It's bad enough that the assault weapons ban has been allowed to lapse by Bush and his lapdogs in Congress, but now the wingnuts are looking to
dismantle the local gun control laws in D.C. and make it illegal for the locally-elected officials to reinstate them in any way.
Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.) said House Republican leaders have promised him a vote before the Nov. 2 election on his proposed D.C. Personal Protection Act, which would end a ban on handguns in the nation's capital; remove a prohibition against semiautomatic weapons; lift registration requirements for ammunition and other firearms; and cancel criminal penalties for possessing unregistered firearms and carrying a handgun in one's home or workplace.
Souder's bill also would deny the District's elected officials "authority to enact laws or regulations that discourage or eliminate the private ownership or use of firearms."
Ahhh, yes. Republicans -- the party pledging to spread democracy across the world, working to dismantle it at home.
Even better is the rationale for ditching the law -- "it doesn't work." Oh, OK, so let's add
more guns to the mix -- that should help the homicide rate here! Let's allow everyone to have an unregistered firearm and bring it to the office!
And if "ineffective" laws should be spiked, shouldn't we be repealing, not extending, Bush's tax cuts? It's clear they're not working -- they were supposed to spur tons of job growth each time. That hasn't happened, though -- we've lost jobs instead. Oh wait, I guess Bush meant that the job loss would be lessened by his tax cuts.
By the same reasoning, just imagine how bad the homicide rate in D.C. it might have been if police didn't have this one more tool to use to get criminals off the street (illegal gun possession almost always indicated other criminal activity).
Well, as one gun nut said last night in response to the outcry over the death of the assault weapons ban, the real solution is to enforce the criminal laws on the books, not control guns themselves.
OK, let's do that -- as soon as we start enforcing our present tax laws against businesses and the wealthy so that they pay their share!
End of rant...