Illinois Republican Legislator Compares Gun Regulations To Castration

State Rep. Jim Sacia (R-IL) (Credit: Lane Christiansen)

In a rant on the floor of the Illinois House of Representatives Tuesday, State Rep. Jim Sacia (R) objected to statewide gun violence prevention efforts comparing them to castration.

As the right-wing Red Alert Politics reported, Sacia screamed that the bill was being forced by Chicago legislators because they have a “runaway gun problem.”

SACIA: Don’t blame the rest of us. This isn’t about Democrats, it’s not about Republicans. It’s because Chicago wants a warm fuzzy. “Let’s pass a bill that will eliminate assault rifles.” Last year, there were more people killed with hammers than with assault rifles. Here’s an analogy folks, I ask you to think of this: You folks in Chicago, want me to get castrated because you’re families are having too many kids. It spells out exactly what is happening here! You want us to get rid of guns. … You bet I used Chicago as an example, because you’re the folks that want this craziness.”

Watch the video:

While gun violence is a huge problem in Chicago, the problem is by no means limited to the Windy City. In 2012 alone, a school shooting rocked Normal, a gunman shot five people in a Decatur nightclub, and a gunfight broke out a Rockford nightclub. In 2008, five students Northern Illinois University students were killed by a gunman in DeKalb, Illinois.

Sacia joins a long list of Republicans who dismiss gun violence prevention efforts by suggesting guns are less dangerous than everyday household items.

Last month, Sacia wrote on his personal website that “Gun free zones are killing fields for the deranged.” He also lauded an Australian grandmother for engaging in vigilante justice with an illegal gun, noting that after her granddaughter was raped, “the grandmother personally hunted down the two rapists. She shot one’s manhood completely away and significantly shortened the other’s abilities.”

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GOP Rep Compares Gun Regulation To ‘Banning Spoons’

In an exchange on ABC’s This Week this morning with Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) was outraged that lawmakers reacted to the mass murder of school children by an armed gunman by trying to prevent similarly disturbed individuals from obtaining guns. The Congressman claimed that limiting firearms will have as much impact on reducing gun violence as banning spoons will on preventing obesity:

BARLETTA: This is a perfect example why people believe Washington is broke. This horrific incident in Newtown, and here what is our debate? It’s focusing on guns when there is not one person at this table who really believes that that’s the root of what happened there and — when we have people that get into the mind-set that they want to harm people, as a former mayor, I know people will get guns no matter what laws we pass, just like the illegal drug –

KRUGMAN: I caught you on a false statement there because at least I do believe that guns are the root. There are crazy people everywhere, but mass murderers are a lot more common here than –

BARLETTA: You believe guns are more important than dealing with mental health and our culture. Is our culture lending itself that we’re raising children that are desensitized to murder, to killing people.

KRUGMAN: I look at the international differences — countries that have effective gun control have a lot fewer –

BARLETTA: Would banning spoons stop obesity?

Watch it:

Krugman is correct that America gun violence dwarfs that in most other developed nations. Indeed, among the 34 nations that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only Mexico — which is currently caught in a drug war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives — has a higher rate of gun homicides. Indeed, no other OECD nation even approaches the level of gun violence present in Mexico with its vicious drug gangs or in the United States with its permissive gun laws:

The simple truth is that spoons don’t kill people. Guns do.

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Idaho Lawmaker Compares Abortion To Prostitution

An Idaho lawmaker on Thursday compared abortion to prostitution, arguing that both are “a choice” that women make, and asking members of the Idaho American Civil Liberties to defend prostitution, since they were willing to protect women’s access to abortion services.

Presenting abortion and prostitution as cavaler choices women make and ignoring the real danger of sex slavery, State Rep. Ron Mendive (R) elicited “audible gasps” on Wednesday during a meeting with representatives from the group, which later condemned his comparison:

“He was correlating a criminal action with something that is constitutionally protected. Those are two completely separate issues,” [an ACLU representative said after the event. [...]

“It was just a question,” he said. “I do believe it’s a double standard.”

Prostitution is a choice “more so than an abortion would be,” he said.

