Posted on 12/08/2012 6:56:29 AM PST by marktwain
An editorial in the Scranton, Pennsylvania Times Tribune claims to be "Calling out states' rights hypocrites." The allegation of "hypocrisy" is centered on gun rights advocates' condemnation of Pennsylvania Attorney General-elect Kathleen Kane's signature on a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urging them to reject two national concealed carry reciprocity bills:
There is one area in which the states' rights crowd applauds federal intervention, however - regarding to the right to bear arms.
Two bills that have passed the House and await action in the Senate would make a mockery of the notion that states may regulate firearm use - even though one of the bills is called the Respecting States Rights and Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act [S. 2213]. The other is the National Right to Carry Reciprocity Act [S. 2188].
According to the Times Tribune editorial board, this is "hypocritical," because there is considerable overlap between gun rights advocates and state sovereignty advocates, who argue that the Tenth Amendment actually means what it says, and thus Congress has no legitimate regulatory power beyond that specifically enumerated in the Constitution.
Likewise, there is considerable overlap between those who favor oppressive, draconian gun regulation, and those who favor an all-powerful federal government--the Brady Campaign comes to mind. So does the Times Tribune's editorial board, which clearly favors "gun control," (applauding Kane "for standing up to the gun lobby"), and disparages state sovereignty advocates for objecting when "the government of the United States attempts to do something like enforce fair elections, provide access to health care, ensure clean water on both sides of state borders and so on."
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
It is not hypocracy to want the constitution enforced. States rights have limits.
Since when is it the right of a state to violate the constitution? The left's position is silly; what else is new.
This enthusiasm for states rights somehow misses the importance of individual rights
Good article here:
WSJ: The Fallicy of “Low” or “Declining” Homicide Numbers
The Wall Street Journal
U.S. NEWS
Updated December 8, 2012, 12:12 a.m. ET
In Medical Triumph, Homicides Fall Despite Soaring Gun Violence
By GARY FIELDS and CAMERON MCWHIRTER
BALTIMORE—The number of U.S. homicides has been falling for two decades, but America has become no less violent.
Crime experts who attribute the drop in killings to better policing or an aging population fail to square the image of a more tranquil nation with this statistic: The reported number of people treated for gunshot attacks from 2001 to 2011 has grown by nearly half.
“Did everybody become a lousy shot all of a sudden? No,” said Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, a union that represents about 330,000 officers. “The potential for a victim to survive a wound is greater than it was 15 years ago.”
In other words, more people in the U.S. are getting shot, but doctors have gotten better at patching them up. Improved medical care doesn’t account for the entire decline in homicides but experts say it is a major factor.
Emergency-room physicians who treat victims of gunshot and knife attacks say more people survive because of the spread of hospital trauma centers—which specialize in treating severe injuries—the increased use of helicopters to ferry patients, better training of first-responders and lessons gleaned from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Our experience is we are saving many more people we didn’t save even 10 years ago,” said C. William Schwab, director of the Firearm and Injury Center at the University of Pennsylvania and the professor of surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania...
Read at:
All the more reason to carry, eh?
In this case it is a states rights issue. If more restrictive states are to be made to obey the constitution, it must be ordered by the judiciary, federal judges ordering them to “obey the constitution”, instead of congress asserting federal power to force states to obey each others’ laws.
I do not want my state ordered to obey the laws of California, or New York, or any of the other 47, for that matter.
I think you are correct. The legislation should include, as authorizing the act, the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, and the Second Amendment.
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