Monday, November 17, 2008
Gun Nut Fear Mongers
On the November 13 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, G. Gordon Liddy repeatedly advised people not to register their firearms, saying: "The first thing you do is, no matter what law they pass, do not -- repeat, not -- ever register any of your firearms." Liddy added: "Because that's where they get the list of where to go first to confiscate. So, you don't ever register a firearm, anywhere." Liddy's statements came in response to a caller who said: "And I'm also very concerned about the firearm owners in this country. I think we need a bit of general advice from you as to what we can do as a group with our firearms. Do we need to buy up all the Cosmoline in the country and bury our weapons? And I'm -- I'm curious as to -- as to what advice you have for us. I mean, we know what's gonna happen. We know that they can't get their fingers on the brass ring until they've disarmed us."
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As seen on Indystar.com
There's nothing fun about this fairgrounds show
It is Friday evening in late October, and the shadows on the Indiana State Fairgrounds are starting to lengthen as I pay nine bucks to gain admission into the 1500 Gun and Knife Show.
Twenty-five feet inside the entrance of the South Pavilion building, a display table is draped with the striking red background and black swastika of the Nazi flag. Ten feet farther, an SS uniform is for sale. The crowd of several hundred, virtually all white men, mill past displays of Confederate flags and National Rifle Association literature. One vendor features T-shirts of the iconic yellow smiley face with a bullet hole in its forehead and brains blown out the back of its skull.
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Thousands of weapons are for sale. Glock 23 fully automatic pistols, Uzi nine millimeters, Colt 44 magnum Anacondas. Some cost less than $100.
One display includes copies of legal treatises on the "castle doctrine," the law that allows the use of deadly force on intruders. Next to the stack of treatises are bumper stickers reading, "Osama bin Laden/Obama Joe Biden. Coincidence?"
When someone picks up a bumper sticker, the man working the display nods. "God help us if McCain doesn't win," he says. "I live in South Bend, which is 35 percent black. That's what you call a target-rich environment."
My companion at the gun show is Joe Zelenka, who coordinates for the Church Federation of Greater Indianapolis the prayer vigils held after murders in the city. When weapons like the ones sold at the firgrounds make real human beings look like the blown-away smiley face on the T-shirts, Zelenka is there to hear the mothers' cries of anguish.
He points to a Springfield XD 9 millimeter semi-automatic pistol. "Not legal in California," the box reads. "The only things these are used to hunt for is people," Zelenka says.
Zelenka is helping to coordinate a petition from nearby St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic parish asking Gov. Mitch Daniels to stop hosting these gun shows at the State Fairgrounds. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1983 requires that licensed gun dealers conduct background checks of purchasers before selling firearms. But there is no such federal or state requirement for private sellers. They are free to sell weapons, including at gun shows, to anyone, including convicted felons and spouse abusers, who plunks down the cash.
A handful of states have closed this gun show loophole, sometimes in the aftermath of tragedy. After gun show-purchased weapons were used by the Columbine High School killers to shoot 26 students in 1999, Colorado voters passed a referendum requiring background checks for all sales at these shows.
But Indiana has no such limitation. And Daniels, like Govs. Evan Bayh and Frank O'Bannon before him, doesn't plan to stop the State Fairgrounds gun shows. "We are not in a position to discriminate among potential users (of the fairgrounds) that comply with applicable laws and the lease requirement," says Daniels spokeswoman Jane Jankowski.
Meanwhile, the only-in-America headlines continue. On Halloween, a 12-year-old South Carolina trick-or-treater is gunned down. At a Massachusetts gun fair, an 8-year-old boy accidentally shoots himself in the head with an Uzi submachine gun. A dispute over an LSU-Alabama college football game leads to two people being shot to death. In Arizona, another 8-year-old shoots and kills his father and another man.
Zelenka continues his grim ritual of prayer vigils, as the Indianapolis homicide total climbs to more than 100 deaths again this year. And next year the Indiana State Fairgrounds is scheduled to host five more weapons extravaganzas, each providing a forum for the fringes of hate and the merchants of violent death.
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