Category: Opinion

The Two Parties Are What Is Wrong

As we close in on the 2024 election I want to give as much information and yes, opinions, on the trends and stumbles that society may expect.

There’s no shortage of plausible explanations for why U.S. politics has become so polarized, but many of these theories describe impossible-to-reverse trends that have played out across developed democracies, like the rise of social media and the increased political salience of globalization, immigration and urban-rural cultural divides. All of these trends are important contributors, for sure. But if they alone are driving illiberalism and hyper-partisanship in the U.S., then the problem should be consistent across all western democracies. But it isn’t.

What’s happening in the U.S. is distinct in four respects.

First, the animosity that people feel toward opposing parties relative to their own (what’s known as affective polarization in political science) has grown considerably over the last four decades. According to a June 2020 paper from economists Levi Boxell, Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, the increase in affective polarization in the U.S. is the greatest compared to that of eight other OECD countries over the same time period.

Second, the change in how Americans feel about their party and other parties has been driven by a dramatic decrease in positive feelings toward the opposing party. In most (though not all) of the nine democracies, voters have become a little less enthusiastic about their own parties. But only in the U.S. have partisans turned decidedly against the other party.

Third, more so than in other countries, Americans report feeling isolated from their own party. When asked to identify both themselves and their favored party on an 11-point scale in a 2012 survey, Americans identified themselves as, on average, 1.3 units away from the party that comes closest to espousing their beliefs, according to an analysis from political scientist Jonathan Rodden. This gap is the highest difference Rodden found among respondents in comparable democracies. This isolation matters, too, because it means that parties can’t count on enthusiasm from their own voters — instead, they must demonize the political opposition in order to mobilize voters.

Fourth, and perhaps most significant, in the U.S., one party has become a major illiberal outlier: The Republican Party. Scholars at the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden have been monitoring and evaluating political parties around the world. And one big area of study for them is liberalism and illiberalism, or a party’s commitment (or lack thereof) to democratic norms prior to elections. And as the chart below shows, of conservative, right-leaning parties across the globe, the Republican Party has more in common with the dangerously authoritarian parties in Hungary and Turkey than it does with conservative parties in the U.K. or Germany.

(fivethirtyeight.com)

All that aside what is needed in America is a third choice….but before all the nay-sayers jump in….read on….

A study shows the American voter is dissatisfied with our choices for governing elites….time for a third party?

A study by the Pew Research center found that 61% of U.S. adults today find the Republican Party unfavorable, while 57% shared the same sentiment toward the Democratic Party. About a quarter of Americans say they have an unfavorable view of both major parties, a considerable jump from just 6% in 1994.

Some experts suggest that the two-party system could be blamed for the political polarization we find in America.

“It’s a two-party system and you have to pick one side or the other,” said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at New America. “If we are in a situation in which one party believes that the other party winning the election would be so disastrous to the country that maybe we should intervene to prevent the other party from winning, then you don’t really have a democracy anymore.”

More than half — 56% of Americans — believe the current parties do such a poor job that a third major party is needed, according to a survey by Gallup. Indeed, minor parties are seeing an uptick in support and interest in recent years.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/03/increasingly-dissatisfied-voters-favor-getting-a-third-party-choice.html

Seriously?  The voter does not have the guts to vote third party.

Let’s be honest….the choices are pretty slim for the election of 2024….the GOP is choke full of batcrap crazies and the Dems are as useless as tits on a flashlight…..so what to do with your vote?

A presidential candidate from 2020 Andrew Yang and a bunch of disgruntle GOPers have come up with the idea that things are so bad for the two parties that another centrist big business party would be an excellent idea (a proposition that I do not agree with)…..

I made my thoughts known when the announcement was made….

A New Third Party (Here We Go Again)

I do not think this has a chance……and I am not alone…..

Dozens of former Republicans and Democrats have joined forces to launch Forward, a new centrist political party. Its founders include Andrew Yang, the onetime Democratic presidential candidate; Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey; and David Jolly, a former GOP congressman from Florida.

“Political extremism is ripping our nation apart, and the two major parties have failed to remedy the crisis,” Yang, Whitman, and Jolly wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post.In the last two years, there has been a “spike in political intimidation,” they said, and “if nothing is done, the United States will not reach its 300th birthday this century in recognizable form.” The op-ed cited a 2021 Gallup poll that found half of U.S. adults identify as independent and 62 percent believe the Democratic and Republican parties “do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed.”

