Author: coldhardcashner

Happy Hour Cancelled- Miserable Hour Starts at Five

No doubt many denizens of Iowa’s bastion of liberalism, Iowa City, are rooting in favor of gay marriage in the Varnum v. Brien case now before the Iowa Supreme Court. Unfortunately liberals, just like conservatives, seek to expand freedom for their chosen groups while seeking to restrict it for others. Iowa City officials are currently advancing their jihad against alcohol drinkers in general and bar owners in particular.

Facing a “crisis” of binge drinking because of all the young folks attending University of Iowa, city officials are pushing for an ordinance to end drink specials such as the age-old “happy hour” wherein drinks are cheaper. Iowa City Mayor Regenia Bailey said, “Our objective … is to reduce price specials and pricing that encourage excessive drinking,” reported the Cedar Rapids Gazette on Wednesday. Iowa City already bans two drinks for the price of one and all-you-can-drink specials. Not happy with just throttling bar owners in their own town, city officials are also leaning on the state legislature for a similar state-wide ban.

Gazette columnist Todd Dorman, on his blog, predicts that at least the statewide ban faces bleak prospects in the Iowa legislature this time around. Since the legislature has spent the last couple of years doing everything except waterboarding bar owners, Dorman states that legislators may be reluctant to give the businesses “another kick in the shorts.” A similar ban failed in the Iowa Legislature in 1997.

No doubt the city ordinance will go through however. And when it comes to pushing for laws to make us Iowans healthier (and less free), the liberals are a tenacious bunch. Iowa City was one of the first to ban smoking and started the trend that is now a state-wide ban. We can expect to see similar bans on drink specials introduced every year until they get their way.

As I see it there are three primary reasons to oppose this ban.

Firstly, it impedes the right of business owners to run their businesses as they see fit and the rights of patrons as well. Bar owners already must navigate a labyrinthine set of government regulations, zoning laws and licensing procedures. They don’t need more red tape and more potential fines.

For bar patrons, the ban restricts their right to live their lives as they see fit, even if that involves getting plastered. Raising prices to control people’s choices is just paternalistic government overreach. As long as patrons are of legal drinking age, aren’t causing problems or getting behind the wheel of a car, it’s no one’s damned business if they drink too much. Legal drinkers might want to use one of the liberals’ own favorite catchphrases against them: “My body, my choice!”

Secondly, this is an unnecessary infringement on the private market. (This might just be another way of stating my first objection.) Many folks like myself belief that the government shouldn’t interfere in the market unless there is some coercive or non-consensual activity involved, such as fraud or theft. If bar owners were holding guns to the heads of patrons, forcing them to drink excessively, the government should get involved.

Bureaucrats should not be controlling the prices for drinks or any other consumer product, the market can set prices just fine. Looking at their balance sheets, bar owners will set drink prices appropriately low to get people in the door, but high enough to turn a profit. Since politicians from Iowa City to Des Moines to D.C. don’t seem to mind meddling in the free market, this argument is probably a lost cause.

Lastly, the ban probably won’t help much. If you chase binge drinkers out of the bars, they’ll just drink elsewhere, probably in less structured environments. That’s if it chases them out at all. I know that in my wild and woolly younger days, my buddies and I didn’t pay any mind to drink prices. The only thing that mattered was when our wallet was finally empty. Even if it did work, any slight reductions in binge drinking would not justify the first two intrusions in personal liberty.

I hope this ban doesn’t go state-wide. First the people controllers went after the smokers. Now it’s the drinkers. Next it will be sin taxes on junk food or God knows what else. That’s when I might have to put down my bag of pork rinds and fight!

Gay Marriage In Iowa

On December 9th, the Iowa Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of Varnum v. Brien, which is a suit against Polk County brought by six same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses. The lower court ruled that denying these Iowans the right to marry was unconstitutional. The case may well decide whether gay marriage will or will not be allowed in Iowa.

Although I’m a country boy with conservative personal (although not always political) beliefs and a Christian upbringing, I hope the plaintiffs win and gay marriage is allowed. I don’t care much about “gay rights,” but I do care about “individual rights.” If those individuals happen to be homosexuals, so what?

Ideally the question at stake should not be whether or not gays should be granted marriage licenses, but whether or not a government entity should be issuing marriage licenses at all. Marriage existed long before the Iowa state or Polk County governments and throughout most of its history marriage didn’t need a bureaucrat’s stamp of approval. In England, for example, it wasn’t until 1754 that marriage became regulated by law.

