On Tuesday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its quarterly report on the cost of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — Obamacare. The upshot is that the 10-year net cost of the program has risen by $40 billion from estimates in the February report. There are several reasons why, but I won’t bore you with the wonky details. Suffice to say, there’s nothing even remotely worrisome about the report or the status of Obamacare. Actually, the biggest news on this front is that the CBO has refused any further scoring for the Republican effort to repeal the law. Good for the CBO. It’s about damn time.

Meanwhile, however, Republicans across the board freaked out about the CBO report, claiming that the cost of Obamacare has doubled. I first heard this assessment from talking bumper sticker Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) who tweeted: “CBO: #Obamacare costs double to $1.8 trillion in first decade.” Other congressional Republicans tweeted the same thing, including Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and Ted Cruz. Stockman and his fellow liars included a link to a Washington Examiner article by Senior Editorial Writer Philip Klein:

When President Obama was selling his health care legislation to Congress, he declared that “the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years.” But with the law’s major provisions set to kick in next year, a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office projects that the law will cost double that, or $1.8 trillion.

Horseshit.

See what Klein and the Republicans did here? In the same way they routinely and strategically confuse the national debt with the federal budget deficit, these idiots are confusing the net cost of Obamacare, originally around $900 billion, with the gross cost of the program, which is now around $1.8 trillion. It’s the smaller net cost figure that’s important, not only because it was the $900 billion number that was most commonly quoted at the time of the bill’s passage, but also because the net cost takes into consideration savings and offsets from the program. For example, the gross cost of a primer-level economics book for Steve Stockman costs, say, $20 (large print, lots of illustrations), but after coupons and other discounts the net cost of the book is only $12. If you paid $12, it’d be a lie to go around saying the book cost $20, wouldn’t it? But if your goal is to criticize the book and make it seem like a waste of money, you’d clearly lie and quote the $20 price tag.

That’s exactly what they’re doing with Obamacare. Lying. A sitting member of Congress, along with the right-wing press and many other congressional Republicans, flagrantly lied about the cost of Obamacare. Because, well, that’s what they do now. See, Stockman doesn’t think it’s a human right to have affordable access to quality healthcare (unless you’re an embryo), but he thinks it’s a human right to buy a military style assault rifle from Walmart.

A cursory Google search revealed that the lie has spread like a pandemic throughout the wingnutosphere. Fox News, Human Events, Heritage Foundation, Hot Air — they all lied and wrote that the cost of Obamacare has “doubled.”

As for Mr. Klein at the Washington Examiner, he continued by writing:

Today, the CBO released new projections from 2013 extending through 2022, and the results are as critics expected: the ten-year cost of the law’s core provisions to expand health insurance coverage has now ballooned to $1.76 trillion.

Whoops. Wait. That wasn’t what Klein wrote yesterday — it’s what he wrote last year. Yes, this is the second year in a row that Klein lied about the gross cost versus the net cost of Obamacare.

He basically wrote the exact same post in March of 2012. In it, he had the balls to accuse the president of using “accounting tricks.” Hilarious if it wasn’t so infuriating. Days after his 2012 post went up, FactCheck.org ran an article debunking the widespread lie about the CBO’s estimate titled Health Care Costs Didn’t Double. FactCheck noted several purveyors of the lie:

–House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Tom Price of Georgia put out a press release saying that “[t]he new CBO projection estimates that the law will cost $1.76 trillion over 10 years – well above the $940 billion Democrats originally claimed.”

–A Fox News article repeated the Republican criticisms and said that the CBO had found the law would cost “twice as much as the original $900 billion price tag.”

–Another Fox version carried the headline, “ ‘Obamacare’ to Cost Twice as Much as Previously Estimated, According to New CBO Report.”

–And the conservative news outlet Newsmax ran a headline saying, “Obamacare’s Gross Costs Double to $1.76 Trillion, CBO Projects.” An Internet search turns up many conservative blog reports making a similar costs-have-doubled claim.

Indeed, a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth puts its shoes on. And now they’re doing it all over again.

Fox News and Newsmax, not to mention Stockman and the others, are bouncing off the walls right now insisting that “Obama lied” about Benghazi. And here they are for the second year in a row lying about the cost of Obamacare.

Last year, Kevin Drum wrote of the Obamacare lie, “Moral of this story: Never believe anything that Republicans say about Obamacare until you check out the source yourself. But you already knew that.” I’ll go one further: don’t believe them on anything. They don’t deserve the trust of the American people or the benefit of the doubt. The 2012 Romney campaign alone suffocated the last breath of veracity out of the Republican playbook. The only way they can survive is to continue to lie and hope that their voters are too moronic and uneducated to realize it.

Likewise, as we observe the mayhem surrounding the dueling “scandals” of Benghazi, the IRS and the Associated Press phone records subpoena, the Republicans, true to form, are tripping over each other in a mad dash to scream “Impeach!” into the next nearest cable news video camera. There’s only one problem: when it comes to the IRS situation and the AP phone debacle, the Republicans created the chain-reactions that led to these scandals.

Let’s begin with the IRS scandal first.

While it looks really, really bad for one of the most feared agencies within the Democratically-controlled executive branch to have been exclusively scrutinizing conservative groups, we only need to rewind to the Supreme Court’s reprehensible Citizens United decision to figure out why all of this is going on. The conservative Roberts court not only opened the floodgates allowing unlimited and unregulated corporate money to flow into campaigns, but it also blurred the line between independent 527 political groups and non-profit social welfare groups, which are classified with the designation 501(c)(4). These social welfare groups can also apply for tax-exempt status from the IRS, a designation that used to be the strict privilege of groups that didn’t engage in political speech. But since Citizens United, it’s much more challenging to determine which social welfare groups are dealing in predominantly political speech.

So the IRS is faced with the unenviable challenge of filtering out groups that are stepping over the line and flagrantly abusing the social welfare moniker.

Now, yes, I get it. The IRS staffers shouldn’t have used exclusively right-wing search terms to weed through the applications. They should’ve broadened the criteria to include terms across the political spectrum. But without the conservative, pro-Republican movie created by the infamous Citizens United group in 2008, not to mention the conservative, Republican-affiliated Supreme Court deciding in its favor, we might not be talking about this right now. Furthermore, the Republican-created deficit and the subsequent histrionic demand for austerity led to government cut-backs, including at the IRS where, within the Exempt Organizations Division, the staff has been significantly reduced, thus increasing workloads. Toss into the mix a considerable rise in tax exempt applications and there it is: a formula for negligence. Thanks, Republicans.

