Dec 3^rd

Today a few words about guns; it seems appropriate given the news from Southern California. There an American citizen, a Muslim, and his wife, armed with military style rifles and an assortment of handguns murdered fourteen people and wounded seventeen others. There were no cries of ‘Allah Akbar’ from the shooters who were apparently very badly upset about something that went on during the celebratory dinner many of whose attendees they then murdered.  It does seem to me that Muslims can have murderous rages and kill people just like the Christians can. Although the enormous amount of ammunition and bomb making material found in their house points to additional agendas.

While this country is afloat in hand guns many households don’t have any. In 1977 about 77 percent of households had a gun but that has now dropped to 32 percent. So who has all the guns?  Many of the 32 percent that have a gun don’t stop at one. Maybe it’s like taking vitamins; who takes just one vitamin supplement? If one gun makes you feel a little safer, then five will make you feel even safer and fifteen guns safer still. How many are required to make you feel safe enough. There is no number because everyone knows that the Obama government will confiscate whatever guns you have. This means that you should bury several guns in your basement, some more in your back yard and hide some in the attic.

This morning Carly Fiorina appeared on “Morning Joe” to make her case for just why she isn’t doing better in the polls and to comment on the Southern California shooting. Ms. Fiorina quickly produced some curious logic. Scarborough asked her why we shouldn’t prohibit gun sales to those on the terrorist watch list. Fiorina claimed that the terrorist watch list was flawed and had many false positives. That’s almost certainly true. She claimed that to prohibit gun ownership to those on the government’s terrorist list simply deprived those citizens of their second amendment rights. (This terrorist watch list is quite controversial in itself.)    However flawed this list may be, by her curious logic because we find some innocent people guilty of crimes we should therefore ignore our laws.

Then she provided tis bit of misinformation about the watch list, indictment and firearm possession:

"That's kind of a red herring, honestly," she said. "If somebody is a suspected terrorist on a watch list they can be indicted at any time. And once you are indicted you cannot own a firearm. So let's enforce the laws we have. Let's start with that."

Nonsense! Anyone, not just those on a watch list, can be indicted at any time; all it takes is an aggressive prosecuting attorney. The person he wishes to indict does not get to respond until and if the case goes to court. In some cases the indictment alone can lead to imprisonment until the trial occurs. On the issue of gun ownership: You can most certainly own a gun while under indictment. Fiorina is simply wrong about that. However, while under indictment you cannot buy a gun, or transport a gun. The law does not specifically say that you cannot own a gun; it is very specific about buying and transporting,  so if the law meant to prohibit gun ownership it probably would have said so. Fiorina is much too full of herself to bother fact-checking what she says. That might have been part of her problem at H-P.