Category Archives: Crap For Brains

People and especially governments do some incredibly stupid stuff. This is about those stupid actions.

Quote of the day–Sarah Ibarruri

Posted on by

If you found that amusing, you don’t need to explain anything else about why you are obsessed with guns. I think you’ve explained it all.

…

If you didn’t, then you wouldn’t find guns amusing and fun. You’d admit that being obsessed with contraptions whose purpose is to murder, is not an amusement or a fun activity.

Sarah Ibarruri
November 24, 2009
In comments to Why would any one in their right mind be against strict gun control? (and here).
[And that is what they think of you. They believe the purpose of guns is to murder (I guess that is why the police carry them). They believe anyone who desires to own guns has a desire to murder. And that is why they think it is acceptable to have men with guns (the government) prevent you from possessing a gun.

It is my belief she has mental problems.–Joe]

Dr. Strangelove is alive!

Posted on by

As Sebastian reported yesterday it appears we may have another major attack on our gun rights coming up. I’m of the opinion our allies in D.C. should suggest amendments to the bill to include terrorist list checks before people are allowed to become members of a religion, or maybe in a different political climate before being allowed to not have a religion. And of course, since ideas are more powerful than guns they should take the advice of Joseph Stalin and check their lists before allowing people to express their ideas as well. 

Given that Stalin and the former Soviet Union are now drawn into this I can point out that Dr. Strangelove is apparently alive and is now contributing to the war on the other side. The enemies of freedom are now claiming the U.S. government needs to Close the Terror Gap.

I think Strangelove’s “mine shaft gap” made more sense.

Explosives charge over the top

Posted on by

It’s a little hard to tell from the article but it appears a guy was making .223 shell casings into explosive devices:

Robert J. Heintz Jr., 36, of Deep Creek Road, has been charged with risking a catastrophe, unlawful possession or manufacture of weapons of mass destruction and recklessly endangering another person in connection with Friday night’s explosion. Heintz, who suffered a serious hand injury during the explosion, was arrested. He had been released from an area hospital on Sunday.

…

When authorities interviewed Heintz at the hospital, he claimed that he purchased .223 rounds off the Internet from Bulgaria and claimed that the tips were loose on the rounds, according to the arrest affidavit. Heintz allegedly claimed that he was attempting to place the tip back in place with a pliers at the time of the blast.

Heintz, according to the arrest affidavit, told police that he researched “some recipes on the Internet” and downloaded them on his computer. Heintz further claimed that he had mixed a batch using the instructions from the Internet and packed the substance into the .223 round, police alleged.

“He continued to explain that he attempted to ignite these rounds in his back yard with no success of detonation,” Moyer alleged. “Heintz explained that he went back into the house to do another round at the computer table, packing the recipe into the brass when the bullet exploded.”

He is being charged with possession or manufacture of weapons of mass destruction? That seems more than a bit excessive from the information I can glean from the article. I would have given him an honorable mention for a Darwin Award and told him to apologize to his wife for making a mess in the house.

Here is a hint for people that don’t want my nomination for Darwin Awards in the Explosives category. Don’t let metal come in contact with metal in the presence of explosives. Even if you don’t use metals that can create sparks the point of contact between the two metal surfaces generates tremendous pressures. Imagine one pound of force applied to your pliers that makes contact with another piece of metal on an area that is 0.010 x 0.010 inches square. That is 10,000 PSI. Those sorts of pressures, even when confined to an exceedingly small piece of material can initiate a chain reaction. This is part of the reason so many pipe bombers end up blowing themselves up. The threads of the steel pipe create extreme pressures and start a reaction resulting in the rapid dissasembly of the bomb builder a few milliseconds later.

Add the U.K.

Posted on by

You can add the U.K. to my list of places I don’t want to visit until they start selling hunting tags for politicians and the police.

This is just too outrageous:

A former soldier who handed a discarded shotgun in to police faces at least five years imprisonment for “doing his duty”. Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday – after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year.

The jury took 20 minutes to make its conviction, and Mr Clarke now faces a minimum of five year’s imprisonment for handing in the weapon. In a statement read out in court, Mr Clarke said: “I didn’t think for one moment I would be arrested. I thought it was my duty to hand it in and get it off the streets.”