On to the AP scandal.

Right off the bat, it might surprise you to learn that it was a cabal of 31 Republican senators who demanded the investigation that eventually led to the subpoena of the AP’s phone records. So there’s that.

In a broader sense, however, I can’t help but to laugh whenever I hear a Republican scream about government overreach on national security and civil liberties. For eight years, the Republicans established an infrastructure under the banner of fighting evildoers at home and abroad — an infrastructure that included a wide variety of trespasses against civil liberties.

They seized phone records from reporters without subpoenas, they spied on liberal groups, they established the usage of body scanners and heightened security measures at airports, they loudly and in some cases tearfully demanded the ability to wiretap American citizens without warrants, they passed the USA PATRIOT Act and ultimately created the modern American surveillance state. The Bush era gave us this counter-terrorism Frankenstein, and now they’re suddenly alarmed about it.

But now that they’re not longer in charge, they melodramatically collapse onto their group fainting couch every time the Justice Department or the president ventures into the same territory — or, ironically enough, whenever the president doesn’t do enough along those lines. Whatever the Obama administration does, they’re against it. And so it is with the AP phone records situation. Once again, as with the IRS scandal, the cries for investigations and even impeachment are loud and plentiful.

For example, Bush’s former attorney general Michael Mukasey described the AP phone records situation by saying, “It’s reprehensible conduct.” This is the same attorney general who took over a Justice Department that had seized phone records from four journalists — without subpoenas — without even flinching. Mukasey was also directly involved with warrantless wiretapping of Americans citizens. And when it appeared as if Congress might pass legislation preventing this egregious activity from continuing, Mukasey literally burst into tears during a speech in which he demanded the power to continue the eavesdropping program or else there would surely be another 9/11. I’m not making that up.

It’s not a stretch to suggest that the post-9/11 fear-mongering and massively exaggerated counter-terrorism hysteria manufactured an atmosphere of capitulation and resignation to flagrant government overreach and violations of privacy and personal dignity.

And who’s to blame for the fear-mongering? People like Matt Drudge, of course, who aided in the effort to scare the crapola out of us about the so-called “terrorist threat” and yet ran a screamer headline on his front page in which he cleverly conflated the AP story with wiretapping: “GOVT TAPS PRESS PHONE RECORDS FOR MONTHS.”

But during the Bush years, Drudge, along with Rush Limbaugh, Fox News Channel and the highest ranking Republican officials in Congress, demanded that all of Washington buy into the notion that you can’t have a Constitution if you’re dead. How do we know this? Well, because they actually said it. Over and over. A few examples for the record:

“You have no civil liberties if you are dead.” Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS)

“Over 3,000 Americans have no civil rights because they are no longer with us.” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

“None of your civil liberties matter much after you’re dead.” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)

“Our civil liberties are worthless if we are dead! If you are dead and pushing up daisies, if you’re sucking dirt inside a casket, do you know what your civil liberties are worth? Zilch, zero, nada.” Rush Limbaugh

Now, years later, these very same Republicans insist that “Big Sis” (Drudge’s nickname for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano) and the “little black man-child” are forcing us to “grab the ankles” and submit to fascist authoritarian policies. Never mind that all of these policies were invented by Republicans and ballyhooed by Drudge in an atmosphere of manufactured fear during conservative control of, well, everything.

Throughout the duration of the Bush years, any and all opponents of these policies were shouted down as being with the terrorists — undermining American security and endangering the troops, while evildoers were lurking under our beds ready to spring forth and crash airplanes into everything. In those years, patriotism was defined by the speed and vigor by which we gave up our civil liberties in lieu of a lot of extra security. This mantra was defined, branded and codified by the Republican Party.

The post-9/11 maxim “either you’re with us, or you are with the terrorists” wasn’t the concoction of Michael Moore or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or Janet Napolitano. It was entirely the purview of the Drudge-ruled authoritarian universe of fear and cowardice. And make no mistake: cowardice is precisely what it was — cry-baby cowardice masked by flag-waving machismo in support of a military-industrial-security complex that earned billions in profits on investments ranging from the invasion and occupation of Iraq to the production and deployment of body scanners. Rather than standing firm and upholding American values, the far-right embraced cowardice and set us on a course that’s become so deeply embedded into our political culture that it’s going to take many more years to unravel.

So as you observe the coming months and years of brain-melting scandal coverage surrounding these topics, blame a Republican. It’s okay. They deserve it.

As of right now, it’s unknown whether the IRS was acting on the behalf of the Obama campaign or the Democratic Party. What we do know, however, is that it’s not the first time something like this has happened. We also know that the Democrats have almost universally condemned the actions of the IRS, as they’ve done when the congressional Republicans and, naturally, the Bush administration used the nearly unlimited might of the government to engage in similar investigations — or worse. And we know that the lock-step party, the Republicans, spent eight years defending, applauding and enabling Bush abuses on this front, while subsequently cheerleading the congressional Republicans as they carry forward the politics of intimidation and government overreach into the Obama era.

Let’s begin there. The congressional Republicans are outraged by the IRS story, but they haven’t been able to scramble to the floor of the House quickly enough to target left-leaning groups.

1. Planned Parenthood. After a hoax video was produced by James O’Keefe and released by a professional clown-wrangler, the late Andrew Breitbart, the Republican Party has engaged in a years-long effort to strip the organization, which offers cancer screenings and other affordable medical services for women, of critical funding from the government. The votes in the House as well as in state legislatures from Arizona to New Jersey to Texas and New Hampshire — to the tune of at least $60 million — are nothing more than assault against a political enemy.

2. ACORN. The government attack on ACORN, traditionally a left-leaning organization, might be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic. As with Planned Parenthood, the Republican inquisition against ACORN was nothing more than a politically-motivated witch hunt based on, once again, a selectively-edited prank video by a scam artist, O’Keefe, who’s been convicted of wiretapping a sitting U.S. Senator and forced in court to pay $100,000 in restitution to a fired ACORN employee. Yet the entire Republican congressional delegation lined up behind Breitbart and O’Keefe and destroyed ACORN, which entirely shut down in 2010. But that hasn’t stopped the Republicans from continuing to vote on at least several occasions to defund the nonexistent group. In fact, last week the chairman House Appropriations Committee Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) introduced a section into a spending bill that reads: “None of the funds made available in this Act may be distributed to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) or its subsidiaries or successors.”

