Frank Antenori, media whore: desperately seeking attention

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

FrankIt has been extraordinarily well documented over the years that former Sen. "Don't make me angry" Frank Antenori has serious issues with anger management and impulse control. He frequently uses violent imagery and eliminationist rhetoric while threatening anyone with whom he disagrees. And he plainly suffers from delusions of grandeur.

All of these are issues that any mental health professional would red flag as warning signs that this individual is potentially a threat to himself and to society. So why should this community tolerate anything like this? Antenori plans gun buyback of his own

Former Republican state Sen. Frank Antenori plans to attend Tuesday's gun buyback. But he's not aiming to take home a $50 Safeway gift card.

Instead, he's seeking some good deals to potentially add to his gun collection.

Antenori and a few others will be taking advantage of City Councilman Steve Kozachik's event by setting up shop outside the Tucson Police Department's midtown substation to offer residents "cold, hard cash" for desirable guns.

"We're going down there and saying we'll give you a hundred bucks for that gun right now. Why get a crummy $50 gift card for a gun that's worth more?" Antenori said. "This is what a free country and a free market are all about. We are going to give people a choice. You can bring your gun down. If it ain't worth $50, bring it in to Kozachik and get your gift card. If it's worth $50 or more, we'll give you cash for it. Don't go in there and sell yourself short."

"If somebody walks in with an AR-15, I'll give them $500 for it on the spot because you can't buy one for less than $800 or $900," Anternori said. "That's a good deal."

* * *

A licensed dealer will be on site to run the serial numbers of the guns they purchase to ensure none are stolen or connected to a crime, Antenori said.

"We are probably going to do a better job than the police on that," he said.

So will it be legal to turn Alvernon Way into a gun bazaar?

TPD spokesman Sgt. Chris Widmer said officers won't interfere in any sales between private parties.

"We won't get involved as long as it's done on public property," Widmer said.

Antenori said he checked with both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and state attorneys who confirmed it is legal as long as the guns are for his personal collection and he won't be turning around and reselling them. [And who exactly is going to follow-up over time to make certain that Frank does not resell these weapons, hmmm?]

* * *

Kozachik said it's unfortunate there are people willing to mock this event, and that speaks volumes about them.

"I just wish these guys would take this issue a little more seriously than trying to minimize it by playing games," Kozachik said. "The people who are participating in this are doing so to make their homes safer by getting rid of unwanted firearms. And these guys that just make a joke out of it only marginalize themselves as serious contributors to this community."

Steve Kozachik said if Antenori goes forward with his plan, he is only underscoring the problem with the private gun sales loophole.

"If anybody walks up and offers to buy a gun from somebody standing in line and that person, by law, does not have to do a background check on them, they couldn't make it any clearer to the state Legislature and the citizens of Tucson that we have a hole in the system right now," Kozachik said. "And we need to have a serious discussion on how to fix it."

Oh Frank, you're always a dick terrorizing the villagers. Arizona Daily Star columnist and cartoonist Davod Fitzsimmons gets it exactly right: "Don't make me angry" Frank Antenori is just a media whore who is desperately seeking attention. Fitz Blog: Buy Back:

In response to Councilman Steve Kozachik's gun buy back event, former State Senator Frank Antenori plans an attention buy back event. "I will pay cold hard cash for attention. I'm willing to pay anything for a little ink..a little airtime…anything. Just notice me. Please, God, just notice me. I'll be the bald guy in front of a midtown police substation on Monday looking to pay anyone anywhere from a quarter to $25 to $100 for some attention."

UPDATE: The Tucson Weekly has more today, Antenori Promises "Feisty" Presence at Kozachik's Town Hall Tonight:

Republican Frank Antenori, who is giving up his seat in the state
Senate next week after losing his reelection bid in a new district that
included much of midtown Tucson, tells The Range he’s going to be [at the town hall Monday night],
too.

“I wouldn’t miss that for the world,” says Antenori, who expects to
have about 200 of his conservative friends and allies at the Loft. “It’s
gonna be pretty feisty, man.”

* * *

As for tonight: Antenori says he’s looking forward to seeing how the
town hall goes, although he’s critical of Kozachik’s plans to have
questions pre-screened by Fitzsimmons.

“Mr. Freedom-and-local-control is going to regulate his questions and
he’s going to use the Arizona Daily Star as his question regulator,”
Antenori says. “I find that the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen in
my life. Now he’s afraid he might be asked a difficult question and he’s
having Fitzsimmons—by default, the Arizona Daily Star, the fifth
column—regulate the questions.”

Antenori also took offense to a comment that Kozachik made to KGUN TV news reporter Marcelino Benito while dismissing people who upset over the gun buyback.

“I understand that a lot of people feel like they're not the pretty
girl at the prom anymore and they're not getting all the attention they
deserve, but this isn't the venue to get it," Kozachik told Benito last
week. “We're talking about serious issues.”

Antenori says he has too much testosterone to identify with a girl at a prom.

“I do not want to be the prom queen,” Antenori says. “Maybe when I was in high school, I wanted to do the
prom queen, but I sure as heck never wanted to be the prom queen. I
think Steve K has problems. He’s got internal demons or something that
are playing on him. If he wants to be the prom queen, he can knock his
socks off. Of course, if he was the prom queen, I wouldn’t touch him
with a frickin’ million-mile pole.”

Kozachik says he didn’t mention Antenori by name, so he finds it
interesting that the outgoing state senator believes Kozachik was
targeting him.

“I think Frank’s unbalanced,” Kozachik says.

That he is, Steve. That he is. And this unbalanced individual is allowed to own guns.