“That’s why we are coming together — Democrats, Republicans, and independents — to build a new, unifying political party for the majority of Americans who want to move past divisiveness and reject extremism,” Yang, Whitman, and Jolly wrote. They didn’t share any of Forward’s policies. On the party’s website, it lists its core principles as “free people,” “thriving communities,” and “vibrant democracy,” and says it supports ranked-choice voting, nonpartisan primaries, and independent redistricting commissions.

https://theweek.com/third-parties/1015513/does-americas-newest-political-party-stand-a-chance

This will just be a redo of the Dem Party of 1992….and we are living with the damage the Dems did in the 1990s onward…..we do not need another crappy future…..

Remember this–If you elect clowns, you get a circus and so fat the voter has helped create the world’s largest sh*t show

We need a third party but not a carbon copy of the two we have now….we need a party that is truly committed to progress….and that is something I will not see in the lifetime I have left.

I will re-post this when we get into the meat of the next election.

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I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

“Why I Oppose The Pentagon Budget”

My regular visitors know that I oppose that massive War Department budget that is being considered….I feel it is just a step for a total war….I believe tax payer cash should be spent on the tax payers not some mud hole half way around the world….and I have been very vocal for decades on the amount of cash authorized for our ‘defense’…..we are not defending the US just instigating and funding multiple wars around the globe.

Sen. Sanders has written an op-ed on why he opposes this waste of tax payer money…..

The US Senate is now debating an $886bn defense authorization bill. Unless there are major changes to the bill, I intend to vote against it. Here’s why.

As everyone knows, our country faces enormous crises.

As a result of climate change our planet is experiencing unprecedented and rising temperatures. Along with the rest of the world, we need to make major investments to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into more efficient and sustainable energy sources, or the life we leave our kids and future generations will become increasingly unhealthy and precarious.

Our healthcare system is broken. While the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry make hundreds of billions in profit, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, our life expectancy is declining, and we have a massive shortage of doctors, nurses, mental health practitioners and dentists.

Our educational system is teetering. While we have one of the highest rates of childhood poverty of almost any major country, millions of parents cannot find affordable and quality childcare. The number of our young people who graduate from college is falling behind many other countries and 45 million Americans are struggling under the weight of student debt.

Our housing stock is totally inadequate. While gentrification is causing rents to soar in many parts of our country some 600,000 Americans are homeless, and 18 million are spending more than half of their limited incomes on housing.

These are some of the crises our country faces. And we’re not dealing with them.

Why I Oppose the Pentagon Budget

Bernie is so much more eloquent than me…..I agree with every word of his op-ed….I do not stand against the Pentagon but it should live up to it’s name, the Defense Department, money saved should be used where it is most needed….in this country.

Making this country strong internally would be the best defense against any troublemakers.

I am sure someone has an opposing opinion….even if it is wrong.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Titanic Tragedy Update

Looks like it is official….the sub was destroyed and occupants are dead.

Debris has been found near the Titanic that leads officials to believe the sub imploded.

Those hoping for the safe return of the five people lost in a submersible in the North Atlantic rooted for a miracle on Thursday. It did not come. First, the US Coast Guard announced the discovery of a debris field on the ocean floor near the Titanic. Then OceanGate, the operator of the sub, released a statement giving up hope of a rescue for the Titan crew, reports CNN.

  • “We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost,” the statement reads, per the Guardian. It hailed the five as “true explorers.”

  • After its initial no-details statement about the debris field, a Coast Guard spokesman said “five different major pieces of debris” that belonged to the submersible were discovered. That includes the nose cone, which was found about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic, reports the Washington Post. “The debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” said Rear Adm. John Mauger at a news conference, per the New York Times. “On behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire unified command, I offer my deepest condolences to the families.”

    He added that a definitive explanation of what happened to the Titan will take time. Thursday morning had marked a critical 96-hour threshold since the vessel disappeared—the point at which breathable air would likely have run out.

I think there is something weird here.

The parts were found about 1600 feet from the bow of the Titanic…..why was it found just hours after the air would have run out.

I mean they were searching around the shipwreck for days and it is ‘discovered’ just hours after the air became toxic (that is if there was any air at all).

