Guns.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was perusing various sites across the internet when he came upon a number of pieces concerning guns. Your Maximum Leader decided to opine some.

First on Keith Burgess-Jackson's site there was an interesting posting from a NY Times editorial. Keith's post states that gun owners have a love of liberty and security. This love moves them to own guns. Your Maximum Leader agrees with these premises. As for the subject of the editorial (Virginia gun owners wearing their holstered guns in public - specifically the suburbs of Washington DC) your Maximum Leader is concerned about one thing. While he supports the rights of citizens to bear their arms in public, he is concerned that doing so may lull the bearer into a false sense of security, or possibly recklessness. Gun owners have a responsibility to themselves and to other citizens to be aware of their surroundings, and act according to the laws of their state and of good sense. Generally your Maximum Leader believes that if you want to carry your guns on your person, you should get a concealed carry permit, and take the requisite class.

And one more note on this, your Maximum Leader was in Reston last week, and believes he may have seen someone walking along the street wearing a gun. Interesting coincidence.

While checking out the news wires, your Maximum Leader came across this piece on the Reuters wire. It is interesting. Your Maximum Leader was most interested about Jim Kessler and his group, Americans for Gun Safety. Here is the Americans for Gun Safety (AGS) web site. For a group that seems to be advocating a "A moderate, sensible approach to guns." the final quote of the Reuters piece seemed odd. AGS spokesperson Jim Kessler, speaking about the spread of concealed carry laws, said:

"They are ineffective in stopping crime but they also seem to be unharmful and have not led to mass shootings the way some on the left feared."

This line struck your Maximum Leader odd. In the context of the article it seems as AGS was opposed to conceal carry laws, and would fight them if they didn't seem so harmless. This last quote was odd because of the earlier Kessler quotation concerning the expiration of the "assult weapons ban." Kessler is quoted by Reuters as saying:

"The assault weapons ban has no chance of being extended unless President Bush gets forcefully behind it but Bush has apparently made a naked political calculation."

Reading this quotation made your Maximum Leader assume that Reuters was just being biased and quoting an anti-gun advocate.

So which was it? Is AGS just confused? So your Maximum Leader did some checking... Humm... It seems that AGS was founded by a large grant from Andrew McKelvey. McKelvey, the founder and CEO of Monster.com, was the donor who convinced Handgun Control, Inc. to change their name to the less left-wing Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Now it is all coming back to your Maximum Leader... AGS is all about incrimental gun illegalization.

Nice of Reuters to be so unbiased.

Your Maximum Leader supposes he will just have to take a walk through town with his Ruger Vaquero in his belt just to make a point.

Carry on.