I drove from Colorado to Michigan over the last three days. Gas prices in Nebraska and Iowa were in the $4.30 range, I think mostly due to the heavy use of ethanol. The highest price was $5.79 in Joliet, IL, which I think is the most I’ve ever paid for a gallon of gas.
Former Supreme Court clerks say the problem is not the Heller decision rather the legislative process not doing anything. I wonder whether the same clerks would consider the extent to which Citizens United broke the legislative process?
For evil to flourish, good men forget who they are. They forget the ideals they once swore to give their very lives for. They come to believe that they are aggrieved, that justice, liberty, and democracy are zero sums and that they have been diminished by the rising freedom of others. They come to see education and intellect as “elitism” and they begin to regard duty and the obligations of civilization itself as oppression. They raise up ignorance, hate, and especially violent rage as strengths and sneer in contempt at compassion, charity, and selflessness.
I’ve been mulling the article I linked to yesterday that makes suggestions for practical gun safety based on the NRA’s safety rules. And I suspect that one may think to themselves, how would gun safety laws help decrease the amount of gun violence in the United States. And here from the article is the point:
Well written laws are about pragmatism.
For example, we all know that laws against drinking and driving won’t stop drunk driving, but they weren’t intended to. We know it’s going to happen. People are going to drink and drive and kill themselves and each other. We know we can’t eliminate it completely. That’s the pragmatism part.
Instead, drunk driving laws were intended to do two things, 1) give us legal recourse as a society, 2) make us responsible for our antisocial behavior – which in turn leads over time to a change in culture.
And that change significantly, measurably, reduced drinking and driving and provably saved lives and made American roads a safer place for all of us.
But, and this is important so pay attention, here’s what those laws didn’t do: they didn’t keep those of us who take responsibility for our own actions from 1) drinking, or 2) driving (note the operative word here is or).
And that’s the answer.
We need gun laws that give society legal recourse by making each gun owner/user personally accountable for their own actions.
Most sane people, pro gun law or anti gun law, will at least acknowledge that gun violence is way out of control in the United States. We have a societal problem. The problem has been getting worse for a decade and no laws have been passed to address it. What message, what permission, does the very act of not doing anything have on society? I think it says, the current state is ok. Keep on with the killing no matter whether it is in a school, a church, or a movie theatre.
What might gun safety laws look like? Perhaps something like this.
You will hear pundits quote polling that suggests a majority of citizens want tougher gun control laws, like you hear that a majority of citizens do not want abortion to be illegal. While that information might be true, it does not reflect how a bill becomes a law in the United States. In short, that polling information is really useless because laws are not passed the U.S. as a nation.
Every state has two senators, no matter how many citizens it has, and if not more than 60 Senators are willing to vote in favor of a law, the law will not be passed, even if it passes the House which more accurately reflects the population of the United States. So, the right polling should be per state.
We tend to obviscate by classifying states as red or blue, when in reality is you have states that are “pro no restraints on guns over loss of life” and other states that are “pro restraints on guns to prevent loss of life.” Citizens in these states who keep re-electing Senators over and over again have created the current situation.
So today, right now the question isn’t, what is the Unites States going to do. The real question is, what are the citizens of the state of Texas, who keep re-electing Ted Cruz over and over again, going to do? I am not optimistic.
Remember, no matter how much money the NRA gives Ted Cruz, the NRA is not casting votes for him, it’s the citizens in the state of Texas who cast those votes. Yes, the NRA bought all the past votes but that only works because Cruz is in office, and that only happens because more citizens of Texas vote for him than someone else who will vote for common sense gun laws.
If Texans are really angry over their children being murdered in school then Ted Cruz and John Cornyn will not be re-elected. The only way change is going to happen is in states like Texas that have Senators who refuse to pass gun control laws.
Every time another mass gun shooting takes place we direct our anger at lawmakers who refuse to pass gun control laws. Unfortunately, that anger is misplaced. How many times has citizens in the state of Kentucky re-elected Mitch McConnell after a shooting takes place? Truth is, the citizens in each state with Senators refusing to pass gun control laws that keep re-electing those Senators are the true people at fault. Citizens, you and I. Clearly, the citizens of Kentucky prefer the current situation as do far too many citizens in too many states, including the ones in which the shootings take place. Lawmakers do nothing because they know they do not have do anything, none of them are at risk of not being re-elected because they don’t pass gun control laws. End of story. It’s all on us, and that includes parents of children the same age as those killed yesterday.
In the addicted country that is the United States of America, Making America Great Again does not include eliminating gun violence and children dying in schools. Money is the drug of choice that prevents us from taking any action because to do so means someone is going to make less money. A Christian nation? Not by any definition provided by The Christ. A pro-life nation? You can’t be serious!
Taco Tuesday at the Taco Stop, Fort Collins, CO
Every hotel chain that targets “extended stay” and business travelers needs to check their in-room workspace furniture for ergonomics. I am working from a Residence Inn and the “office chair” is too low relative to the “desk” putting my wrists at a terrible angle, needing me to have the notebook on the lap for any extended typing to prevent the wrists from hurting. Real smart hotel chains that target travelers would put adjustable desks in each room, or at least certain rooms targeted at travelers.
Our flowering tree is at full bloom. Enjoying it before the inevitable wind and rain comes.
Spring might be here.
It is May 5 and the furnace is still on and running. Outdoor temperature still in the low 40s. So ready for warm weather to come and stay.
Dear Constitutional Fundamentalists, Supreme Court Justics and conservative Republicans. How do you reconcile the claim that the government cannot mandate vaccines on the basis of protecting the public good because of your right to decide what happens to your body, a right apparently not natural and not explicitly in the Constitiution according to SCOTUS, and your claim that the government can mandate that a pregnant woman give birth to a baby?
I mean, there is liikely going to be another pandemic in the future that could result in millions of dead people due to the inactions of others, either we, all genders, all races, all humans, being equal, have the right to privacy that provides us the right to decide what happens to and inside our bodies, or we do not. You cannot have it both ways.
Or is it that we are not all equal and thus do not deserve equal protection under the law?
May the fourth be with you
Looks like we need a Constitutional Amendment that guarantees the right to privacy.
Is recognizing rights of citizens in the United States a bad thing? My understanding of the United States Constitution is that its purpose is to prevent the Federal government from becoming tyrannical by narrowing its power to enumerated rights. The Constitution does not exist to define the rights of citizens and I am pretty sure Madison did not imagine that the Bill of Rights defined the only rights of U.S. citizens. Therefore it seems to me that the very act of removing rights from citizens through declaring that SCOTUS decisions granted rights not provided for in the Constitution is the exact opposite of an originalist understanding of the Constitution. Roe v. Wade restrains the Federal government from taking a women’s right of autonomy over their own body, a right by the way that many of been claiming is the reason why things like “mask mandates” and “vaccine mandates' are not constitutional.
Striding down the Riverwalk wearing purple
Happy Friday!
