MN GOP Stands for 'Mazingly Nutty, Gullible (&)/OR Paranoid!

A Minnesota radical Right Wing blogger wrote up a rumor earlier today as if it were fact this morning that “Connecticut was a commin’ to confiscate yer guns”. The original story dates back to a claim by the utterly-unbelievable, totally-lacking-in-any-shred-of-credibility, Glenn “boo hoo” Beck and the Blaze. The local radical right wing-nuttery blogger was Mitch Berg, over at Shot in the dark/aka shot in the foot. Here is the original steaming fact-TURD from Beck, in his most recent blazing poop update:

UPDATE: A spokesperson with the Special Licensing and Firearms Unit of the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection told TheBlaze that a letter has been drafted to send to gun owners who are found to be in possession of unregistered semi-automatic rifles deemed illegal by the state’s new gun control law. However, “not a one” letter has been sent out so far. The spokesperson, who didn’t want to identify herself, refused to comment on the content of the draft letter. When we asked what other action the state plans to take against owners of unregistered so-called “assault rifles, the spokesperson said we should contact the governor’s office because that’s where they get their orders from. It’s not clear if the letter published by the Capitalism Institute is authentic, though we can confirm a draft letter does exist.

No, no such draft letters exist that in any way suggest confiscation or pre-confiscation, etc.  This is like claiming that getting a reminder to renew your drivers license is a threat the police are coming to arrest you, or that if you get the renewal notice for your license tabs, it means law enforcement is coming down the street to tow your car out of your garage - and keep it.

On the other hand, everyone IS expected to obey the  law. CT does have laws about weapons and magazines.

And this is not the first time that hoax stories like this about confiscation letters have circulated either; they are as perennial as the daffodils that bloom in the spring. They occur in different places, different variations, but always from sources that can’t back up their claims and always stories that fail fact checking.

In fact, phone calls to a variety of departments that might have jurisdiction resulted in transfer after transfer after transfer. My fact-checking conversation included the Firearms Division of the Department of Public Protection, and the Attorney General’s office. No such letters have been drafted, no such plan exists, and I had to explain in detail what it was I was fact checking, because no one had ever even heard of any such letters or plan to act on any kind of confiscation whatsoever.

It did get a laugh though, at the expense of the lunatic fringe on the right, each and every time I was transferred to a new person. You have to wonder, 1. do the lunatic fringe on the right EVER fact check anything, or do they just believe any and every bit of lunacy and conspiracy theory crap that comes their way (often taking their money with false representations aka LIES); and 2. is there cure for the paranoia that has become the defining aspect of right wing ideology? Can anything shrink those distended, warped and swollen amygdalas that are at the center of the brains of conservatives?

The extent to which the radical right suffers from impaired judgment is truly sad. Similarly, we see the radical right promote the notions of confiscation aka ‘gun grabbing’ , with fake solutions like nullification of federal firearms laws, as we saw last legislative session when the ‘Draz’ , Rep. Steve Drazkowski wrote the Minnesota Firearm Protection Act, HF419.  Periodic circulation of the fear-mongering rumors are essential to continue to deceive and mislead the radical right lunatics that such legislation is necessary and can be successful – both false claims, but both circulated widely and often.  If the radical right doesn’t lie, they lose their power over their base, and with that loss of power they eventually lose all credibility, making it much harder for them to successfully lie and gin up the money-tree that flowers from the paranoia.

Thank god, there might be hope for them yet, through Obamacare mental health care services.