Arizona Senator Lori Klein - Proud Gun Owner

A New York Times op-ed by Frank Bruni

Tip sent in by Bruce

The dispute was this: Did a local lawmaker intentionally point her loaded .380 Ruger at a newspaper reporter during an interview, or was it all just a silly misunderstanding?

The reporter, Richard Ruelas, who writes for The Arizona Republic, said it was deliberate. Not hostile, mind you, but purposeful: State Senator Lori Klein was proudly showing off her piece. He told this story first in an article published Sunday in The Republic, repeated it in subsequent public comments and went through it one more time on the telephone with me. He sounded incredulous still.

He said that as he sat with Klein just outside the Senate chamber to discuss her gun-toting ways, “I looked down and saw a red dot on my chest.” He looked up and realized the dot was the laser sight of the Ruger, which she carries in her pocketbook. Although he wasn’t sure just then whether it had bullets in it, she informed him — after she’d lowered the pistol — that it always does.

The Republic article caused a public outcry that she had been reckless. Even Arizonans have their limits. She then disputed Ruelas’s account, saying that he had strayed into the gun’s sight as she demonstrated how it worked. After that she went silent.

The author goes on to bemoan the fact that "a cavalier attitude about guns persists and even flourishes" in spite of the recent high profile shooting in Arizona. He states that the Senator's pink gun is not cute and cannot be compared to Häagen-Dazs ice cream. But what in the world does Lori Klein and all the other lawful gun owners have to do with the criminal use of guns? Aren't they two completely separate things? That's what our gun-rights friends keep trying to say.

In my opinion they're all part of the same problem. There's much more in common between criminal gun owners and lawful gun owners than there is between either of them and the gun control folks. Let me explain.

All the guns that are used in crime start out legally owned by someone. In the case of Jared Loughner, he himself was the legitimate and legal owner of the gun, as sad a fact as that is, given the terrible and tragic lack of mental health screening that exists. He bought the gun, and then used it in a crime.

But, the same is true for the inner city hoodlum who shoots a rival drug dealer in Newark. He may have bought the gun from another criminal, in fact his particular gun may have had several illegal owners before it was used in a murder. But if you could trace it back far enough, you would find a point at which it passed from the hand of its legitimate owner to that of a criminal.

This is why we need strong gun control laws at the national level AIMED AT THE LAW ABIDING. No one disputes the fact that criminals won't obey our silly laws. That's exactly the reason, along with the fact that the legitimate gun owners of America seem to have such a hard time holding on to their guns, that we need proper gun control laws.

Of course, if I were writing those laws, Lori Klein would have to relinquish her guns immediately.

(cross posted at Mikeb302000)





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