Pun Salad

… yesterday than this envelope arrives in the mail:

I know sometimes people black out their addresses, but I say: "If the Catholic League, knows my address, I guess the secret is out."

I would normally feed the unopened envelope straight into the shredder, but just to confirm my suspicion, I opened it, and, yep, "doing something" means…

… sending them money.

Just to be clear, I'm as pro-Catholic as it's possible for a Very Poor Lutheran with a Catholic wife, a son who's Music Director for the local Catholic parish, and a daughter who… well, graduated from a Catholic high school anyway.

Briefly noted:

• Piling on to my fisking of a recent gun-control "do something" editorial column in my local paper, NHJournal gets in on the fun: Stefany Shaheen Calls for Mass Gun Confiscation In Wake of Nashville School Shooting.

  Shaheen, a children’s book author who chairs the city commission that oversees the police department, is staking out political ground by advocating a ban on the sale of most guns found in New Hampshire sporting goods stores. And gun confiscation — the “mandatory buyback” of privately owned weapons by the government — is such a political hot button that even aggressive anti-gun groups like Giffords and Everytown have declined to embrace it.

  “The beauty of a democratic form of government is that WE [sic] the people have power,” she wrote. “Together, we can insist that those who earn our votes support safety in our schools and on our streets. We can end this vicious cycle of inaction driven by those who want us to disengage and give up.”

  Shaheen declined to respond to questions from NH Journal regarding her specific policy proposals. She also declined to answer a question about whether politicians should accept campaign donations from gun manufacturers.

  Shaheen’s mother, Sen. Jeane Shaheen, has taken at least $13,000 in direct campaign donations from New Hampshire-based gun maker Sig Sauer.

  Could it be that Stefany's unwillingness to "respond to questions" indicates that she's about to "disengage and give up"?

• But one of Shaheen's proposals was a seemingly more-moderate one: a "national 'red flag' law". It garnered 86% support in a poll last year. Slam-dunk?

  Well, Jacob Sullum points out a problem, using one of his very long headlines: Restraining Orders Do Not Prove That People Are 'Dangerous': The Biden Administration Is Defending a Federal Law That Disarms Americans Based on 'Boilerplate Language' in Orders That Judges Routinely Grant.

  Three decades ago, Congress enacted a law that seemed commonsensical: It prohibits gun possession by people who are subject to restraining orders aimed at preventing domestic violence. But as the legal battle over that rule shows, its intuitive appeal is complicated by the reality that judges often issue such orders without any credible evidence that the respondent poses a danger.

  That policy, according to a unanimous decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, is inconsistent with the Second Amendment. Not so, says the Biden administration, which last month filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to overturn the 5th Circuit's decision.

  So we already (sorta kinda) have a national "red flag" law, and it doesn't work very well or fairly. Other than "doing something", what's the point in opening up an avenue to even wider abuse?

• Eric Boehm notes that lunatics are now in charge of the asylum: Trump's Indictment Illustrates How the Wackos Have Hijacked Politics.

  It was always obvious that any attempt to bring former President Donald Trump to justice for any alleged crime would be a total media circus—just like most other aspects of Trump's career in politics. That finally happened on Tuesday: Trump was charged in Manhattan with 34 felonies for filing false business records. It's the first time in American history that a former president has been indicted, arraigned, and hauled before a judge to enter a "not guilty" plea.

  So the media circus surrounding Tuesday's events made perfect sense. Few other things did.

  Let's start with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the charges against Trump. He thought this was the best use of his taxpayer-funded office's resources?  For weeks, there had been leaks suggesting that whatever Bragg was cooking up would be a bit outside the norm of a typical prosecution, but the charges unsealed on Tuesday look even weaker than those reports suggested.

  Also operating on the other side of the padded room was Marjorie Taylor Greene, who compared Trump to Nelson Mandela and Jesus. (Well, it's that time of year.)

• Hot Air's David Strom brings the latest atrocity to our attention: Twitter labels NPR "State Affiliated Media;" freakout follows. Quoting this tweet:

  GET REKT @NPR
  
  Nicely done, @elonmusk 🤣 pic.twitter.com/jvX15QWSf5

  — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 5, 2023

  Clearly, Elon Musk is tweaking the news outlet, deliberately trolling them because they are Leftist snobs who think far too well of themselves.

  But just as clearly he has a point. NPR is a media mouthpiece for the Establishment, with a very cozy relationship to the government. They not only get funds from the government but work the refs there constantly to ensure the gravy train continues. Just as NPR would carefully note that a scientist got money from the tobacco companies if they quoted him, it is fair to point out that NPR, which covers the government, gets some of its funding from the people they cover.

  Judging by my listening the other day, the "state" that NPR is most affiliated with is Hamas.