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Security

UPDATED Hawkish Senators Ready Backdoor To War With Iran

By Hayes Brown on Feb 28, 2013 at 10:15 am

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ)

Two hawkish Senators want to set U.S. policy in favor of prematurely pulling the “military option” trigger against Iran, pledging American backing of absolutely any strike by Israel against Iran and its nuclear program.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) in the coming days plan to unveil a new joint resolution to “strongly support the full implementation of United States and international sanctions on Iran and to urge the President to continue to strengthen enforcement of sanctions legislation.” Couched in such seemingly benign language, the resolution saves its most worrisome clauses for the end, including an open-ended policy of U.S. support for any Israeli strike against Iran:

Urges that, if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in self-defense, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.

Graham first announced his intention to introduce such legislation in 2012, but never followed through. The new bill co-sponsored by Menendez goes beyond previous attempts to show support for Israeli policy towards Iran. The last such attempt was a 2011 proposal from Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Louis Gohmert (R-TX) that would have “approved” any strike Israel performed. Menendez and Graham’s proposal is all the more threatening in that it is backed by credible legislators, though known hawks against Iran, and is ostensibly bipartisan.

The joint resolution is non-binding and would serve as neither a declaration of war nor an Authorization of the Use of Military Force like the near carte-blanche approval granted to President George W Bush at the onset of the Iraq War. It would, though, serve as an official announcement of U.S. policy to support any Israeli strike, whether the Obama administration had been previously consulted or not. This would include strikes against Iran that would be preventative — or seeking to stop any threat before it materializes — instead of a preemptive strike against an imminent threat, which is much more widely accepted as legitimate.

The Senate proposal dovetails with a bill announced on Wednesday from the heads of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to ratchet up sanctions on Iran yet again while shifting policy to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons capability.

Current and former military officials have warned of the potential consequences of strikes against Iran in several reports. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey last year backed away from American support of an Israeli strike, saying “I don’t want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it.” Dempsey also warned that a strike against Iran could possibly break the international coalition that has been placing pressure on Iran. That coalition recently concluded a positive round of talks in Kazakhstan and are set to meet again in Istanbul in March.

The Obama administration has not ruled out the use of force against Iran if necessary to prevent its acquisition of a nuclear weapon, but only after the exhaustion of all other available tools.

Update

The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin reported that Graham told her that the “self-defense” language in his resolution should include preemption and that his Iran resolutions are meant to be a “step-by-step” process to authorize war:

Graham argued on Iran, “I think it is the challenge of our time. We are really going to be defined by Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon.” He characterizes himself as “skeptical” that diplomacy would work. In sponsoring a Senate resolution that passed overwhelming that containment is not an option, Graham said, “I think we helped bring [Obama] to the dance.” Now, “the real issue is making it clear all options are on the table and that we have Israel’s back. That’s what the president said at AIPAC last year; ‘We have Israel’s back.’” That leads to his current proposal, which he thinks will garner wide support: “If Israel acts in its own defense — even preemptively — we will support Israel economically, diplomatically, and politically.” [...]

On his Iran resolutions, Graham favor step-by-step approach. “You have to build a case,” he explained: First, you rule out containment, then pledge support to Israel, and if that doesn’t work, tell Obama, “Mr. President, here’s authorization.” He does not take lightly the consequences of using force. “If we hit Iran, we open Pandora’s box. If they get a nuclear weapon, we empty Pandora’s box,” he said. Iran in the long-term, he argued, does not have the capability to withstand American force. “We win, they lose,” he said, echoing Ronald Reagan’s admonition about the Cold War. He also suggested that if we do need to act, “you are not just going to hit one mountain. You’d try to take down the country’s defense system.”

Politics

Police Chief Embarrasses Lindsey Graham At Gun Hearing

By Igor Volsky on Feb 27, 2013 at 11:48 am

The police chief of Milwaukee called out Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — an opponent of gun safety regulation — for echoing National Rifle Association talking points about the uselessness of expanding background checks for all gun purchases. The organization argues that the government should enforce existing laws instead.

During a heated exchange at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) proposed assault weapons ban on Wednesday, Edward Flynn pointedly interrupted Graham’s claims that the federal government is failing to deter individuals from misrepresenting themselves in the background check process by failing to prosecute people who were rejected from purchasing a weapon as a result of their false claims.

