Beer in the Headlights

When will the morons running the City of Atlanta ever learn? State Rep. Tom Bearden set the trap and the gun-grabbing leftists stepped right into it.

Guns were the issue. But words and federal lawsuits became the weapons of choice Tuesday as Atlanta officials declared Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport a "gun-free zone," and gun advocates immediately retaliated by suing them.

Airport General Manager Ben DeCosta issued a memorandum declaring Hartsfield Airport as a gun free zone. (.pdf file in that link)

By stating verbally and in writing their stance on the issue, Mayor Franklin and Ben DeCosta set themselves up for failure.

"This is a matter of national significance," Mayor Shirley Franklin told reporters at a news conference. Permitting guns inside an airport, even weapons carried by permit holders, would create an unsafe environment that "would endanger millions of people," the mayor said.

Franklin vowed Tuesday to lobby Congress and federal officials to mandate that any public facility receiving federal money be declared a "gun-free zone." That would affect airports nationwide.

Franklin's comments followed a vow by city officials to arrest anyone carrying a gun at Hartsfield-Jackson. The city drew a line in the sand on the very same day a new state law easing gun restrictions in public places took effect.

Airport General Manager Ben DeCosta said the city's legal team has studied the new law and determined the airport still falls under a "public gathering" exception in the Georgia Code.

"Therefore, firearms are prohibited on airport property," he said.

Here's a memorandum from the Georgia Attorney General's office stating that a "public gathering" is the gathering and not the place:

In State v. Burns, 200 Ga. App. 16 (1991), the Court of Appeals, when faced with this very question, held that the focus should be on the "gathering" rather than on the "place." Thus, the Code Section applies when people are gathered or will gather for a particular function, but does not apply simply because a weapon is otherwise lawfully carried to a public place where people may be present.

Here's the GA Code definition of a public gathering:

For the purpose of this Code section, "public gathering" shall include, but shall not be limited to, athletic or sporting events, churches or church functions, political rallies or functions, publicly owned or operated buildings, or establishments at which alcoholic beverages are sold for consumption on the premises. Nothing in this Code section shall otherwise prohibit the carrying of a firearm in any other public place by a person licensed or permitted to carry such firearm by this part.

While a publicly owned or operated building does fit the description of a public gathering, certain publicly owned or operated building are now open to CCL holders to carry firearms. Here is the section of the bill that passed and went into effect as of July 1, 2008:

A person licensed or permitted to carry a firearm by this part shall be permitted to carry such firearm, subject to the limitations of this part, in all parks, historic sites, and recreational areas, including all publicly owned buildings located in such parks, historic sites, and recreational areas and in wildlife management areas, notwithstanding Code Section 12-3-10, in wildlife management areas notwithstanding Code Section 27-3-1.1 and 27-3-6, and in public transportation notwithstanding Code Sections 16-12-122 through 16-12-127; provided, however, that a person shall not carry a firearm into a place prohibited by federal law.

Federal law does not prohibit the carrying or possession of firearms in airports outside of the security checkpoints.

Done deal.

You could call it the Atlanta version of "High Noon."

Top city officials will announce Tuesday that despite a new state gun law that went into effect at midnight, they will have anyone carrying a weapon at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport arrested. The state lawmaker who sponsored the new gun law says if they do, the city will immediately be sued. And state Rep. Tim Bearden (R-Villa Rica) said the plaintiff in the lawsuit could be himself.

"I have a permit, and I have family I have to pick up at the airport tomorrow [Tuesday]," Bearden told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday. "I'll have one [a concealed weapon] with me at all times."

Airport General Manager Ben DeCosta said if Bearden shows up at the world's busiest airport with a gun, he'll be busted.

"I can identify him, and I'll have him arrested," DeCosta said Monday. "We're not fooling around. This is a post-terrorism environment."

The new law, which Bearden sponsored, permits licensed gun owners to carry concealed firearms in parks, on public transportation and in restaurants that serve liquor. The law takes effect Tuesday.

Federal law already bans guns past the security checkpoints at U.S. airports. The new state law, however, apparently would permit guns to be carried on the non-secure side of Hartsfield-Jackson by people who have gone through a background check and have been certified to carry a weapon. Licensed gun owners would be permitted to carry weapons on public transportation coming into the airport, its lobby and in restaurants outside the security checkpoints.

DeCosta said he will use the first day the new law takes effect to declare Hartsfield-Jackson a "gun-free" zone.

It goes beyond the airport, but at least the folks at MARTA had enough sense to know where they stand and decided back down.

Opponents, however, blasted the proposal, (to allow concealed carry on public transportation - TC) saying it has the potential to spark more violence than it stops. DeCosta wrote to Gov. Sonny Perdue asking him to veto the bill, and Mayor Shirley Franklin and MARTA officials publicly lambasted the idea. MARTA bus drivers gathered more than 1,000 signatures on petitions demanding bulletproof shields.