The court heard how Mr Clarke was on the balcony of his home in Nailsworth Crescent, Merstham, when he spotted a black bin liner at the bottom of his garden. In his statement, he said:

“I took it indoors and inside found a shorn-off shotgun and two cartridges.I didn’t know what to do, so the next morning I rang the Chief Superintendent, Adrian Harper, and asked if I could pop in and see him. At the police station, I took the gun out of the bag and placed it on the table so it was pointing towards the wall.”

Mr Clarke was then arrested immediately for possession of a firearm at Reigate police station, and taken to the cells.

Defending, Lionel Blackman told the jury Mr Clarke’s garden backs onto a public green field, and his garden wall is significantly lower than his neighbours. He also showed jurors a leaflet printed by Surrey Police explaining to citizens what they can do at a police station, which included “reporting found firearms”.

Quizzing officer Garnett, who arrested Mr Clarke, he asked: “Are you aware of any notice issued by Surrey Police, or any publicity given to, telling citizens that if they find a firearm the only thing they should do is not touch it, report it by telephone, and not take it into a police station?” To which, Mr Garnett replied: “No, I don’t believe so.”

Prosecuting, Brian Stalk, explained to the jury that possession of a firearm was a “strict liability” charge – therefore Mr Clarke’s allegedly honest intent was irrelevant. Just by having the gun in his possession he was guilty of the charge, and has no defence in law against it, he added. But despite this, Mr Blackman urged members of the jury to consider how they would respond if they found a gun. He said: “This is a very small case with a very big principle.

Bigotry against gun ownership gone wild.

Via Kevin.

And your point is?

Posted on by

ATF says E. Washington source of Mexico guns:

Agent Steve Foreman told a forum Thursday in Yakima that gun shows in Eastern Washington are the main problem because unlicensed dealers avoid making background checks on the buyers.

Foreman said the investigation into one drug cartel shootout in Tijuana traced 15 pistols and rifles back to the Tri-Cities.

Notice they didn’t say the 15 guns were sold at gun shows. But they worded it in such a way that it leads one to believe that.

And 15 guns? What’s your point? Most of the gun owners I know have more guns than that. I know a guy in the Tri-Cities that had that many guns stolen from his home.

Are they attempting to justify a law that will interfere with a specific enumerated right exercised by millions of people yet can be circumvented by stealing the guns found in just one home?

Go away and come back again when someone finds your brain for you.

Update: The complete story is here. I see nothing in the story to change my opinion stated above.

Question

Posted on by

What do you call a bunch of people, hated by our enemies, stuck in close quarters with no means of self defense?

Answer; “Fish in a barrel”.

“Target Rich Environment” comes to mind also.  This in response to that perpetual blithering idiot, Paul Helmke.  I don’t really even like talking about him, because in reality it’s probably a complete waste of time.  That and he’s getting, right here, far more attention than he deserves.  We should spend more time talking about good or interesting things, or ideas that can solve problems and he’s none of the above.  Flies, ants, hornets, and mosquitoes, do tend to get one’s attention though, even at the best of picnics.  If he can take credit for something, I suppose that’s it– being the annoying parasite at the gathering of minds.  Where’s my fly swatter?

It Boggles the Mind

Posted on by

Reading the swarm of comments over on Oleg’s blog, it seems a lot of military folks, those with real experience, favor keeping people disarmed in barracks and around the base;

It may be hard for some to comprehend, but putting on ACUs doesn’t make you a weapons proficient commando. If they let every cook, clerk, and nurse carry around loaded weapons 24/7 there would be many more “accidental” deaths than this per year.

Exactly what the anti gun rights activists say about the population in general, and it’s been proven wrong.  We have more guns than ever, and the accident rate continues to fall.  Not weapons proficient?  Them train them, then arm them.  In that order.  Takes only a short while.  Put the second amendment back in force and more of them will be proficient, to some degree, when they arrive, which was of course the original idea, wasn’t it, Skippy?

The average “soldier” doesn’t shoot for a living and non-combat arms (the vast majority is support) troops are lucky to even see the range twice a year.

