.50 Caliber "Insanity"

Let's start the day with a little insanity. From Jeff Johnson, a really good journalist at the Cybercast News Service, this piece on Rep. Patrick Kennedy and the reintroduction of the "50 Caliber Sniper Rifle Reduction Act," a bill to ban the manufacture of the big .50s and rigidly control the transfer of existing rifles.

U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy implied Tuesday that congressional colleagues who do not share his support for a failed gun ban being reintroduced in the House are mentally ill. The Rhode Island Democrat also accused lawmakers who oppose the anti-gun legislation of not caring about police safety.

Kennedy is the son of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and the nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy and U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy, both of whom were shot to death.

Well, heaven knows Patrick Kennedy should be intimately acquainted with mental illness, given his lineage. Still, I'm thinking this is the gun control battle of the next couple of years.

By any measuring standards, the gun control movement is on life-support. With the exception of the hosts of the morning television shows and some Washington D.C. lobbyists, nobody supports the tenents of the movement. Pro-gun screamer Howard Dean will be running the Democratic Party (Dean's biggest competition, former Denver mayor Wellington Webb, bet heavy on gun control as the next big thing, and lost big); even here in the People's Republic of Boulder the easiest way to create panic at a Democratic party is to whisper, "gun registration..." They scatter like frightened quail. The Brady Bunch blather on about "gun safety" and nobody's listening (remember when Sarah Brady said she could make the evening news on all three networks with a single phonecall? Now she's having trouble making the Wonkette's gossip blog with a couterie of "media specialists;" the only person who regularly listens to La Brady is Katie Couric, in between recipes).

But the reminents of the gun control movement believe that can get the big .50s, which will lay the groundwork for the next round of battles in four or eight years. Our Man of the Year, Ronnie Barrett of Barrett Rifles, isn't taking this laying down. Our little cherubs and seraphim tell us that Ronnie is preparing to fund a serious documentary that will shoot half-inch holes through all the .50 caliber nonsense being spewed by Kennedy and his ilk.

More as this develops! I'll leave you with a comment from Rep. Carolyn McCarthy on the .50 cal:

"Look at this thing," McCarthy urged. "Do you want this in your home? Do you want your children to play with this?"

Works in my house!