Flynn argued that rather than embark on a “paper chase,” law enforcement officials are focused on preventing people from purchasing guns illegally, eliciting loud applause from the audience:

GRAHAM: When almost 80,000 people fail a background check and 44 people are prosecuted, what kind of deterrent is that? I mean, the law obviously is not seeing that as important…. We absolutely do nothing to enforce the laws on the books…

FLYNN: Just for the record, from my point of view, the point of a background check…

GRAHAM: How many cases have you made? How many cases have you made?

FLYNN: It doesn’t matter, it’s a paper thing. I want to stop 76,000 people from getting guns illegally. That’s what a background check does. If you think we’re going to do paperwork prosecutions, you’re wrong. [...] We don’t make those cases. We have priorities. We make gun cases. We make 2,000 gun cases a year, senator, that’s our priority. We’re not in a paper chase. We’re trying to prevent the wrong people from buying guns. That’s why we do background checks. If you think I’m going to do a paper chase, then you think I’m going to misuse my resources.

Watch it:

In a separate exchange with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), John Walsh, the United States Attorney for Colorado argued that background checks are designed to deter criminals from purchasing weapons, noting that individuals who fail a check are effectively prevented from buying firearms. He added that “there’s no way the Department of Justice could have prosecuted all 1.5 million people who were rejected over that 15 year period.”

Indeed, the “low number of prosecutions in 2010, the most recent year for which data are available, is consistent with other years” and is often seen as a poor use of resources. Prosecutors must prove that “the person knew they were lying when they tried to purchase the firearm” in order to secure a conviction which “usually carries a maximum sentence of just six months.”

Graham said that limited resources for police departments is a reason to bolster gun ownership, arguing that citizens would have to take the law in their own hands and protect themselves. “What this police chief is facing, is what every police chief is facing, less money so you may have to defend yourself,” he explained.

Security

McCain Goes After NBC Host For Questioning GOP’s Benghazi Conspiracy Theories

By Zack Beauchamp on Feb 17, 2013 at 11:49 am

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) levied a series of wild accuastions Sunday morning when discussing the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi last September, accusing the Obama Administration of perpetrating a “massive coverup” and NBC’s David Gregory of not caring about the death of American diplomats.

McCain’s outburst came after Gregory asked McCain what, exactly, the Administration was covering up. Taking umbrage at Gregory’s skepticism, the Arizona senator grew confrontational:

MCCAIN: We have had a massive coverup on the part of the administration.

GREGORY: I’m asking you, a coverup of what?

MCCAIN: I’m asking YOU, do you care whether four Americans died? The reasons for that? And shouldn’t people be held accountable for the fact that four americans died — including a very dear man?

GREGORY: You said there is a coverup. A coverup of what?

MCCAIN: Of the information concerning the deaths of four brave Americans.

Watch it:

As Gregory suggests, it’s not exactly clear what McCain thinks is being covered up. Both the lack of immediate military response to the attack on the consulate and the matter of UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s “talking points” on the attack were clearly explained several months ago. Nevertheless, McCain’s colleague Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has threatened to put a hold on the confirmation of the President’s nominees for both Secretary of Defense and CIA Director until he gets “the truth” on Benghazi.

Health

GOP Senator Would Take Away Health Coverage From 30 Million Americans To Avoid Military Cuts

By Josh Israel on Feb 17, 2013 at 10:05 am

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Sunday the government should protect the Defense Department from automatic spending cuts by slashing $1.2 trillion from the Affordable Care Act.

During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Graham suggested that the sequester’s across-the-board cuts to federal spending, including about a roughly 7.5 percent reduction in military spending, would be “destroying the military.” But rather than agree to President Obama’s proposed alternatives to the sequester, the South Carolina Republican said we should save money by eliminating health care for the 30 million people covered by the Affordable Care Act:

CHRIS WALLACE: Let me just ask you one more question about the sequestration before we let you go, Senator. You know if we go into the sequester, the president is going to hammer Republicans, the White House already put out a list of all the things, terrible things that will happen if a sequester kicks in, 70,000 children losing Head Start. 2100 fewer food inspectors and small business will lose $900 million in loan guarantees and you know, Senator, the president will say your party is forcing this to protect tax cuts for the wealthy.

GRAHAM: Well, all i can say is the commander-in-chief thought — came up with the idea of sequestration, destroying the military and putting a lot of good programs at risk. It is my belief — take Obamacare and put it on the table. You can make $86,000 a year in income and still get a government subsidy under Obamacare. Obamacare is destroying health care in this country and people are leaving the private sector, because their companies cannot afford to offer Obamacare and if you want to look at ways to find $1.2 trillion in savings over the next decade, look at Obamacare, don’t destroy the military and cut blindly across the board. There are many ways to do it but the president is the commander-in-chief and on his watch we’ll begin to unravel the finest military in the history of the world, at a time when we need it most. The Iranians are watching us, we are allowing people to be destroyed in Syria, and i’m disappointed in our commander-in-chief.

