Senator Booker Introduces Bill Requiring Federal License For Lawful Gun Owners

By William Teach September 11, 2019 – 7:48 am

What could possibly go wrong with something like this?

Booker introduces bill requiring gun owners get a federal license

Legislation requiring gun owners to receive a federal license every five years was introduced Tuesday by U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, who has made gun safety a major issue during his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

“This bill is based on a very simple concept – if you need a license to drive a car, you should need a license to buy and possess a gun,” said Booker, who first proposed mandatory gun licensing in May.

Booker’s bill would require would-be gun owners to pass a firearm safety training course, undergo a criminal background check and provide fingerprints. The license would be valid for five years after which time the applicant must pass another safety course and another background check.

In addition, applicants must submit the make, model and serial number of the gun they want to buy, as well as the name of person they are buying or receiving the weapon from.

There’s quite a bit to unpack, even getting beyond the notion that driving is not a Right. You also do not need a federal license to drive, and most licenses are good for more than 5 years. Law abiding citizens already go through a background check, as required by law from any federally licensed firearms dealer (so, almost every transaction). Now they want fingerprints? Is he saying that all law abiding citizens are criminals? Strange how this doesn’t touch on the use of firearms by actual criminals. Just law abiding citizens. I’m not necessarily against a safety course, but, how hard might they make it, thereby making sure most do not pass it? What if the personal is literally buying, say, a bolt action rifle for hunting? Weren’t the gun grabbers good with rifles for hunting? No?

How many will be denied said permit for Reasons? Much like was occurring in Washington, D.C., which led to the Heller decision? What happen’s when mission creep slips in by leftist bureaucrats? And Dem controlled White House and Congress makes the permits more restrictive? How much will the license be? There’s no specific details on it yet, as the text of the bill is not up yet, nor does he include it on his official Senate page.

Then we come to registration of firearms, so the government knows who has what and where, making it that much easier to confiscate, through Red Flags and mass forced turnins/buybacks and/or straight confiscation. Will current firearms owners be forced to get said license and register their weapon? My money would be on “yes.”

Further, can Senator Spartacus explain how this would stop criminals from using firearms in the commission of a crime, rather than just causing problems for people wanting firearms for hunting, protection, and simply because they are fun to shoot? As someone in the comments at the article writes (and there are many more similar)

Sooooo let’s say someone registers their gun, passes their safety course and gets their federal license. Then they go on a mass shooting. How did this help? Or a criminal who cannot have guns illegally obtains one and goes on a mass shooting. How did this help or prevent anything? So you want to affect the law abiding citizens on something that comprises of less than >1% of all gun homicides. But not a single bill to curb CRIMINALS who shoot up our inner city streets daily that comprises of most of the gun homicides.

It has zero change of passing right now, not with Trump in office and the Senate controlled by Republicans. And something like this will energize Republicans to get out the vote in 2020. Interestingly, Booker also opposes ID for voting. As someone else writes “I should not need the governments permission to exercise my constitutionally guaranteed right.” Seriously, Cory, how about a law which requires a federal permit for free speech, practicing your religion, petitioning for redress of grievance, and protesting peaceably? That would be just as constitutional.

Read: Senator Booker Introduces Bill Requiring Federal License For Lawful Gun Owners »

Posted in 2nd Amendment, Democrats | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

9/11 At Eighteen Years: Remembering Those Lost

By William Teach September 11, 2019 – 7:14 am

As I have done every year since the 5th anniversary of September 11th, I remember two wonderful individuals, Brook Jackman and Andrew Golkin, who I’ll never have a possible chance to meet and converse with, due to 19 murderous Islamist terrorists and their superiors, who attacked our country on that fateful day.

Read More »

Read: 9/11 At Eighteen Years: Remembering Those Lost »

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Hot Idea: Tax Companies Which Replace Workers With Robots

By William Teach September 10, 2019 – 3:19 pm

So:

  1. Artificially increase payroll cost through unrealistic, SJW minimum wage raises
  2. Companies replace workers with automation to stay in business
  3. Tax those companies

Is there anything that Democrats do not want to tax?

Fortunately, we get a new federal agency to deal with this! From the screed

To start, my plan calls for a new federal agency, the Federal Automation and Worker Protection Agency (FAWPA), to oversee automation and safeguard jobs and communities.

FAWPA would create a permitting process for any company seeking to increase automation that would displace workers. Approval of those plans would be conditioned on protecting workers; if their jobs are eliminated through automation, the company would be required to offer their workers new jobs with equal pay, or a severance package in line with their tenure at the company.

Additionally, my plan would close tax loopholes worth hundreds of billions of dollars for corporations that invest in automation and then often deduct it on their taxes, even if they know that their “investment” will likely destroy their employees’ jobs.