3. Voter ID Laws and Voter Purges. Whether it’s Governor Rick Scott of Florida purging voter rolls of minority voters who are likely to vote for Democratic candidates or states like Georgia, Indiana, Kansas and Tennessee passing restrictive Voter ID laws, the Republicans are making sure that fewer and fewer Democrats will be able to freely cast a ballot — our most sacred right as citizens in a representative democracy.

What about the Bush years?

4. The Bush Justice Department Targeted Democrats for Prosecution. Back in 2007, the House Judiciary Committee investigated charges that attorney general Alberto Gonzales singled out prominent Democrats for prosecution, specifically Pennsylvania Democrats — an assertion that was backed up by Dick Thornburgh, the attorney general under Reagan and Bush 41.

5. The Attorney Firing Scandal. Of course there was the attorney firing scandal in which the Bush Justice Department fired a slate of U.S. attorneys for strictly partisan reasons, either because the attorneys were prosecuting too many Republicans or because they weren’t prosecuting enough Democrats.

6. The Bush IRS Audited Greenpeace and the NAACP. Not only was the NAACP suspiciously audited during Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign, but high profile Republicans like Joe Scarborough had previously supported an audit of the organization even though he’s suddenly shocked by the current IRS audit story. Also in 2004, the Wall Street Journal reported that the IRS audited the hyper-liberal group Greenpeace at the request of Public Interest Watch, a group that’s funded by Exxon-Mobil.

7. The Bush IRS Collected Political Affiliation Data on Taxpayers. In 2006, a contractor hired by the IRS collected party affiliation via a search of voter registration roles in a laundry list of states: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin. This begs the obvious question: why? Why would the IRS need voter registration and party affiliation information?

8. The Bush FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force Targeted Civil Rights / Anti-war Activists. In 2005, an ACLU investigation revealed that both the FBI and the JTTF surveilled and gathered intelligence about a variety of liberal groups including PETA and the Catholic Workers, along with other groups that it hyperbolically referred to as having “semi-communistic ideology.”

9. The Bush Pentagon Spied on Dozens of Anti-war Meetings. Also in 2005, the Department of Defense tracked 1,500 “suspicious incidents” and spied on four-dozen meetings involving, for example, anti-war Quaker groups and the like. Yes, really. The Bush administration actually kept track of who was attending these meetings down to descriptions of the vehicles used by the attendees, calling to mind the pre-Watergate era when the government investigated 100,000 Americans during the Vietnam War.

10. The Bush FBI Targeted Journalists with the New York Times and the Washington Post. Yesterday, it was learned that a U.S. attorney, Ronald Machen, subpoenaed and confiscated phone records from the Associated Press as part of a leak investigation regarding an article about a CIA operation that took place in Yemen to thwart a terrorist attack on the anniversary of Bin Laden’s death. Well, this story pales in comparison with the Bush administration’s inquisition against the reporters who broke the story about the NSA wiretapping program. In fact, the Justice Department considered invoking the Espionage Act of 1917, the archaic sequel to the John Adams-era Alien and Sedition Acts. The Bush FBI seized phone records — without subpoena — from four American journalists, including Raymond Bonner and Jane Perlez. How do we know this for sure? Former FBI Director Robert Mueller apologized to the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Adding… Bush White House Warns Bill Maher After 9/11. Congressional Republicans Condemn Moveon.org. I’ve coupled these two instances into one simply because they each underscore the Republican penchant for bullying dissenters. Shortly after 9/11, Bill Maher committed the mortal sin of suggesting that terrorists weren’t “cowards” (he was merely agreeing with conservative fire-eater Dinesh D’Souza). White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, speaking from the White House, warned Maher: “people have to watch what they say and watch what they do.” Maher’s show at the time, Politically Incorrect, was cancelled shortly thereafter. Years later, Moveon.org criticized conservative superhero David Petraeus with a full-page ad featuring the awkward play-on-words “General Betray Us.” George W. Bush himself pilloried Moveon and the Senate voted to condemn the ad while lionizing Petraeus (a love affair that came to an end last year).

With the IRS and AP stories, any cursory glimpse at the news will prove that Democrats — even liberal bloggers — have been critical of the Obama administration’s actions, just as they had been with the actions of the Bush White House and the Republican Party. But Republicans? No such fairness or honesty. Of course. And it’s also important to note the distinction between these recent stories and what’s obviously a Republican textbook strategy of employing any means necessary in suppressing its opposition — from the ballot box to the pages of our top-shelf newspapers. This is what they do: they intimidate, bully, prosecute and silence their critics as a matter of routine. And they rarely apologize or accept responsibility for it.

Shock horror! Well, there it is: the cover-up I’ve been spammed about by right-wing conspiracy trolls for the last several days. Game over.

Wait.

No.

Other than the acquisition of a State Department memo (revised 12 times), nothing else in Jonathan Karl’s report is, you know, new information. How do we know this? Republican superhero and former CIA chief David Petraeus testified last year during the Senate’s Benghazi hearings that the CIA authorized and approved the State Department’s revisions. He also revealed that the proper names “al-Qaeda” and “Ansar al-Shariah” (an al-Qaeda affiliate) were edited out of the talking points so the groups wouldn’t be “tipped off” to the fact that they were being investigated by the FBI and closely surveilled by U.S. intel.

The ABC News report also revealed that the State Department removed a line from the talking points about a CIA warning gleaned from the Ansar al-Shariah Facebook page (yes, Facebook) that demonstrations were planned for September 11 and that “jihadists” might try to break into the embassy. Cue dramatic orchestra blast. This might be the big cover-up! In the third paragraph of Karl’s report:

“The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.” [emphasis mine]

For some reason, Karl uses the phrase “warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi” even though the only specific CIA warning about an impending attack was about a jihadist attack planned for the U.S. Embassy… in Cairo. Not the Benghazi consulate.

How do we know this? Because it’s in the actual talking point revisions document provided by ABC News: “On 10 September we [the CIA] warned of social media reports calling for a demonstration in front of the Embassy Cairo and that jihadists were threatening to break into the Embassy.” [Emphasis mine.]

