Not Helpful (National Sunday Law Edition)

Oh, for ....

This was one of those crazy bills in which lawmakers want people to be able to bring concealed weapons into public buildings. Allen got upset because a few people expressed common sense opposition to the idea. Lawmakers here cannot abide common sense.

Allen said, “Probably we should be debating a bill requiring every American to attend a church of their choice on Sunday to see if we can get back to having a moral rebirth,” adding “that would never be allowed.”

She hinted that guns in public buildings might be necessary until there is a moral rebirth.

(Montini)

Okay, this is actually really important.

The idea is called National Sunday Law, and is a particular paranoia of certain Christian sects in the United States. And it ties into anti-Catholicism, conspiracy theories about the influence of Marxists and Witches in the New World Order, and even the black helicopter tinfoil, because apparently at some point the U.N. is going to send its secret army to invade the United States and arrest all the Sabbatarians and put them in tiger cages to await execution. Or, at least, so says at least one version of the conspiracy theory.

And if one has never heard of this discussion, perhaps some of our hardline right-wing discourse seems shot through with some sort of incomprehensible fear. And, yes, these conspiracy theories are actually exceptionally important. This is one of those seemingly incomprehensible fears; there are more believers than we might ordinarily guess.

One easy way to familiarize yourself with the idea is to walk into a Seventh-Day Adventist bookstore and simply ask someone to show you the section on National Sunday Law.

An Update: It Ain’t the Mulberries

Excess flake can by an embarrassing problem, especially when it is not something that can be cleared up with shampoo. Even more so for Arizona, where it turns out that one Flake really is too many.

Senator Jeff Flake, that is. The junior Republican senator from Arizona last month, in trying to make the case justifying his vote against the background checks firearm bill, managed to make the case that maybe he just isn’t ready for the major leagues.

And as one might expect after that kind of preface, yes, Sen. Flake is back at it:

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) is pushing back against attack ads that say he broke his promise to support passing new gun laws.

“If you are anywhere close to a television set in Arizona in the coming days, you’ll likely see an ad about gun control financed by NYC Mayor Bloomberg,” Flake wrote Friday on his Facebook page. “Contrary to the ad, I did vote to strengthen background checks.”

Flake is responding to ads from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s (I) group that supports tightening gun laws. Recent advertising by the group accuses Flake of breaking his promise to help pass expanded background checks.

Flake voted against an amendment co-sponsored by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that would have expanded background checks to include firearms purchases at gun shows and over the Internet. But Flake says he did not break his promise because he supported an alternate gun control proposal by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

The most obvious problem with this approach to the issue is that others have tried, and the tack doesn’t work. Indeed, Flake himself has already tried it, and, well, it didn’t work.

No, really.

Your Tea Party

Ladies and gentlemen, your Tea Party, via The Arizona Republic:

Tea-party activists called McCain “out of touch” when the senator said he didn’t know about United Nations “Agenda 21.”One man described the initiative as a “takeover of the United States of America by taking over our farms.”

“First, our firearms, then our farms,” another man added.

McCain said no Congress would allow that to happen, but that didn’t satisfy several in the room who subscribed to the theory.

It’s almost enough to make one feel sorry for the guy. (Almost.)