While Americans typically laud our national "exceptionalism" -- a sense that the trajectory of history has bestowed greatness upon the United States -- there are a few of our distinctive characteristics that don't deserve celebration.

On the subject of firearms, for example, the United States is exceptionally irrational. No other nation has set guns aside as an object of worship.

We have let a blood-soaked gun lobby dictate our laws and regulations on firearms; we have passed "stand your ground" laws that allow violent and angry men to murder unarmed people; we have given the mentally unstable the ability to buy military-style assault weapons with which they wreak havoc on crowds.

Last week, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal signed a bill into law that would allow denizens of his state to carry firearms into government buildings, bars and, God help us, churches.

http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/04/america_exceptional_not_when_i.html

Vermont should require permits to carry a concealed weapon, according to more than half of voting Vermonters surveyed in a VTDigger/Castleton Polling Institute poll.

The poll found 57 percent of voters support changing Vermont’s concealed carry gun law. Thirty-nine percent do not and 4 percent declined to answer.

In Vermont, it is legal to carry a firearm openly or concealed without a permit. That law is one of several state statutes that make Vermont one of the most permissive states in the U.S. with respect to firearms.

Burlington voters earlier this year passed three local laws that restrict firearms ownership. The state Legislature opted not to approve those local laws this session.

http://vtdigger.org/2014/04/28/vtdiggercastleton-poll-vermonters-support-concealed-carry-permit-guns/

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Belinda Padilla does not pick up unknown calls anymore, not since someone posted her cellphone number on an online forum for gun enthusiasts. A few fuming-mad voice mail messages and heavy breathers were all it took.

Then someone snapped pictures of the address where she has a P.O. box and put those online, too. In a crude, cartoonish scrawl, this person drew an arrow to the blurred image of a woman passing through the photo frame. “Belinda?” the person wrote. “Is that you?”

Her offense? Trying to market and sell a new .22-caliber handgun that uses a radio frequency-enabled stopwatch to identify the authorized user so no one else can fire it. Ms. Padilla and the manufacturer she works for, Armatix, intended to make the weapon the first “smart gun” for sale in the United States.

But shortly after Armatix went public with its plans to start selling in Southern California, Ms. Padilla, a fast-talking, hard-charging Beverly Hills businesswoman who leads the company’s fledgling American division, encountered the same uproar that has stopped gun control advocates, Congress, President Obama and lawmakers across the country as they seek to pass tougher laws and promote new technologies they contend will lead to fewer firearms deaths.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/28/us/politics/smart-firearm-draws-wrath-of-the-gun-lobby.html?hpw&rref=us&_r=0

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The original figure is on the left. It counts the number of gun deaths in Florida. A line rises, bounces a little, reaches a second highest peak labeled “2005, Florida enacted its ‘Stand Your Ground’ law,” and falls precipitously.

What do you see?

Most people see a huge fall-off in the number of gun deaths after Stand Your Ground was passed. But that’s not what the graph shows. A quick look at the vertical axis reveals that the gun deaths are counted from top (0) to bottom (800). The highest peaks are the fewest gun deaths and the lowest ones are the most. A rise in the line, in other words, reveals a reduction in gun deaths. The graph on the right—flipped both horizontally and vertically—is more intuitive to most: A rising line reflects a rise in the number of gun deaths and a dropping a drop.

The proper conclusion, then, is that gun deaths skyrocketed after Stand Your Ground was enacted.

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/politics-and-law/mislead-charts-stand-ground-laws-gun-deaths-79726/

The tides may be turning within the National Rifle Association: according to a new report, America’s largest gun-lobbying group has helped advance three bills recently that limit firearm ownership, and more could soon be added to that list.

On Tuesday this week, reporters Laura Bassett and Christina Wilkie wrote for the Huffington Post that the NRA has all but abandoned earlier efforts by the group to halt state legislation that attempt to impose restrictions on legally owning guns. Instead, the HuffPost reporters wrote, the organization’s lobbyists have worked directly with lawmakers in order to craft rules agreeable by both sides that force gun owners with domestic violence records to surrender their weapons.

