Gun Control and New Mexico Senators

I am a guns rights person, a second amendment person, and am generally opposed to any additional gun control.  Since political opportunists Dianne Feinstein and Charles Schumer attempted to use the tragedy at Sandy Hook elementary to push yet another assault on law abiding gun owners, I have sent emails to both US Senators and Michelle Lujan Griffin opposing action on assault weapons and high capacity magazines.  Yesterday the Senate voted on increased background checks, the assault weapons ban, and a high capacity magazine ban.  Both of our Senators voted for the magazine bans and for expanded background checks.  Don't forget in 2014!

If you think magazine limitations are a great idea, read this article.  It is biased towards gun rights but makes the case for larger capacity magazines - especially for women.

Senator Heinrich has six more years before reelection but Senator Udall is up for reelection in 2014.  It is not too soon to get behind a primary challenge to Udall if you can find a Democrat in this state who has the courage to buck the liberal establishment in that party or to start looking and working for a rational Republican opponent.  Same thing for Martin Heinrich but we will have to wait 6 years.

America, Freedom of Speech, Terrorism, Domestic or Foreign

While I, like most of America, deplore the bombings at the Boston Marathon and the sending of ricin-laden letters to The President and Senator Wicker of Mississippi, the flood of news articles on the bombings and the ricin-laden letters, inadvertently shed a little light on our nation’s tradition of freedom of speech.   Several articles on the pressure cooker bombs made reference to The Anarchist’s Cookbook, a 1971 publication as having directions for the making pressure cooker bombs.  While I have not read the book so I cannot confirm that it is a source of information on producing ricin, the FBI (here) noted that a copy of The Anarchist’s Cookbook tabbed to a page that included, “How to Prepare Ricin” was found in the search of the room of Roger Bergendorff, later convicted of manufacturing ricin.  This piqued my interest as I recall reading news reports of the book in the early 1970’s and was surprised that it had survived the years if that information was included.