Cato Institute scholar David Boaz argues that marriage licensing, like many over-reaching government functions, could be privatized. Says Boaz: “‘Privatizing’ marriage can mean two slightly different things. One is to take the state completely out of it. If couples want to cement their relationship with a ceremony or ritual, they are free to do so. Religious institutions are free to sanction such relationships under any rules they choose. A second meaning of ‘privatizing’ marriage is to treat it like any other contract: The state may be called upon to enforce it, but the parties define the terms. When children or large sums of money are involved, an enforceable contract spelling out the parties’ respective rights and obligations is probably advisable. But the existence and details of such an agreement should be up to the parties.

“And privatizing marriage would, incidentally, solve the gay-marriage problem. It would put gay relationships on the same footing as straight ones, without implying official government sanction. No one’s private life would have official government sanction–which is how it should be.”

However, according to the plaintiffs in Varnum v. Brien, Iowa law refers to marriage, directly or indirectly, at least 540 times. The state has effectively tethered itself to the marriage business, so the ad hoc approach of fighting within the current licensing regime is probably the best course for same-sex advocates.

While the government might have to be brought into this kicking and screaming, it appears that culturally we’ve already crossed the Rubicon. A recent survey of Iowa voters found that about 60% favored allowing same-sex unions. 28.1% supported “gay marriage,” while another 30.2% supported same-sex “civil unions.” 32% opposed both.

If gay marriage does go through, I know a lot of folks that are going to go through the roof. But my conservative-Christian friends can console themselves with the fact that, if they’re right, God will have far worse punishment waiting for gay couples than mere license denial. But it is His call, not the state’s.

How To Deal With Pirates? More Freedom!

Probably not the biggest threat to the republic, but a growing annoyance nonetheless, is the threat of piracy against commercial shipping. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reports a dramatic increase of pirate attacks in 2008. There were a total of 199 pirate attacks reported to the IMB during the first nine months of this year. “The increased frequency of piracy and heightening levels of violence are of significant concern to the shipping industry and all mariners. The types of attacks, the violence associated with the attacks, the number of hostages taken, and the amounts paid in ransoms for the release of the vessels have all increased considerably,” stated IMB Director Captain Pottengal Mukundan.

A lot of the increased pirate activity is off the coast of Somalia, particularly in the Gulf of Aden. This region accounts for almost a third of pirate attacks worldwide. Kenyan officials estimate that the Somali pirates have made at least $150 million in ransom money. That was before the pirates seized a Saudi oil tanker carrying $100 million worth of crude oil last week. They are demanding $25 million in ransom for the ship and crew.

Like good businessmen, the pirates are re-investing much of their ill-gotten booty (that’s the only movie-pirate terminology I’ll use, I promise me hearties!) back into their business. The pirates appear to be buying new and better speedboats, and more powerful weapons such as rocket-propelled grenade launchers (RPG’s) and 14.5 mm heavy machine-guns.

The growing threat has caused national governments and the U.N. to reluctantly say that they should probably do… something. Several nations already have a few warships patrolling the area. NATO has four vessels in the region, soon to be replaced with four from the European Union. The U.S. 5th Fleet also has several ships patrolling the area and the Yemeni Coast Guard is working hard.

However, U.N. rules restrict the ability of naval forces to respond to pirate attacks. NATO spokesman James Appathurai explains: “[Navy ships] can patrol. They can deter. They can even stop attacks that are happening, but what they do not do is then board the ship that has been hijacked elsewhere to try and free it.”

While global bureaucrats scratch their heads and try to figure out how to deal with pirates, the shipping industry is doing what it can. They have re-routed ships around dangerous areas, which may add thousands of extra miles to a trip, increasing costs. They have advised their crews of passive measures such as traveling at night without lights, to avoid detection and battening all hatches to avoid boarding. Private security companies, such as the now infamous Blackwater, have offered their own patrol boats to protect shipping for a price.

Lest we make this problem more complicated than what it is, let’s look at the facts. Pirates are just criminals, like seaborne muggers. Navy ships (like cops) cannot be everywhere and therefore cannot guarantee the safety of every civilian ship. The similarities to routine street crime are apparent. A partial solution to reducing piracy is therefore pretty similar to what has reduced violent crime domestically: reduce the number of unarmed victims.