Call me suspicious but once the sub was found the story value would go down…..the timing leads me to be suspicious.

All my readers that said it was an implosion from the start of this drama may sleep well tonight for they were right on this issue.

A tragic end to the ‘adventure of a lifetime’.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Should We See The Photos?

Yet another mass shooting….and the usual rhetoric around it….

This will be an emotional post if it upsets anyone I am sorry.

In my little corner of the country we have had two mass shootings in one week…..shootings are nothing new around here but ones with multiple victims is…..

In this country in the last two weeks, there have been nearly 200 people shot in mass-shooting incidents.

Some action is called for….thoughts an prayers is doing  nothing to curb this disturbing trend….Congress is an impotent tool a society just looks the other way.

I had a conversation with a friend that believes the photos should be published for the public to see the carnage and that may turn the debate to decide to do something to help stop this carnage.

I also read a letter by William Falk published in The Week magazine……which I present here…..

When former police officer Stephen Spainhouer rushed to the scene of a mass shooting at an Allen, Texas, outlet mall last week, he came upon a battlefield. Bloody, torn bodies were scattered on the ground next to the dead killer and his assault rifle. A little girl seemed to be hiding next to a bush, but when Spainhouer turned her over, “she had no face.” He tried performing CPR on other victims, but “the injuries were so severe there was nothing I could do.” Hours later, cellphone images of the disfigured dead began circulating on Twitter. No mainstream publication, including this one, would publish such photos, for many reasons: the need for family consent; preserving the dignity of the dead; the sensibilities of readers. But by not showing what mass shooters do to human beings, do we make it easier to be numbed to the slaughter? If Americans were repeatedly exposed to images of children with their faces blown off, would they still accept that “nothing can be done?”

Images have great power; they can reach into hearts and minds in a way words often do not. When Emmett Till’s mother allowed publication of photos of her late son’s mutilated face in 1955, the revulsion galvanized the civil rights movement. Other photos have also marked turning points in history: the 1972 image of a naked, 9-year-old Vietnamese girl burned by U.S. napalm; the 2004 photos of Iraqis humiliated and tortured by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison; the video of a police officer with his knee on the neck of a pleading, dying George Floyd. What if we’d seen what an assault rifle did to the 20 first-graders and six adults in Newtown? (Some of their bodies had to be identified by DNA.) Or the 19 kids and two teachers methodically executed in Uvalde? Or the 26 churchgoers massacred in the pews at Sutherland Springs? Would their gruesome deaths still be written off as the regrettable but necessary price of “freedom”?

Interesting thought.

For me after Vietnam there is not much that shocks me…..so I say yes….of course with permission to use the photos.

I do not think it will make much difference to our lay-about lawmakers for their concerns are with donor dollars not the safety of our citizens.

What about you, my readers, should these photos be published?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Principles Are Forever

I have stated many times that in my politics I have formulated my principles and I have never wavered from them….until too many that ‘go with the flow’…..I am antiwar, I think we all deserve health care, and adequate education…on and on….

This is a open letter from Roger Waters that says it so well….

Roger Waters?

Pink Floyd you barbarians!

Today, we are standing on the edge of a precipice, staring into the abyss. The end of all life on earth is a very real possibility. The reins of power have been purchased by the oligarchs and ideologues and they are hell bent on the end of times. Make no mistake. This is not a drill.

Some say the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is the closest we have come to a nuclear catastrophe, but at least then, JFK and Nikita Khrushchev were in communication. In our current crisis, our leaders are not even talking to each other. We human beings must communicate with each other if we are to survive. We here in the West are drowning in a sea of pro-war propaganda and presumably the Russians are too. How are we the people to make sense in this maelstrom of misinformation? SUPPORT ANTIWAR.COM!!!!!!

“The Powers That Be,” our “Masters,” the self appointed “Ruling Class” want to keep us squabbling, at each other’s throats, to be used us as cannon fodder or slave labor. When a great journalist and truth-teller like Julian Assange is imprisoned for sharing vital information, the time has come to man the barricades, to stand shoulder to shoulder with all our brothers and sisters all over the world in defense of our beautiful planet home.

As I told the audience on every night of my recent tour of the United States and Canada and Mexico we will never sell out. We, and here I include my brothers and sisters at ANTIWAR.COM, will keep speaking Truth to Power.