Lastly, my proposal would institute a “robot tax” on large companies that eliminate jobs through increased automation and fail to provide adequate replacement jobs. They’d be required to pay five years of payroll taxes up front for each employee eliminated. That revenue would go right into a new generation of labor-intensive, high-employment infrastructure projects and new jobs in areas such as health care and green energy that would provide new employment. Displaced workers would be guaranteed new jobs created in these fields at comparable salaries.

Nice! So, Companies will no longer be able to make business decisions without the approval of The People’s Committee On Robots. This will work out well, right?

Read: Hot Idea: Tax Companies Which Replace Workers With Robots »

Posted in Barking Moonbats, Democrats | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach September 10, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is a wonderful big city which everyone could live in so Everyone Else’s cars could be banned, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Moonbattery, with a post on NASCAR taking a left turn on guns.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

UN Claims Human Rights Violations From ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

By William Teach September 10, 2019 – 10:34 am

The United Nations, comprised of numerous hardcore dictators, is Concerned

UN sounds alarm over climate change’s impact on human rights

Climate change is not only having a devastating impact on the environments we live in, but also on respect for human rights globally, the UN warned Monday, urging collective action.

UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet cited the civil wars sparked by a warming planet and the plight of indigenous people in an Amazon ravaged by wildfires and rampant deforestation.

She also denounced attacks on environmental activists, particularly in Latin America, and the abuse aimed at high-profile figures such as teenage campaigner Greta Thunberg.

“The world has never seen a threat to human rights of this scope,” she told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Wow, I had no idea that civic wars didn’t happen and people weren’t mean before CO2 went above 350ppm. We can solve this with a tax, you know.

“The economies of all nations, the institutional, political, social and cultural fabric of every state, and the rights of all your people, and future generations, will be impacted” by climate change, she warned.

Low-lying small island states like the Bahamas, which are heavily impacted by climate change, are quickly seeing rights to water, sanitation, health, food, work and adequate housing, she warned. She called for international action to mitigate the impact there.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also denounced the “drastic acceleration of deforestation of the Amazon.

Also the United Nations

Unbelievable! Venezuela’s dictatorship is about to win a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council | Opinion

This is no joke: Venezuela — the most repressive regime in the Americas since the days of Argentina and Chile’s military dictatorships in the 1970s — is expected to win a seat at the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council.

Never mind that, according to the United Nations’ own High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro’s death squads are responsible for more than 6,800 extrajudicial killings just between January 2018 and May 2019.

In addition, the U.N. report cites widespread use of torture against political prisoners, including electric shocks, suffocation with plastic bags and sexual violence. There were at least 2,000 political arrests in the first five months of this year. There were 720 political prisoners in May, Bachelet’s report said.

I’m sure what Maduro is doing is the fault of carbon pollution, right?

Read: UN Claims Human Rights Violations From ‘Climate Change’ Or Something »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming, UN | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Bloomberg News Advises Democrats That Americans Won’t Pay Their Carbon Taxes

By William Teach September 10, 2019 – 7:08 am

This is an amusing piece by Ramesh Ponnuru, since it is in a news source owned by hyper-Warmist Michael Bloomberg, himself a believer in carbon taxes.

Democrats: Americans Won’t Pay Your Carbon Taxes

Much has been made of the willingness of Democratic presidential candidates to risk taking positions that aren’t popular with voters at large in order to boost themselves in the primaries. Democratic politicians and strategists are aware that most people don’t want to see private health insurance banned, for example, but such leading contenders as Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have come out for it anyway.

There has been less focus on the political risks of the candidates’ approach to climate change. In part that’s because so many Republicans have taken their own unpopular stance on the issue: denying that there’s a problem. Gallup finds that nearly two-thirds of voters believe that human activity is causing the globe to get warmer, and that percentage has been rising over the years. Young voters are especially concerned about the issue. It’s part of the reason that some Republicans, such as Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, have broken with many of their colleagues on the matter. “I think history will judge very harshly those who are climate deniers,” he said.

But the Democrats may be getting overconfident. At last week’s “climate town hall” on CNN, Senator Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg all endorsed a carbon tax. Senator Kamala Harris did, too, although she called her tax a “fee.” All of these candidates are breaking with past Democrats. Neither President Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton endorsed a carbon tax. A memo for the Clinton campaign estimated that a carbon tax of $42 per ton on greenhouse-gas emissions would raise annual energy costs by $478 for the average household, and by $268 for the poorest fifth of households.

Don’t forget, those increased energy costs would lead to an increase in the cost of everything else, as those costs are passed on from companies to consumers.

When considering that number, keep in mind another poll finding. In November 2018, the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research ran a survey about climate change that found, in line with other polls, that most Americans believe it is happening and that human activity is causing it. Nearly half of respondents said that recent extreme weather events had influenced their thinking on the issue. But 68 percent opposed paying even $10 extra in their monthly utility bills to address the issue.