After nearly a decade, Bassett and Wilkie wrote, the NRA has only recently “changed its tune” in February the group helped advance a bill in Washington state that aims to guns out of the hands of alleged domestic abusers. Similar bills have already recently been advanced or approved in the states of Louisiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota, the journalists added, and the NRA is unexpectedly the one that deserves credit.

For practically ten years before that, the NRA took seemingly every action possible to keep HB 1840 from being signed into law in Washington. Initially, the bill was written so that anyone alleged to be a domestic abuser would have to hand over their weapons after being served with a protective order, but the NRA — largely known for staunchly opposing attempts to infringe on the right to own firearms — has opposed that language since it was first considered by local lawmakers.

http://rt.com/usa/154116-nra-huffpost-domestic-abuse/

Some Weber County officials have come up with a new program to train teachers in how to do the county's job in a two-hour class. County officials say that essentially the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good teacher with a gun. When you have to follow moron Congressman Louie Gomer Gohmert's lead, you've lost the argument already.

There are so many things wrong with this approach that it's difficult for me to know where to begin. Strategy, planning, execution and outcome are all flawed.

1. Strategy: "Weber County officials are responding (to how best to protect school kids) by inviting teachers to participate in CWP classes with extra training in how to confront an 'active shooter' in the school."

My response: Two hours of training in handling a gun and responding to a shooter are totally inadequate for the task. I know a person who went through the CWP class and didn't know how to line up the sights on their new pistol. In the state of Utah, an educator only needs the CWP course in order to carry a gun while teaching our kids. They can't "put it in the closet," as Gohmert suggests. They must have it on their person.

http://www.standard.net/stories/2014/04/23/weber-county-s-training-teachers-use-guns-bad-idea

Bill Maher and his Real Time panel ripped Democrats again on Friday for not setting themselves apart from Republicans when it comes to gun safety laws, pointing out that even Fort Hood shooter Ivan Lopez questioned how easy it was for a person with mental health issues to have access to firearms months before attacking the base.

“Our gun laws are so crazy, even crazy people know that they’re crazy,” Maher said.

Daily Beast editor-in-chief John Avlon agreed, mentioning the bipartisan gun bill that could not make it into law despite overwhelming public support following the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

“They were trying to close a loophole reflecting mental health,” Avlon said. “It is so nuts that we aren’t able to get through a law with 90 percent support? That shows how paralyzed we are.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/26/bill-maher-our-gun-laws-are-so-crazy-even-crazy-people-know-that-theyre-crazy/

Say what you will about former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but don’t you dare accuse of him of being modest.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Bloomberg plans to spend $50 million of his estimated $31 billion fortune this year to combat the National Rifle Association. Speaking of his advocacy of liberal causes like gun-control and preventing New Yorkers from enjoying “Big Gulp” sodas, Bloomberg told the Times, reportedly with a grin, “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed.”

“I am heading straight in,” he went on. “I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

In pursuing his self-professed heavenly mission to fight gun rights, Bloomberg says he plans to be ruthless in opposing politicians who refuse to fall in line on the issue.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/15/bloomberg-on-his-liberal-advocacy-ive-earned-my-place-in-heaven-its-not-even-close/

At the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Indianapolis Friday, six potential Republican candidates for president touted their pro-gun bona fides and pledged allegiance to the Second Amendment.

But none got quite as personal as Rick Santorum, a runner-up for the 2012 nomination. The former Pennsylvania senator said every member of his family is an NRA member, including 5-year-old daughter Bella. He and his wife, Karen, have conceal-and-carry permits. She even owns more guns than him now.

“The default gift for most men is to buy flowers on a special occasion,” Santorum said. “For me, the safe bet [is] ammo.”

He wasn’t done.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/nra-meeting-2016-election-106039.html#ixzz2zz53UrU4