Wow. A whopping 1,0000 signatures.

Think about this for a moment: CCL holder have gone through background checks. They've proven to be law abiding citizens. And MARTA bus drivers, the intellectual juggernauts that they are, have demanded bulletproof shields to protect them from these folks. Never mind the gangsta thugs, some of whom are convicted felons, who have already violated the law by carrying on MARTA buses and trains.

There are two types of people who oppose law abiding individuals from carrying firearms; those who hold an irrational fear of firearms and those who wish to exert power over others.

Stop the occupation of Afghanistan!

Militants killed more U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan in June than in Iraq for the second straight month, a grim milestone capping a run of headline-grabbing insurgent attacks that analysts say underscore the Taliban's growing strength.

So what does this mean? Are our efforts in Iraq turning the corner to becoming an unqualified success?

I will say this about Afghanistan - It wasn't going to be easy. The enemy there is a determined and resourceful lot. The same folks drove out the Soviets. Granted US and NATO troops are better trained, better equipped, more resourceful and far superior in general than their 1980's era Warsaw Pact counterparts, but the Afghan Mujihadeen really put a hurting on them.

Something really needs to be done about controlling or eliminating the poppy and heroin production in Afghanistan. The Taliban and al Qaeda's bases in Pakistan have to be hit pretty hard, too.

Patience... Things will change for the better in Afghanistan within the next year or two.

Anything like changiness?

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Monday he will never question others' patriotism during the race and blames his own "carelessness" for some criticism of him so far.

Maybe he's correctly interpreted one passage of the Bible - that one about those without sins castings stones or something.

Obama said he chose the topic in part because of his experience during the race, even though he has always considered his love of country a given and his inspiration for running for office.

"I have found, for the first time, my patriotism challenged — at times as a result of my own carelessness, more often as a result of the desire by some to score political points and raise fears about who I am and what I stand for," he said before a crowd of a few hundred people at the Truman Memorial Building here. "I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign. And I will not stand idly by when I hear others question mine."

Carelessness isn't attending a church preaching Marxism and bigotry for twenty years. Carelessness isn't associating with leftist domestic terrorists. Carelessness isn't having cozy ties to Tony Rezko. Carelessness isn't being married to a bitter woman who's deeply resentful of white people.

It's all about judgment. It's something he's consistently fallen short on when it comes to his personal, religious, political, and business associations. Barack Obama has a pattern of relationships that demonstrates a certain degree of contempt toward the United States.

If he's careless enough to make the decisions he's consistently made then that's enough to preclude him from making the decisions he'd have to take great care in making as president?

What it all boils down to is this: If he has to go on a "patriotism" offensive in the campaign to establish himself as patriotic, then he's left the door wide open for legitimate criticism. Why is it that Obama and his campaign feel the sudden need to tout his patriotism? Simple. It's because enough folks have enough reason to believe he's seriously lacking in that arena.

And another thing... To have Wesley Clark play the role of "bad cop" and criticize John McCain is pretty darn pathetic. I'd love for someone to ask Clark why he was relieved of his command and to see him dodge that one. The decision to fire a four star general in command of all NATO forces is a serious one. Wesley Clark is certainly not anyone to criticize another a former officer's conduct while in uniform.

The Supreme Court says Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

The court's 5-4 ruling strikes down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision goes further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact.

Well, we've always had the right - at least since the Constitution was ratified - to own firearms. The Supreme Court just affirmed that right by ruling Washington DC's gun ban as unconstitutional.

The big winners in this ruling are those that have been illegally disarmed by authoritarian state and local governments.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Anyone who supports the candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama is either an abject moron or a staunch Marxist. Or both.

Here's some proof to back that claim...

As he reminded us again after losing narrowly to Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, Barack Obama likes to evoke Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech.
We must all hope that, like King's, Mr. Obama's dream is "deeply rooted in the American dream." But before giving him the keys to the White House, Americans might like to know a little more about the content of Mr. Obama's dream.

Let me propose an unlikely place to start looking: Kenya. Even in the midst of the primaries, the horrific scenes from that country since the disputed election on December 27 will not have escaped most people. In particular, the burning of a church with up to 50 men, women, and children inside, while machete-armed mobs slaughter up to 600 more people, have evoked memories of the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Who is behind these massacres? The opposition leader, Raila Odinga, has had a good press in the West, after he accused the president, Mwai Kibaki, of rigging the election. But the victims of the recent violence have mostly been members of Mr. Kibaki's tribe, the Kikuyu, while those who have gone berserk are supporters of Mr. Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement, which is dominated by the rival Luo tribe.