Belief is great, right up to the point you actually have to pay for it, eh?

Even a tax increase on the top fifth of households is a heavier political lift than Democrats have been prepared for. A household with an annual income of $130,000 is in that fifth. The tax increases of the last two Democratic presidents kicked in at a much higher threshold. And the gross cost may matter politically, not just the net cost. Even if the Democrats promise a rebate, Republicans can sow doubt that voters will actually see one.

So, Democrats are continuing to lower the threshold of what they consider “rich.”

Washington State’s relatively liberal electorate has rejected carbon taxes twice in recent years. In 2016, a carbon tax was paired with a sales-tax cut and drew the opposition of 59% of voters. In 2018, on a generally good day for liberal causes, 56% opposed a carbon tax with no rebate.

I’ve mentioned that a few times. And, remember, the governor of Washington, Jay Inslee, bombed “bigly” while his campaign focused almost solely on ‘climate change’.

The journalists at Vox did one of those round-ups of who won and lost from the climate town halls. (Winner: CNN; loser: meat.) But they ignored someone who might turn out to be the biggest winner: President Donald Trump, who will surely hit the cost issue hard as we get closer to the election.

You think? Trump won’t hold back, and will paint any carbon tax scheme as one that will cost American citizens a lot of money. And if he can get people who had zero chance of voting for him to refuse to vote for whomever the Democratic candidate is in swing states and even “lean Democrat”, he has a much better chance to win the 2020 election. He doesn’t have to convert them. Just keep that vote from going Democrat.

Read: Bloomberg News Advises Democrats That Americans Won’t Pay Their Carbon Taxes »

Posted in Democrats, Global Warming, Taxation | 67 Comments | Trackback URL

California Passes Red Flag Law Expansion Bill, NRA Sues San Francisco

By William Teach September 10, 2019 – 6:53 am

This won’t lead to a major increase of swatting, right?

California could expand use of gun violence restraining orders under bill sent to governor

California teachers, school administrators and employers could ask the courts to take guns away from people they see as a danger to themselves or the public under a major expansion of the state’s “red flag” law approved by the Legislature on Monday and sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In response to a string of mass shootings, the governor has said he is interested in expanding the state’s gun restraining order law, which for the last four years has allowed family members and law enforcement officers to ask courts to seize firearms from people deemed a public risk. Legislators have offered a half-dozen proposals this year to broaden the law’s reach.

On Monday, the state Assembly gave final approval to a measure that would allow employers, co-workers and high school and college teachers and administrators to petition the courts to remove guns from employees and students.

Even previous governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown thought that this type of expansion was misguided, since the same people could work through the police if they were concerned.

Civil libertarians objected to the fact that the law allows guns to be removed for up to 21 days before a court hears the testimony from the person losing the firearms. A hearing with the gun owner could extend the order for up to a year.

The measure was also opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union of California, which said it “poses a significant threat to civil liberties by expanding the authorization to seek ex parte orders, with all the ensuing consequences, without an opportunity for the person to be heard or contest the matter.”

So, someone could have your Constitutional Right taken away for a period of time without a fast hearing. Good thing that they aren’t seeking to extend the period a firearm is taken away to 5 years. Oh, right, they actually are. There really are no measures in this bill or the original bill that protect citizens from false/frivolous allegations against them, and this makes the pool of people who can play games larger.

Another bill sent to the governor Monday would lift the $100 cap on fees that counties can charge for concealed weapon permits so the agencies can recover all of their costs in processing the applications.

You can bet that they will immediately increase the cost to absurd levels, making it too expensive for the average citizen to apply.

Off to San Francisco

The National Rifle Association filed a lawsuit against San Francisco Monday over the city’s recent declaration that the gun-rights lobby is a “domestic terrorist organization.”

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the city and county of San Francisco and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It accuses city officials of violating the gun lobby’s free speech rights for political reasons and claims the city is trying to blacklist anyone associated with the NRA from doing business there.

The gun rights lobby asked the court to step in “to instruct elected officials that freedom of speech means you cannot silence or punish those with whom you disagree.”

Democrats have never been concerned with restricting free speech and any other part of the 1st Amendment before.

Read: California Passes Red Flag Law Expansion Bill, NRA Sues San Francisco »

Posted in 1st Amendment, 2nd Amendment, Constitution | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

As Trump Enforces Federal Law On Border, Asylum Mooches Find Other Nations To Head To

By William Teach September 9, 2019 – 4:37 pm

All President Trump is doing is enforcing federal law as passed by the duly elected Legislative branch, signed into law by duly elected previous presidents. And, shockingly, the people streaming to the U.S. find that they can, in fact, go elsewhere. They just won’t be given everything free like here

As Trump tightens the U.S. border, asylum applicants seek refuge in Mexico, elsewhere

The idea was to reach the United States. But when the young Honduran mother arrived in Mexico this summer, with only a handful of pesos and a 4-year-old in tow, she realized how difficult that had become.

