Guns and the Minutemen. (Not in the sexual context, right?)

I thought Florida was the stupidest state...

WaPo:

"Miami Suburb Sells Old Guns To Shop Favored by Criminals."

A place called Lou's Gun Shop and Police Supply in the suburban Miami town of Hialeah has a certain status among Florida gun dealers. According to the Americans for Gun Safety Foundation, Lou's sells more weapons that can be traced to crimes than any other gun dealer in the state.

So, where do you think the police chief in Sweetwater, another suburban Miami town, decided to unload his officers' old guns and a bunch of confiscated weapons?

That's right.

None other than Lou's.

Not surprisingly, some gun-control advocates are worried that the same guns the Sweetwater Police Department is passing along to Lou's will end up in the hands of the criminals that the Sweetwater police are trying to catch.

The heat of public criticism aggravated chief Robert Fulgueira at first. But now he says "I sleep real well at night," because his deal to trade in old police Glocks and confiscated weapons for new Glocks is saving the city thousands of dollars. Indeed, Fulgueira is feeling so good about his business acumen that he is scoffing at the police departments that melt down old weapons and dispose of them rather than doing a little wheeling and dealing with them.

"It costs to destroy, so it isn't free," he said. "Then they dump them in the ocean, and I think that is a bigger crime."

-- Manuel Roig-Franzia


...but Arizona is really giving the "Dumbshine State" a run for its money.


"PHOENIX - State senators voted Thursday to let Arizonans carry their firearms into bars and restaurants.

The approval on a 17-11 vote came after supporters of the legislation defeated two efforts to narrow its scope. One would have permitted firearms only if the owner posted the establishment as a gun-carrying zone; the other would have limited firearms only to restaurants.

But Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, said both proposals would infringe on individual constitutional rights.

Current law prohibits weapons anywhere alcohol is served. But Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, said that really isn't the case.

"There are already guns in bars and restaurants now," he said. "But they're brought in by criminals."

Gould said the change is needed to "allow law-abiding citizens to protect themselves."

What you really want is a bunch of drunks armed to the teeth.

But it gets better...on to:

The Minutemen (Not like Mike Watt.)

Washington Feb 21, 2005 ? Intent on securing the vulnerable Arizona border from illegal immigrant crossings, U.S. officials are bracing for what they call a potential new threat this spring: the Minutemen.

Nearly 500 volunteers have already joined the Minuteman Project, anointing themselves civilian border patrol agents determined to stop the immigration flow that routinely, and easily, seeps past federal authorities.

They plan to patrol a 40-mile stretch of the southeast Arizona border throughout April when the tide of immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border peaks."

A group; called Border Action see these folks as vigilanties. They say these self appointed border guards are detaining and, in some cases, beating people coming over the border.

This has created some friction between us and the government of Mexico.

"...Mexican President Vicente Fox has condemned the self-described border patrol as "immigrant hunters," and said that his government has sent a diplomatic note to the US expressing concern."

One would think these gun totting types would be good Bush supporters, but they're way beyond that.

The "Arkansas Bushwhacker & The Parrott Mountain Bully Boys" explain Bush is a pussy and the Minutemen are NOT vigilanties:

"President Bush, it would seem, has taken matters into HIS own hands by CHOOSING to ignore, and to not enforce, this country's immigration laws.

He has, therefore, also failed to honor his Oath of Office. President Fox of Mexico has also openly encouraged his country's nationals to ignore and break U.S. immigration laws.

The illegal aliens are also ignoring the law and proper procedures to get what they want, and so are the employers who employ them, the "coyotes" who smuggle them, etc. So they are ALL taking matters into their own hands, ignoring legal procedures, and breaking the law to get what they want!

The "Minutemen", on the other hand, are set up to act as a "neighborhood watch" [They're really little old ladies with binocculars?] along the border, and are instructed to call the Border Patrol when they spot illegal entry taking place in violation of the law.

Therefore, THEY are ASSISTING the Border Patrol and lawfully aiding in the enforcement of our nation's laws.

Now if you see a criminal breaking the law, and you call the police, that certainly does not make you a "vigilante" by any stretch of the immagination - in fact, just the opposite! As we should all remember from our government and civics classes in grade school, THAT is called "being a good citizen."

So I ask you, WHO ARE THE REAL VIGILANTES HERE - THE "MINUTEMEN", OR PRESIDENTS BUSH AND FOX? Who is ignoring the law here, and who is trying to uphold it? Who comes closer to the definition of "vigilante"? I think it is pretty obvious."

The president's spokesman Scott McClellen had some trouble explaining that Bush is not a pussy, but doesn't beleive in vigilanttes either.:

"...people cannot take things into their own hands. But if they see suspicious activity, they should report that suspicious activity to the proper authorities and --

Q: And that doesn't make them vigilantes, does it?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, if you're talking about a group of armed, untrained individuals roaming around the desert, that would be something that would concern us and it would increase the chance that someone could get hurt.

And we don't want people operating outside the law --the President made that very clear last week. So if you're talking about people reporting suspicious activity, that's one thing.

If you're talking about people operating outside the law, that's another matter and it's one that cannot be allowed to happen."

Maybe the president is thinking he doesn't want to alienate aliens who pay lots of taxes and might get us out of our Social Security problems?

NY Times:

"While it has been evident for years that illegal immigrants pay a variety of taxes, the extent of their contributions to Social Security is striking: the money added up to about 10 percent of last year's surplus - the difference between what the system currently receives in payroll taxes and what it doles out in pension benefits.

Moreover, the money paid by illegal workers and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration's projections.

Illegal immigration, Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, co-director of immigration studies at New York University, noted sardonically, could provide "the fastest way to shore up the long-term finances of Social Security."

Starting in the late 1980's, the Social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect - sometimes simply fictitious - Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the "earnings suspense file" in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.

The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990's, two and a half times the amount of the 1980's.

In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.

In 2002 alone, the last year with figures released by the Social Security Administration, nine million W-2's with incorrect Social Security numbers landed in the suspense file, accounting for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5 percent of total reported wages."

And remember, Walmart, America's store, loves illegals too. They're good cheap labor they can take advantage of.

Hear a debate between a "minuteman" spokesman and a representitive from Border Action at Democracy Now.