Poor training.  Basing policy on poor training is worse than just poor training alone.  So, we can afford billion-dollar bombers, and gazzillion-dollar satellite networks and all that, but a few extra cartridges for a week of training is out of the freaking question.  Even then, I assume there has to be at least a few in the barracks who know one end of a gun from another.  I know– I just don’t understand.  I’d understand if I were in the military, that you don’t train too many people too well, ’cause that’s “dangerous”, even though I see every day here in the real world that that line of thinking is pure horseshit.  The more people equipped and trained in the use of arms, the safer your whole society, and the more versatile and effective your military.  If you people don’t trust your own, you need to seriously get the f^#K out.  Now.

They would also have to lock the base down from un-verified (without prior clearance) civilian entry as weapons would be too easily accessed.

“Civilian entry”?  Like at my house, where there’s infinitely more firepower than in military barracks?  Like at a gun store or a gun show, or a shooting range, practically anywhere in the country?  So then, it’s fine to just let any stranger onto a military base so long as that base is almost as unarmed as a kindergarten-school-gun-free-zone, and it would be worse to let strangers in if people on the base were mostly all armed and capable of defending themselves?  That’s hippie logic, right there, folks.  It’s right out of Diane Feinstein’s teeny tiny little bird brain.

Somebody (re)educate me here (haul me to a camp or something) ’cause I figure that if you’re training an army, any time, any where, they should all know how to handle a weapon, from the nurse, to the cook, to the electrician, to the floor sweeper, to the truck driver, etc. (just like in the civilian population) all the way through to the actual combat units.  Falling short of that (because you’re in the military and afraid of guns?) I would think that, at the very least, anyone trained in weapon handling should be well-trained, and should be hauling at the very minimum a sidearm around at all times (just like millions of civilians do every day already).

The Tenth Amendment is for cowards

Posted on by

Wow! It’s almost surreal reading this:

I’ll say the last refuge of cowards in the Tenth Amendment.

The Tenth has been invoked a lot lately. The Tenth has been mentioned as the reason health-care reform is unconstitutional. It’s the way the Speaker of the Tennessee State House says his state can circumvent federal gun laws. It’s the states’ rights argument carried to the extreme.

The amendment reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

What that says, in other words, is that if a power is unclaimed by the federal government — or if that power is not denied to the states — then the states have it. The intent is to clarify the basic point that if the feds aren’t in charge, the states are.

It’s a truism, not a grant of power.

Soon after the framers wrote the original document, it was obvious states couldn’t act independently. When the Constitution was written, there wasn’t much interstate commerce at all. Going from one end of the country to the other end didn’t take five hours — it took five months. So the federal government claimed some powers to tie up loose ends.

If states acted on their own when it came to matters of interstate commerce, it would be to easy for states to grant monopolies to business, and too easy for large businesses to fix prices and destroy smaller competition.

…

Everyone learns at some point in life that there are three remedies to a negative situation: avoid, alter or accept it. Those against health-care legislation or gun-control laws don’t need to accept what they see as bad policy. They should try alter the policy in all the accepted ways.

But reverting to the Tenth Amendment is avoidance. It’s the equivalent of taking your ball and going home. And these issues are too important to do that.

After invoking the Tenth Amendment he goes on (there is more than just that above) to justify the Interstate Commerce clause without even mentioning it as if it were the Tenth Amendment.

And did you notice all the errors in the passages above?

  • The first line says “…in the Tenth…” instead of “…is the Tenth…” but I figure that is just a typo and I give him a pass on that.
  • “It’s a truism, not a grant of power. “? It explicitly states that the Feds are not granted most powers and he turns it around to claim the states are not granted powers.
  • It took five months to travel from one end of the 13 colonies to the other? It’s only about 1500 miles so he is saying the average speed of travel was 10 miles per day. Even with a backpack on and walking on mountain trails I can do better than that.
  • The Tenth Amendment is part of the U.S. Constitution and it’s pretty clear the original intent is being violated. Many other Federal laws have been struck down by the courts as violating various parts of the constitution, including the Tenth Amendment, so it’s entirely reasonable to quest whether this law is in violation.

 So it’s the author that is the coward avoiding the issue. He gets it exactly backward and calls people invoking the Tenth Amendment cowards. It’s called “projection” and it just goes to show he either has mental problems or has crap for brains.

How’s that gun ban working out?

Posted on by

The headline tells the story–London gun crime rises as shootings nearly double.

It must be that someone somewhere needs to have their gun show loophole closed, have one gun a month law passed, or “assault weapons” banned.

