Thune
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., author of the National Rifle Association-backed amendment, claimed it would help truckers and others who travel to protect themselves.
Think of it as Shootout at the Big Rig Corral, or High Noon in the Quick Stop parking lot.
While the measure would probably have been a boon to the makers of body armor, allowing them to branch out into marketing children and toddler’s sizes, it was mindless and dangerous for the rest of us.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., mentioned a Washington state man given a concealed weapons permit despite a history of drug addiction and schizophrenia who in 2008 shot and wounded three people at a public festival. In 2007 a Cincinnati woman with a permit to carry a concealed weapon shot and killed a panhandler who asked her for 25 cents at a gas station, he said.
The Violence Policy Center, a gun control advocacy group, released a study this week finding that concealed handgun permit holders killed at least seven police officers and 44 private citizens during the two-year period ending in April.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., condemned the amendment as dangerous because of the wide variation in standards of different states. California, with a huge population, has strict requirements for concealed-carry permits and has issued only 40,000 of them. Georgia, a much smaller state, has issued 300,000, while Florida has issued 580,000.
The vote was 58-39 for the amendment, two short of the 60 required.
It’s a sure bet that some who voted for the measure only did so because they knew it wouldn’t pass. NRA vice president Wayne LaPierre predicted those who voted nay will be remembered at election time.
The influence of the NRA is on the wane, especially with every new shoot-em-up that leaves a bunch of cops on slabs.
They blew it big time in 2008, and things don’t look all that great for them in 2010. The hell with them.
As long as Hussein X doesn’t try and take my AK-47 away. Can’t kill a woolly mammoth or Al-Qaeda with a .22.
JR, I share your attitude about the NRA. It’s not because I’m radically anti-gun, but rather because they are pro-gun extremists. Plus, IMO, the NRA organization uses fearmongering about taking away guns to exploit its paranoid members and bring in lots and lots of money.
Randal, I’m sure your AK is safe, along with your trusty 155mm howitzer, if you’ve got one. What? You don’t have one? Tsk tsk.
That proposed law has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of. I thought we had separate states and state laws for a reason. I’m pretty neutral about guns in general, but a law like that defeats the whole purpose of having 50 separate state governments, “50 individual experiments in democracy” as George Will once put it.
Let’s say the residents of a state where medical marijuana is legal, should be able to travel to every other state and smoke pot without any fear of arrest or prosecution, since it’s legal in that person’s home state. The wingnuts would love that. Right?
This was a good call by the Senate, defeating this. We have enough loonys packing heat in Virginia without being able to export them wholesale to other states that have more sense.
Tom, I can recall a long period when Republicans, especially the more conservative ones, along with Dixiecrats, were champions of states’ rights. Resisting racial integration and the civil rights movement had a lot to do with that.
Bee, one of the remarkable features of Thune’s amendment is that persons carrying a concealed weapon to another state are supposed to learn and abide by the rules of the state they’re visiting. Yeah, right.
Yeah that’s just what we all need tourists with handguns. Pop down to the park with your 50 cal. because you never know and those squirrels are so evil this time of year.
A .50 caliber handgun. Whew, that is harsh.
i think that gun control should always be imposed at all times to reduce violence.*,-