My, my Santa, what a big gun you have! A Scottsdale, Arizona gun club will let families pose with fully automatic assault weapons for their holiday Christmas cards. And Fox’s “funny” news commentators sure enjoyed it (though there was some debate about the appropriateness of the photo they couldn’t/wouldn’t show which not only featured young children, but Daddy pointing a gun at Mommy’s head).

Why is it that “the right to bear arms” is enshrined in the Constitution, but the right to vote isn’t?

Laws and rules are for the little people. Especially the ones without guns.

Ever notice how conservatives’ hatred of terrorists, criminals, undocumented immigrants, and civil liberties always comes in second to their love of guns?

So, it seems there were at least two friendlies at the site with loaded weapons, one drawn, one about to be drawn, but neither of them could react fast enough to stop a crazed shooter from getting off some 30 rounds, killing six and wounding more than a dozen others. And they almost shot each other.

The vitriol-filled right is busily trying to refute its role in creating the environment in which Jared Loughner carried out his horrendous attack on Saturday when Representative Gabrielle Giffords was holding a “Congress on Your Corner” meeting at a Tucson Safeway. While much of the walk-back by hate radio and hate politicians is in response to Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik’s condemnation of Arizona as “the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry”, another aspect of Dupnik’s experience-based comments deserves equal attention. At the same news conference, Dupnik “criticize[d] the Arizona Legislature for pushing to allow weapons pretty much everywhere.” He then went so far as to say “[Tucson] is the tombstone of the United States of America.” That is an incredibly important point that should not be overlooked as the country looks to move on from this tragedy. Just as we need to dial back the hate in our social and political discourse, we also need to change the atmosphere which has idolized guns to the point that they are actively encouraged in state legislative buildings and where automatic weapons are given away with the purchase of a truck.

The Supreme Court knocked down Chicago’s 1982 ordinance banning handguns in the same week that a Congressional candidate released an ad showing her randomly firing an automatic weapon.

New York State is in the process of passing historic legislation requiring that guns registered in NY have this micro-stamping feature. California has already passed such a law. Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Wisconsin, and Illinois are all working on passing similar laws. This is such a common sense piece of legislation without any obvious down side that you have to wonder why it’s being approached at state-level and not a piece of federal legislation.

Yes, that’s right, the Florida GOP actually produced an ad – a really lame, crappy ad – criticizing a Democrat for being too gun-happy, presenting unhinged footage of Rambo and Private Pyle as excerpts from “CFO Alex Sink’s Official Fraud Investigation Training Video,” interspersed with jaunty music and a random clip of Sink saying “You’re darn right!” Ha ha, these kids today and their hilarious interweb TV bacteria!

Four police officers are gunned down in a Tacoma coffeehouse and one of the first comments that I read is from someone who invokes the John Lott defense.