And the Parade of Idiots Continues...

As we discussed in some detail yesterday, the writers and editors of Salon are remarkably incompetent when it comes to fact checking their claims about the expired "federal ban on firearm cosmetics" (if we are to describe what the bill actually did).

Apparently the Village Voice is similarly staffed with writers and editors that simply can't be bothered read the actual law.

As Gail Collins points out in today's Times, the Saturday shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others -- six fatally -- at the shopping mall parking lot was deadlier than the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in nearby Tombstone. And Loughner never would've been able to buy his Glock with its extended clip if the Federal Assault Weapons Ban hadn't been allowed to sunset in 2004. Which means, as Collins writes, that if the 22-year-old had been limited to your standard assassin's pistol, we might well have lost a congresswoman, but "not a federal judge, a 76-year-old church volunteer, two elderly women, Gifford's 30-year-old constituent services director, and a 9-year-old girl who had recently been elected to the student council and went to the event because she wanted to see how democracy worked."

The Glock 19 used by Loughner was never banned by federal law, nor was the sale, ownership or possession of the aftermarket extended magazine that he used in the shooting. The only thing covered in the expired federal bill was the manufacture of new magazines after the law went into effect. Any new or used magazine made prior to the ban could be sold in retail stores, and in actuality, that is precisely what occurred. There was a shortage of standard capacity magazines for more obscure firearms, but standard capacity magazines and high capacity magazines like those used by Loughner were available for sale—quite legally—during the entire life of the ill-conceived law.