Shot Down

Right after Bob Costas called for gun control in the wake of football star Jovan Belcher killing his wife and then himself with a gun, Fox News commentators angrily dismissed his remarks as inappropriate and tried to make him shut up, as if Second Amendment rights trumped First Amendment rights.  Jon Stewart mocked Fox News for trying to skirt the gun issue by insisting that people wait for a certain time to comment on the shooting and bring up gun control . . . indeed, until the Belchers' survivors and associates have worked out their grief and gotten over the shootings.  In other words, never.

As Stewart made it clear, it's impossible to wait for a certain time to pass after a shooting to talk about gun control when there's another shooting that takes place just as that time has passed.  Sure enough, there was a mass shooting at an Oregon shopping mall yesterday.  Now we have to wait to bring up gun control again until enough time has passed after this shooting . . . and by that time, there'll be another shooting we'll have to let a certain amount of time follow before we can talk about gun control.

Meanwhile, Illinois' law banning the carrying of concealed weapons - the only law of its kind in the nation - was just struck down by a federal court.

Tell me how proud I should be to be an American . . .  I keep forgetting. :-O