The draconian cuts to vital programs Graham and other Republicans are demanding, including providing health insurance for the millions of Americans who otherwise would not have it, will hurt the economy and hurt real people.

But Graham’s “solution” also misses a key reality: Obamacare actually reduced the deficit. His proposal to put its elimination on the table would mean increasing the budget deficit by an estimated $109 billion over the same 10-year period, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

Security

BREAKING: Senate Republicans Make History, First To Filibuster Defense Secretary Nominee

By Hayes Brown on Feb 14, 2013 at 4:58 pm


Senate Republicans today chose to uphold a filibuster against Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel, despite many of them previously pledging that they would be willing to allow him to be confirmed.

Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), and John Cornyn (R-TX) all voted against cloture, despite their pleas during the Bush administration that a president’s Cabinet nominees should receive an up-or-down vote.

Four Republicans, Sens. Thad Cochran (R-MS), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Mike Johanns (R-NE), voted to break the filibuster. The final vote was 58-40, with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) voting present, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) not voting at all, and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) voting “no” as a procedural move so that he can bring another vote to the floor at a later date.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had originally scheduled the cloture vote for tomorrow morning, but surprised many by pushing it up to this afternoon. Earlier today, Reid took to the Senate floor to lambaste his Republican colleagues for delaying an up-or-down vote on Hagel, the first filibuster of a Secretary of Defense nominee.

Prior to the roll call’s beginning, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) attempted to explain that the vote that was set to take place was the vote “to confirm Chuck Hagel,” rather than merely being a procedural vote. Inhofe also claimed that a 60-vote margin was common practice, rendering the actions of the Republicans not a filibuster. However, the motion was still filed by Reid as cloture — the ending of debate — rather than the actual confirmation of Hagel, as laid out be Levin before voting. This leaves the door open for Hagel’s nomination to remain on the Senate floor and renders the GOP’s actions a filibuster under the Senate’s rules.

While Senate Republicans are opposed to voting on Hagel today, they seem to believe that they’ll change their minds after the Senate returns from its President’s Day recess in 10 days. This morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that he expected to be willing to move Hagel forward at that time, “unless there’s some bombshell that he likes blood sucking vampires.” Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and John McCain (R-AZ) said roughly the same thing today, leaving their votes against Hagel today confusing.

The hope for such a bombshell emerging seems far less than likely. A speech given by Hagel in 2008 that conservatives have long-sought as evidence that Hagel falls far outside of the mainstream was released today, turning out to be a dud. Likewise right-wing implications that Hagel was secretly being backed by a group called “Friends of Hamas” also proved to be utterly false, fabricated on a far-right media outlet.

After today’s filibuster, the Senate will reconsider Hagel after their break. While today’s vote showed that the GOP was willing to obstruct and delay, they ultimately will be unable to do this forever. In the end, Hagel still possesses more than the majority vote needed for final passage.

Justice

The 10 NRA-Funded Senators Hoping To Block Gun Regulations

By Josh Israel on Feb 11, 2013 at 1:50 pm

The National Rifle Association’s NRA Political Victory Fund PAC has distributed more than $1 million in career donations to current members of the United States Senate. And, like their House counterparts, the Senators who have received the most are also among the most vocal opponents of any new gun violence prevention legislation advanced in the aftermath of the school shooting at Newton, Connecticut.

A ThinkProgress analysis of data from Political MoneyLine reveals that the top 10 Senate beneficiaries of NRA money are all Republicans. Each has already indicated his opposition to President Obama’s gun violence proposals and each has received an “A” or “A+” rating from the NRA. They are:

SEN. JIM INHOFE (R-OK) — AT LEAST $64,900


Inhofe said last month, “I will continue to strongly oppose any effort to undermine the Second Amendment and an individual citizen’s right to keep and bear arms. … The text of the Constitution clearly confers upon an individual the right to bear arms – and not just for the purposes of hunting as many liberals will claim. Our Founders believed that the people’s right to own guns was an important check on the powers of the government and ‘necessary to the security of a free State.’ I couldn’t agree more and I stand firm in my support of this right.”

