February 16, 2015 5:59 AM

Idaho: The occasional casualty is the price of liberty and freedumb

Drape National Rifle Association lobbyist Dakota Moore in purple. Seat him at the center of the state Senate floor. Give him the full-on Julius Caesar treatment and name him consul of Idaho for life, already. At least that would be honest. The wing-nut litmus test season is in full swing at the Statehouse. And, straight away, the gun crowd took to again eroding any reasonable restrictions on firearms. Last year, the Legislature sacrificed the safety of college and university students on the NRA’s altar, at a cost to students and taxpayers of nearly $4 million. Within months, a professor’s lecture was cut short when his semi-auto pumped a hole into his thigh. This year’s ritual slaughter looks to essentially do away with Idaho’s standard concealed carry permit. No more fingerprinting. No more background checks. No more required training. Arm them all. Some day soon, everyone will have a Glock hidden beneath their flannels, they hope. And why not rob the police of an important investigatory tool in the process?

In Idaho, it’s called “Constitutional Carry,” the belief that the 2nd Amendment bestows the God-given right to carry any type of firepower anywhere at any time and for any reason with no recourse or accountability (all rights, no responsibility). The NRA and their gun nut acolytes have succeeded in turning Idaho into a virtual free-fire zone, where the right to openly carry a firearm trumps any and all other rights- to common sense, to life, to live free from fear of being caught in a crossfire, etc.- and those who plead for common sense are derided as “unAmerican.”

The truth is that the “Constitutional Carry” lobby has succeeded in turning Idaho residents into targets. Despite the fraudulent “more guns equal more safety” claims, all introducing more guns into the public sphere does is to increase the potential lethality of everyday life. Accidental discharges, misfires, and all manner of gun-related “accidents” become possible whenever firearms become an accepted and regular feature of public interaction. This doesn’t even begin to consider the exponentially higher chances of a lethal exchange in the case of a heated argument. No, when you’re an ammosexual, you understand that the occasional loss of life is merely the cost of freedumb…just as long you neither know nor care about those whose lives are cut sort by being accidentally freedumbed.

An “accidental shooting” is becoming a monthly event in Idaho. Just last week, a Mountain Home woman died after apparently failing to check her gun’s chamber before cleaning it, while talking on the phone. Earlier this year, Veronica Rutledge’s toddler shot and killer her with her own weapon in a north Idaho Wal-Mart. And, at least in the Rutledge case, she had the enhanced permit, which requires substantially more schooling.

Yet proponents say stuff like: Gun owners are always responsible.

Does common sense no longer have a place in Idaho? Has their statehouse become so beholden to the Brotherhood of the Tiny Penis an the NRA that public safety is no longer a top priority?

Something called the Idaho Second Amendment Alliance is championing the effort to arm all Idaho residents. Sure, there’s the usual “more guns equals more safety” propaganda, but it’s really about the National Rifle Association and their devotion to the gun industry. So a few innocents are freedumbed to death; liberty and freedom aren’t free, knowhutimean?

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on February 16, 2015 5:59 AM.

And you wonder why I won't eat at McDonald's? was the previous entry in this blog.

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