By GottaLaff

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/MG/142772~Gun-Crazy-Posters.jpg

Hey kiddies, guess what? Another mentally unbalanced person got their hands on a gun because of guess what?

Go on, guess.

Give up?

The gun show loophole! Yayyy!

Yes, the right wing, anti-government Pentagon shooter, John Patrick Bedell, got his gun at a gun show through the gun show loophole, with no background check. Feel safer yet?

QuickDraw McLoopHole had already been declared too, er, abnormal to buy one through a federally licensed dealer, but pfft! That didn’t matter:


Two guns used in high-profile shootings this year at the Pentagon and a Las Vegas courthouse both came from the same unlikely place: the police and court system of Memphis, Tenn.

Law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that both guns were once seized in criminal cases in Memphis. The officials described how the weapons made their separate ways from an evidence vault to gun dealers and to the shooters.

Wow, hmm, gee, how’d that happen?

[O]n the day of the Pentagon shooting, March 4, the Tennessee governor signed legislation revising state law on confiscated guns. Before, law enforcement agencies in the state had the option of destroying a gun. Under the new version, agencies can only destroy a gun if it’s inoperable or unsafe.

Seems Version 2.0 needs to be updated.

But with that in mind, it’s only natural that oversight would tighten up, right?

[...] 24 states — mostly in the South and West, where gun-rights advocates are particularly strong — have passed 47 new laws loosening gun restrictions.

Gee, that doesn’t seem logical. Oops, did I say “logical”? Logic has nothing to do with this!

What, am I nuts?

No, but QuickDraw was:

[T]he weapons first went to licensed gun dealers, but later came into the hands of men who were legally barred from possessing them: one a convicted felon; the other mentally ill.

Change we can’t believe in.

But come on, realistically, what are the chances of some psycho ending up finding that one special dealer who would slip him a lethal weapon:

Law enforcement officials say Bedell, a man with a history of severe psychiatric problems, had been sent a letter by California authorities Jan. 10 telling him he was prohibited from buying a gun because of his mental history.

Nineteen days later, the officials say, Bedell bought the Ruger at a gun show in Las Vegas. Such a sale by a private individual does not require the kind of background check that would have stopped Bedell’s purchase.

But privatizing stuff is the GOP’s answer to everything. What could possible go wrong? Death? Don’t be silly. Murder? Ridiculous! Selling lethal weapons to a disturbed individual who would subsequently go on a shooting spree? Impossible!

Here’s the deal, gun owners: Nobody’s trying to take your firearms from you. But keeping them out of the hands of unstable felons and the mentally ill doesn’t do anything to threaten your freedoms.

The real and growing threat is to innocent lives, not the Constitution.

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