Blind Man's Bluff

Watch out, Iowans -- it's now legal for blind citizens to carry loaded weapons. No, this isn't a joke. The LA Times has more:

"People around the world in general, and CNN's Piers Morgan in particular, went crazy this week after Iowa's premier newspaper, the Des Moines Register, published a story about how the state's new gun law allows blind people to own and carry firearms in public.

"You read right: Blind people may not be able to drive to the gun store, or even sign the permit application without assistance, but they may legally carry a gun in public.

"The Register story, which included video of a blind Altoona man named Michael Barber gun shopping with his wife, was part of a much bigger series that looked at the effect of the state's new gun law, which prohibits sheriffs from denying weapons permits except in very limited cases. Previously in Iowa, sheriff's could deny gun permits at their discretion."

Iowa won't issue a driver's license to a blind person, but it's perfectly fine to hand them loaded weapons. Why not?

Of course we support the Americans With Disabilities Act. It's pitiful that it took an act of Congress to mandate that differently-abled Americans should have equal access to public facilities and equal opportunities for employment and other rights, but that's just another comment on our long history of discrimination (but I digress ...)

That notwithstanding, does anybody -- other than Ted Nugent -- think it's a good idea for blind persons to carry loaded weapons?

In other news, the NRA is celebrating another victory in their effort to make things dead. It's now legal to carry loaded weapons into Starbucks coffee shops. As in: "There's not enough foam on my latte ... BANG! BANG! BANG! ...   "Whadda ya mean you're out of Pumpkin Spice?! POW! POW! POW! POW!"

The Washington Post reports...

"National gun rights people named Friday, Aug. 9, 'Starbucks Appreciation Day.' They did so because Starbucks refuses to ban guns in its venues, preferring to hew to local policy. 

"If a state or jurisdiction allows weapons, concealed or otherwise, to be carried into retail stores, the Starbucks franchises in that state will allow that, too."

It gets worse. The NRA rallied it's knuckle-draggers for a pro-gun rally at a Starbucks in Newtown, Conneticut. The WPost continues:  

"{Starbucks Appreciation Day} was a chance for gun activists to come not just to any Starbucks but to the Newtown Starbucks, a mile and a half from Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 26 people -- the large majority very young children -- were gunned to death eight months earlier.

"They came on Friday packing heat. Why? Why come brandishing guns to a pleasant little coffee-and-snack place where parents take their children after school? Was that so necessary? The act was -- there is no other word for it -- sadistic.

"'How can they even think of being here? It's so disgusting and heartless! It's so in-your-face!' said a local woman, Barbara Kraushaar, who was part of a counter-group of Newtown residents who came to meet the gun-toters in the parking lot told the New York Times. 'Our community is still healing, and we find it reprehensible that they are picking Newtown to rally,' was the response from the Newtown Action Alliance, which is devoted to making sure that what happened there on Dec. 14 never happens again."

Such compassionate conservatives. Such good Christians.