The ABC News report is totally misleading about this point, and so most of the conservative wingnutosphere has exploded in a massive group freakout about how the administration was warned about the attack in Benghazi, did nothing to protect our ambassador, then tried to cover it up by deleting the line. But, again, the only specific CIA warning was about Cairo. Not Benghazi. Now it’s possible that Karl interpreted some other part of the memo as a “warning,” like the mention of random “attacks” by “unidentified assailants” that took place earlier that year in Libya. However, Karl didn’t write a single word about the Cairo warning to differentiate it from his mention of so-called Benghazi warnings.

By the way, for the benefit of any conspiracy theorist fire-eaters joining us today: located 675 miles from Benghazi, Cairo is an entirely different city in a different nation called Egypt. Also, the administration, acting on the CIA’s warnings, supplemented embassy security in Egypt in advance of September 11. The very pro-Obama Wall Street Journal reported on September 21, 2012: “U.S. officials issued alerts and ordered security precautions in neighboring Egypt ahead of protests and violence on Sept. 11.” There was nothing about this in Karl’s report.

So this is the scandal? A big, fat nothing?

As with the testimony in Darrell Issa’s hearings, the “shocking” ABC News report is stale, recycled information with a few minor details added for flavor. Furthermore, the existence of the edited memo is being treated as if it was the centerpiece of everything that happened during the week of the attack — the magic bullet of the Benghazi story. It was nothing more than notes for the Sunday morning TV shows, which, by the way, aren’t bastions of integrity and substance these days. Meanwhile, it ought to be common knowledge that any memo intended for public consumption is severely edited for content, national security considerations and, yes, politics, regardless of which party occupies the White House. But it’s the amateurish purview of desperate reporters and neophyte conspiracy theorists to grapple onto documents like this because they reveal a behind-the-scenes, sausage-making glimpse into how top-level officials communicate in the aftermath of a crisis. Stop the presses! Public remarks were edited and some political considerations were incorporated into a memo provided to a political appointee! Impeach! Impeach!

Worse than anything else connected with this ABC News item, of course, is the unforgivably misleading nature of the reporting about the September 10 warning. Until Jonathan Karl clarifies his story, it’s fair to ask why he omitted such an important detail — that the CIA’s September 10 warnings were about Egypt and not Benghazi, and that the administration did, indeed, augment security in Cairo.

But now, due to shoddy, specious reporting and no real evidence of malfeasance, we’re facing years of conspiracy-mongering about Benghazi, especially given how the Republican mob is being ushered in the direction of Hillary Clinton and clearly for the purpose of 2016 politics.

The Republicans are determined to find a scandal in this non-scandal. And if they look hard enough they’ll find mistakes — and certainly the administration’s reaction wasn’t flawless, but neither was Bush’s reaction to September 11, or his reaction to Abu Ghraib, or his reaction to the long list of attacks on our embassies during a time when he claimed to be “keeping us safe.” By the way, there were also whistleblowers regarding the Bush administration’s manipulation of CIA intelligence in the lead-up to Iraq. Just thought I’d mention it.

This is a scandal simply because the Republican Party and Fox News are actively colluding to turn it into one. They keep trying and trying, with investigation after investigation and bombshell after bombshell. Still, nothing. They’re inflating national security sausage-making into malfeasance and mistakes into conspiracies, and they’re exploiting the deaths of four Americans as a means of scoring political points and to derail Obama’s second term agenda while, using their well-honed Orwellian chops, wagging their fingers at the administration for playing politics with the attack. And yet they’ve got nothing. No evidence, no smoking gun, nothing.

Naturally, this is complete and utter gibberish.

Gun owners aren’t invincible, of course. Statistically, people with a gun in the house, whether as a means of self-defense or otherwise, are more likely to be killed. Dave Waldman, aka KagroX, has been covering incident after incident in which idiot gun zealots have shot themselves or other people at Gun Appreciation Day events, at gun shows and during training classes. Furthermore, Stockman’s ridiculous slogan not-so-subtly implies that killing abortion doctors is probably a good idea. It’s no wonder why abortion clinics and doctors are the targets of domestic terrorism and homicides — it’s all but endorsed by the conservative entertainment complex and Republican political leaders. And given how the firearm industry manufactures a variety of rifles designed for children, it’s not a stretch to suggest that arming children is a goal of the NRA and the broader gun culture which it defends.

Perhaps I’m over-rationalizing Stockman’s awful tweet and the subsequent bumper sticker, but when politicians at any level imply that it’s okay to commit violence of any kind, especially with firearms, it can never be taken seriously enough. The very notion of an elected member of Congress even joking about the concept of children using firearms to kill other people is offensive almost beyond description — even more so considering how, in the weeks since Stockman’s original tweet, numerous “babies with guns” have used guns to kill or wound themselves or the children and adults around them. For example:

UPDATE 4: Wednesday, May 15. Lake City, Florida. Florida boy, 11, accidentally shot dead by 4-year-old, police say

UPDATE 3: Saturday, May 11. Denton, Texas. Denton boy, 5, accidentally shot in head by older brother, 8

UPDATE 2: Friday, May 10. Camden, New Jersey. 11-Year-Old New Jersey Boy Shoots 12-Year-Old In The Face

UPDATE: Thursday. Thursday, May 9. Corsicana, Texas. 2-year-old Texas boy shoots himself in the head with father’s handgun

Tuesday, May 8. Houston, Texas:
Boy, 5, accidentally shoots brother, 7, in northeast Houston

Tuesday, May 8. Tampa, Florida:
3-Year-Old Fatally Shoots Himself With Uncle’s Gun

Sunday, May 6. Indianapolis, Indiana:
Police: 4-year-old boy grabbed gun, shot himself in hand

Saturday, May 5. Oakland Park, Florida:
13-Year-Old Boy Shoots 6-Year-Old Sister In Florida

Thursday, May 2. Yuma, Arizona:
Arizona 3-year-old fatally shoots himself in face with meth grandma’s gun

Thursday, May 2. Cumberland County, Kentucky:
5-year-old Kentucky boy fatally shoots 2-year-old sister

Tuesday, April 30. Mountain Village, Alaska:
5-year-old shot, killed by 8-year-old brother in remote Alaska

And from my previous article about Stockman, which only included incidents featuring children of five-years-old and younger:

April 9, 2013:
Boy, 4, shoots and kills playmate, 6

April 8, 2013:
Tennessee deputy’s wife killed by 4-year-old child handling gun 

February 24, 2013:
4-year-old killed himself with dad’s gun in N. Houston 

February 22, 2013:
Boy, 2, accidentally shoots self after finding gun in mother’s purse 

February 5, 2013:
3-year-old S.C. boy killed after mistaking pink handgun for toy

January 24, 2013:
Four-year-old Ohio boy shoots himself dead with father’s gun ‘he didn’t know was real’ 

January 10, 2013:
Child playing with gun accidentally shoots self 

December 25, 2012:
Father arrested after son, two, grabbed his gun from table and shot himself in Christmas Day tragedy

December 5, 2012:
Minneapolis boy, 4, finds gun, shoots brother, 2, police say

So yes, Mr. Stockman, you ass, babies have guns and the consequences are invariably tragic. Yet it’s the topic of a sneering, defiant bumper sticker from a far-right crackpot who dogmatically refuses to grasp the common denominator here. It’s not about race or class or whether the guns were legally obtained. The common denominator is the guns, not to mention the politicians, hobbyists and corporations who believe these tools — these consumer products — are sacred totems inextricably connected human rights and liberty. On the contrary, these are destructive, deadly machines manufactured for profit and they ought to be regulated as such, just like any other retail product. Certainly they shouldn’t be marketed to children like the 22 caliber Crickett or the various kiosks at the NRA convention last weekend. The last people in the world who should be handling firearms are children.

Yesterday, I signed up for a contest being held by Stockman’s re-election campaign. He’s giving away a free Bushmaster AR-15 — the exact make and model used at Sandy Hook. Classy. And if I happen to win, I plan to collect the prize and then destroy it. But I probably won’t win because I’m not from Stockman’s clearly ass-backwards district. Anyway, I noticed that you have to be 18-years-old to win the Sandy Hook assault rifle. So perhaps Stockman has some standards — babies can have guns, babies can be shot by guns, but if they want to own guns, they need to buy them. After all, he’s not a socialist.

Lindsey Graham and Fox News Channel in particular are each crapping their cages over new allegations from an alleged whistleblower, while they continue to deal in previously debunked falsehoods about the sequence of events during and following the attacks. Fox News is predictably helming the biggest raft of hooey on the situation — turning its attention to Hillary Clinton in an abundantly obvious early move to stymie her presidential run before it even begins.

So I thought I’d revisit some territory I covered back in October as a bit of a refresher — especially since it appears as if no one, including and especially the traditional press, intends to ask any of these obnoxious, opportunistic liars about why they’re so obsessed by this one attack yet they entirely ignored the dozen-plus consulate/embassy attacks that occurred when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were allegedly “keeping us safe.”

The Benghazi attacks (the consulate and the CIA compound) are absolutely not unprecedented even though they’re being treated that way by Republicans who are deliberately ignoring anything that happened prior to Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009.

January 22, 2002. Calcutta, India. Gunmen associated with Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami attack the U.S. Consulate. Five people are killed.

June 14, 2002. Karachi, Pakistan. Suicide bomber connected with al-Qaida attacks the U.S. Consulate, killing 12 and injuring 51.

October 12, 2002. Denpasar, Indonesia. U.S. diplomatic offices bombed as part of a string of “Bali Bombings.” No fatalities.

February 28, 2003. Islamabad, Pakistan. Several gunmen fire upon the U.S. Embassy. Two people are killed.

May 12, 2003. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Armed al-Qaida terrorists storm the diplomatic compound killing 36 people including nine Americans. The assailants committed suicide by detonating a truck bomb.

July 30, 2004. Tashkent, Uzbekistan. A suicide bomber from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan attacks the U.S. Embassy, killing two people.

December 6, 2004. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Al-Qaida terrorists storm the U.S. Consulate and occupy the perimeter wall. Nine people are killed.

March 2, 2006. Karachi, Pakistan again. Suicide bomber attacks the U.S. Consulate killing four people, including U.S. diplomat David Foy who was directly targeted by the attackers. (I wonder if Lindsey Graham or Fox News would even recognize the name “David Foy.” This is the third Karachi terrorist attack in four years on what’s considered American soil.)

September 12, 2006. Damascus, Syria. Four armed gunmen shouting “Allahu akbar” storm the U.S. Embassy using grenades, automatic weapons, a car bomb and a truck bomb. Four people are killed, 13 are wounded.

January 12, 2007. Athens, Greece. Members of a Greek terrorist group called the Revolutionary Struggle fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy. No fatalities.

March 18, 2008. Sana’a, Yemen. Members of the al-Qaida-linked Islamic Jihad of Yemen fire a mortar at the U.S. Embassy. The shot misses the embassy, but hits nearby school killing two.

July 9, 2008. Istanbul, Turkey. Four armed terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate. Six people are killed.

September 17, 2008. Sana’a, Yemen. Terrorists dressed as military officials attack the U.S. Embassy with an arsenal of weapons including RPGs and detonate two car bombs. Sixteen people are killed, including an American student and her husband (they had been married for three weeks when the attack occurred). This is the second attack on this embassy in seven months.

A few observations about this timeline. My initial list was quoted from an article on the Daily Kos which actually contained several errors and only 11 attacks (the above timeline contains all 13 attacks). Also, my list above doesn’t include the numerous and fatal attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad during the Iraq war — a war that was vocally supported by Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Fox News Channel.

Speaking of Graham, I ran a search on each attack along with the name “Lindsey Graham” in the hopes of discovering that Graham had perhaps commented about the attacks or raised some questions about why the administration didn’t prevent the attacks or respond accordingly to prevent additional embassy attacks. No results. Of course. Now, this could mean the search wasn’t exhaustive enough. But one thing’s for sure: neither Graham nor any of his cohorts launched a crusade against the Bush administration and the State Department in any of those cases — no one did, including the congressional Democrats, by the way.

This leads us to the ultimate point here. Not only have numerous sources previously debunked the Benghazi information being peddled by the Republicans and Fox News (for example, contrary to what the Republicans are saying, yes, reinforcements did in fact arrive before the attack on the CIA compound), but none of these people raised a single word of protest when, for example, American embassies in Yemen and Pakistan were attacked numerous times. Why didn’t the Bush administration do something to secure the compounds after the first attacks? Why didn’t he provide additional security?

