GUNNERS: THE CRAZY BARREL HAS NO BOTTOM

Pat Dollard -- prominent right-wing blogger and Breitbart columnist -- thinks there may be something sinister in the fact that two gun manufacturers have recently died. Here's a January 11 post from his blog titled "Two Gun Makers Killed in Two Days, and No Answers":

Excerpted from The Examiner: On Friday, January 4, the owner of Noveske Rifleworks, 36-year-old John Noveske, was killed in a single-vehicle accident on Highway 260 in Oregon....

Noveske, himself often posted pro-liberty messages on the page, such as: "Socialism is fun until you run out of other people's money."

His company primarily produced customized AR-15s....

Only a day earlier, the lifeless body of 32-year-old Keith Ratliff was found at FPS Industries in Franklin County, Ga., just outside of Carnesville. He had been shot once in the head, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation....

FPS Industries, which Ratliff managed, builds firearms and develops weapons technology.

Of course, several weapons were found at the scene, all to which Ratliff would have had easy access.

His widow, Amanda Ratliff told WSBTV: "You know, it just doesn't really add up." ...

All sorts of wingers agree with Dollard that this is suspicious:

* First Keith Ratliff, Now John Noveske - Victims Of "Gun Control Crackdown"?
* John noveske & Keith Ratliff murdered:coincidence?
* Is Obama ordering Death Squads to assassinate Gun Activists?

Well, first of all, there's no evidence that Noveske was murdered. He died on the highway in a single-car accident -- we're told that "the Toyota Land Cruiser driven by Noveske left the road near El Camino Way, and slammed into two boulders. The vehicle rolled and Noveske was ejected. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt.

Apart from that, the conspiratorialists don't have much of a theory for why two gun manufacturers who were well known in the gun world but unknown to most of the rest of us would have been assassinated by the evil government. Because, um, they both made guns? Yeah, and their deaths are going to get the liberal fascist Kenyan in the White House closer to totalitarian conquest how exactly?

A much-discussed theory as to why Noveske was killed has to do with the fact that he had just put up a Facebook post arguing that prescription drugs are the real cause of school shootings, not guns. That theory is all over the Net. Yup, that's the theory: criticize psychoactive prescription drugs and the government will kill you. Tom Cruise, watch your back!

Employees of Noveske's firm have mourned his death with, um, toplessness. No, really (the naughty bits, which show up around 26 seconds in, are covered with black bands, so this is only semi-NSFW):





I don't know much about this guy, but that convinces me he was a true patriot.

As for Ratliff, well, Vice raises the question of international gun trafficking in connection with his death. Whether that's even more paranoid than thinking President Obama had the guy killed I can't say:

On January 3, the producer of popular gun-loving YouTube channel "FPS Russia" was found dead in Georgia at his business. Keith Ratliff, 32, was discovered with a single bullet in the back of his head. Scattered around him were various weapons, some of which he'd modified himself. Some early articles also suggested Ratliff had been tied to a chair at some point before he was murdered and then found on a rural road, but those reports now seem to be false....

Now, if we look at various videos on the FPS Russia channel -- the firing of an explosive crossbow; the assembly of a DRD Paratus-18, which is an assassin-type "suitcase machine gun;" and even the unloading of a rocket launcher -- it's fair to presume that Ratliff obtained these weapons with his "type 10" FFL [Federal firearm license] connections. This type 10 license allows the owner to "manufacture firearms, ammunition, ammunition components, destructive devices, ammunition for destructive devices, and armor piercing ammunition." It also permits the owner to deal in all the aforementioned items. The money to be made with one of these licenses is incredible if you have the right kind of connections -- someone with a type 11 license, for example....

There is no specific evidence that Keith Ratliff or FPS Russia are involved in any kind of arms dealing -- something I did try to contact them about -- but considering the way Keith was killed and his very public connection to guns, it's a clear possibility that can't be ignored.

But to repeat: the gunners have such tunnel vision that they think these two deaths -- of guys most of the rest of us have never heard of -- could advance the White House's political aims. Why? Because they were pro-gun and criticized the anti-gun side? Because the weapons they produced were a tiny part of the permanent tsunami of firearms in America? Give me a break.