SEN. ROY BLUNT (R-MO) — AT LEAST $60,550


Blunt said last month, “Unfortunately, the president’s proposals today fundamentally fail to address ways that we can prevent tragic events like Sandy Hook, and instead, he’s attempting to restrict the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.” Last week, he expressed doubt that the Senate would even expand background checks.

SEN. SAXBY CHAMBLISS (R-GA) — AT LEAST $56,950


Chambliss said last month, “While I am certain that the president’s proposal is well-intentioned, it is Congress’ responsibility to make sure that Americans’ constitutional rights are protected.”

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD) — AT LEAST $48,605


Thune said last month, “There is a lot of emotion driving this debate. We need to prevent this in the future, and make the schools and our kids safer. And frankly, I don’t think it has to do with restrictions on the Second Amendment.”

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC) — AT LEAST $46,600


Graham said last month, “One bullet in the hands of a homicidal maniac is one too many. But in the case of a young mother defending her children against a home invader — a real-life event which recently occurred near Atlanta — six bullets may not be enough. Criminals aren’t going to follow legislation limiting magazine capacity. However, a limit could put law-abiding citizens at a distinct disadvantage when confronting a criminal. As for reinstating the assault weapons ban, it has already been tried and failed.”

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R-AL) — AT LEAST $43,755


Shelby said on his Congressional website, “We all mourn the victims of shocking tragedies that have resulted from senseless acts of violence perpetrated by seriously disturbed individuals. However, such tragedies should not be viewed as an indictment of America’s precious Second Amendment rights. Thus, we should not react in a manner that would unnecessarily and improperly infringe upon the rights of tens of millions of law-abiding American gun owners. Unfortunately, it seems that some zealous gun rights opponents are seeking to leverage tragedies to further their long-held agenda of unduly restricting Americans’ Second Amendment rights.”

SEN. MIKE CRAPO (R-ID) — AT LEAST $43,700


Crapo said last month, “The President’s proposal on gun control is very disappointing. Any discussion about restricting the Constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans deserves, at minimum, a full and public debate in Congress. Burdening law-abiding citizens of this country with additional gun restrictions is not the answer to safeguarding the public from further attacks.”

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R-UT) — AT LEAST $41,750


Hatch said last month that even passage of universal background checks would be “the way reductions in liberty occur.” He added, “When you start saying people all have to sign up for something, and they have a database where they know exactly who’s who, and where government can persecute people because of the database, that alarms a lot of people in our country, and it flies in the face of liberty,” noting that gun rights are “an express provision in the Constitution, unlike the penumbras and other conjured-up provisions that aren’t there that the court has come up with over the years. This is express, and many people are very, very concerned about any infringement on it, and I’m one of them.”

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA) — AT LEAST $41,200


Grassley said last month, “The Second Amendment is more than just words on paper. It’s a fundamental right that ensures citizens the ability to protect themselves against the government. Unfortunately, the President seems to think that the Second Amendment can be tossed aside. Using executive action to attempt to poke holes in the Second Amendment is a power grab along the same pattern we’ve seen of contempt for the elected representatives of the American people. Some of these directives clearly run afoul of limitations Congress has placed on federal spending bringing the President’s actions in direct conflict with federal law. More importantly, it’s hard to see how any of these executive actions would have prevented the tragedies that precipitated this effort.”

SEN. ROGER WICKER (R-MS) — AT LEAST $36,750


Wicker said last month, “The President’s proposals would violate the Constitution and have been proven not to be effective in preventing gun violence, I will be part of a bipartisan coalition opposing this legislation and looking for real solutions such as school safety guards, mental health care, and addressing the culture of violence in the media. The Second Amendment rights of Americans must be preserved.”

The 10 have received more than $480,000 combined in career NRA PAC money.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights subcommittee will hold a hearing Tuesday to examine proposals to reduce gun violence. The four Republicans on the nine-person panel are Graham, Hatch, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). Cruz (at least $9900) has blasted the President for “trying to exploit the tragic murder of children as an excuse to push his own extreme anti-gun agenda,” and Cornyn ($17,850) has said we must enforce existing gun laws before we consider any new ones.

Security

Morning Joe Crew Rips Republicans For Hagel Obstruction: ‘It’s A Colossal Mistake’

By Hayes Brown on Feb 11, 2013 at 10:49 am


Republican Joe Scarborough is tired of his party’s mistreatment of Defense Secretary-nominee Chuck Hagel and its continuing, all-consuming focus on Benghazi.