Where was your inquest after the Karachi attacks, Mr. Graham? Where were you after the Sana’a attacks, Mr. Hannity? What about all of the embassy attacks in Iraq that I didn’t even list here, Mr. McCain? Do you realize how many people died in attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates when Bush was supposedly keeping us safe, Mr. Ailes? Just once I’d like to hear David Gregory or George Stephanopoulos or Wolf Blitzer ask a Republican member of Congress about the above timeline and why they said nothing at the time of each attack. Just once.

Nearly every accusation being issued about Benghazi could’ve been raised about the Bush era attacks, and yet these self-proclaimed truth-seekers refused to, in their words, undermine the commander-in-chief while troops were in harm’s way (a line they repeated over and over again during those years).

So we’re only left to conclude the obvious. The investigations and accusations and conspiracy theories are entirely motivated by politics and a strategy to escalate this to an impeachment trial. In doing so, the Republicans have the opportunity not only to crush the president’s second term, but also to sabotage the potential for a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Even if they never arrive at that goal, they have in their possession a cudgel formed of horseshit — a means of flogging the current administration with the singularly effective Republican marketing/noise machine, including the conservative entertainment complex. Very seldom does this machine fail to revise history and distort the truth. Ultimately, they don’t even need a full-blown impeachment proceeding when they have a population of way too many truthers and automatons who take all of these lies at face value — not to mention dubiously sourced chunks of “truth” proffered by radio and cable news conspiracy theorists who, if nothing else, are masters at telling angry conservatives precisely what they want to hear: that the probably-Muslim president is weak on terrorism. And so they’ll keep repeating “Benghazi-Gate, Benghazi-Gate, Benghazi-Gate!” without any regard for history or reality. Like always.

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Due to this misinterpretted and obsolete line in the Bill of Rights, which, in the modern sense, defends the human right to buy a deadly product from a store, too much of our society looks upon gun hobbyists with resigned deference. Congress and the president are satisfied with “gun control” legislation with titles like “Second Amendment Rights Protection Act.” Activists too often concede to the applicability of the Second Amendment when it should be laughed off as a quaint relic of colonial Americana.

Everyone’s afraid to appear too “extreme” when discussing gun control legislation. No one wants to offend the gun people. But extremism never stopped the NRA and the utter wackadoodles and firearm fetishists lurking in plain view — their American flag shirts and ridiculous bumper stickers flaunting their “right” to buy and keep as many guns as they can afford, and to use them in a wide variety of inexcusably psychotic ways.

Over the weekend, the NRA held their annual convention in Houston — coincidentally the same city where, last week, a man walked up to the security area of an airport terminal with the intention of mowing down travelers with his constitutionally-protected AR-15.

Suffice to say, there were dozens of awful and ridiculous things on display at the convention center, but I’d like to discuss what I believe are the three most disgusting things from the event — all of which are baked into our gun culture and enabled by the Second Amendment.

Exotic Game Hunting Vendors

There were many of these shady companies in attendance but the most visible vendor, Sporting International, offers vacations to Africa for the purpose of killing exotic animals. The only thing more insane than earning a profit with such an endeavor are the people who are willing to pay upwards of $31,000 to kill these animals for no other reason than to watch them die. This is behavior worthy of institutionalization, as far as I’m concerned. Anyone who pays cash money to journey to Africa to gun down a lion or a giraffe should be locked up because, seriously, these people are somewhere on the serial killer spectrum, and I would wager they’re barely containing their desire to hunt people for sport, too.

Hunting for food with so much healthy food readily available is questionable behavior to me, but hunting game for sport isn’t sporting at all and anyone who does so not only possesses a twisted hatred and disrespect for nature but a mentally unstable, narcissistic desire to inflict death upon creatures that don’t deserve it. Worse yet, many of the animals listed on Sporting International’s menu are nearing the endangered category: leopards, lions, elephants — mythic storybook animals that exist in dwindling ranges.

Yet if Cletus McDinkydick has few thousand dollars, he can go to Uganda and kill a rhino. Or he can go to South Africa and kill a lion. And then, like the psychopath he is, he can have his picture taken with the corpse — his shit-eating face aglow with orgasmic delight over killing a rare and noble animal (from a safe distance). But instead of keeping an incredulous eye trained on these guys as potential serial killers who, once the thrill of killing animals fails to satisfy their blood lust, will begin to assemble a suit made of human skin in their crawl spaces, we enable this behavior with our deference to the gun culture. Gun owner or not, all of us should be shaming these people. We should be stripping them of their over-inflated sense of masculinity — and that goes double for escaped mental patient Ted Nugent who exalts in the death porn of exotic game hunting as well.

The Obama Targets

Yes, there were several President Obama shooting targets for sale at the NRA convention. And no, the people who put them on display weren’t arrested, nor were the yokels who bought them. One of the targets was paper, but two of them (that I’m aware of) were three-dimensional effigies. Zombie Industries, one of the Obama effigy vendors, removed its Obama target (shown above) from its booth — and, no, they didn’t suffer a brief pang of human decency, they were asked to do it for obvious reasons. Regardless, pretending to shoot the president (any president) should summarily disqualify anyone from owning a firearm, and it should ultimately beg a visit from the Secret Service. But take President Obama’s likeness out of the equation and the psychotic behavior remains: pretending to shoot any human being — a celebrity, another politician or just anybody — represents behavior that falls within similar territory as killing animals for shits and giggles. Serial killer territory.

This leads us to…

“The Ex” Shooting Target

The same company that made the controversial Obama target also manufactures a target called “the Ex” — obviously, “ex-girlfriend.” The buxom life-size figure retails for $99 and actually bleeds as gunmen fill it with lead. Clearly, this is meant to satisfy an unfulfilled and homicidal hatred for women. Again, our light touch — our inability to get tough with the gun culture breeds this kind of maniacal, misogynistic behavior. As for the mouth-breathing self-identified badasses who think it’s awesome to shoot at a bleeding effigy of a woman, don’t screech and poop your camo-pants when they come for your guns, because if there’s anyone who should be disarmed and counseled by expert psychologists it’s you. And if this behavior is motivated by a need to flaunt your political incorrectness and to piss off “Feminazis” and “libtards,” congratulations, you just earned the admiration of other micro-phallic, woman-hating, right-wing dickbags who will never enjoy a healthy relationship with an actual real life self-respecting woman. Nor should you. According to a pair of studies, “Between 30 and 40 percent of women murdered in the US each year are killed by a current or former intimate partner. In over half of these cases, the perpetrator used a gun. Put another way: Of women killed with guns, almost two-thirds are killed by their intimate partners.”

