Daily Archives: June 21, 2005

I give it a 50-50 chance

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Some Democrats in eastern Oregon want a pro-gun platform for the state party.

Saying they’re tired of the gun control issue costing them defections to the GOP, Baker County Democrats voted last week to approve a platform resolution in support of gun ownership that they hope the state party will add to its platform.

The adoption came after a spirited debate over the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Chuck Butcher of Baker City, who crafted the county party’s resolution, said he will personally deliver it to the state party platform committee when it meets June 25 at West Linn. 

The local resolution states, in part, “The Democratic Party of Oregon resolves as follows: To recognize and support the right to keep and bear arms in Section 207 of the Oregon State Constitution and the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as an individual right not granted by the government but rather guaranteed by the government.

“In recognition of the tremendous personal responsibility engendered by the right to keep and bear arms, the Democratic Party of Oregon further advocates severe penalties and their enforcement for criminal use or misuse of this right.”

Butcher said he wanted to submit “a clear resolution without a lot of hedging, and frame it in language that could pass overwhelmingly, if the argument is presented correctly.”

They got the part about it being a right recognized rather than granted.  I give them extra credit for that!  But I suspect their chances of getting that, as written, adopted at the state level is asymptotically close to zero.  It’s just not going to happen.  If they weasel word it a WHOLE bunch then maybe 50-50.

Thanks for trying guys.  I know you are on our side and you have to fight the battle but you are going to lose at least the first few rounds.  Keep at it.

As expected lighters get by security

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As I and others said at the time the ban on lighters was stupid.  There is no practical way it can be enforced.  The newspapers are talking about the results now:

Last winter, when federal transportation security officials began discussing a ban on cigarette lighters in airline cabins, they warned that the lighters might slip past their screening equipment. Some airport managers were skeptical for the same reason.

Turns out they were right, at least if the recent experience of a handful of Twin Cities air travelers is any indication.

A dozen times in the past several weeks, those passengers sailed past airport screeners with at least one lighter in their carry-on bags.

…

“They really can be somewhat dangerous on a plane,” said Roth, a former Secret Service agent. “But the ban [also] is like a no-parking sign — if you find a lighter, it gives you an opening to look for something else that isn’t supposed to be in the luggage.”

One of the strongest congressional advocates for the lighter ban was Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who cited shoe bomber Richard Reid’s attempt in December 2002 to blow up a plane using matches.

If Reid had used a lighter, “the FBI said he would have blown up — the shoe bomber would have blown up the airplane,” Dorgan said during a Feb. 15 hearing.

Dorgan spokesman Barry Piatt said his boss “is keeping his eye on” the lighter ban but has indicated no dissatisfaction about its comprehensiveness.

“Nothing works 100 percent,” Piatt said. “That doesn’t mean things aren’t significantly improved. I think he wants to allow them time to work this. I don’t think anyone expected perfection in the first couple of months.”

‘Improved’?  Yeah, right.  They only lighters they are finding are the lighters people forgot about.  Anyone with a room temperature I.Q. can hide one such the screeners won’t find it.  Hence they are taking lighters from people that had no plans to do anything wrong with them.  The only ‘benefit’ to this policy is making some candidates for mental help feel better–and that especially applies to Sen. Dorgan.

As for Roth–Ayn Rand has him pegged.

Quote of the day–Paul Smith

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It didn’t make sense!  That’s how I knew it had to be true.

Paul Smith
On a law regarding ammunition.
May 11, 1999
[This logic applies to many government and bureaucracy laws, regulations, and rules.  See, for example, this one from yesterday.]