God, Guns & Money

(I'm currently reading a biography of the late, great Warren Zevon, and the tune from "Lawyers, Guns and Money" was going through my head when I wrote that headline.)

Photo: Jim Winn for The New York Times - Ken Pagano, the pastor at New Bethel Church, prepared to try a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun at a shooting range.
OK, these guys are getting ridiculous!

Via FDL, an article in the NY Times discusses a preacher who encourages his flock to bring their guns to church:

Ken Pagano, the pastor of the New Bethel Church here, is passionate about gun rights. He shoots regularly at the local firing range, and his sermon two weeks ago was on “God, Guns, Gospel and Geometry.” And on Saturday night, he is inviting his congregation of 150 and others to wear or carry their firearms into the sanctuary to “celebrate our rights as Americans!” as a promotional flier for the “open carry celebration” puts it.

The gun-nut culture in America, driven to dizzying heights of hysteria not seen since the infamous 1938 broadcast by Orson Welles of "War of the Worlds", has been mightily pushing the imaginary threat to gun rights ever since Barack Obama took office.

If you believe their hype, the president is definitely going to strip the Constitution of the 2nd Amendment and lock up any law-abiding citizen who dares to possess any weapon with a striking power greater than a Dennis the Menace-style slingshot. The NRA has capitalized on the hysteria by fanning those flames, and they've seen a 30% increase in membership since November.

Now the reality.

Here's a list of all the gun-restriction laws that Obama has signed into law since taking office:

(insert sound of crickets here)

In fact, President Obama recently signed legislation allowing guns into national parks, reversing a longtime ban that gun owners have campaigned to remove for years.

Even President George W. Bush, gun-lover that he was, didn't compel his rubber-stamp Republican Congress to remove the ban! And he had six solid years of Congress doing exactly what he wanted. Bush was thrilled to keep guns out of parks. It took a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President to deliver that little Easter egg into the gun owner's collective basket!

And there currently isn't much push by Congress to even reinstate the lapsed assault weapons ban, which restricted some types of assault weapons in an effort to reduce the amount of tactical weaponry owned by people who are occasionally inclined to shoot up a church, school, or fast-food restaurant.

Rest assured, an American's God-given right to slaughter large amounts of innocent people for no good reason is preserved.

Regardless of the reality, the election of President Obama is the absolute best thing that could have ever happened to the National Rifle Association. I'm sure their numbers from this year will far exceed anything they've done in the past. Money is literally pouring into the organization.

The NRA has become perhaps the most successful lobbying group in history. I feel they are poised to reach a pinnacle that other PACs can only dream of...they're about to become bigger than the issue that they represent. Soon, the growth and financial health of the NRA will be it's own biggest goal.

The worst thing that could happen to the NRA is for the Supreme Court to definitively rule that all manner of guns and gun ownership is completely and irrevocably legal and shall never be abridged in any way, shape or form.

The sound of lobbyists hitting the sidewalk would echo from sea to shining sea!

(Disclaimer: as I've often mentioned in the past, I've been a legal gun owner for many years, and I possess a valid State of Connecticut Pistol carry permit.)