Pence: Americans Have A Right To Carry Guns & Protest Loudly

Rep. Pence: Guns At Political Events Are Like "Placards" At Anti-War Rallies
This morning, a caller on C-SPAN's Washington Journal asked Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) why Republicans did not speak out when a right-wing Activist brought an Assault Rifle to an Obama event in Arizona in 2009. Responding to the question, Pence likened the presence of guns at political rallies to anti-war Protesters "waving placards that spoke strong opposition to the Bush Administration," saying, "All of that is what freedom is all about." PENCE: Well, I remember the press reports about people brin...

Pence: Pistols and placards are basically the same thing
Rep. Mike Pence takes a false equivalency and runs away with it. PENCE: Well, I remember the press reports about people bringing Firearms to — at least it was one press report I remember in the last two years of a firearm being brought to a rally. I personally never witnessed that. I really believe that we enter on to a very slippery slope if we buy into the attempt to assign blame for last Saturday's unspeakable violence anywhere but on the individual who was to blame. My experience whet...

Right & Left: Whose Talk is Worse?
The discussion of the Tucson shooting has turned into a debate between the left and the right over whose political Rhetoric is more harmful. As my latest column for The Week points out, there are important lessons for both sides in this discussion. “Promote violence? Us? What about you?” The political conversation since the Tucson massacre has been dominated by a ferocious attack and counter-attack, as right and left deploy competing narratives of victimhood. Sarah Palin’s gun-si...

Gabrielle Giffords office is open, helping constituents and providing solace
Troy Wine puts up a peace sign at a makeshift memorial outside the office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., Wednesday, Jan. 12, in Tucson, Ariz. Giffords was shot on Saturday and remains in critical condition. Tucson, Ariz. Around the corner from an expanding shrine of flowers, balloons, and candles, the office of US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is open for business. Just two days after the Mass Shooting left the Democratic congresswoman critically injured, her community outreach director dead, ...

Lets Have A Rational Conversation About Guns
In the wake of the Tucson carnage, there has been considerable discussion here and elsewhere about Gun Possession and carry laws. Some have speculated that private Gun Possession would have reduced the death and injury toll in Tucson. Others have speculated that the toll would have increased with the presence of additional guns. What both sides have in common is that they are speculating. As a backdrop for this discussion, let’s begin with a thumbnail look at the current state of gun law and ...

Tea Party Express Banks on Tucson
Thu Jan. 13, 2011 8:40 AM PST Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is taking heat for blasting out a Fundraising email based on the gruesome shootings in Tucson over the weekend that left six people dead and at 14 wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). Sanders' email read in part, "In light of all of this violence—both actual and threatened—is Arizona a state in which people who are not Republicans are able to participate freely and fully in the democratic process?" ...

NATO: 2 Afghan civilians killed in violence
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A pair of insurgent attacks on Thursday killed two Afghan civilians, including a child, in part of the persistent violence across the country despite crackdowns on insurgent leaders, officials said. The child was killed by a bomb outside a music cassette shop in a marketplace in Jalalabad, some 80 miles (125 kilometers) east of Kabul, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a spokesman for Nangarhar province. NATO said three other civilians were wounded in the blast. In the sout...

Where are the democracy promoters on Tunisia?
Barely a month goes by without a Washington Post editorial bemoaning Egypt's authoritarian retrenchment and criticizing the Obama Administration's alleged failure to promote Arab Democracy.   But now Tunisia has erupted as the story of the year for Arab reformers.   The spiraling Protests and the regime's heavy-handed, but thus far ineffective, repression have captured the imagination of Arab publics, governments, and political analysts.    Despite Tunis's efforts to cen...

The Appalling Media Double Standard on Reporting Political Violence
I wrote a column by that title for Pajamas Media back in May of last year. It's amazing how well it has stood up over time, concluding: Again, The Progressive media turned a blind eye to real violence because the source of that violence was a bit too close to their ideological home. It was no mistake that MSNBC's Contessa Brewer hoped that the Times Square bomber was a Tea Party Protester; it is a view that is common among a media that is a symbiote of the Democratic Party. Progressive media h...

Rep. Louie Gohmert Drafting Bill To Let Congress Carry Guns In U.S. Capitol & D.C.
Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Texas) recently signaled his intention to submit a piece of Legislation that would make exceptions to a number of Firearms laws by allowing members of Congress to carry guns in D.C. and even into the Capitol building, including the chamber floors. "There is a rash of Legislation further infringing on Second Amendment rights that has been unwisely proffered in the wake of events in Tucson," Gohmert told The Hill in a statement. "If members of Congress wishes to carry a wea...

Christina Green 9/11 Book's Sales Jump
Like this Story? Share it: Play CBS Video Video Ariz. Victim Tormented by Death of Young Friend Erica Hill reports on Suzi Hileman, the neighbor who accompanied 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green to the event where the girl was fatally wounded. During a Press Conference for the injured victims of the Tucson, Ariz. shooting, Bill Hileman became overcome with emotion when describing his wife who was holding the hand of 9-year-old victim Christina Taylor Green. Funerals and memorials have begun for...

The Disease Spreads
Writes a friend: The disease is spreading everywhere. Europe is still somewhat tolerable, but during a recent trip back from India late November 2010 with my four year old son, I experienced the paranoia. The crime was that the connecting flight back to Munich was through Dubai. Due to some high level “alert,” there were three layers of security: a check on the aerobridge itself as we we were getting out, then passport control, then customs. I was pulled out along with my 4 year ol...