Oh yeah. I forgot. They are way past that point with a complete ban on nearly all guns and people increasingly use guns in the commission of violent crimes.

And it’s not just a little bit either:

…[T]he number of actual shootings has almost doubled from 123 to 236 in the last six months compared with the same period last year, a rise of 91.8%. Serious firearms offences have risen by 47% across the capital.

So what’s the reason they want to ban the guns in our country? What do they think the benefit will be? We know it and they know it. It’s not about making people safer. They have some other motivation because the data tells everyone that gun bans do not make people safer.

So what is the real reason for wanting to restrict firearm ownership? After failing to get an answer to Just One Question that should be follow up when they still insist on “common sense” regulation. Either that or just tell the bigots Μολὼν λαβέ.

Speaking of crap for brains

Posted on by

Crap for brains isn’t just in Seattle. It appears to be far too common these days. There should be a law against it.

Oh, yeah. I forgot. There is a law against it. It’s Darwin’s Law. But we have been helping others violate Darwin’s law for so long that stupid is becoming dominate when, by law, it should become more and more rare.

Other people ignore the law and we have to pay the consequences. Life just isn’t fair.

It must have been an AK-47

Posted on by

Whenever they smell blood they start dancing to the tunes of AK-47s:

Tragic as it was, the cold-blooded drive-by shooting of Officer Timothy Brenton over the weekend handed supporters of a proposed state assault weapons ban with a compelling case to take to Olympia. Even though police say they have not yet determined what weapon was used, Ralph Fascitelli, president of Washington CeaseFire, says he plans to cite Brenton’s murder when lobbying for the bill in the next legislative session.

“Maybe this particular [police victim] wasn’t killed with an assault weapon, but the next one maybe will be,” Fascitelli says, adding that police safety was a key reason that automatic weapons were banned decades ago and that the International Association of Police Chiefs supports a ban on military-style semiautomatic weapons today.

It doesn’t matter if the band playing doesn’t even have an AK. Heck, I don’t think it would matter if there were even a band.

They apparently live in some sort of alternate reality where their fears of imagined boogie men are sufficient grounds to demand the government infringe upon a specific enumerated right when even their leaders admit they have insufficient evidence to justify their actions. And they call that “a compelling case”.

I call it crap for brains.

CCRKBA has something to say too.

Quote of the day–Tamara K.

Posted on by

…We circle back around to one of the big problems in our society, which is the idea that line-memorizing clothes horses have anything more valid to say about politics, science, or current events than the hippie on the street corner with a guitar case. The Romans had the right position in society for actors: Above cesspit cleaners, but not as well-respected as a decent whore.

Tamara K.
November 3, 2009
Shame!
[This reminds me of a Robert Heinlein quote:

A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other professionals offering services for pay–such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients?

It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors.

Lazarus Long
A character in several books by Robert Heinlein.

Getting back to Tamara’s quote…

The problem is that people are still largely driven by some evolutionary advantageous urge to listen to and obey those whose faces are familiar rather than actually think for themselves. But of course that presumes said person is capable of and willing to think for themselves. I’m not convinced the majority of people are up to the task yet we protect them from their own stupidity almost as if they were children who would grow up someday. I sometimes see a future where the system collapses and Darwin collects on a massive debt we have been accumulating for the last 100 years. It would have been far, far better in so many ways to pay off Darwin in regular installments than to have the Grim Reaper swing his scythe in such a broad swath as I sometimes see as plausible.–Joe]

Horrified and fearful

Posted on by

As our neighbors to the north attempt to regain a little bit of their freedom the anti-freedom people are “horrified and fearful”:

Gun-control advocates say they are horrified and fearful that Canada’s long-gun firearms registry is on the verge this week of being scrapped because the Conservatives may have enough support from the opposition to kill it.

Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control, says her organization has been monitoring the progress of a Conservative private member’s bill to abolish the registry and is now bracing for it to clear an important vote in the Commons on Wednesday.

“It is astonishing, just a few months after the opposition parties voted for a Bloc Québécois motion that reiterated support for the firearms registry and against efforts to repeal it, that many of the same MPs will support this Conservative bill,” Cukier said Sunday.

“It not only eliminates the need to register rifles and shotguns but requires that the information contained on seven million registered guns be destroyed.”

