June 2007 – Page 10 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Shift This, Ed!

Rendell is proposing another tax shift plan.Â Truth be told, I like it better than the last one, but hey, how about we cut spending to fund property tax relief?Â Â There’s plenty of states that get away with a far lower tax burden, that have just as many big cities as Pennsylvania does (think Texas).

Gov. Ed Rendell is advocating a 1 percentage point increase in the state sales tax to deliver more than $1 billion in property tax cuts, his office said Wednesday.Spokesman Chuck Ardo confirmed the governor’s position, which Rendell stated on KDKA Radio host Kevin Miller’s show earlier this week.

In his February budget address, Rendell proposed using about two-thirds of the revenue from a sales tax boost to balance his spending plan. The remainder would have been used to offset property tax cuts.

No, no, you don’t get to use 2/3rds of the increase to fund your pet spending projects. Â That either all goes to other tax relief, or you can go to hell.Â I am quite sick of having my taxes increased to cover spending increases.

The Spin is Making Me Dizzy

More spin on local New York media from McCarthy’s office.

“Rep. McCarthy supports what Bloomberg is doing with gun issues. It’s true the NRA supported today’s legislation, but for different reasons than we did. They wanted quicker access to guns for their members.”

The reason you supported it is because it’s all you could get, and when given the choice between not eating and gruel, you chose gruel.Â I suppose to someone who hasn’t seen a meal for quite some time, it’s easy to argue that gruel is pumpkin pie.

Working Together

The Brady’s seem to be playing up the working together angle on HR2640.

The Virginia Tech shootings tragically demonstrated the unnecessary gaps in the system that allowed a dangerous person to be armed. By supporting this legislation, the National Rifle Association, which fought the Brady Bill for so many years, now joins the Brady Campaign and the vast majority of Americans in affirming that effective background checks can help save lives.

I think effective background checks make people feel better.Â The truth is, they just created the straw purchasing problem that the Brady’s say they need more gun control legislation to stop.Â If they get those laws, then criminals will resort to more theft and smuggling, which will, of course, be used as evidence for the need for further restrictions.

We hope that Congress and the gun lobby will continue to support meaningful reforms that extend Brady background checks to all gun sales, not just those by the licensed dealers who are covered by current law. That would be a significant additional step to prevent guns from getting into the hands of dangerous people.

We already did that here in Pennsylvania, and it didn’t work.Â Now the various gun control organizations, including the Brady Campaign, are pushing for one-gun-per-month restrictions here in Pennsylvania to deal with the straw purchasing problem. Â Where does it stop?

I am not opposing HR2640 because it doesn’t change much, and give us a few things that I think are beneficial.Â I don’t believe the instant check system is serious infringement on the right-to-bear arms.Â But do I think it works?Â No, I don’t.Â I think gun laws are about as effective at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals as our drug laws are at keeping marijuana out of the hands of potheads.

The Correct Marching Orders

Looks like our buddy Gonzo got the correct marching orders now.Â He still doesn’t think it’s a good deal, but the language has been toned down quite a bit, and he’s added a few extra talking points about how we keep insistingÂ that mere suspicion isn’t reasonable grounds for stripping someone of their constitutional rights.

Now that this fun is over, I will go back to ignoring him.

H.R.2640 Passed House

Looks like the bill has passed on a voice vote. Now it’s on to the senate. Given the speed at which it moved through the house, I don’t expect the senate to take long on it at all.

The NRA did win some concessions in negotiating the final product.

It would automatically restore the purchasing rights of veterans who were diagnosed with mental problems as part of the process of obtaining disability benefits. LaPierre said the Clinton administration put about 80,000 such veterans into the background check system.

It also outlines an appeals process for those who feel they have been wrongfully included in the system and ensures that funds allocated to improve the NICS are not used for other gun control purposes.

“It was necessary to make some accommodations to address the concerns of gun owners,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., adding that he would be closely monitoring the provision on restoring gun rights to veterans judged to have mental disabilities.

Ron Paul, as would be expected, was the lone dissenter. Like I said, I would like to have gotten more out of this deal, but I’m not going to cry too much that it’s passing. In the big picture, it doesn’t really change much.

