The Pant Shitting Hysterics is really overflowing on this National Reciprocity civil rights bill, so now is the time to call your Senator’s office and make sure our voice is heard on the Thune Amendment. This is going to be a tough vote, as this can be considered a major piece of legislation. Let’s take a look at some of the hysterics:
Critics, including police organizations, big-city mayors and gun-victims groups, decried the legislation as creating “a new national lowest common denominator” for ownership of firearms.
Ownership of firearms? Fact checking, it’s what’s for dinner.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said Monday that she would vote against the Thune amendment, noting that gun laws should remain a state issue. Liberal Senators hope McCaskill’s opposition is an indicator of how other independent-minded Members, such as Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), might vote.
I guess ASHA doesn’t want their girl giving us self-defense whakos any goodies.
And, of course, Chuck Schumer:
“This amendment is a bridge too far, and could endanger the safety of millions of Americans. Each state has carefully crafted its concealed-carry laws in the way that makes the most sense to protect its citizens. Clearly, large, urban areas merit a different standard than rural areas. To gut the ability of local police and sheriffs to determine who should be able to carry a concealed weapon makes no sense. It could reverse the dramatic success we’vie had in reducing crime in most all parts of America. In the past, the gun lobby has had as its rallying cry, ‘Let each state decide.’ With this amendment, they are doing a 180-degree flip. Whether you are pro-gun or pro-gun control, this measure deserves to be defeated. We will do everything we can to stop this poisonous amendment from being enacted.â€
Sorry Chucky, my rights don’t end just because I cross some arbitrary, artificial boundary known as “city limits.” Do any other rights work this way?
We also have editorial PSH eminating from the New York Times, New York Newsday, Miami Herald, New York Daily News, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Notice a trend? I wonder which city’s elites are pissing themselves the most over this.
IMHO this amendment is ill-timed, and its justification in Constitutional law poorly communicated not only to the people but to the bulk of the legislature themselves. Sure, there will always be PSH from the far left over this, but my concern is that the far-left will frame the debate as the right becoming too extreme. They will use the PSH to not only defeat the amendment, but try and place further restrictions on states which currently have relative friendly processes for obtaining firearms ans carry permits (like PA).
I’m all for National Reciprocity, as long as the process isn’t federalized, and the justification has constitutional backing (the 14th Amendment, or the Constitution’s “Full Faith and Credit” clause). However, I worry that without careful navigation of the political waters, that this one could blow up in our faces.
ChamberedRound, Upchuck Schumer feels the same way you do about state’s rights–when it fits his anti-gun agenda. But when Clinton managed to ram through his AWB, where was Schumer’s “concern” about state’s right then? And where is his “concern” with the states which are making noise about making and selling firearms within their own boundaries without the auspices of the BATF or other Federal tyrannies, er bureaucracies? You can bet that Schumer will be on the side of the Feds then. (BTW, The BATF has warned Montana and Tennessee that they will feel the full wrath of their agency if these states try such moves. That pretty much leaves two choices: knuckle under, or declare war upon those Feds who invade their state.)
In other words, there’s a whole lotta hypocrisy from our Congresscritters.
One problem is that there are some deficiencies in the process at the state level. I know of two cases where persons with Idaho carry permits did not have them revoked when by law they should have. One of them went on to attack the Sheriff’s Department office in Moscow, killing five people (including himself); the other murdered someone in the alley after a bar fight. The Popalowski case in Pittsburgh was a situation where he apparently should have been given a dishonorable discharge from the military, which would have precluded issuance of a permit.
Would revoking or denying these permits have prevented the subsequent murders? Probably not. But these are embarrassments. I’m going to make another attempt to annoy my legislators to do something about the problems with Idaho law.
Per my reading (which may be faulty) of the bill, it expands the classes of people who are ALREADY permitted to carry anywhere (current and retired law enforcement who are not otherwise prohibited from possession). If that was legal/constitutional, this should be, no?
(Or did I misread the bill?)