Allen West's 'EPA Is Doing Gun Control' Column Isn't Just Loony, Tin-Foil-Hatty, It's Also Very Plagiarized

There's just no end of wingnutty goodness in Allen West's weekend column claiming that the Obama administration is out to Kill Freedom (again) by "forcing" the closure of the only lead smelting plant in the U.S. in 2010. There's the beautiful opening:

I am one who steers very clear of tinfoil hat conspiracy theories. I often believe progressives plant stories in order to distract and disrupt, enabling them to pursue their true goals and objectives ... However, as a former combat commander, I have been trained to look for trends. And I believe we’ve found a very disturbing one.

Ooh, does it involve torturing prisoners? That's a scary trend. No, it seems that the trend is that "back door gun control is in full effect in the United States," courtesy of the EPA, which forced that smelter in Missouri to close by tightening restrictions on the amount of lead residue the plant could emit. The company chose to close the smelter rather than install new pollution control equipment. And since lead is needed to manufacture Freedom Bullets, it's pretty obvious that the closure has nothing to do with environmental protection, and everything to do with killing the Second Amendment, so that "all ammo has to be purchased from the government instituting an ammo registration," says West, because that is a very non-tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory.

Oh, and then there's this, too:  large chunks of West's editorial are lifted from an October 29 column by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton* published at NoisyRoom.net and crossposted at Right Wing News. If the example of Rand Paul is any model, this is probably a cue for bloggers to start firing up the Google machine to search phrases from Mr. West's other "writings."

No problem, though -- just as it offered Rand Paul a home, Dead Breitbart's Frothing Wingnut Shelter also reprinted West's column. That isn't entirely by him.

Joseph West details several large chunks of text that Allen West takes verbatim from Terresa Monroe-Hamilton without any attribution; we'll sample just one example:

West:

“The effect is chilling: you can own all the guns you want, but if you can’t get ammo, you are out of luck.

Remember when President Obama promised his minions that he was working on gun control behind the scenes? Welcome to it. The result is that all domestically mined lead ore will have to be shipped overseas, refined and then shipped back to the US.

Not only will ammo be even harder to come by, the demand and the process of supply will cause the price to skyrocket even more.”

Monroe-Hamilton:

 “You can own all the guns you want, but if you can’t get ammo, you are out of luck.

Remember when Obama promised his minions that he was working on gun control behind the scenes? Welcome to it. Now, all domestic mined lead ore will have to be shipped overseas, refined and then shipped back to the US. Not only will ammo now be even harder to come by, the demand and the process of supply will cause the price to skyrocket even more.”

We were particularly taken by another example that Joseph West didn't jump on, the contention that (in Allen West), "President Obama and his EPA raised the regulations by 10 fold and it would have cost the plant $100 million to comply." (Monroe-Hamilton: "They raised the EPA regulations by 10 fold and it would have cost the plant $100 million to comply.") Who on earth uses a numeral in "tenfold"?

So anyhow, looks like Mr. Colonel (ret.) Allen West is going to find himself the focus of a lot of socialist googling in the next few days; heaven knows we'll probably give it a try, too.

As for the substance of his -- or Monroe-Hamilton's -- argument, it seems to depend, once again, on the specter of Time Travel Obama, who got the EPA to start investigating the smelter's emissions in 2008, before he was elected, and completed its closure in 2010, two years before Sandy Hook finally moved the Administration to start giving some thought to slightly stronger regulations on gun sales. But yes, Obama is taking away all our precious, precious lead, and the EPA just made up the idea that lead pollution is harmful.

After all, Allen West has been chewing leaded paint chips for years, and he's clearly unaffected.

* Hey, it could be a real name...

[ Tea Party Poison from the tipline / NoisyRoom.net / Allen West ]