Mary Jo Buttafuoco is in the news again. Almost 34 years after being shot in the face with an illegally possessed and carried .25 caliber handgun by “Long Island Lolita” Amy Fisher, a teenage mistress of her cheating husband, the story has been resurrected, and no doubt brought to the attention of a new audience, with the January release of a biopic on Lifetime.
The point here is not to repeat a story we can find elsewhere, nor to heap judgment on Fisher, who went on after her prison sentence to exploit her notoriety in the “adult” film industry. Still, her mindset is relevant to understanding the anti-gun political advocacy she went on to promote.
“What I’ve learned over the years is that Amy Fisher is a narcissist — and narcissists don’t change,” Buttafuoco told Fox News Digital. “It’s always been about her. She doesn’t care one iota about what she’s done. It’s also inexcusable for any adult man to take advantage of a teenager. In that sense, she was a victim, but it doesn’t excuse what she did afterward.”
“People are angry at me because I’m a millionaire,” Fisher, who had described Buttafuoco as “a nonentity” and claimed “no sympathy” for her victim, told Steppin’ Out magazine. “But guess what? So is Mary Jo! She made more millions off of what I did than what I made.”
With that as a backdrop, in between capitalizing on her notoriety through selling her story and her sex tapes, Fisher served a brief stint as an opinion columnist, where she advocated for the government disarming those of us who haven’t shot innocent people in the face.
From my Aug. 2005 GUNS Magazine column “Look Who’s Demanding Gun Control”, also featuring anti-gun statements by the suppliers of guns and ammunition to the Columbine killers, and profiles of a Million Morn March Washington DC rally sponsor who paralyzed an innocent man with an “illegal” handgun, and a Million Mom March chapter president found in possession of illegal drugs and a handgun with its serial number filed off by police investigating a series of drive-by shootings:
“Assault weapons were designed for military use,” [Fisher] declared in support of extending the federal ban, even though none of the weapons affected have select-fire capabilities. “If a law-abiding citizen has such a yearning to possess one of these weapons, then let that person join the Marines.”
That column in question has disappeared from the internet, so you’ll just have to take my word for it and the fact that my column claims have remained unchallenged for over 20 years. But here’s a corroborating report that substantiated her views on guns at the time:
“Amy Fisher to Begin Anti-Gun Campaign,” The Associated Press reported in 2003. “Amy Fisher, who set off a frenzy of tabloid headlines a decade ago when she shot her lover’s wife, celebrated the end of her parole by announcing her intention to work for causes aimed at keeping handguns away from minors.”
Making something that’s already illegal more illegal has been the siren call of “commonsense gun safety laws” that has thus far failed to provide a solution that actually works. All it ever does is create more infringements against peaceable citizens.
And proving that she’s not that deep a thinker herself, Fisher’s victim apparently shares her affinity for citizen disarmament.
“I think assault rifles should not exist,” Mary Jo Buttafuoco told Oxygen in 2018. “These are weapons of war. This is to inflict as much damage and pain and suffering in the shortest period of time. We don’t need them. At all.”
Whatever.
By all indications, Fisher tries to live a quiet life today under a different name. That’s fine, the purpose is not to pursue her or to make what has been a difficult life even more so, or to hold past actions and statements against her. Rather, with her story recalled by recent related publicity, the purpose here is to remind readers that, then and now, aberrant people aren’t constrained by the laws most of us strive to observe.
More laws against us have no effect on choices made by them.
The timeless truism is that the people most insistent on controlling us continually prove to be incapable or unwilling to control themselves.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