Sincerely,
Roger Waters

No matter how much one hates the idea of diplomacy….there needs to be more concern for crap than the wars we start and we seem to start a new one every year.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Should Veterans Choose To Act?

Veterans have a history of activism….from the Bonus Army to the antiwar protesters of the 60s and 70s…..should they choose to return to the forefront of activism?

I was one of those ‘pinko’ protesters in the 70s….I can think of no better way for a veteran serve its country.

Then I say yes they need to once again become the leaders they should be.

This is veterans that have chosen the ‘path of dissent’……

One of my heroes, Major General Smedley Butler, said “We Americans who will protect our flag should have a voice in where it is flown.” The two-time Medal of Honor recipient and author of War is a Racket exemplifies the model of a dissident soldier. 

Voices of today’s soldiers, all veterans of the Global War on Terror, have been collected in a new anthology, Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America’s Misguided Wars, edited by (Ret.) Maj. Danny Sjursen and (Ret.) Col. Andrew Bacevich, President of the Quincy Institute.

The book shares fifteen individual stories of how soldiers — in some ways big, in some ways small — dissented from what their high command, their government, and in many ways society expected of them as they advocated to bring our troops home.

Their perspective should come as no surprise. “War dissent is committed by those with a deep love for the country and its soldiers, for honesty, justice, humanity, and the rule of law. They bring light to situations clouded by secrecy, lies, and propaganda,” relates contributor Kevin Tillman, whose family is intimately familiar with the government’s secrecy, lies, and propaganda.

For several years, polls have demonstrated that veterans support military withdrawals from the Middle East at higher percentages than the civilian population. We witnessed firsthand the failures of nation-building, the ineffectiveness of raw military power to solve political problems, and the lack of coherent strategy or victory conditions.

As contributor Matthew Hoh discloses, “The entire U.S. government, including our military, intelligence, and diplomatic corps, was — and is — full of people who don’t believe in America’s endless wars, don’t believe in our supposed reasons for fighting them, and don’t believe that the sacrifices and costs are worthwhile.”

Meet the veterans who chose ‘paths of dissent’

Since marches and massive protests for the good of the country and its people is not as big thing these days our vets can serve and protect the democracy we all say we love.

With the mid-terms just a mere 2 months away…..vets can get involved.

Vets can begin by becoming volunteers for their local elections….

Our nation faces a critical shortfall of volunteers to administer our elections.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a real dent in election poll volunteerism — especially among Americans 60 years of age and older who have traditionally served as poll workers. In fact, nearly two-thirds of all election poll workers are older than 61 years of age. The pandemic, combined with news reports of election-related political violence and threats to election officials, has made it difficult for many county election boards to find enough people to run election polling sites.

Why should you care? Simply put, American democracy runs on elections, and elections run on volunteers — just like our military and our national defense rely on volunteers.

Since our republic runs on a decentralized and federalized election system, it’s up to the individual states and counties to run elections, maintain voter records, count ballots, and report results.

When secretaries of state and county boards of elections can’t find enough volunteers to serve as election officials, it results in fewer polling stations, longer lines, fewer early voting days, and ultimately, less of an opportunity for you and your fellow citizens to enjoy the rights we all served in uniform to defend — primarily our right to vote. When there aren’t enough election workers, we have less democracy.

So what can you do about it? The solution is simple: Volunteer to serve your country and community again as an election poll worker.

I’ll give you 10 good reasons why you should:

Why helping others vote is a patriotic duty that appeals to US military veterans

Time for our vets to honor the oath they took when they entered the service of their country…..and volunteering to help with elections is an excellent start.

The only problem I can see is that many of our veterans have drank the vile poison of Trump-ism….so would they be good shepherds of our democracy?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Gun Debate Op-Ed #8

I believe that this will be the last of my re-posting of op-eds on the gun debate…..I was hoping that these would generate some interest in the debate and how it could be moved forward especially this year with all the shooting deaths that have made the news……but I was mistaken.

So to conclude this series I would like to post on the gun myths that seem to always pop up during times of conversation following mass shooting ( a never ending cycle)……..

Following gun violence tragedies, familiar myths get recycled and recirculated—myths that distract from effective solutions and create smoke screens around the essential problem: We’re more interested in protecting sellers and buyers of guns than in protecting the public, says Daniel Webster, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

Below, read about some of the myths surrounding the issue of gun violence in America and what can be done to reduce it.

