Slow Hand

A fully-automatic AR-16, the military equivalent of the gun James Holmes used in Colorado, is capable of firing 800 rounds per minute. That's roughly 13 bullets per second.

Holmes' AR-15 was semi-automatic, which means it could fire bullets as fast as he could pull the trigger. That's about 200 rounds per minute.

You cannot legally own a fully automatic rifle, basically a machine gun, in this country except under very special circumstances. But why not? What's the difference between being shot by three bullets per second versus thirteen bullets per second? You're just as dead.

My point here is that if we can write laws that limit guns to a certain rate of fire, which we clearly already have, then why not simply limit guns to, say, one bullet per minute? This would be similar to the rate of fire of a flintlock rifle, the standard weapon when the Amendments to the Constitution were written. At the very least we could limit all guns to one bullet at a time, no magazines or banana clips. A one-shooter.

You may think this is a dumb idea, but what is really dumb is allowing anyone and everyone easy access to weapons that fire 200 rounds per minute.

=Lefty=

Oh, That Mitt.

Mitt Romney goes to London and proceeds to put his big, fat Mormon feet in his mouth. It was such a thorough embarrassment there are conjectures that it was actually:

(1) A story by The Onion.

(2) A new movie by Sasha Baron Cohen.

(3) Mitt outsourcing his campaign to China. ("Obama sociarist. He not Angro-saxon enough.")

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Mother Jones just printed a story looking into the details of Mitt's role as overseer of the Salt Lake City Olympics. It's a torrid little tale of pork-barrels, cronies, and slush funds in an Olympics that cost three times what London spent on theirs.

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Mitt also took time on Wednesday to claim that the guns used in the Aurora massacre were illegally purchased. (They were all legal.) Way to toss that NRA salad, Mitt.

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Video Time!

Wouldn't it be great if we had footage of Mitt Romney denouncing his current pro-life stance?

An exclusive Raging Pencils bumper-sticker! Get yours now at zazzle.com

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President Obama's Top 50 Accomplishments

Number 9: Repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".

Ended 1990s-era restriction and formalized new policy allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.








For the full list of his 50 finest achievements read the Washington Monthly story.

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And now our Chart of the Day: Minimum Wage Stagnation



Larger version of the chart here.
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Republican Job Creation Update

7-27-2012: On Wednesday the 25th the House voted to require a full audit of the Federal Reserve. On Thursday the 26th the House spent most of the day passing amendments for suspension bills, plus one whole hour to fix one typo. No jobs were created.

For the full 2001-2012 list of Republican sloth please visit republicanjobcreation.com.

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Fox News Lies. Dump Fox News

Taking the even-handed, nonpartisan approach to political analysis, Fox's Kimberly Guilfoyle reminds us that if we want the country to fail then we should re-elect President Obama. She also said the president eats boogers and has poopy-pants. Sheesh.

Click here to help Drop Fox from your cable system.