While some ships have done so for years, arming civilian mariners faces several challenges. Firstly, squeamish trade groups such as the International Maritime Organization (IMO) oppose doing so because they believe it puts crews at greater risk. Instead, the IMO recommends that merchant ships take the passive measures listed above and post lookouts with high-pressure water hoses to ward off pirates. Spraying pirates who have rocket-launchers and heavy machine-guns with a water hose is the safe option? Sounds like ritualistic suicide. Spraying them with lead makes more sense to me. Since one cruise ship was able to scare away armed pirates with simulated machine-gun fire, it’s obvious that REAL guns would have a deterrent effect.

Second, arming civilian crews faces legal challenges. Mariners are bound by the national laws of the ports that they visit. Since most nations outlaw civilian gun ownership, crew members would risk arrest at most stops.

If everybody is so afraid of armed civilians, why not wave the federal magic wand over armed volunteers and turn them into “officials.” How about a program similar to the Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO) program, run by the Federal Air Marshall Service, implemented among civilian airline pilots after 9-11?

Willing crew members, employed by willing ship owners, could volunteer for the program. They would receive weapons training from the U.S. government and some type of official recognition, perhaps with special membership in the Navy or Coast Guard Reserves. Official status would no doubt allow the crew members to enter into more ports than they could as armed civilians, as well as allowing them weapons that they might not otherwise have access to. One or two crew members manning weapons such as the M2 .50 caliber machine-gun, M240 7.62mm machine-gun, Mk-19 automatic grenade launcher or even light weapons would not only deter pirate attacks but would give ships a fighting chance against them if they attack anyway. [The merchant seaman pictured above (circa 1984) is armed with a 12 gauge shotgun. While effective for repelling boarders close-in, it’s effective range of 50 yards would be outclassed by the heavy weapons used by today’s pirates.] The program could require that these weapons be securely stowed under lock and key until needed, as the FFDO program does.

This wouldn’t be the perfectly libertarian solution to the pirate problem. That solution would be the high-seas equivalent of “Vermont Carry,” wherein civilians carry whatever guns they want, no permit required. Unfortunately there’s no way other countries would recognize this right.

But a voluntary, government sanctioned program as described above, in addition to un-sanctioned arms bearing and passive security measures, would help to reduce piracy of American vessels. It would give civilians more flexibility in protecting their lives and their livelihood. That’s always a good thing.

National Servitude

There’s a visceral buzz in the country, or at least on tv, in anticipation of the “Change” coming in January when Obama will take the nation’s helm. What sort of change will he bring? I perused his official website http://www.change.gov/ to see.

On thing that caught my eye was the “America Serves” section of the site. This details Obama’s plan to help the citizenry to “serve” their country. Although it has been scrubbed of the specifics that were posted on it briefly (Obama wasn’t elected on specifics after all), the section still gives the bare-bones of his plan.

In “America Serves” the president-elect promises that “[t]he Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges.” Obama not only plans to expand the national service programs AmeriCorps and Peace Corps, but will also conjure up several new service programs. A Classroom Corps will work in “underserved” schools. There will also be a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps and Veteran Corps.

Kids as young as middle school will be expected to perform 50 hours of community service per year. The federal government would withhold funds from local schools that don’t put their students to work the requisite number of hours (a fact missing from the newly sanitized site). College students will be expected to perform 100 hours per year. For their servitude, the older kids will be given a $4,000 tax credit toward college tuition.

If you think that a lifetime of hard work (wherein the average American works about 113 days per year to earn enough to pay their tax bill, essentially working involuntarily for the government during that period) might get you off the hook for continued “service,” think again. “Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve” their community too, his site explains.

To be fair to Obama, the guy he beat also supports expanding national service. Among other programs, McCain praised the example of “City Year,” an AmeriCorps program that serves 18 cities. “City Year members wear uniforms, work in teams, [..] and gather together for daily calisthenics, often in highly public places such as in front of city hall,” wrote McCain. He enthusiastically explained that in another program, The National Civilian Community Corps, members “not only wear uniforms and work in teams… but actually live together in barracks on former military bases[.]” This idea is no doubt the authoritarian equivalent of Viagra for the militaristic McCain.

Since “national service” started out meaning compulsory military service, it’s ironic that the military has moved toward a more freedom-friendly volunteer force (as it should), while the politicians in DC seem determined to push compulsory service into new areas of civilian society.

Proponents claim that young participants will learn responsibility and a sense of duty. I would argue that the young will learn that they are mere vassals of the government, which holds preemptive claim over their very lives, rather than free citizens with unalienable rights and lives with intrinsic worth.

