Police in Clarkstown, New York have confiscated a cache of high-powered weapons and body armor from a man who was arrested for posting death threats against against many Democratic politicians and every liberal supporter of President Barack Obama. According to WCBS, 49-year-old Larry Mulqueen was arraigned on Thursday on charges of “making terroristic threats, illegally possessing weapons and harassment.”…. Mulqueen’s landlady had tipped off police after she found a “hit list” posted on Facebook that threatened Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) and all members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The Facebook posting said that all of the president’s follower were “traitor scum” and promised “death to them all.”
Once again, I find myself laughing at the assertion that “more guns equals more safety,” as if increasing the amount of firepower extant in society would enforce an arrangement in which Americans suddenly find it within themselves to respect one another. Never mind that there’s no- zero, zip, nada- evidence to buttress the idea that more guns only enforces a polite and respectful society. In the minds of some, merely repeating the mantra makes it true- Josef Goebbel’s “Big Lie” applied to our modern world. Yet it’s Just. Not. True.
First, more guns will not create a kinder, more respectful society. It WILL create a more fearful and dangerous society, because when angry, unbalanced people have access to firearms…well, it doesn’t take much imagination to consider the possibilities. When people can walk into a Walmart or a grocery store with an AR-15 or an AK-47 slung over their shoulder in the name of their “2nd Amendment rights,” something is horribly sick and wrong.
Second, when you oppose background checks, you’re giving carte blanche to the criminal, angry, and mentally unbalanced among us. You’re saying that ANYONE should be able to purchase and own firearms. There is NO reason someone like Larry Mulqueen should be allowed to own guns…and yet that’s exactly what gun nuts are supporting when they loudly oppose background checks.
Common sense background checks aren’t about curtailing liberty or freedom. It’s about protecting society by ensuring that those who shouldn’t own guns aren’t allowed to purchase them. Or is the occasional random slaughter of innocents to be considered merely the cost of freedom?
Nyack-Piermont Patch reported that police searched Mulqueen’s home and found two high-powered rifles, two bayonets, a sword, a knuckle knife, body armor and ammunition. Included in the 100 rounds of ammunition were 27 so-called “tank buster” .50 caliber armor-piercing shells.
Depending on the jurisdiction, it’s illegal for convicted felons and the mentally ill to own firearms…yet without backgrounds checks, how can we hope to see that prohibition enforced? Mulqueen wasn’t some law-abiding sportsmen who liked to hunt and used his weapons for lawful purposes. He was an angry, rage-addled ex-felon whose arsenal had one purpose and one purpose only- to kill human beings, quite possibly the ones on his “hit list.”
Mulqueen was a mass shooting looking for a place to happen. Full credit to his landlord and the police for doing the right thing and shutting him down. I can’t help but wonder what might have happened if Mulqueen hadn’t attracted attention. Would we eventually be reading about his attack on some of those on his “Liberal hit list?” Would we be wondering how this could have happened and bemoaning the sad and unnecessary loss of life in a senseless attack?
No matter how you attempt to rationalize it, guns don’t make for a more polite society- and repeating that mantra endlessly won’t make it any more true. Because when you get right down to it, an armed society is just a bunch of jerks with guns.