Keeping Score
One of the difficult aspects for the Media regarding the Tucson tragedy was that it was largely taken out of its it political score keeping comfort zone. To do so would of course have been "injecting politics" into a tragedy. Yesterday, the keeping score approach was unavoidable, as it started with Sarah Palin and ended with the President of the United States. The President and his party scored big yesterday. Which makes this post from Jennifer Rubin rather bizarre: Why were the last four days...

Robert Creamer: Do Americans Have the Right to Bear Weapons of Mass Destruction?
The massacre and Assassination attempt in Tucson have reignited the ongoing battle over what limitations should be placed on our rights to Bear Arms. Let's assume for a moment - though there are many Constitutional scholars who disagree -- that the majority of the Supreme Court is correct in its view that the Constitution does in fact confer on Americans a right to bear arms that is similar in scope to our right to free Speech and assembly. What does it actually mean, that we have a right to b...

Friends say they saw miracle in Giffords
Published: Jan. 13, 2011 at 12:25 PM U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (pictured) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said they felt awed seeing Rep. Gabrielle Giffords open her eyes in her Tucson Hospital room. UPI/Ron Sachs/Pool TUCSON, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said they felt awed seeing Rep. Gabrielle Giffords open her eyes in her Tucson Hospital room. Amid jokes, comments and laughter about what they'd do once Giffords, D-Ariz., returns to Wa...

Broken U.S. Senate Rules May Make It Impossible To Ever Confirm A Director Of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
In 2006, the NRA successfully lobbied then-House Judiciary Chair James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) to insert a provision into the PATRIOT Act reauthorization requiring the Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to be confirmed by the Senate. Since then, the ATF has never had a Senate-confirmed head. Shortly after the 2006 law took effect, President Bush nominated U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan to head the ATF, but even a Republican president’s choice proved unacceptable to pro-...

Poll respondents: Tucson shooting 'isolated incident' & concealed firearms should be allowed
A slight majority (51 percent) of respondents to a survey conducted Jan. 10-11 by Vision Critical & Angus Reid believe the Tucson shooting last Saturday was an isolated incident resulting from an individual's action. About a third (31 percent) said the shooting was the consequence of a negative tone in U.S. politics. And 37 percent said they expect there will soon be more such incidents. In addition, 73 percent of respondents said that citizens should be allowed to carry a concealed firearm...

Jorge-Mario Cabrera: We Are All Arizona -- Now More Than Ever Before
Arizona may or may not be the mecca for vitriol or heated political Rhetoric in the United States, but it is certainly a proud state that does not shy away from standing for what it believes in, even if its policies, especially around Immigration, multicultural education and gun rights, distance it from mainstream America. This weekend, however, rebel Arizona was grieving and in shock. Like the rest of the nation, Arizona grieved and lamented the senseless shooting of nineteen people gathered ...

The answer to gun violence is always more guns
In the wake of the Tucson shootings, U.S. Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York, introduced a piece of Legislation that would bar possession of a firearm within 1,000 feet of a member of Congress. It’s really a silly, even dangerous idea. With all that is going on, why on earth would members of Congress want to deny themselves the sense of security and safety that comes from knowing that at any time, they could be within easy reach of a heavily armed constituent? It’s absurd...

Obama nominates ATF director; bureau without one for four years
At a time when some members of Congress are advocating new Gun Laws and raising questions about the eligibility of the Tucson shooting suspect to buy a gun, it's worth noting that the agency responsible for enforcing federal Gun Laws has been without a director for more than four years. Congress changed the law in 2006 to require that directors of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives receive Senate confirmation. Since then, there has been no confirmed director. All have been ...

Habeas Fundamentals
On Tuesday, the DC Circuit denied en banc review in Abdah v. Obama. An earlier ruling (in Kiyemba v. Obama) had held that a Gitmo detainee has no right to notice that he is about to be transferred to a place--such as Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan--where it may be impossible to obtain habeas relief because the Congressional judgment to provide for no statutory jurisdiction is valid under the Suspension Clause. In a dissent from the denial of en banc review, Judge Griffith (joined by Judges Rogers...

After Tucson shooting, several congressmen vow to carry guns more often
When he's traveling to meet constituents, bumping along the back roads of central Utah in his Ford F-150 truck, it's not unusual for Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) to have a Handgun strapped to his hip. A longtime gun owner, Chaffetz said that in light of the attempt last weekend on the life of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), he thinks it might be a good idea to bring his Glock 23 even more often when he heads out into the country. "It's just that you never know when you might find yourself...

Biden: Iraq's success in US interest
BAGHDAD — Vice President Joe Biden emphasized to Iraqi leaders Thursday that the U.S. wants nothing more than for Iraq to be a free and democratic country in a daylong visit that officials said would focus on the departure of American Troops from the country. Biden's trip marks the first visit by a top U.S. official since Iraq approved a new Cabinet last month, breaking a political deadlock and jump-starting its stalled government after March's inconclusive Elections. Three Explosion...

Research links rise in Falluja birth defects and cancers to US assault
The story below reported the authors of a study as saying that Birth Defects in the Iraqi city of Falluja could have been caused by weaponry used in US assaults in 2004, and added by way of background that this suggestion might add to the dispute over whether rounds containing Depleted Uranium have residual effects. But a line of explanation went wrong in saying that such rounds "contain ionising radiation to burst through armour". As readers with expertise in this area noted, it is no...

Filner Tries to Tie Popaditch Supporters to the Giffords Shooting
One of my favorite Candidates of this past cycle is Nick Popaditch; see more about him here, here, and here. He’s been dragged, unwillingly, into the Arizona shooting Controversy; the member of Congress he sought to defeat, California Democrat Bob Filner, has explicitly suggested that Tea Party Rhetoric influenced the Tucson shooter, despite the lack of evidence: “I will tell you that in a society we are not isolated, none of us is isolated. Yes, that guy may have acted alone but h...