The NRA convention is ground zero for the gun culture — the gun culture mainstream. Certainly the exotic game hunters and effigy-target shooters don’t represent all gun owners or even NRA members, but they’re rarely discouraged by gun owners with more balanced brain chemistry. Those of us outside the gun culture aren’t without guilt either. When we allow gun ownership to enjoy a status far greater than what it deserves, this is the kind of grotesquely entitled and socially retarded behavior it breeds. Gun zealots believe they have a God-given human right to act like this because there’s an item about state militias in the Bill of Rights and, over time, it’s been extrapolated and bastardized into a slagheap of mentally ill, over-compensatory crapola — a cloak of invincibility for maniacs, chickenhawks and death pornographers who get off by pretending to shoot humans while, too often, shooting living creatures for no other reason than the adrenaline rush of watching something bleed out.

Put another way: the Second Amendment is no longer a necessary means of self-preservation, as perhaps it might’ve been in a rural, agrarian, semi-hostile, slave-holding, post-colonial America. Absent the hazards of the late 18th Century, it’s strictly become a means of protecting the availability of a retail product. Hardware. A hobby. Guns are a product that we don’t absolutely have to own in order for democracy and liberty to flourish — and, in fact, owning a gun is statistically bad for you, that is unless you earn your living manufacturing and selling them.

Therefore, I have no hesitation declaring that the original intention of the Second Amendment is dead. And, based on research by Thom Hartmann and others, the original intention to provide a means of patrolling slave quarters and putting down potential slave revolts (more on this presently) is as antiquated as the slave economy of nearly 150-plus years ago.

So what are the justifications for the Second Amendment? Specifically, what are the perceived reasons for the Second Amendment often cited by gun enthusiasts? (Incidentally, I assure you that James Madison, George Mason, Patrick Henry and the framers of the Bill of Rights never intended to codify an enthusiasm or a hobby as a human right.)

–The Second Amendment is a necessary bulwark against tyrrany. Nonsense. It’s easily the biggest myth surrounding the Second. As I’ve discussed in previous articles, no gaggle of gun-toting rednecks or even a trained backwoods militia is any match for the American government and its military. If anyone is responsible for the exponential growth of the American government’s military might, it ought to be the far-right goons who wallow in These Colors Don’t Run! jingoism whenever the United States launches a war. I don’t care how badass you think you might be, if the government wants to take you by force, it will. Certainly this isn’t a comforting notion, but if you’re worried about the unprecedented strength of the military-industrial complex, blame a conservative — they’ve been foisting it upon us for decades.

–The Second Amendment protects our ability to defend ourselves against criminals. Statistically speaking, you’re less safe if you have a gun in your house. And numbers don’t lie. Via Mother Jones, an Emory University study concluded, “For every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home.” So basic math obliterates self-defense as a valid justification. But if self-defense is a matter for the Constitution, then what about burglar alarms? Should ADT get an amendment?

–The Second Amendment is necessary in the absence of law enforcement. This is the NRA’s popular Mad Max post-apocalyptic scenario suggesting that when society breaks down and complete anarchy sweeps the land, we’ll need guns or die. Okay sure. And we might need guns to help President Bill Pullman fight off space aliens, too. This argument redirects back to the previous point, which is that an amendment to protect something that’s statistically more dangerous for the average homeowner in the event of a home invasion (before the cops arrive) is completely ridiculous. And, while we’re here, what kind of shoot-outs are occurring during home invasions that require extended magazines and no time to reload? Going back to Hartmann as well, there was, in fact, a connection between this “absence of law enforcement” notion and the too often unspoken intention of the Second. Patrick Henry and other architects of the Second wanted to preserve the southern institution of state militias which were tasked in part with guarding against slave revolts. Given how slaves often outnumbered slave owners, you can imagine why they were terrified enough to work something into the Bill of Rights, and use southern political muscle as a means of getting what they wanted. In the absence of a federal police force, therefore, a “well-regulated militia” became necessary for preserving the institution of slavery and the lives of the wealthy white landowners who benefited from it.

–The Second Amendment is liberty! Sorry, but protecting the availability of firearms does nothing to foster a healthier democracy or perpetuate the existence of the United States. Nothing. The freedoms outlined in the Bill of Rights and the further amendments beyond it generally augment the sustainability of basic human rights and American democracy. Gun ownership, however, does not — at least in the modern context. Yes, we’re a nation founded upon liberty and freedom, but the freedom to buy a specific product, in this case, firearms, no longer has any bearing on those values (if it ever did in the first place). There aren’t amendments pertaining to the freedom to purchase any other product, yet our freedom to buy things is as healthy as ever. In fact, more than anything else we’ve become a consumer nation — and without any constitutional amendments protecting the right to consume. Oh, and by the way, isn’t it ironic that the same political faction that’s the most hell-bent on protecting gun ownership and, in their words, “liberty,” are the same people who are making it more difficult to cast a vote — heaping new layers of government regulations and restrictions upon our most vital human right.

–And finally, the Second Amendment protects hunting. First of all, there’s nothing in the Second about hunting, either for sport or for food or as a tradition. Secondly, why should a “sport” or tradition enjoy its own constitutional amendment? As for food, I actually agree that sustenance is a basic human right and so perhaps hunting for food within sustainable limits and regulations should be protected in some way. However, very few people would take seriously an amendment protecting the retail grocery store industry — yet the gun industry gets a constitutional line-item somehow.

This last item is a solid jumping-off point for what I would consider to be a compromise position regarding the status of the Second Amendment. I’ll concede the gun culture’s Second Amendment argument, even though I disagree with it, if the gun culture were to embrace the notion of ratifying a Universal Healthcare Amendment. Sample text: No citizen, regardless of age or personal health, shall be denied access to quality, affordable medical care. When in the event medical care can not be afforded, the government will provide full financial coverage for that care.

