of owning and shooting military-style weapons get to make all of the decisions is coming to an end. They may call themselves “hobbyists”. They may say that their desire to pretend to be a soldier is protected by the constitution. But when the rest of us watch our fellow citizens, including small children, mowed down by weapons with high-capacity magazines, we know it’s time for the adults to start putting some limits down.

One of those limits is to replace the Assault Weapons Ban that expired 2004 with a new, strengthened version. Senator Diane Feinstein has introduced such legislation. Please sign the Democracy for America petition, urging members of Congress to pass it.

More after the jump.