Perhaps President-elect Obama (and Senator McCain, who will no doubt vote for any Democrat national service proposal in Congress) should reread the 13th Amendment which states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” (Emphasis added.) It contains no provision exempting the federal government from it’s prohibition.

In my own day, our high school had already implemented an annual “Community Service Day” in which students did various odd jobs around the three small, rural towns that comprised our district. (And it didn’t even require goading from the federal government to do so.) Like compulsory service supporters contend, I DID learn valuable life-lessons from this. In fact, I learned two: 1)Spending hours trying to rake tiny bits of gravel up a steep, grassy incline with a widely-spaced leaf rake is a pointless, Sisyphus-like task. 2)People in positions of authority aren’t necessarily smart.

Ron Paul Gets It

In this interview on CNN, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) raises many of the same points about the downfall of the GOP that I raised in my post “Cinders and Ashes!”

Cinders and Ashes!

One of the benefits of having a two-year-old son is that I now know that, when something traumatic happens, Thomas the Tank Engine usually exclaims, “Cinders and ashes!” I’ll bet there were more than a few folks at the Republican National Committee using similar, albeit less family friendly, utterances the morning after election day. But Thomas’ tagline is a fitting description of the state of the GOP following the election.

If the election of ’06 was a shot fired across the GOP’s bow, the ’08 election was right in their wheelhouse. Neo-conservative (big-government authoritarian) Republican John McCain got stomped by Democrat Barack Obama electorally, 163 to 364. The popular vote was slightly less one-sided, with Obama getting 53% and McCain getting 46%. The Democrats picked up 6 seats in the U.S. Senate and picked up 17 seats in the U.S. House. At the end of it all, the Senate had 57 Democrat seats (only 3 seats short of a filibuster-proof majority) to 40 Republican seats. The House now has 252 Dems and 173 Republicans.

As a one-time stalwart Republican, when I surveyed the wreckage of the GOP, I felt like an immigrant to the U.S. seeing his war-torn former country on CNN, bombed and flattened. I felt sad for my friends who didn’t make it out, but glad that I left when I did.

I didn’t shed too many tears though, because the GOP brought this shellacking on themselves. Many people like myself fought in the trenches to put the GOP in power in the 1990’s. We sent them to DC with a simple mandate: “Cut government.” That included cutting taxes, spending, regulation and intrusiveness. The Republican-controlled federal government did the exact opposite of those things. (I know they cut taxes somewhat. But they didn’t even make those cuts permanent and they increased spending and debt so much that essentially they just delayed paying those taxes rather than eliminating them.)

In essence, once the Republicans were firmly in power, they governed like Democrats. Advocates of smaller, less intrusive federal government suddenly found themselves out in the cold. But, as the last two election cycles showed, the American people will choose real Democrats over wannabe-Democrats every time. The neo-conservative plan to out-Democrat the Democrats resulted in an electoral train wreck.

Supporters of smaller government now have four options:

  1. We can help the GOP rebuild their party, and try to get it to focus on limited government fundamentals. This is essentially what Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty is about.
  2. We can join the Democrats and take whatever reforms we can get.
  3. We can become detached from the political process, hunker down and hope that the big-government Panzers roll past without crushing us.
  4. We can try to build the Libertarian Party or Constitution Party into a major party able to challenge the Demublicans for control.

I’ve thrown in with the merry band of Libertarians, so it’s probably obvious that I support the last option. Paleo-conservatives, libertarians, and constitutionalists gave the Republican Party a fair chance to advance limited government principles. The GOP betrayed that trust. May it rest in peace.

Reformation: Then and Now

As I attended my niece’s confirmation into the Lutheran Church (yes, they had confirmation in October) the minister spoke about the Protestant Reformation, which celebrates its anniversary this month. It was a good history review, as my own confirmation classes were many moons ago.

In the middle ages the Catholic Church had grown bloated and corrupt. (This is not an indictment of my many friends and family who are members of the modern Catholic Church, just a review.) In 1517 a German monk named Martin Luther challenged the church’s systemic corruption by posting his “95 Theses.” Chief among the grievances listed was the church’s sale of indulgences, the forgiveness of sin based upon monetary payments to the church.

Luther’s protest sparked a backlash against the Church that spread across Northern Europe. Many religious reformers followed in Luther’s footsteps: such as Zwingli in Switzerland and Calvin in France (before he partnered with Hobbes). The message of these men was aided immensely by a new invention, the movable type printing press.

