Mark Kelly’s Follies
Mark Kelly has been having terrible luck trying to sell his anti-gun message to the masses. In an attempt to prove how easy it was to buy an “assault” (the improper term for a semi-automatic) weapon, he has shown his hypocrisy and his ignorance. To add to his follies, he and his daughter are caught on video this week fruitlessly attempting to bring another dangerous weapon under their control before it claimed a life. The whole thing would be funny if it wasn’t for the seriousness of the situation.
First let’s talk about Mr. Kelly’s gun purchase. For those of you who might have missed this story, Mr. Kelly decided to go to Diamondback Police Supply on March 5, 2013 to purchase a 1911 style handgun and an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Witnesses claimed that Mr. Kelly also purchased high capacity magazines during his visit. He filled out the paperwork that is required for the background check on the handgun and he left the store with his 1911 handgun and not; I repeat, not his AR-15 rifle. Why you may ask? Because the AR-15 had a previous owner and per the gun shop there is a 20 day waiting period to make sure the weapon wasn’t stolen or used in any criminal activity. Once that weapon is cleared then Mr. Kelly can start the background check paperwork for the AR-15 rifle.
When word got out that Mr. Kelly was trying to purchase the very weapon he was trying to have banned, he tells Wolf Blitzer that he was just seeing how easy it is to buy an assault weapon. He not only said that it was very easy (remember, the weapon was still under the 20 day waiting period at the time), but that he was going to turn the weapon over to the Tucson PD and had no intention of keeping it. This brings us to the updated portion of the story. Diamondback Police Supply has decided to cancel Mr. Kelly’s AR-15 purchase and refund his money because the store’s owner has expressed concern that Mr. Kelly will not be using this weapon for his personal use. Gee, it looks like it’s harder to buy an “assault” weapon after all. That took a lot of work from Mr. Kelley to prove what gun rights advocates knew all along; that enforcing the laws on the books keeps guns out of the wrong hands.
I wish to now touch on the fact that there’s a bit of cosmic Karma at play with Mr. Kelly right now. He has become a crusader to prove that the average person has no use for or has the ability to safely handle “assault” weapons. Who would have thought that such a safety conscious citizen would be in the news for his and his daughter’s inability to handle a vicious dog? While on vacation in Laguna Beach, Mark Kelly’s daughter was walking her American Bull Dog on the beach when it apparently broke from its restraint and attacked a sea lion. Mr. Kelly’s daughter was unable to control this dog and pull it from the neck of the sea lion. It took Mr. Kelly to intervene and rip said dog from the neck of the animal who subsequently died later. Now, I don’t know anything about American Bull Dogs since I’ve grown up with German Shepherds and now own a Labrador Retriever. It turns out that these are very powerful dogs that were originally bred for the sport of Bull Baiting.
I am in no way besmirching the breed of dog that Mr. Kelly decided to give his daughter, and I know people that own that particular breed and they are lovely animals. But a man who is so concerned with “assault” weapons falling into the wrong hands failed to consider that he put a powerful dog that is not under proper control into the wrong hands. Police said that there was no attack on a human so the Kelly’s will not face charges for the mauling death of the sea lion. But just as Mr. Kelly can “what if…” a scenario that involved the guns that he wishes to ban, any one of us can do the same with regards to his daughter’s dog ownership. It looks like he needs to examine his own home for potential deadly hazards for a change instead of worrying about a well-regulated gun industry.
