Well said, all!
And to add another statistic to Rolands litany, lead story today on Yahoo is about a mother backing over her child, sad.... tragic. Happens a couple hundred times per year, more than 200 kids driven over by their own parents. And the hue and cry is to "make this stop!! The auto industry has known about this problem for years but they're unwilling to".... blahh blahh blahh...
I personally know more than 10 persons who've tragically killed their loved ones. Sad, tragic but it happens. People die, KIDS die....
But back to guns, back to the difference between vicvanb and myself. (((Vic I hope you come back on to tell me I'm WRONG but I can't see it happening.))) RIGHT NOW, since I've taken the stance that YES a lot of these laws ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL vic and other government apologists have
again relegated me to the wacko pile. To answer this I'll use two instances, one to illustrate "government think" and another regarding laws, the Supreme Court and the concept of Constitutionality.
#1, I've been teaching Hunter Ed for a number of years, We're known as the North Clark County Hunter Safety program. I've built and set up an entire classroom at my home complete with projection, gunsafe, seating for 36 students and parents..... all on personal and donated funds and time, this is not a small endeavor. Plus we've opened and maintained about 15 acres of land with three outbuildings to store archery equipment, range equipment, animals/fences/boats/signs etc for a complete walk-through field course. We have been an accredited, NRA sanctioned facility for 8yrs and have operated under WDFW with a wonderful group of dedicated volunteer teachers, both my fellow course teachers and others from across the state. Here in WA we have an unbelievably dedicated pool of volunteers, great teachers and mentors... SO GREAT that the WA State course is the only course recognized nationwide. You get through us, you're good-a-go anywhere in these United States. We've been "unpaid employees of Washington State Dept of Wildlife" all this time. Then, about 18mo ago our course "changed jurisdiction," WDFW handed us over to the State Police Dept because "someone" miss-spent our Pittman-Robertson Funding. (For all of you old-timers and all of you fellow manufacturers,
you know what I'm talking about here, the voluntary tax WE VOTED FOR specifically for the preservation of wildlife) So anyway, now we're volunteers under the Police Force.....perty cool huhh???
NOT!!!!
The first thing PD said at our first meeting was "HI! We're your new boss! We're here to help! Now, the first problem is, YOU GUYS DON'T HAVE ENOUGH RULES!!!" (Of course what they really said was, "in the interest of clarity, since we'll now be working together, we're working on a draft....." The draft has now been finalized... all 80 pages of it....NOW, To alla' you'se real-life LEO's and people who're hired in law enforcement either directly or peripherally, I ask you this, "HOW MUCH FUN WOULD IT BE to make your classes, conform to your fairness rules and HR training, keep up on all your certs and etc etc etc...... ON YOUR OWN TIME, after work, UN-paid??? 80 pages, the last 30 are paperwork forms... a complete CLUSTER of "requisitioning" and "signing in" and "signing out" and ON and ON.....
We don't get paid for this.
We called a meeting, we chose not to sign on..... WE QUIT! With a years worth of classes on the books, WE QUIT. We have all sorts of reasons, we all hold different positions in our coterie, we do different jobs, ALL OF WHICH have been adversely affected and we are every one of us bent about slightly different things.
But the kicker for me????
Above and beyond the fact that "all your guns and bows are now property of the state" and above and beyond "we want you successful courses to keep right on gathering donations......for us," and above and beyond "no stockpiling, you will requisition ammunition as needed" and ignoring "we will issue guns to you as we see fit, when they become available" (I've got to stop, I'm getting pissed)
THE KICKER FOR ME?????
They made our classroom a "gunfree zone!" NO POOP! We're s'posed to police for legal concealed carry citizens!
We can no longer "bring hunting broadheads into our Hunter Ed class!"
I QUIT!
We're having meetings soon.....really, hopefully they can talk us into coming back..... but SOMEtime, SOMEwhere SOMEone has got to get the message, "WE DO THIS FOR THE KIDS!!! Not for the State of WA! Of course a large percentage of our "kids" are adults getting set up to hunt in other states, mothers trying to overcome fear of guns, even people from "town" who've just never fired a gun and want to know "what it's all about" but we do it for the kids....
But back to vic, back to "laws" and the idea that "well the law passed din't it? How can they pass unconstitutional laws huhh??"
"Only a WACKO believes that stuff!"
PLEASE vic, look into this stuff a little and understand that THE SUPREME COURT IS NOT A POLICING AGENCY, we the people are.......Let's take the recent "Heller Decision" as it's called or the "Heller Ruling" or "Heller Case" depending on your viewpoint....... and let's ask ourselves....
"what happened here??"
What HAPPENED is, a citizen finally got pissed enough to spend the money.... and this is what happened
On June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Heller v. District of Columbia.[3][4] The Court of Appeals had struck down provisions of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 as unconstitutional, determined that handguns are "arms" for the purposes of the Second Amendment, found that the District of Columbia's regulations act was an unconstitutional banning, and struck down...... etc etc.
That law had stood, uncontested
for 33 YEARS VIC!!!
You think this is an isolated instance vic????
You think "the government will protect us???"
Read this, "Henderson's dissent"....
In her dissent, Circuit Judge Henderson stated that Second Amendment rights did not extend to residents of Washington D.C., writing:
To sum up, there is no dispute that the Constitution, case law and applicable statutes all establish that the District is not a State within the meaning of the Second Amendment. Under United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. at 178, the Second Amendment's declaration and guarantee that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" relates to the Militia of the States only. That the Second Amendment does not apply to the District, then, is, to me, an unavoidable conclusion.
In other words, "well, OK, so our Constitution guarantees
states the right to bear arms but, but, but...."
No vic, I ain't buying in.........Our Founding Fathers were BRILLIANT men dedicated to creating something better. You either believe in them, and in the ideal,
or you DON'T.
opinionsby
al
