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President Obama on Sunday called for gun-rights advocates and proponents of gun control to find common ground two months after the shooting which killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). The Arizona Daily Star published an op-ed by Obama on Sunday calling for stronger restrictions on gun sales to buyers suspected of mental instability. “A man our Army rejected as unfit for service; a man one of our colleges deemed too unstable for studies; a man apparently bent on violence, was able to walk into a store and buy a gun,” Obama wrote of Jared...

It's been more than two months since the tragedy in Tucson stunned the nation. It was a moment when we came together as one people to mourn and to pray for those we lost. And in the attack's turbulent wake, Americans by and large rightly refrained from finger-pointing, assigning blame or playing politics with other people's pain. But one clear and terrible fact remains. A man our Army rejected as unfit for service; a man one of our colleges deemed too unstable for studies; a man apparently bent on violence, was able to walk into a store and buy a...

“We must seek agreement on gun reforms,” a guest editorial in the Arizona Daily Star by President Barack Obama declares. Snip “I'm willing to bet,” he says, “that responsible, law-abiding gun owners agree that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few - dangerous criminals and fugitives, for example - from getting their hands on a gun in the first place.” If by that he means take people who have been adjudicated menaces to society and segregating them from those they would harm, not many would argue. But that’s not what he means. He wants to end private...

I loves me some mama grizzly Sarah Palin and her adorable Republican bear cubs running for national office -- Delaware's Christine "Never Mind What I Said Back Then" O'Donnell, South Dakota's Kristi "I Forgot My Court Date" Noem and Nevada's Sharron "Unemployed People Are Spoiled" Angle. And no, I don't love them because they're "unelectable." If you said that, bite your tongue. MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews bet Politics Daily's own David Corn that O'Donnell will win in November. Maybe that's a fake-out, but at this point in American politics, the fake is real, the real is fake, and the law...

In a speech to a joint session of Congress, Calderon described efforts to fight organized crime in Mexico, where 23,000 people have been killed in drug violence since he came to power in late 2006 and launched an army offensive. Washington is also aiding Mexico's battle against drug gangs with a 2007 pledge of $1.4 billion for equipment and police training to help fight the cartels that ship some $40 billion worth of illegal drugs north each year. "There is one issue where Mexico needs your cooperation. And that is stopping the flow of assault weapons and other deadly arms...

Barack Obama, before a sympathetic San Francisco audience in April 2008, argued that people in small towns — notably in industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania — were bitter and “cling to guns or religion.” But one takeaway from Tuesday’s special election in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District is that Rust Belt rural voters might “cling” to voting for Democrats. Republicans had high hopes that Tim Burns could win the late John Murtha’s seat. Yet Mark Critz, a former top Murtha aide, ended up winning 53%-44%.

Palin, a potential 2012 presidential candidate, told National Rifle Association members during their annual meeting that the only thing stopping Obama and his Democratic allies from trying to ban guns is political backlash. "Don't doubt for a minute that, if they thought they could get away with it, they would ban guns and ban ammunition and gut the Second Amendment," said Palin, a lifelong NRA member who once had a baby shower at a local gun range in Alaska. "It's the job of all of us at the NRA and its allies to stop them in their tracks." -----------snip------------ "She...

There have been numerous Catholic Caucus thread violations. The caucus designation is for threads which are meant for discussions within the particular confession. Somehow, the violators seem not to be able to see the "Caucus" label at the top. A refresher of the caucus rules would seem to be in order. With the permission of the Religion Moderator, who wrote them, here they are: Caucus threads are closed to any poster who is not a member of the caucus. For instance, if it says “Catholic Caucus” and you are not Catholic, do not post to the thread. However, if the...

H/T Mike at SipseyStreetIrregulars Terrorists and Guns: The Nature of the Threat and Proposed Reforms Wednesday, May 5, 2010 10:00 AM Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 342 Add To My Calendar (vCal) Witnesses Panel 1 The Honorable Frank R. Lautenberg U.S. Senate The Honorable Peter T. King U.S. House of Representatives The Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg Mayor City of New York The Honorable Raymond W. Kelly Police Commissioner City of New York Panel 2 Daniel D. Roberts Assistant Director, Criminal Justice Information Services Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation U.S. Department of Justice Eileen R. Larence Director, Homeland Security and Justice...