Whether Mr. Odinga has ordered his men to commit murder and arson is unclear. But his own background does not exactly suggest enthusiasm for democracy and the rule of law. Mr. Odinga's father, Oginga Odinga, led the Communist opposition during the Cold War and Raila Odinga was educated in Communist East Germany.

In 1982 he was implicated in a failed coup against the then president Daniel Arap Moi. His eldest son is named after Fidel Castro and his daughter after Winnie Mandela.

Even more sinister has been Mr. Odinga's electoral pact with the National Muslim Leaders' Forum — a hardline Islamist organization that represents Kenya's Muslim minority. According to this document, dated August 29, 2007, Mr. Odinga promised the Muslim leaders that, if elected, he would establish Sharia courts, not only in the northern and coastal regions where Kenyan Muslims are concentrated, but throughout the country.

He also promised to impose Muslim dress codes on women, ban alcohol and pork, indoctrinate children, ban Christian preaching, and dismiss the Commissioner of Police "who has allowed himself to be used by heathens and Zionists."

In short, Mr. Odinga in effect offered to Islamize Kenya in return for Muslim votes, despite the fact that Muslims make up only 10% of the population, compared to the 80% who are Christian. Mr. Odinga himself is nominally an Anglican, yet he signed a document that refers to Islam throughout as "the one true religion" and denigrates Christians as "worshippers of the cross."

Whether it is likely, as Mr. Odinga claims, that his party won the election with such a program, only to have it stolen by Mr. Kibaki, I cannot say. Nor am I qualified to speculate about why Mr. Odinga threw in his lot with the Islamists. It should certainly concern us that one of Africa's most stable and pro-Western countries is apparently threatened with the same grim fate that has befallen other East African states, such as Sudan and Somalia.

What, you will be asking by now, what does any of this have to do with Barack Obama? Well, Mr. Obama's father came from Kenya and his son is proud to call himself a Luo. His Kenyan relations boast that, even if they cannot get a Luo into the Kenyan presidential residence, they can look forward to a Luo in the White House.

Indeed, the connection may be even closer than a tribal one. Mr. Odinga even claims that Mr. Obama is his cousin, because the senator's father was Mr. Odinga's maternal uncle. Whether or not this true, the two men are friends and political allies.

In August 2006, Mr. Obama visited Kenya and spoke in support of Mr. Odinga's candidacy at rallies in Nairobi. The Web site Atlas Shrugs has even posted a photograph of the two men side by side. More recently, Mr. Odinga says that Mr. Obama interrupted his campaigning in New Hampshire to have a telephone conversation with his African cousin about the constitutional crisis in Kenya.

What should Americans make of Mr. Obama's Kenyan connection? If he has been putting tribal or family considerations above America's national interest by supporting Mr. Odinga's anti-Western candidacy, it raises serious questions about his judgement.

I sure hope a lone reporter with a pair asks Obama whether or not he supports his ideological kin Robert Mugabe.

Knock me over with a feather.

Would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley is a womanizing narcissist who juggles sexual relationships and "believes himself entitled to a life of leisure," according to federal prosecutors.

Hinckley maintains "fondling privileges" with one paramour, "rekindled" a relationship with a former girlfriend, has been "maintaining near simultaneous sexual relationships" with two women and "met a fourth woman" last year, according to the motion.

Wow. Weird. This is the man that shot Ronald Reagan, spurred the creation of a gun-grabbing organization and pushed Jodie Foster to become a lesbian. Given those credentials I find it very surprising that Hinckley could attract one woman to shag let alone juggle juggle a handful of them.

Fondling privileges? Say what? Is that akin to a "friend with benefits?"

I can just imagine if he's released from the mental hospital... Out will come the obligatory book and the much-touted appearances on Oprah, The View and Rachel Ray. He may even do a special prime time episode with Dr. Phil. Can you imagine the engaging discourse between Hinckley and Larry King?

As in RED

Flippin' commies.

House Democrats responded to President's Bush's call for Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. This was at an on-camera press conference fed back live.

Among other things, the Democrats called for the government to own refineries so it could better control the flow of the oil supply.

It's moron leftists like them that have kept any new refineries from being built in over 30 years. During the past three decades gasoline consumption has increased while our refining capabilities have been a constant bottle neck.

Naturally these intellectually deficient Marxists offer up government control of refining as a solution. It only further tightens their grip on the lives of us members of the bourgeoisie and proletariat.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the most-ardent opponents of off-shore drilling.

"We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market."

Does anyone dare as one of these Hugo Chavez wannabes just how lowering the price of oil fits into their planned economy? Will it be in the upcoming 5 year plan or will be be relegated to the following one?

How much gasoline will each citizen subject be rationed? Or carbon credits for that matter.

See you all on the breadlines, my comrades!