Just what we need .........

........... more bigots with guns.

First, this piece from the Associated Press:
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GOP congressional candidate pretends to shoot at Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

AP - The South Florida-based Southeast Broward Republican Club held an event earlier this week at a gun range where targets included silhouettes of Muslim stereotypes and of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). Among those who attended the event was real estate CEO Robert Lowry, who is vying to replace Wasserman Schultz in 2010:

South Florida Republicans held a weekly meeting at a gun range, shooting at targets including cut-outs of a Muslim holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The GOP candidate to replace U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz fired at a full-body silhouette with “DWS” written next to its head. [...]

Robert Lowry, who’s vying for Wasserman Schultz’s seat, initially described his target as a joke. Minutes later, he called it a mistake.

Others refused to apologized [sic] for the Southeast Broward Republican Club event, featuring assault rifles and handguns. A conservative activist said they should stand up for their beliefs in the heavily Democratic county.

Commenting on the event, Broward Palm Beach News Blog writes, “OK, so I suppose that target isn’t too offensive. Clearly, it’s a terrorist. That is, a religious radical who truly hates his political opponents, who arms himself to the teeth, and who uses violence as a means of achieving political ends. It’s just that in America, the Republicans have also been the religious radicals, the most hateful toward their opponents, and the most eager to use guns. So you all should be careful gunning down terrorists — you might hit one of your own.”

Update Rep. Wasserman Schultz issued this statement:

There is nothing light or funny about pretending to shoot someone. At a time in our country when people are bringing guns to Town Hall Meetings and a preacher is calling for the death of our President, I find this type of action serious and disturbing. Tonight I am going to have to talk to my young children about why someone is pretending to shoot their mother. Trivializing violent behavior is the kind of extreme view that has no place in American politics.

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OK, back again.

I'm just guessing, but I'm pretty sure none of the Republic Party stalwarts merrily shooting at targets have never been shot at. I'm also guessing they've never stood next to a friend one minute, just talking, and been screaming for a medic the next minute as the friend's blood is spreading across the flight line. There is nothing funny about shooting at pictures of human beings. I've done it on target courses, but that was in preparation for going to places where I was likely to have to decide who was or was not an acceptable target in the time it takes to move a weapon from "carry" to "fire" positions.

During the 1960's, I remember seeing pictures of a firing range in Alabama that had photos of Civil Rights leaders on the silhouettes. Apparently, some things don't change.

If terrorists REALLY looked that obvious, stopping them would be easy. But from Oswald through to the white supremacist this week who blew his fingers off while mixing bomb-making chemicals in a house where he also ran a marijuana farm and a day care center, terrorists tend to be people who are either native-born or in the country legally.

As I write this, the TV is showing security camera film of a barroom argument that winds up with one of the parties drawing a handgun, shooting the other party, then firing wildly into the room. Nothing changes. When I was stationed at Tyndall AFB, FL, a colleague was in a neighborhood bar, sitting at a table with friends when two people got into an argument at the bar. One of them walked out of the room, and the argument appeared to be over. Within moments, he was back in the bar with a pump-action shotgun in hand. By the time he had finished firing, 11 people were wounded, and two were dead.

So forgive me if I seem unwilling to buy the "just a joke" argument.

President Obama, who arguably has the best grounding in the U. S. Constitution and constitutional law of any President since the ones who had a role in writing the thing, has written a convincing case for the Second Amendment being about an individual, rather than communal right. At the moment, it is the only specified individual right that is not paired with responsibilities. A few more incidents like this may change that status.