Mothertalkers Update

MotherTalkers has an update post up in regards to the situation I brought to light yesterday. And for the record, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a man being a hairdresser :)

It does bring up a good issue of when is old enough to start teaching the youngins about guns. I was 13 or 14 myself, before I even touched one. I’m actually a pretty firm believer in starting out with air guns, and breaking any unsafe behavior with something that doesn’t have quite so much potential for dangerous accidents. I once had a young kid sweep me with the barrel of a .22 rifle at the range, who promptly got yelled at by pop. I didn’t say anything, because his father dealt with the mistake, but to me it’s better to have kids make those mistakes with air guns, and only when they can consistently use those safely do you move up to firearms.

Bad Things Don’t Just Happen

The panel appointed by governor Tim Kaine is finally hearing from the families.Â This has implications for us here:

Read and Andrew Goddard, the father of shooting survivor Colin Goddard, also urged the panel to consider recommending tougher gun control measures in the report it issues to the governor. Andrew Goddard graphically described the injuries his son suffered in the shootings, and attributed them to a combination of Cho’s mental state and “simple, efficient and readily available killing machines.”

Advocates on both sides of the gun control argument addressed the panel. Supporters of tougher gun control said the Tech shootings heighten the need to curtail access to semiautomatic weapons and eliminate legal loopholes that enable gun-buyers to skirt criminal background checks.

I’ve never been able to stomach the whole “we have to get to the bottom of this” attitude you have in politics after traumatic events.Â Tragedy doesn’t just happen.Â There must be scapegoats.Â There must be reasons.Â I suppose in simpler times people would blame such things on demons, the devil, or something similar.Â For too many the gun has become our modern demon.Â Once thought of as merely a tool, it now takes the spiritual role for people looking for something to blame.

I blame the deranged killer. Â I don’t really look much farther than him.

More Biological Weapons

First the swordfish sword, now poisonous snakes.

Hanging Together

Ahab thinks we all need to hang together:

I don’t suppose I’d have to explain why that’s so dangerous; it’s even more dangerous when that same “turf-war” mentality manifests itself on an organization level. I like the NRA; I don’t always support their actions, and I wish they’d send me less mail, but they generally act in the best interests of law-abiding gun owners. Similarly, I like the GOA, I feel like it’s good to have a less moderate voice for gun owners for the times that the NRA drops the ball.

I do not like it when the GOA (or anyone else for that matter) goes after the NRA in an effort to prove who loves the 2nd Amendment more. Take for example this new bill before the House, HR 2640. The GOA has been lambasting the NRA for their support of this bill for a while, despite the fact that the relevant text just became available yesterday.

I couldn’t agree more!Â I think GOA and other groups serve an important role in a) keeping the NRA honest, and b) concentrating on areas of gun law the NRA, for political reasons, can’t.Â But I do get kind of annoyed with them when they seem to be attacking NRA for political convenience rather than real and substantive criticism.Â The tone of many of the other groups communications seems to convey the NRA as the enemy, and I know there are more than a few out there who actually believe that.Â You’re entitled to believe that, but I think it’s a very incorrect view.Â I sure as hell don’t think the NRA is perfect, I do think they make mistakes, and this whole NICS deal may very well turn out to be one of them.Â But I don’t believe they actively work against gun owners.Â I believe that they did their best to make this bill a decent deal for gun owners, and to the extent that I didn’t get as much as I would have liked, I blame Congress.

The people I know that work for NRA, or have worked for NRA, are passionate about the issue, don’t get paid much for their work, and have to deal with a lot of crap that would drive you and me bonkers.Â It’s easy to be critical, but not easy to have to deal with a hostile media, hostile politicians, the courts, Congress and 50 state legislatures, all the while taking heat from your own side that you’re not doing enough.

What frustrates me is that the other side has all their factions working together. The people that want to ban .50 BMG rifles play nice with the people who want to ban all guns who play nice with the people who just want to ban handguns, and so it goes.

It’s much easier for them because they lack any serious grassroots.Â We’re millions of people, each with different quirks, views, and interests.Â When you’re well financed by the few, you get the advantage of having it be easier to stay on message, and keep your ducks in a row.

Just Print Brady Press Releases

News 10 in San Diego’s article reads like a Brady Press release.Â Notice they fail to mention that two very key groups support the Tiahrt Amendment, notably the Fraternal Order of Police, which is the largest police organization out there, and the BATFE, who is the agency that collects this data.Â Having a laundry list of law enforcement organizations who mostly represent politically appointed police brass does not impress me.