The focus of Scarborough’s ire this morning on his MSNBC show Morning Joe was Sen. Lindsey Graham’s announcement on Sunday that he will place a hold on not only Hagel, but also CIA Director-nominee John Brennan until he gets further action from the White House on Benghazi.

Scarborough lashed out at Graham and his neoconservative cohorts, unable to believe how misguided their attacks on the Obama administration have been:

SCARBOROUGH: If you’ve got a working class guy who has voted Republican every four years and he turns on the Sunday shows and he’s flipping around the channels and he sees Republicans in February still talking about Benghazi, saying they’re going to hold up the picks for secretary of defense and CIA director for something that happened back in the fall, and they are continuing on this…to hold up this and talk about it on Sunday morning, it’s a colossal mistake.

Watch the takedown here:

Graham has been seeking out “the truth” on the attack in Benghazi, Libya that left four Americans dead for months now, despite an ample amount of facts already having been uncovered. A Cabinet nominee has never been filibustered by the Senate, leaving Graham’s threat in a position to make history.

Also at issue on Morning Joe today was former Vice President Dick Cheney at a speech in Wyoming referring to Obama’s second term national security team as being “second-rate.” Scarborough was unsurprised by Cheny’s statements, given his neoconservative stances. “You’d expect him to not like Chuck Hagel, for the same reasons I want a guy like Chuck Hagel in, because he’s more of a realist, and we’ll pull back a little from this neocon position,” Scarborough said.

Republicans have been lining up their kitchen-sink method of obstruction, full of procedural and “substantive” methods to block Hagel’s nomination from coming to a vote. That vote is currently delayed as Senate Armed Services Committee chair Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) has yet to set a date. That is expected to be short-lived, though, as Levin has said GOP demands regarding Hagel “far exceed” that of past nominees and promised a vote soon.

Security

Lindsey Graham To Place Hold On National Security Nominees Over Benghazi Attacks

By Igor Volsky on Feb 10, 2013 at 11:14 am

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is threatening to place a hold on key administration national security nominations unless President Obama explains how the White House reacted to the Benghazi attacks and who “changed” the talking points used by U.N. ambassador Susan Rice during back-to-back appearances on the Sunday political talk shows in September.

Appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation, Graham insisted that Republicans shouldn’t “allow Brennan to go forward for the CIA directorship, Hagel to be confirmed to Secretary of Defense, until the White House gives us an accounting.” “Did the president ever pick up the pohne and call anyone in the Libyan government to help these folks,” Graham asked. “What did the president do?”:

BOB SCHIEFFER (HOST): I’m not sure I understand. What do you plan to do if they don’t give you an answer? Are you going to put a hold on these two nominations?

GRAHAM: Yes…How could Susan Rice come on to your show and say there’s no evidence of a terrorist attack when the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said they knew that night? I think that was a misleading narrative three weeks before our election.

SCHIEFFER: Let me just make sure, because you’re about to make some news here, I think. You are saying that you are going to block the nominations — you’re going to block them from coming to a vote until you get an answer to this? Now, John McCain has already said he doesn’t think the Republicans ought to filibuster this. What will you do? You’re just going to put a hold on it? [...]

GRAHAM: I want to know who changed the talking points. Who took the references to Al Qaeda out of the talking points given to Susan Rice? We still don’t know…. I want to know what our president did. What did he do as commander in chief? Did he ever pick up the phone and call anybody? I think this is the stuff the country needs to know.

Watch it:

Since Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey testified before Congress last week, conservatives have seized on a portion of the testimony to argue that President Obama went “AWOL” the night of the Benghazi attack.

The GOP has touted a portion in the hearing during which Panetta said that he did not personally communicate with Obama, but ignore further testimony during which Dempsey stressed that the White House was focused on the Benghazi attack and Obama’s staff was engaged “pretty constantly through the period, which is the way it would normally work.” As Panetta put it, “The president is well-informed about what is going on; make no mistake about it.”

The unclassified talking points as presented by Rice were edited through an interagency process, wherein the CIA itself removed the references to al-Qaeda. Graham, along with Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and John McCain (R-AZ) led the charge in attacking Rice, blaming her at times for not revealing classified information during her Sunday show appearances.