I find it very telling they don’t tell us how many crimes the two billion dollar gun registry helped solved. The last time I heard a number it was one. Yes, one crime was solved that would not have been solved without it. Two billion dollars to solve one crime and these people are “horrified and fearful”?

The only conclusion that I can come up with is that it’s not about crime. It’s about control. They are “horrified and fearful” they will have less control.

Quote of the day–Dave Stancliff

Posted on by

The column achieved what it was supposed to do. It got people thinking about the problems associated with assault weapons.

Whether you believe there’s a problem or not, the reality trumps your rhetoric and your use of conservative/NRA babble trying to pass for the truth.

I don’t have the answers, but if enough people work on it they will come.

Dave Stancliff
September 13, 2009 4:13 PM
Comment to Let’s face it, no one will take the high road to gun control
In response to demonstration that his “facts” in an anti-gun editorial were all wrong.
[“If enough people work on it” they will be able to refute verifiable facts? I suppose if the Ministry of Truth (or is it the Truth Czar these days?) puts enough people on the problem it’s possible.–Joe] 

Insults and distortion

Posted on by

The numbers and the law don’t support their position so they result to insults, distortion, and copyright violation:

There is an America still stuck in the fifties, isolated from our cities and from each other by virtue and circumstance and the placement of highways and byways.

Where no gangs roam and real gun play is only on TV and children are not killed by stray bullets but by accident and by suicide in flaccid homes, all for the idle dreams of idle men made more flaccid by their flaccid imaginations.

They are white, nice and stuck, flaccid fools clinging to a romantic fantasy that disguises their impotent existence if not their impotence.

Armchair Constitutional scholars between clocking out and passing out.  This is flaccid tea party America.  Heels in the mud, Palin on the tube and loaded gun in good working condition, exceeded only by that of the remote.

For flaccid America, killing is an idea, a fantasy pastime, a friend of boredom, that seems to bear the right not to be.

Here is the original picture:

Quote of the day–Anonymous

Posted on by

Why can’t people just do what they’re told? When we do our taxes do we ask why line 35 is subtracted from line 22? Do we argue with the judge when he makes a decision or a cop tells us not to stand in a certain place? No.

We are subjects of the government that is supposed to care of us. Whether the rules are stupid or illogical, do what you’re told by authorities. The rules are for your own good.

Life will be a lot simpler if you do what you’re told.

Anonymous
October 24, 2009 7:01 PM
Response to “Bag Check” Cartoon
[I’m just not quite sure if this person was serious or sarcastic. I’m about 80% sure it was serious. And that is extremely scary to me.

And the TSA has a blog? What a hoot! I wish I had the time to go play with them more. I left a comment at the above link but due to moderation it hasn’t shown up yet. I essentially just left a link to What TSA really stands for. So it may be that won’t make it past moderation.–Joe]

Update: The comment made it through moderation and I’m getting hits from it. There is also a automatically generated link to this post as well that is getting a few hits.

Never let facts get in the way of a good soundbite

Posted on by

The article says:

Officers found 50 rounds of 44-caliber, 240 grain-jacketed Remington hollow point bullets, illegal in some states, including New Jersey, because they can pierce cops’ bullet-resistant armor, said Paul Loriquet, spokesman for the Essex County prosecutor’s office.

The problem is hollow point bullets are less able to penetrate body armor than the more common Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) bullets.

The fact that they probably were for .44 Magnum handgun is more telling. Almost any soft body armor comfortable enough for everyday wear is going to be penetrated by any full power load in that caliber.

But this is law enforcement in New Jersey where facts about guns are irrelevant to their jobs and when dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril.

Half-truth Henigan

Posted on by

Dennis Henigan has a new post about two gun dealers up on the Brady Campaign blog. I find it interesting that much of what he says is only half-true. For example he says:

The Seattle Times reported that Brian Borgelt, the former owner of Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply, the notorious Tacoma, Washington gun shop that supplied the gun used in the 2002 D.C.-area sniper shootings, had lost his lawsuit seeking to have his firearms dealer license restored.

This is true as far as it goes but what he doesn’t tell you is the Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply is still open selling guns. The store was purchased by a friend of Borgelt and is doing just fine. Those Seattle Times articles are dated the day before the article linked to by Henigan. My hypothesis is that victories for Henigan are so rare these days that he has to exaggerate something of no consequence into something to celebrate.