The printing press was invented in Europe (the Asians invented it first) by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450. Just as significant as the mass production aspects was the fact that Gutenberg began printing the Bible in German. Prior to this the Bible was only available in Latin, which could be read only by the well-educated minority of priests and scholars. No longer did the people have to rely on the learned few to interpret the word of God. The people could now do it themselves.

Fast forward 500 years and we can see similarities with the tremors of change that the “Information Age” (or the “Third Wave” of human progress as Alvin Toffler calls it) is promising to bring to the entrenched power structure. In their book “The Sovereign Individual” authors James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg posit the theory that, just as the printing press was the wrecking ball to the all-powerful medieval church, the internet promises to be a wrecking ball to the big government nation-state (also bloated and corrupt).

In addition to allowing the rapid transfer of money between nations, keeping it one step ahead of the tax collector, the internet allows the people unfiltered access to all kinds of information (and plenty of crap too, as readers of this blog are no doubt aware). Just as early Protestants could suddenly read the Bible in their own language, we no longer require any “learned few” to interpret our news and information for us.

I remember when the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill was being debated, many people declared it to be an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment right to political speech. I recall a letter in the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette stating that the bill should be passed, because it was up to the Supreme Court, not the people or even Congress, to decide what is and what is not constitutional. Imagine: only nine philosopher kings (or queens) in black robes being allowed to interpret the framework for a government supposedly of the people, by the people, and for the people. Probably not an uncommon belief these days.

I encourage everyone to read the Constitution for themselves and make up your own minds about what it means. Don’t rely upon the interpretation of people who want to control you. (That goes for everything else too, not just the Constitution.)

Here are a few links:
[These links will now also be located in the “Important Documents” section at the right of the page.]

And you thought this post was going to be about my niece’s confirmation!

Global Warming

Lorne Gunter had a good article today about global warming at the National Post website. The article is titled “Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof.” It contains several of the latest studies that are casting doubt on the whole theory of man made global warming. Among them:

“[I]n September, American Craig Loehle, a scientist who conducts computer modelling on global climate change, confirmed his earlier findings that the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) of about 1,000 years ago did in fact exist and was even warmer than 20th-century temperatures.

“Prior to the past decade of climate hysteria and Kyoto hype, the MWP was a given in the scientific community. Several hundred studies of tree rings, lake and ocean floor sediment, ice cores and early written records of weather — even harvest totals and censuses –confirmed that the period from 800 AD to 1300 AD was unusually warm, particularly in Northern Europe.

“But in order to prove the climate scaremongers’ claim that 20th-century warming had been dangerous and unprecedented — a result of human, not natural factors — the MWP had to be made to disappear. So studies such as Michael Mann’s “hockey stick,” in which there is no MWP and global temperatures rise gradually until they jump up in the industrial age, have been adopted by the UN as proof that recent climate change necessitates a reordering of human economies and societies.

“Dr. Loehle’s work helps end this deception.”

I’m no scientist, so I won’t say for certain whether or not man made global warming is a serious threat. But given that just about every “fix” for it involves a heavy dose of socialism, loss of individual liberty and abandonment of the capitalist system that led to some of the greatest standards of living in human history, we better be darned sure about it before we start down that road.

Read Gunter’s full article here.

NRA Endorses McCain- Part II

[For a more complete analysis of the NRA’s endorsement of presidential candidate John McCain, read the original post- Strange Bedfellows: NRA Endorses Its Enemy, directly below this post.]

Here’s McCain speaking about the NRA. This is the guy that the NRA endorsed?

http://blip.tv/play/Abf9DYeFGg

Here’s a commercial McCain did for “Americans For Gun Safety”(AGS) seeking to close a non-existent “gun show loophole” using bogus statistics. AGS was founded by Andrew McKelvey, a former member of the board of directors of Handgun Control Inc. and the primary founder of the Million Mom March (against gun rights). AGS received funding from anti-gun nuts George Soros and Teresa Heinz Kerry via the Tides Center.

Here’s a fact check for the senator: A 1997 study by the National Institute of Justice said only 2% of criminal guns came from gun shows. Hardly an epidemic. Of these few crime guns procured at gun shows, many were purchased by “straw buyers” who could pass a criminal background check (a practice that is already illegal), so additional background checks would do no good. All gun sales at gun shows are governed by the SAME legal requirements as they are anywhere else. There is no “loophole” specific to gun shows.