And so she came up with a new plan.

“The American Dream is costly, very costly,” lamented Iris, 32, sitting on a curb outside the Mexican refugee office in this southern city. She spoke on the condition that only her first name be used, for fear of harm from gang members in Honduras.

“That’s still the dream. But if they give me Mexican papers, I’ll stay here.”

Iris is one in the soaring number of migrants seeking refuge throughout the Americas. And while the United States remains the world’s top recipient of asylum petitions, countries such as Mexico, with much smaller asylum systems, are seeing far greater increases.

Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, and Belize are all seeing massive increases. Of course, this doesn’t mean they are being granted asylum.

The surge of asylum seekers in the hemisphere stems from a cascade of crises: the implosion of Venezuela, a crackdown on dissidents by the authoritarian government of Nicaragua, and agricultural disasters and gang violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. (snip)

“We already have more than enough” migrants, Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo, said last month after meeting with Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of homeland security.

A lot to Panama are Venezuelans. Isn’t socialism great?

The Mexican city of Tapachula, around 10 miles from the Guatemalan border, offers a glimpse of the drastic change in migrant flows. By 7 o’clock one recent morning, scores of Central Americans, Haitians and West Africans had lined up outside a low-slung, unmarked building. It was the office of the Mexican refugee commission, known by its Spanish initials, COMAR. Around two-thirds of the country’s asylum applications are processed here.

So…..not all from Central America?

The Trump administration says many asylum applications are bogus, filed by poor, job-seeking migrants who invent stories of persecution to improve their chances of being accepted. Officials say legitimate asylum seekers should seek refu­ge in the first country they are safe — not travel thousands of miles farther to the United States.

“The asylum program is a scam,” Trump said in April.

Um, it is. A lot are just looking for free stuff, as promised by Democrats. And they want to jump the line of those who are doing it the right way.

Read: As Trump Enforces Federal Law On Border, Asylum Mooches Find Other Nations To Head To »

Posted in Illegal Immigration | 7 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach September 9, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is a rising sea that requires government control due to Other People’s carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Maggie’s Farm, with a post wondering if American higher education can be restored.

I’m hoping the photo shows, having problems with Photobucket this morning.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Philosophy Of Eternalism Can Help With Climate Distress Or Something

By William Teach September 9, 2019 – 10:39 am

The notion of “eco-anxiety” has been growing quite a bit lately, the notion that we are Doomed from a tiny increase in carbon dioxide. Since ‘climate change’ has almost nothing to do with the environment/ecology, perhaps “climate distress” works better. Climate insanity would be unfair to people with actual mental illness. How about climate nutbaggery?

When climate distress becomes too much, the philosophy of eternalism can provide perspective

The first time Heidi Edmonds felt this type of anxiety creep up, she became teary and had to go into the bathroom for a cry.

“I was looking at my nieces … and worrying about their future,” she says, “not feeling like everything was going to be OK.”

Dr Edmonds — who holds a PhD from Griffith University’s Australian Rivers Institute — is a co-founder of Australian Parents for Climate Action, a national volunteer campaign group.

She has two young daughters and like many young parents, manages sleep deprivation and parenting stress with all of her other responsibilities at work and with friends.

Over the last year she’s noticed another kind of pressure weighing on her — climate anxiety.

Our ancestors would have a good laugh at the expense of these nutters, noting that Mankind does much better during the Holocene warm periods, and worse during the cool ones, and that these modern buffoons are freaking out over nothing. Oh, and not making their own lives match their talking points

Dr Edmonds first came across a passage in a self-help book that incorporated eternalism over a decade ago — and says it has stuck with her since then.

“If we think about time as a tapestry, it allows us to focus on giving our children bright moments now … so that no matter what the future holds, they’ll have had these wonderful moments,” she says.

This reference to a tapestry of time resonates with eternalism — a theory that joins the past, present and future in a single block of time.

Kristie Miller, the joint director of the Centre for Time at Sydney University, uses the idea of a Persian rug to explain the concept.

When you look down at a rug, she says, “you can see the whole thing”.

“None of the rug is any more special than any other bit of the rug. The whole thing creates the entire picture, which is the universe.”

So a person’s life in 2019 doesn’t take precedence over another person’s life in 1519 — because there is no objective present moment.

So, seems to be going into a hippy-dippy kind if crazy. But, I guess this is better than the annoying protests where they glue themselves to things, or getting violent, like Progressive protests often seem to include.

Read: Philosophy Of Eternalism Can Help With Climate Distress Or Something »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 2 Comments | Trackback URL
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