Alyssa

Why The Violent Fantasies Of Gun Advocates Are More Dangerous Than Video Games

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jan 31, 2013 at 11:54 am

There were a lot of things that were ridiculous and offensive about yesterday’s hearings on gun control, from the Independent Women’s Forum Gayle Trotter’s articulation of a fantasy world in which women defend themselves with guns more often than they’re killed by them, to the National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre’s representation of himself as an advocate for individual gun owners rather than the giant companies that manufacture weapons. But for the most part, we were spared one of the more ridiculous features of our debates over gun violence, the sight of gun control opponents throwing out video games as a distraction like a moldy steak in a piranha tank. What the hearing did reveal, though, is that the people who tend to blame video games for violence have some of the same fantasies about using weapons in real life that make the abstracted violence in first-person shooters so attractive.

That’s not to say that video games were completely absent from yesterday’s hearing. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) took himself to MSNBC to declare that “I think video games is a bigger problem than guns because video games affect people. But the First Amendment limits what we can doing about video games.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) lamented “Where is the artistic value in shooting innocent victims?” And LaPierre, listing what he described as common-sense solutions to gun violence, included “Stop putting out violent video games that desensitize.”

But at the same time that they were lamenting the idea of young men sitting at home working themselves up to kill by playing video games, both witnesses and senators were engaging in some of the same fantasies of heroic deployment of guns against imaginary enemies. Trotter imagined a Mr. and Mrs. Smith-like fantasy of a housewife brandishing high-caliber weapons in defense of her family: “An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman defending her babies in her home becomes a defense weapon and the peace of mind that a woman has as she’s facing three, four, five violent attackers, intruders in her home with her children screaming in the background, the peace of mind that she has knowing that she has a scary looking gun gives her more courage when she’s fighting hard and violent criminals.”

LaPierre’s fantasies justifying gun ownership were more post-apocalyptic, including dreams of a national disaster or a sudden breakdown in government, scenarios Baltimore Police Chief Jim Johnson called “scary, creepy and just not based on logic.” But Sen. Lindsey Graham backed up LaPierre’s argument, saying that the risk that “You could find yourself in a lawless environment in this country,” like the 1992 Los Angeles riots, justified the continued legality of higher-capacity magazines. LaPierre and Graham may not have gotten idea of emerging as a hero when the world descends into chaos from media like AMC’s zombie show The Walking Dead, but their arguments for minimal gun regulation and the reason people enjoy watching Rick Grimes go from mild-mannered sheriff to zombie-killing badass are one and the same.

Maybe there’s a difference between pretending to shoot targets in Call of Duty and going to the firing range, feeling the recoil of a weapon, and learning to appreciate what Walter Kirn, in an essay for The New Republic, calls “the power over the power of the gun.” But if yesterday’s gun control hearing proved anything, it’s that you don’t need to pick up a console to fantasize about emerging a hero by using guns to kill people who you believe are victimizing you. And when it comes to setting policy, the fantasies of people like Gayle Trotter and Wayne LaPierre have far more impact in the real world in the form of things like Stand Your Ground laws than the dreams of people who pick up pixelated weapons and head off into battle.

Justice

Lindsey Graham: GOP-Forced Budget Cuts Will Mean Fewer Cops, So People Need To Arm Themselves

By Josh Israel on Jan 30, 2013 at 12:45 pm

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has been among the Senate’s most vocal backers of draconian budget cuts and has opposed increasing funds to put more police officers on the streets, said Wednesday that he will oppose gun violence prevention legislation because budget cuts will mean inadequate police forces to protect the public.

Graham told Baltimore Chief of Police James Johnson and former naval Captain Mark Kelly (husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords) that he planned to oppose the gun violence measures because people will need high-capacity magazines to compensate for the police response times these austerity measures will force:

GRAHAM: The point is, we have different perspectives on this. The reason I will oppose the legislation, Chief Johnston, is because i respect what your do as a lot — what you do as a law-enforcement officer. Has your budget been cut?

JOHNSON: Yes.

GRAHAM: Do you think it be cut in the future?

JOHNSON: I am optimistic that it is not.

GRAHAM: Well I hope your right, but I can tell people throughout this land, because of the fiscal state of affairs we have, there will be less [SIC] police officers, not more, over the next decade. Response time are gonna be less, not more. So, Captain Kelly, I really do want to get guns out of the hands of the wrong people. I honest to god believe that if we arbitrarily “say nobody in this country can own a 10-round magazine in the future, the people who own them are the kind of people we’re trying to combat to begin with.” There can be a situation where a mother runs out of bullets because of something we do here.

Watch the video:

President Obama has proposed expanding the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), which helps local governments hire police officers, but Republicans have opposed the effort.

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