Gun owners should disregard the NRA sellout and support Bob Barr, who serves on the NRA’s board of directors and has an excellent Second Amendment record. (Bob’s NRA rating: A+, McCain’s NRA rating: C+, McCain’s Gun Owners of America rating: F-)

Strange Bedfellows: NRA Endorses Its Enemy

It’s official: the National Rifle Association (NRA) has endorsed Senator John McCain for President. That’s somewhat surprising considering that the NRA once labeled McCain as “one of the premier flag carriers for the enemies of the Second Amendment” [right to keep and bear arms], which the NRA supposedly defends. So, how did McCain gain the NRA’s ire, then, ultimately its endorsement?

How McCain got a bad name with gun owners is easy. He co-sponsored the McCain-Lieberman Gun Show Bill to close the supposed “gun show loophole.” While the bill didn’t technically outlaw gun shows, it did open gun show organizers up to so much potential legal trouble as to not make it worth the risk. It was a backdoor ban on gun shows. Thankfully this bill failed.

Later, the McCain-Feingold Act specifically sought to muzzle groups like the NRA from criticizing anti-gun candidates. NRA Executive V.P. Wayne LaPierre called it “the most significant change in the First Amendment since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which tried to make it a crime to criticize a member of Congress.” The NRA was literally first in line at the courthouse doors to file a lawsuit to stop McCain’s law after President Bush signed it. (The lawsuit failed and McCain-Feingold is still the law of the land.)

McCain did commercials for the moderate sounding, yet anti-Second Amendment, group Americans for Gun Safety. McCain voted in favor of both of Bill Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees who voted against the Second Amendment in DC vs Heller. These are just some of McCain’s transgressions against gun owners. For a complete reading check out “John McCain: Conservative or Gun-Grabber?”

Why did the NRA endorse candidate McCain? Because his challenger, Barack Obama, is worse. (For a complete rundown of Obama’s anti-gun record, click here.) But why they would endorse someone who is a proven enemy of the Second Amendment rather than just not endorsing either candidate (as they’ve done several times before) is puzzling. This is just the most recent example of the NRA placing political expediency above principle.

NRA Board Member Russ Howard resigned because the NRA kept giving A grades to anti-gun legislators in his home state of California.

The NRA brags about the recent victory for gun owners in the Supreme Court case of DC vs. Heller, but the group played a negligible role in the win and, fearing a lose, tried to squash the case. Robert A. Levy, the lawyer who helped create and personally financed the case that reaffirmed the Second Amendment as an individual right, said “The N.R.A.’s interference in this process set us back and almost killed the case. It was a very acrimonious relationship.”

In 2007 NRA actively supported the “NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007’’ which was dubbed “the Veteran’s Disarmament Act” by pro-gun critics. Written by Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), arguably the most anti-gun member of Congress, the bill mandated that states turn over all types of personal information about their citizens, potentially including medical records, to the federal government to use in it’s “National Instant Criminal Background Check System” (NICS) for approving gun buyers. Wholly unnecessary, the bill could prevent veterans who have ever sought professional help for post traumatic stress disorder or depression from ever owning guns, even if they present no threat to themselves or others. (How’s that for a disincentive to get the help that some may need?) In addition to hurting gun owners, this bill is a nightmare for advocates of personal privacy rights and state rights.

In 2001 NRA pushed for and got “Project Safe Neighborhoods,” a national initiative supposedly aimed at reducing gun violence. As the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute explains it, “Project Safe Neighborhoods is the public-policy embodiment of the National Rifle Association sound bite ‘we don’t need any new gun control laws; we need to enforce the gun laws on the books.’ The program funds more than 800 new prosecutors (around 200 federal, 600 state level) who will do nothing but pursue gun-law violations full time.” It essentially makes every petty street crime involving a firearm into a federal crime, Tenth Amendment be damned. It is a program of zero-tolerance enforcement of the very gun laws that NRA often argues are unconstitutional and ineffective. Otherwise law-abiding gun owners who get caught in this web for regulatory infractions or accidental violations are acceptable “collateral damages” to the NRA.

The website NRAwol has volumes of examples of the NRA selling out the Second Amendment and America’s gun owners in the name of political expediency dating back to the National Firearms Act of 1934. [A link to this site will now be located in the “National Links” Section to the right.]

Despite all this, I’m not going to cancel my life-membership in the NRA. (I already paid for it after all.) They still do some good too. Their work with match shooting and firearms training is second to none. Politically I believe that they may still fight against the most egregious gun bans. I will just have to bear in mind that their endorsement of candidates and some legislation is meaningless. For all things political I will pay attention to what Gun Owners of America has to say, and continue to roll my eyes when the NRA sends me its usual panhandling fundraiser letters every other week.