If the Second Amendment is ultimately about self-preservation, either as a means of self-defense or for attaining food, and, thus, ought to be codified in the Constitution because of it, then so should the right to affordable healthcare. In fact, the availability of affordable medical care should go hand-in-hand with the availability of firearms, given how gun injuries account for a decent chunk of medical spending. And if attaining food, another pro-gun argument, is necessary sustaining life, then how is medical care any different?

If we’re going to protect important industries in America, industries that manufacture a product or provide a service, then it’s difficult to imagine an industry that’s more important to our survival than healthcare. Sure, healthcare is mostly a for-profit industry in America. But so is the gun industry. Everyone needs healthcare to survive. Not so with guns. Under the current system, healthcare is expensive and costs are rising out of control. Guns are eminently affordable, and there isn’t an epidemic of bankruptcies due to gun purchases.

Whether there’s a Universal Healthcare amendment or whether the gun people are consistent and decide to support it doesn’t change the fact that the Second Amendment is antiquated and should therefore be repealed or, at the very least, clarified. Again, it’ll never happen, but this hypothetical notion speaks to the ridiculousness of the amendment in our modern context.

By the way, I’m not suggesting that all guns be summarily abolished. Like any product that carries certain dangerous consequences, I’ll concede that guns should still be available for purchase but regulated accordingly, not unlike automobiles, tobacco or liquor. In terms of revising the amendment, I would suggest coupling the notion of constitutionally-protected firearm ownership with military service, assuring proper training and use of firearms. Plus, military service provides a specific and unquestionable need for firearms: combat in the name of national defense.

Otherwise, and to repeat, we’re only talking about a constitutional amendment that protects your right to buy a (dangerous) retail product that ultimately carries no value to the perpetuation of the United States and American-style democracy. For all of these reasons, and in the absence of other amendments protecting other retail products, there’s simply no need for an amendment protecting firearms in modern America. Take away this sacred justification, and we’re left with a product, like any other, that falls squarely into the realm of government regulation for the benefit of public safety, just like everything else — food, transportation, healthcare, housing — even water and electricity. Guns shouldn’t be allowed special latitude, especially based on an obsolete line in the Constitution.

Ben Cohen outlined his prediction for the Robert Guerrero vs Floyd Mayweather bout this weekend; he brought us the latest edition of Glenn Beck Comment Porn; he also covered the insane world of celebrity sex tapes; and he wrote about the ridiculousness of the WHCD.

Oliver Willis advised liberals to use ‘anti-choice’ when discussing the anti-abortion crowd; and he wondered why liberals are soft on George W. Bush.

Alyson Chadwick advised the president to look for inspiration from LBJ; and she wondered how Mark Sanford still has a political career.

Chez Pazienza had some choice words for Alex Jones fans; and he wondered whether Ron Paul has totally lost his marbles.

Kojo Koram detailed the nine types of hangovers.

I ripped Fox News for implying that Eric Holder is a terrorist sympathizer; I detailed the conspiracy theory that claims Alex Jones is a CIA operative; and I covered the awful Crickett 22 caliber rifle designed for children.

Have a great weekend!

Bob Cesca,
Managing Editor

Well, problem solved. Introducing the Crickett Youth Rifle.

No, that’s not a spoof video by The Onion, however much I wish it had been. A gun manufacturer has actually produced a real-life rifle that’s the perfect size for children (or dwarfs), and, based on the fun family-friendly tone of the commercial, not to mention the zany cricket cartoon mascot, they appear to be marketing these guns directly to kids, describing the Crickett with the first person possessive: “My First Rifle.”

Retail price: $119 at Cabela’s — less than the cost of a video game console which is clearly more dangerous for children according to the NRA. (Wayne LaPierre thinks video game violence is more damaging than firearms but I’m sure he’s all in favor of every red-blooded American kid owning a rifle.) And yes, girls, they seriously make a pink one so you won’t have to shoot a gun that’s covered with icky-icky boy germs. And the commercial tells us that it’s “affordable, soft-shooting and accurate.” The “accurate” part could’ve been bad news for the Mom and especially the boy in the commercial because she’s pointing the goddamn rifle directly at his skull:

Hell, she’s not even paying attention to the boy and where he’s standing in relation to her fashionable yellow death machine. Oh but I’m sure she’s totally a responsible gun owner who will teach her kids never to aim firearms at the heads of other people.

Ah hell.

We’re not talking about a B-B gun here, which more than a few kids have owned in spite of the potential to, you know, shoot your eye out. The Crickett is an actual rifle than fires actual .22 caliber rounds. Just to give you a point of reference in case you’re not familiar with what a .22 caliber round is capable of: Bobby Kennedy was assassinated by a gunman firing a .22 caliber bullet. Ronald Reagan and James Brady, along with a Secret Service Agent and a police officer, were also shot by .22 caliber bullets fired by assassin John Hinckley. Brady, for his part, nearly died from his head wound and never walked again. So yeah, the Crickett considerably more powerful than a B-B gun. Why? I have no blessed idea. But somewhere there’s a board room full of sociopaths, not to mention parents, who honestly believe that children need to be packing deadly fire power.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

This week in Burkesville, Kentucky, a mother of two small children stepped outside for a moment while doing some household chores. It was just enough time for her five-year-old boy to shoot and kill his two-year-old sister, Caroline Stark, with, you guessed it, a Crickett, which was given to him as a gift — “His First Rifle.” It turns out the boy’s parents forgot to remove a round that was left in the rifle. Another in a long list of children who’ve shot other children, accidentally or otherwise, in households run by alleged “good guys with guns.”

In a broader sense, Caroline is another casualty of the poisonous American gun culture — a culture that’s so ridiculously out of control that gun-manufacturers are allowed to market firearms to children without regulation or oversight, and in spite of Sandy Hook and a lengthening roster of daily firearm tragedies, too many of which involving kids. Sadly, any regulation or oversight will be absolutely and categorically labeled as unconstitutional and, following a multi-million dollar propaganda campaign by the NRA, filibustered by the Republican Party.

And as we all know, when God and the Constitution bestow liberty upon us, then anything goes. The sky’s the limit, and we’re entitled to it. The gun culture demands that Americans can own everything and anything that fires deadly projectiles regardless of age, status or background, and without any new regulations to keep up with technology or shifting societal problems. After all, liberty, etc.

UPDATE: The NRA is actively marketing firearms to kids at their convention. What? No cigarettes?