Also note that he claims the gun shop “supplied the gun”. That’s interesting wording since Malvo says he shoplifted the gun from the store. That’s like saying you supplied the car used in a bank robbery after it was stolen from your driveway.

Next Henigan says:

Borgelt hit the headlines after the DC snipers, John Muhammad and Lee Malvo, were arrested after killing ten and wounding four others during three weeks of horror in October, 2002. Authorities traced their Bushmaster assault rifle to Borgelt’s gun shop, but Borgelt claimed he didn’t even know the gun was missing. Borgelt could produce no record that the gun had been sold, nor that it had been reported missing or stolen (as required by federal law). It turns out that the snipers’ Bushmaster was only one of 238 Bull’s Eye guns mysteriously missing and unaccounted for in the previous three years. Either Bull’s Eye was actively corrupt, or grievously negligent.

Most of those 238 guns were eventually accounted for (I think, I can’t seem to find verification of that right now). I think the final number was something like 80 that were apparently stolen or perhaps sold illegally. To the best of my knowledge there was no evidence any were sold to someone that was not allowed to own a firearm. But that doesn’t fit Henigan’s agenda:

During the period 1997-2001, Bull’s Eye ranked in the top 1% of dealers in guns sold and traced to crime; its guns had been traced to homicides, kidnappings and assaults.

Note the careful wording “traced to crime”? He did not say, “Used in a crime.” That is because the ATF gun traces include guns that were stolen and the police were trying to find the true owner. Hence by choosing his words very carefully Henigan gives a very different impression that what is the complete truth. And that’s just a tiny part of the lie in that sentence.

If you follow his own link you will find the following:

Long before last fall’s sniper slayings, Bull’s Eye was among a minuscule group of problem gun dealers that, willingly or not, “supply the suppliers” who funnel guns to the nation’s criminals, the ATF says. Studies show about 1 percent of gun stores sell the weapons traced to 57 percent of gun crimes.

That does NOT say Bull’s Eye was in the 1%. The Seattle Times is being a little misleading too but Henigan goes into a full blown lie with it.

Here are the raw numbers from the same Seattle Times article:

An analysis of records obtained by The Seattle Times through a freedom-of-information lawsuit against the ATF shows that between 1997 and 2001, guns sold by Bull’s Eye were involved in 52 crimes, including homicides, kidnappings and assaults — a rate the ATF considers alarming.

…

[T]he number of crime guns traced back to Bull’s Eye had been growing from three in 1997 to 10 in 1998, 18 in 1999, and 11 in 2000.

According to the FBI in 2001 there were 1,425,486 violent crimes in the U.S. of which 26.2% were committed with a firearm. That gives us a total of 373,477 violent crimes committed with a firearm. About 10 of those guns came from Bull’s Eye. This is 0.0027%. It’s not possible for Bull’s Eye to have been in the top 1% of the gun shops that supplied 57 percent of gun crimes.

Anytime you see something with Henigan’s name on remember this–at best it is half true.

Quote of the day–Linoge

Posted on by

Remember – these are the people who would strip us of our rights. These are the people who would turn us into criminals (like them) for daring to exercise those rights. These are the people who aid and abet criminals on a daily basis. These are the people who have no respect or regard for the sanctity of human life or the self-defense measures necessary to preserve it. …People who cannot even tell fact from fiction.

Scary, nyet?

Linoge
October 18, 2009
truth and falsity
[Good stuff, even if I do say so myself.–Joe]

Gun control is patriotic

Posted on by

Sometimes you have to just shake your head and call for the guys in the white uniforms and the butterfly nets:

The more people own guns, the more likely guns are to be used. If Cody wants to do something genuinely patriotic and helpful to her country, she should support gun control legislation.

I suppose it depends on how you define “patriotic”. If “genuinely patriotic and helpful to your country” means enabling genocide then she is absolutely correct:

Update: Daughter Kim reminded me:

patriot, n. and adj.
 
1. a. A person who loves his or her country, esp. one who is ready to support its freedoms and rights and to defend it against enemies or detractors.
In early use, as in French and Dutch, chiefly with ‘good’, ‘true’, ‘worthy’, or other commendatory adjective: cf. ‘good citizen’. ‘Patriot’ for ‘good patriot’ is rare before 1680. At that time often applied to a person who supported the rights of the country against the King and court.