Snuffy watch

It has been a long time since I've written about Father Michael "Snuffy" Pfleger (he of the death threats against a gun shop owner and legislators who don't support his citizen disarmament agenda), and I would hate for him to think that he's been forgotten by gun rights activists, so I figured this would be as good a time as any for another look. As it turns out, he has a page about the "gun issue" that's good for a couple laughs.

There is a great amount of confusion regarding the issue of gun legislation. The National Rifle Association and Illinois National Rifle Association like to paint the picture with a very broad and untrue brush.

The "Illinois National Rifle Association"? Fighting for gun rights in the Nation of Illinois, presumably? Has Illinois seceded from the Union, without anyone telling me, or is that just something Snuffy wants to happen? I seem to remember recent attempts to get people all worked up about Governor Palin's supposed links to the Alaskan Independence Party--how is this any different?

The Supreme Court in its recent decision made it clear, individuals have a right to bear arms. Like it or not, that was their interpretation.

Yep--"like it or not," the Second Amendment means what it says.

All we are saying is fine, but let us regulate the sale of guns and stop the flow of guns.

Ah--the old "Just because you have a Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental, absolute human right of the individual to keep and bear arms doesn't mean the government shouldn't have the power to regulate that right out of existence" argument. What, by the way, does it mean to "stop the flow of guns"? If guns stop "flowing" from the manufacturers to the gun shops, and from the shops to the people who buy them to defend their homes, families, lives, and liberty, how are we to exercise the right to keep and bear arms?

We have asked for “common sense” gun laws.

Interesting that he put "common sense" in quotes--looks almost like an acknowledgment that such laws are not really all that commonly sensible.

One gun per month, reinstate the assault weapon ban, require universal background checks and make crime data public. These are not complicated, just common sense!

The objection to such laws isn't based on their being "complicated"--it's about how such laws are to be reconciled with shall not be infringed (not to mention the extreme unlikelihood of such laws saving lives).

There's more, but you get the idea.