GUNS ARE PEOPLE TOO!

In my lurking on the right, I've noticed that a number of gun and ammo makers are refusing to sell their products to states and municipalities that pass new gun control measures; I've been meaning to find out whether this is really doing any harm to these localities, or whether smart companies are picking up the business made available by the group hissyfit.

What I didn't know was the name the gun community has given to this boycott scheme. Now I know, because I'm sick enough to follow Joe the Plumber on Twitter.

It's being called the "Firearms Equality Movement."

No, really -- here's that term at World Net Daily, and at the AmmoLand site, and in an AP story.

The AP story implies that this isn't a big deal yet: "Large-scale law-enforcement suppliers including Glock, Ruger, Smith & Wesson, and Sig Sauer have not joined the movement," we're told.

But I'm fascinated by the name. What does it mean? Does it mean the wingers actually believe there ought to be equal access to guns across the country, with one national set of gun laws, and no local deviation allowed? (If so, that's a position that makes a mockery of their usual obsession with the 10th Amendment and local control. It also puts them to the right of Antonin Scalia and the rest of the Supreme Court majority in the Heller ruling, which found that there's an individual right to firearm ownership but also acknowledged the constitutionality of certain types of gun laws that exist in some localities and are too strict for others.)

Or does "Firearms Equality" mean that the wingers actually think guns are an oppressed people -- an ethnic group that's being discriminated against? Do the wingers think guns are being unfairly denied the right to sit at lunch counters in New York State or Colorado? Do they think guns are being unconstitutionally deprived of the right to vote?

Hell, if corporations are people, why not guns? Is that next? You get one vote for yourself and one vote for each of your firearms?

I don't think even the wingnuts would go that far -- though, given their fondness for the notion of mandatory gun ownership (five towns in America are either considering making gun ownership mandatory or have already done so), I could easily imagine a movement to limit the vote to firearm owners. Why not? Those damn hippie Democrats don't buy guns. If non-whites are disproportionately imprisoned on drug charges in their youth, they're banned from buying guns when they get out, and that takes care of that problem. So, hell, why not?