Myth: Urban homicides falsely inflate U.S. gun death statistics.

“The common trope is that places like Baltimore or Detroit or Chicago are the reason we have so many in this country,” said Cassandra Crifasi, the center’s director of research and policy, in an interview with the Chicago Tribune. “And yes, those places … have unacceptable rates of gun homicides. But the places with the highest rates of death are not Maryland, Michigan, and Illinois. They are Mississippi, Louisiana, Wyoming, Missouri, and Alabama.”

The fact is, Crifasi says, the places with weak gun laws have higher rates of death.

“More people died from guns in Texas than Illinois, when suicide and accidental shootings are included,” she added.

Myth: Mass shootings like the ones in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, are the result of mental health issues.

While motives in the Uvalde massacre are still unknown, “increasingly, we are seeing people who are frustrated, angry, and hateful and using firearms take that out on a particular group,” Crifasi told MarketWatch.

But there’s a distinction between this and a diagnosable issue. It’s also dangerous and irresponsible to link gun violence and mental health, Crifasi warns. For one thing, are far more common than : More than 50% of people will be diagnosed with a or disorder at some point in their lives, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fixating on motives and the mental health of those who perpetuate violence distracts from more actionable approaches to reducing gun violence, Crifasi said.

Not to worry my friend….there are more….

https://phys.org/news/2022-06-debunking-myths-gun-violence.html

Sadly this debate will never end….with lies, accusations and misinformation it is destined to keep any solution from every being really considered.

Maybe the next generation will find common ground for a true conversation…..

I will not hold my breath!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Gun Debate Op-Ed #5

I apologize for I had a massive brain fart on Friday and posted an article out of sequence….my bad…..

A continuation of my series on op-eds around the nation on the subject of gun violence……please keep in mind that these are op-eds not my thoughts I may add my feelings but the main body belongs to others.

These posts are about the prevention of gun deaths…..but first a little background….

The massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, resurfaced many troubling facts about America’s exceptional propensity for gun violence. But perhaps one of the most disturbing is that firearms are now the leading cause of death among Americans ages 24 years and under.

While guns have long been a fixture of American life, the emergence of firearms as the leading killer of young people is a relatively new phenomenon.

For years, cars held that distinction. But over the past two decades, motor vehicular deaths involving Americans between the ages of 1 and 24 plummeted, cutting the rate by nearly half. And sometime in the late 2010s, those two lines — deaths by car and by firearm — crossed paths on the graph of leading causes of death for young people.

In 2020, the most recent year for which data was available, firearms killed 10,186 young people, the highest number in two decades.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23151852/gun-violence-cars-crashes-firearms-deaths-youth

To me that is a very disturbing stat…..

But is there an easy solution?

The horror in Uvalde, Texas, last week was horrifyingly familiar to Mary Ellen O’Toole. Part of a small group of academics, law-enforcement professionals and psychologists who published some of the first research on mass shootings in schools more than 20 years ago, O’Toole knows the patterns these events and perpetrators all follow — and the opportunities for prevention that seem to just keep being missed. 

I first spoke to her in 2018, after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, but she has been studying school shootings for more than 27 years. In that time, she and other experts say little has changed. The risk factors they identified two decades ago still apply. The recommendations they made are still valid. And every time another batch of Americans die in this way, researchers like O’Toole are forced to watch in horror, thinking about what could have been prevented and why it wasn’t.

“Honestly, I … I feel very, very angry,” O’Toole said to me last week. There is always another new example of mass gun violence in America. But mass gun violence in America is no longer new — and neither are efforts to stop it.

We’ve Known How To Prevent A School Shooting for More Than 20 Years

Then there are those that believe that jobs and such could save lives…..

Americans are once again looking for answers after the deaths of at least 19 children and two adults in last week’s mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Beyond questions around the police response and whether the massacre will lead to meaningful gun control, a big, fundamental concern looms: Why are guns such a problem in the United States, and what needs to happen for the situation to change?

Mass shootings are a distinctly American horror. What’s perhaps even more horrific is that, while each one is devastating, mass shootings cause only a small fraction of the gun deaths in America. The US has an unusually high rate of gun homicides among developed countries — for children 14 and under, almost eight times the rate of the next country in the ranking — and total gun deaths have only been increasing over recent years.