What should we make of a recent editorial arguing that the Obama White House has made no attempt to infringe upon the Second Amendment and that Obama openly declared his respect for the right to bear arms during his presidential campaign? It's true that President Obama hasn't advanced the gun control agenda. He hasn't even sought a renewed ban on "assault" weapons. However, the idea that President Obama has more in common with Wayne LaPierre than with Sarah Brady is misleading. Remember the "bitter clingers" comment? Therefore, if eternal vigilance is freedom's price, then complacency must be its worst enemy....

What is the definition of 'anti-Mormon'?   I have often heard the criticism that Latter-day Saints classify everyone who disagrees with our beliefs as "anti-Mormon." Of course, the people who say this are usually anti-Mormons. Am I proving their point? I don't think so. I actually agree that this is a problem in our church. After all, our belief system, if firmly embraced, demands a lot of personal sacrifice, and we often become hyper-defensive when we sense a threat to our faith. Unfortunately, this often leads to irrational name-calling and blindly neglecting to differentiate between non-Mormons and anti-Mormons. Of...

Populist or professor? Contrite or uncompromising? President Obama will have a chance Wednesday to reintroduce himself to the nation when he delivers his first official State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress. The prime-time speech, which will be aired on all major TV networks and cable stations, could hardly come at a more critical time for a president grappling with double-digit unemployment, sinking poll numbers and the possible collapse of his top domestic policy priority, an overhaul of the nation's health-care system. "As often as the president has spoken over the past year, critics on the...

Friday's Joy Behar Show on CNN Headline News showed a pre-recorded interview with Roseanne Barr in which Barr opined that, although Sarah Palin is "likable," the "stuff she says is half nuts," and she's "half crazy and out of her mind." Barr -- who herself has a recent history of doing such bizarre things as appearing in Heeb magazine dressed as Adolf Hitler removing Jewish gingerbread cookies from an oven -- went on to declare that Palin is "like a slave to these, you know, right-wing men. That’s like the only way a right-wing woman can make it." Barr soon...

Seventy-one percent (71%) of voters nationwide say they’re at least somewhat angry about the current policies of the federal government. That figure includes 46% who are Very Angry. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 27% are not angry about the government's policies, including 10% who are Not at All Angry........ The data suggests that the level of anger is growing. The 71% who are angry at federal government policies today is up five percentage points since September. Even more stunning, the 46% who are Very Angry is up 10 percentage points from September.

God and guns are what our country was founded upon. Any new student of the Revolutionary period quickly learns that. They are what keep us strong, or what should keep us strong. They are there for our defense. God and guns were so important to our founders that they established our protection to exercise them in the first two amendments to our Constitution – the uninhibited and unrestricted freedom to choose our own religion and bear our own firearms. But, more and more, these pillars of American life and liberty are being attacked and abandoned, not only out of sheer...

Never has a president been warped by Washington quicker. At times tonight, Obama sounded like an embattled second-termer with a 35 percent approval rating. What percentage of his speech was spent lashing out at his enemies, real and imagined? Radio and cable-television pundits, George W. Bush, former Congresses, unnamed ghouls employing “scare tactics,” whose “only agenda is to stop reform at any cost”—they’re all against him, Obama said. And they’re lying. This isn’t how confident leaders speak. These are the complaints of a man on his way to bitterness. So soon?

Bad Economy, Obama Fuel Rise in Militias: Report Fears of a return to anti-government violence of the 1990s Updated 2:15 AM CDT, Wed, Aug 12, 2009 The election of America's first black president, fears of a secret Mexican plot to take over the Southwest and a painful recession have combined to fuel a rise in violent right-wing militias, according to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The leading civil rights group is not the only one worried that the country could be on the verge of another domestic terror attack by a lone wolf hatemonger or radical militia...

The Obama administration is raising the stakes in a fight over states' rights and firearm ownership by arguing that new pro-gun laws in Montana and Tennessee are invalid. In the last few months, a grass-roots, federalist revolt against Washington, D.C. has begun to spread through states that are home to politically active gun owners. Montana and Tennessee have enacted state laws saying that federal rules do not apply to firearms manufactured entirely within the state, and similar bills are pending in Texas, Alaska, Minnesota, and South Carolina. Yet the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and Explosives now claims that...

Mentioned "hunting" and "target practice" as legitimate uses for a gun, as long as the state decides you can have one. Not one word on self-defense.

Karl Rove takes on Maureen Dowd.