“Because (in an abortion) there’s two beating hearts. And then there’s one,” Mendive said.

Asked later whether he stood by what he had said, Mendive offered, “Maybe it was a poor illustration.”

For some women, sex work is in fact a choice, and questions have been raised as to whether the United States should consider honoring that work as legal employment. But that does not mean that all sex work is voluntary, and, in any case, it is no reason to invite a comparison with abortion.

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Sherrod Brown Compares GOP Governors to Hitler, Stalin

Promoted from diaries.

Last year while governors across the Midwest worked to reform broken public union laws, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) slandered them in a speech that could have easily been written by one of the millionaire “leaders” at SEIU, NEA, or AFSCME.

During one of his stemwinders about the wondrous things unions do, Sherrod dropped a reductio ad Hitlerum on Governor Kasich (OH), Governor Walker (WI), and Governor Christie (NJ):

Bizarrely, Sherrod claims he’s not comparing Kasich, Walker, and Christie to Hitler, Stalin, and Mubarak in the middle of comparing them to Hitler, Stalin, and Mubarak. While he’s conflating overdue reforms with mass murder, Sherrod also repeats one of his favorite deceptions by pretending government unions are the same as private industry unions.

Several media outlets noted the dictatorial portion of Sherrod’s rant, and the next day he apologized for stepping in it:

“But in speaking about this, I should not have mentioned the hostility of tyrants like Hitler to unions,” Brown said. “I don’t want my mistake to distract from the critical debate in Ohio, and I apologize for it.”

Sherrod didn’t want “to distract from the critical debate” over public union reform! Even now, slamming Ohio’s Senate Bill 5 as an “attack on workers” is the cornerstone of Sherrod’s stump speech – yet he always runs out of time before debating any of the critical specifics. Big Labor’s opponents are evil because it’s evil to oppose Big Labor.

Sherrod Brown is desperate to get additional mileage out of the union bosses’ $40 million smear campaign, but remember what was actually in Ohio’s union reform bill:

Replace automatic step increases with merit pay for public workers.Require public employees to pay 10% of their pension costs and 15% of their health insurance costs.End forced payment of “fair-share” fees for public workers who don’t want to join a union.End last-in, first-out firing policies, requiring considerations other than tenure when local governments must make layoffs.Public workers retain the privilege of collective bargaining for wages & working conditions, but may no longer go on strike against the public.

No less the Progressive than FDR, patron saint of caring Democrats, knew public unions are an awful idea. Either Sherrod Brown is too dense to recognize government and private industry are different, or he’s been lying for years to protect his favorite interest group.

Footnote: This clip is from the same speech where Sherrod claimed public union reform violates Christian principles. Refer again to the bullet points above; those are the sort of hateful reforms that get you slandered on the Senate floor as a tyrannical heathen by Sherrod Brown.

Transcript of the C-SPAN clip follows.

Sherrod Brown: Because we, as a country, we stand for a more egalitarian workforce. We stand for worker rights. We believe workers should organize and bargain collectively, if they choose. We believe in a minimum wage. We believe in workers’ compensation. We believe in worker safety. We believe in human rights, and all of that is about the labor movement, and, you know, you can support labor rights in Guatemala, but you better damn be sure you’re supporting labor rights in Wilmington, and Columbus, and Cleveland, and, and Detroit, and Dover, Delaware, and everywhere else.

And that’s, um, that’s, those were, those were some of the words Secretary Clinton said – I’m obviously expanding on them – but, as a nation, you know, I I I I look back at history and some of the worst governments we’ve ever had, you know one of the first things they did? They went after the trade unions. Hitler didn’t want unions, Stalin didn’t want unions, Mubarak didn’t want independent unions. These, these autocrats in history don’t want independent unions. So when I see, when I see in Egypt, or if I see in, in the old Soviet Russia, or I see – history tells me about Germany – I, I, I’m not, I’m not comparing what’s happening to the workers in Madison or in Columbus to Hitler and Stalin, but I am saying that history teaches us that unions are a very positive force in society that creates a middle class and that protects our freedom.

Cross-posted from jasonahart.com

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