What a crock. People are mugged, robbed, raped, and murdered in parks all the time - both local and national.
Self defense is a God given right.
Posted on 06/01/2009 4:05:56 PM PDT by SJackson
This is why the American people believe Congress is among the country's sleaziest institutions.
Recently when the Senate and House were debating the bill to make credit card companies more accountable and to stop them from arbitrarily changing the rules for their customers, Sen. Tom Coburn, the right-wing flamethrower from Oklahoma, decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to play some mischief.
Coburn has been trying for the past couple of years to allow people to carry concealed weapons in our national parks, but even when his party had more power than now, he couldn't get that proposal passed. Understandably, many politicians wondered what in the world was the public interest in allowing weapons in the parks.
Undaunted, Coburn cynically introduced an amendment to the popular credit card bill that would do just that.
He figured -- correctly, as it turns out -- that he would be able to get his amendment attached to the credit card bill with help from his Republican colleagues and a handful of Western state pro-gun Democrats. That would then force the members of Congress who favor some control on guns to either kill the long-awaited credit card reforms or approve them along with the completely unrelated provision to allow guns in the parks.
Likewise, President Barack Obama would have to live with the amendment unless he was willing to veto the credit card reforms.
That's, of course, what happened.
But it has left a bad taste in the mouths of not only many members of Congress, but citizens who believe this isn't the way democracy ought to work. If you want to allow guns in the parks, then vote on it. If you want credit card reform, vote on it. What kind of parliamentary system allows two completely unrelated matters to be joined?
Unfortunately, this is just one example of how the gun lobby plans on getting its way this congressional session. A bill that would give the District of Columbia a representative in Congress, another popular measure, has already been derailed because a gun proposal was attached to it. Other Republican gun zealots are preparing other pro-gun measures to attach to similar bills.
The cynicism is nothing short of obscene. One Republican has already chortled that this is the way the pro-gun lobby will re-enact virtually all the Bush administration gun policies before they're done. Apparently, the 2008 election didn't count for the National Rifle Association and its allies.
The irony may come when the NRA puppets in Congress succeed in adding a pro-gun amendment to whatever health coverage reform legislation eventually emerges this year.
That, at least, would be appropriate. For our unlimited love affair with guns has always added significantly to our nation's health care costs.
Oh and the part where a judge said we can’t have guns in National Parks without doing an “environmental impact study” isn’t obscene?
At least the GOP actually put it into a LAW instead of some appointee making their own law from the bench.
Yeah, RIGHT!
This is the kind of tactic, that the Dems use all the time.
So, apparently, democracy is only supposed to work like this, when they do it.
The man was shot in a church, many states have “no carry” laws with regards to churches or allow churches to self declare “no carry”.
The murder in the church was wrong but the law would have most likely protected the shooter.
An armed society is a polite society.
The kind of parliamentary system that the Dems have been reveling in for decades.
IMO that's a bad law, though individual institutions should have that option. A pass on prosecution would certainly be given to someone saving a prominent abortionists life, maybe a medal. In other circumstances, I wouldn't count on it, but a response is better than being the second victim.
No, progressives.
Yes, it’s the system, which dems have used extensively. But it’s their system, because it’s their country. Obama won the election, after all.
Geez, I’m having a hard time reading between the lines here. I wonder if this author is pro or anti-gun?
What a crock. People are mugged, robbed, raped, and murdered in parks all the time - both local and national.
Self defense is a God given right.
He’s anti.
I was being a bit sarcastic.
Maybe a little off topic, but of regional interest.
And all the crap that was added to the Porkulus Bill wasn't obscene?.........LOL!
My thoughts also.
If this is the first time our author has encountered this very common practice he really needs to get out more.
That was stimulus.
Yeah, honest Democrats would never attach unrelated riders to legislation, and always roll over and play dead if they lose seats in an election. Lying-sack-of-shithood, thy name is Dave Zweifel.
Thank you, NRA.
Yup. The most significant part of his comment the progressive tendency to fascism. We won the election, all is ours. But that's not how our system is built, and while he'll get his judge, gun control won't work that way, individual congresscritters not being forced to vote with party, and most of the thanks goes to the NRA
The author doesn't consider the basic human right to self-defense a matter of public interest. How do you get more cynical than that? lol
Yeah, the last time the Dems were in the minority all we ever heard about was how the minority shouldn’t be irrelevant, to the point it was like the majority was never supposed to pass anything the minority didn’t like. Now it’s a different story. Calling them and their fellow travelers in the MSM lying sacks of poo is actually insulting to fertilizer (which unlike Dems serves a purpose).
Agree 100%. If that guy had known his plan might work out like the shooting at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, he might have stayed home.
How about the cynicism of the anti civil rights crowd on the left. For instance, the 1986 ban on the sale of machine guns to civilians was written into the Firearms Owners Protection Act.
The Clinton ugly gun ban was part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.
The federal law that criminalized posession of firearms by persons convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence was part of the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997. And who could forget that in perhaps the ultimate act of cynicism, Frank Lautenberg’s original amendment specifically exempted police officers from that law.
Back in the day, the 1934 National Firearms Act at least told you something about what it affected. So did the 1937 Federal Firearms Act. The Gun Control Act of 1968 likewise said what it was intended to do.
Talk about cynicism, the democrats haven’t told the truth on this issue for over twenty years.
Good point.
I think someone is pissed we tore a page out of the liberal playbook.
Remember midnight basketball, stupid?
It's never a problem when things fall their way.
Pretty much everything that comes out of Madistan, the capital of Midwestern Marxist collectivism via the local arm of the Ministry of Propaganda - The Cap Times - is obscene. Citizens do not require the permission of The State to exercise rights bestowed by God and formalized in the constitution’s Bill of Rights, not matter how hard, how glibly, or with what degree of facility, State Commissars attempt to dismiss those rights.
OK, the author of this tripe is lying and he knows it.
The amendment did pass as part of the Senate bill, but it was voted on separately in the House and passed easily.
If the RATS wanted to kill the amendment they had their chance to vote it down without killing the credit card reform bill.
What kind of parliamentary system allows two completely unrelated matters to be joined?
Fact is, legislating involves lots of deal-making, as in "I'll vote for your bill if you'll vote for mine" - whether or not it's as obvious as this bill, one thing won't pass if some other completely unrelated issue doesn't, thanks to backroom deals. At least this bill made clear what was really going on: allow RKBA in National Parks, and you'll get your credit card reform (*cough*wheeze*); turn down one and you'll lose the other.
Looks bad, yes. Wish we didn't do things this way, yes. So long as "shall not be infringed" is ignored, we'll have to play dirty to restore our rights.
First off, while Tiller has nothing to do with this article I feel that as a mass murderer he deserved to be exterminated.
Second, why shouldn’t our military personel be allowed to carry? Aren’t they citizens of which that right is recognized?
I disagree with you about Tiller, but I see no reason military personel shouldn’t be armed.
No...I've thought they were sleazy for years. That one of them thought enough of me to allow me to exercise an inalienable right doesn't improve my opinion of the whole.
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