Legal restrictions on gun ownership, including mandatory waiting periods on handgun purchases and laws against children and youth carrying guns, could result in fewer deaths. But passing such legislation is a heavy political lift. In the absence of federal action, can anything move the needle on firearm deaths?

There is growing evidence that non-gun-control measures — including interventions to support at-risk youth and programs to improve access to mental health care — can and have been very effective, says Jennifer Doleac, associate professor of economics at Texas A&M University and the director of the Justice Tech Lab.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23150764/gun-violence-prevention-gun-control-jennifer-doleac

My thoughts on this is that these ideas looking for more band-aids…..

Please let your thoughts be known.

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I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Gun Debate Op-Ed #6

I have stated on many occasions that the debate about guns will never go anywhere until there is honesty among the participants….all we have now is recriminations, accusations, lies and misinformation……

I recently came across an op-ed that asks some interesting questions and thoughts….it was published in a law journal…..

I’m an equal-opportunity offender. Allow me to offend everyone, by offering a few thoughts (on both sides of the issue) on gun control:

First, shouldn’t we require the microstamping of all gun cartridges nationwide? We should require manufacturers to place a microscopic engraving on cartridge cases identifying the gun from which the cartridge case was expelled. I understand that folks want to possess guns, but I don’t understand why anyone should have the right to fire a gun anonymously. Police should be able to immediately trace a cartridge to a specific gun.

Does anyone disagree in good faith?

(I don’t want to hear that requiring microstamping would increase the price of guns or ammunition. It probably would. The Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms, but it doesn’t impose any price controls.)

Second, those who oppose gun control are missing a trick: Although you hear this argument all the time, the truth is that almost no one ever fires a gun in self-defense. (I know that the pro-gun folks always insist that “a good guy with a gun” could have stopped a crime, and we see occasional anecdotal reports of this having happened once in a blue moon. But the average gun owner will never in his or her life fire a gun in self-defense.)

Some people, however, probably make a “defensive display” of a gun without discharging it. For example, a john is about to assault or rob a prostitute. The pimp enters the room and displays a handgun. The john leaves peacefully; no one is hurt. This defensive display of a gun served a useful purpose, but I’d bet dollars to doughnuts incidents such as this are not reported to the police (and thus are not counted in the statistics).

https://abovethelaw.com/2022/06/unspoken-thoughts-about-gun-control/

Anything to add?

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I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Gun Debate Op-Ed #4

Part 4 of my limited series on the gun debate…..as I have stated I will present both sides of the dialog as I do not wish to influence one’s thinking only to inform for a better understanding.

This op-ed is about the Second Amendment……

Gun-control advocates in the United States are experiencing quite a bit of Canada envy, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced this week that he will be banning import, sales, and transfers of handguns. He also announced legislation to require citizens to turn over their “military-style assault weapons” in a mandatory buy-back program. As of now, there is no legal definition of “military-style assault weapon,” so Canadians with guns will presumably be alerted when they become criminals on a TBD basis.

This is in addition to the banning of 1,500 rifle models in the wake of a 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia, were 22 people were killed. It’s part of an “ever-expanding” list of prohibited models maintained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The proposed legislation also includes tighter red-flag restrictions, provisions for confiscation and disabling of banned guns, and a blanket restriction of magazines to only five rounds.

Why can’t we enact Canada’s wish list of restrictions in the U.S.?—our gun control activists wonder.

 

Well, it’s not the gun lobby. The National Rifle Association (NRA) has been seriously weakened, is floundering in corruption accusations, and has filed for bankruptcy in the past two years. But it was also never the primary strength of gun-owners’ side of the argument. That strength lies in the Second Amendment, which whatever you think of its protections of Americans’ right to a firearm, is a hard fact with which activists must contend.

If the goal is to significantly curtail the number of guns—or even slow its growth, which is the purported goal of many activists—they must deal with the Constitution. No matter how “commonsense” you might consider some gun regulations, they have to pass constitutional muster to become a reality.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/im-pro-second-amendment-but-if-the-libs-want-to-get-rid-of-it-heres-what-theyd-have-to-do

Now I know somewhere someone has a rebuttal to this proposal…..

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“lego ergo scribo”