Prosecutors from major cities across the United States announced the formation Wednesday of an alliance to combat gun violence, even as national gun control legislation is frozen on Capitol Hill.

An October summit of the prosecutors, which organizers say will be the first of its kind, is notable for both the range of cities represented—Milwaukee’s lead prosecutor will sit side by side with Los Angeles’—and for the cooperation among disparate offices.

“What I want to achieve at the end of the day is to have very smart, dedicated people get together and start to talk about gun violence, and put the voice of prosecutors into this debate,” New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., co-chair of the new Prosecutors Against Gun Violence, told TIME in an interview. “We want to share what’s working for us.”

via Local Prosecutors Form Nationwide Alliance Against Gun Violence | TIME.

Yes, pretty much is going to be a bunch of Mayors from different cities talking…and that’s it. I mean, it is important that there is a perception that they are doing something because:

Vance said American cities are facing an “epidemic” of gun violence that has become a “fact of life.” There were 11,068 firearm homicides in the United States in 2011, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with a homicide rate of 3.6 per 100,000 people. Many of the prosecutors, including Vance and co-chair Mike Feuer, the City Attorney in Los Angeles, have publicly supported stricter gun control. Vance supported the NY SAFE Act, which New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the toughest gun control law in the country.

If they say it, it must be true! Not only that but they have the statistics to prove it, right?

Despite the sense of urgency among prosecutors, gun violence has fallen significantly in the United States since 1993, with firearm-related homicides dropping 39% by 2011, according to Pew Research.

And also according to that unimportant government entity called the FBI and its Unified Crime Report. But don’t mind that, we need that sense of urgency to pass more Gun Control Laws because elections!

Vance said the decline in gun violence was due to successful policing strategies and the increasing severity with which prosecutors treat gun cases. Community organizations, Vance said, have also put pressure on police and politicians to tamp down on neighborhood .

And I won’t deny that proper police work and other policies have helped bring crime down, but according to their own words, the liberalization of gun laws we had should have helped increase the crime rate by orders of magnitude, instead crime keeps dropping.

So why Manhattan Prosecutor Cyrus Vance, Jr. is so intent on this October meet? It would not have a thing to do with his working under the tutelage of one Michael Bloomberg when he was a mayor, would it?

Is there a Bible-based theology that justifies an emphasis of personal defense and deregulation of gun sales and ownership? Not really, says a panel of activists who fight for good gun regulation out of their personal religious motivations.

via ‘Jesus was not a member of the NRA;’ no biblical grounds for emphasis on self-defense | AL.com.

You have to love the twisted slogans and logical fallacies some come up with to try to push a political agenda under the cloak of The Cloth. No, Jesus was not a member of the NRA for obvious reasons: There was no Friends of the NRA chapter in Judea some 2,000 years ago. Nor there is a Bible-based theology that justifies deregulation of gun sales and ownership the same way there is no Bible-based theology that explains the correct tune up procedures for a Harley Davidson Electra Glide: Neither existed in biblical times.

However, there is plenty of material regarding self-defense and it is even doctrine. From Exodus 22:2-3 : “If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.” to Luke 22:36: “..But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a sack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.”

In Judaism we see Maimonides (Laws of Shabbat 3:23) : “It is a mitzvah for all Jews who are able to come and help defend their brethren to do so, and it is forbidden to delay their coming until after Shabbat.” We also have Sanhedrin 72a:“If someone comes to kill you, arise and kill him first” and Choshen Mishpat 125:1: “If one sees that someone is pursuing him with the intention to kill him, he is permitted to defend himself and take the life of he who is pursuing him.”

The Catechism of Catholic Church states in 2263: “The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not.( St. Thomas Aquinas.)” It also says in 2264: “Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one’s own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow.”

If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s.
St. Thomas Aquinas

Heck it even goes as far as common defense in 2265: “Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.”

Maybe these “Men of the Cloth should be reminded of Matthew 23:

²⁷ Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.

²⁸ Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

Harsh but necessary words for those who play politics under the umbrella of God.

(Curtain opens and we see MICHAEL BLOOMBERG as COLONEL JUAN PERON dressed in full military gala. Cue to the music of Evita’s Rainbow Tour)

Bloomberg/Peron: People of America! I send you the Rainbow of Zionsville!

On September 23, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America founder Shannon Watts embarks on a seven state “road show” for gun control candidates.
Stops will be made in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Minnesota, Maine, Maryland, and Oregon in the coming three weeks. There will also be a stop in Seattle, Washington, to push Initiative 594–the gun control initiative being funded by millionaires and billionaires like Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Mike Allen, and Michael Bloomberg.

via Moms Demand Founder Embarks on Seven State ‘Road Show’ for Gun Control Candidates.

So Shannon is in a Magical Tour to support mid-term election candidates but strangely, mostly in states where Gun Control is well planted and with little challenge from evil pro gun candidates.

This has to be part of the Everytown Gun Sense Voter campaign in which they copied the NRA and sent questionnaires to politicians in re-election mode. If the results they got back are like the ones in Florida, it is understandable why they kept the tour so short:
Out of the possible 27 congressional seats that Florida has, Everytown/Moms Demand managed to get ONE candidate to support.

Make no mistake: Shannon will be given the full court royal treatment and will be portrayed as prime example that Americans want Gun Control as if she was traveling all 57 states instead of 7.  But they need to make noise and not risk being seen as failures so they will play only in houses where they can get 100% collaborations without the risk of being embarrassed by bigger pro-gun demonstrations as it has happened in the past.

(Again, cue to the music of Evita’s Rainbow Tour)
BLOOMBERG/PERON and OTHER GUN CONTROL OFFICERS
Let’s hear it for the Rainbow Tour
It’s been an incredible success
We weren’t quite sure, we had a few doubts
Would our Shannon win through?

And the answer is….

If you feel like suddenly your Twitter feed or your Facebook timeline is getting an unusual amount of pro Gun Control items, you may not be imagining it. If your local news rag is suddenly pontificating the need for Universal Background Checks and portraying you as a fat, psychotic redneck ready to kill baby black boys coming home from church, it is not hypersensitivity on your part.

Welcome to the Great Gun Control Electoral Push of 2014.

Take my local bird-poop catcher’s online edition this morning:

Upfront and center, Fabiola Santiago tell us about the case in the Central Florida town of Bell where Don Spirit killed his daughter and six grandchildren and then killed himself. As you can see the culprit is a “gun-loving culture” and not a convicted felon with a history of drug problems and domestic violence.

But how disingenuous is Ms. Santiago? Plenty. I guess in the spirit of trying to be seen as impartial (or just being stupid) Ms Santiago let us know in the article that “The highly dysfunctional Spirit family was well-known to local and state authorities, who had been to the home to intervene in quarrels between father and daughter and to investigate neglect, threats, and violence by Spirit.”

She also tells you with a fresh face that “there’s mounting evidence that local and state authorities failed to protect these vulnerable children. For one, the long father-daughter history of drug abuse, domestic abuse and unlawful conduct, including illegal gun possession, was readily available.“  and if that is not enough, that “The state’s Department of Children and Families, alerted to problems with Sarah Spirit’s parenting as early as 2007.“

We pay a high price to live in a culture that worships guns and a man’s right to own them, amass them, and proudly expose his vulnerable children to them — a culture that stereotypes criminals and too often chooses to look the other way when they’re one of their own. We pay a high price to turn our eyes away from inherited cycles of poverty, from the lack of mental health services and the need for contraception, no matter what’s preached in church.