Underplayed Story of the Day

It’s only prudent, when Smokey the Bear is packing heat…
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Seriously, though, the Park service has enough trouble with people abusing alcohol in the parks. Throw in some guns and we’re in for some headlines.

Missed the link:
http://tinyurl.com/qcf7l7

So my question is this. How do the Parks currently go about enforcing the ban? Do they pat people down at the gates? Do the Rangers write tickets if the encounter someone cleaning their revolver by the campfire?
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I’m not much of a fan of guns but the whole thing strikes me as meaningless symbolism rather than any serious attempt to alter people’s behavior.
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And as mentioned the other day, it is a pretty blatant abuse of the legislative process.

Barack Obama is becoming my kind of President everyday. Imagine that!

As I said before Rusty hopefully, for Obama’s sake, you and all your right wing buddies will be able to replace all the America hating lefties, who will no longer be voting for him, or sending money, or actively campaigning. But you never know, just before the next election he may decide to throw a bone to those who actually put him in office.

KT:
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I guess all sorts of rightists will stop calling Barack Obama the great Socialist-Fascist Satan now, right?
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Dirks:
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I’m not much of a fan of guns but the whole thing strikes me as meaningless symbolism rather than any serious attempt to alter people’s behavior.
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I’m not much of a fan of gun-prohibitionists, but the whole thing strikes me as meaningless symbolism, too.
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What it comes down to is this.
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Gun control and conservation groups have urged the administration to insist on a credit card bill without the gun proposal. They have also joined top House Democrats in lamenting the inability of Senate Democrats to prevent Republicans from adding such politically charged proposals to unrelated legislation. A gun measure has also tied up a bill granting the District of Columbia full voting representation in the House, and Republicans are readying other gun rights initiatives for future consideration.
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“I wish there could be more courage and leadership from our friends on the Hill,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, saying he believed that lawmakers were overestimating the gun lobby’s political might.

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Yep, you guessed it. Harry Reid has struck again.

It is symbolism but not in the way I think you meant Paul. What it symbolizes is that from now on when Democrats have major legislation they want to get passed that Republicans can use it to push through gun legislation that has nothing to do with it, just so Harry Reid gets his guaranteed numbers. In the article you can basically see that now the Republicans are salivating over all of the gun legislation they will be able to push through in this manner. I wonder how many times Democrats used such tactics to get things they wanted passed. I would bet they never did and the few times they tried the Republican leadership told them to get bent. This was most likely just a trial balloon for Republicans, the next go around I would expect something inserted like allowing students to carry guns on campus.

If anyone is wondering, the gun amendment pass the Senate 67-29, which is pretty huge.:

http://www.rollcall.com/news/34853-1.html

sg: a 67-29 vote suggests this amendment also had pretty strong democratic support.

Whats really stupid about this is I don’t even think the majority of gun owners give a sh*t about being allowed to carry guns in national parks. Its not like they can hunt there. And many of these people have kids and while they believe in being able to protect their home how they see fit, are probably not too keen on going to a park with their family around a bunch of people toting guns. This might have been the one issue where Democrats wouldn’t catch as much hell when it comes to gun rights. But they still caved. Pathetic.

You can see who voted how by going here. Looks more regional than partisan to me:
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http://capwiz.com/gunowners/issues/votes/?votenum=188&chamber=S&congress=1111

Karen
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The point I am making isn’t about whether Democrats voted for it. They obviously did. My point is how many of them voted for it just to avoid getting dinged by the NRA? How many of them really think its important for people to be able to carry guns in national parks? Its the same as the FISA bill from last year if you ask me. This was a CYA vote. If it wasn’t then my question is why didn’t one of those 28 Democrats who voted for it actually introduce and or sponsor the legislation all on their own?

Thanks to Reid now us real Americans have a defense when all those gitmo detainees are released into the parks by the magic socialist.
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Way to go Harry. I know you did all you good for the minority party you love to support.

SG: I think a lot of Democrats voted for it because they think their constituents wanted it. Take a look at that map. It’s really striking. Very few states where a Democratic Senator went one way and a Republican went the other. (Your own state is an example of where the Democrat and the Republican voted alike.) Which gets me back to the irony of all this: For all the fear that the NRA is engendering about Obama taking away people’s guns, the fact is that gun control is going nowhere and hasn’t for years. Remember Jean Carnahan’s ads that showed her posing with guns?

Here’s a story I wrote on this subject all the way back in 2002:
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http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,384812,00.html?iid=digg_share

Karen
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I understand what you are saying. I don’t think you are getting what I am saying. What I am saying is OF COURSE its regional because Dem Senators in Southern states are the ones who think they can be dinged the most by the NRA. But how many of them are really big time gun rights advocates? Since you used my state of Florida as an example look back and Bill Nelson’s voting record. He isn’t some big time gun rights advocate. As a matter of fact in the past he has supported “sensible gun control measures”. And here is the thing, if these Senators were gung ho about voting for allowing people to carry guns into national parks, why did it need to be tacked on to a very popular credit card reform bill? Hell with 67 votes couldn’t it have passed as a stand alone bill? Of course it couldn’t have.

So you think that, in their heart of hearts, a Jon Tester or a Jim Webb really wanted to vote against this? I don’t. And, yes, had it come up as a stand-alone bill, I think it could have passed the Senate, on the same vote probably. However, it could not have passed the House, which is why they had to tack it on. The Senate gives a much heavier weight to rural and western states, where there aren’t many people. The House is different.

Why is it that people so firmly believe things that are demonstrably not true?
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I’m not talking about a difference of opinion on difficult, technical questions such as whether or not proposing a 39% tax rate on $250k salaries makes on a socialist or not.
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I’m not talking about people who are convinced that Obama and the Democrats are “going to take their guns away”, or that Obama wants to free the terrorists on American soil as Harry Reid said yesterday. Where does this crap come from?

choska:

That crap comes from lazy reporters, who will repeat uncritically anything they’re told by interested parties – particularly if it fuels or creates controversy.

The real under played story here is how a lot of consumers are going to get screwed by the credit card industry because of this bill. All those who pay their bills on time are considered freeloaders by the credit card industry. The credit card issuers will make up their fees in another puntive way. This is the only business model they know.
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In short, the bill will reward the guilty and punish the innocent.

most interesting vote is Gillibrand’s “nay” vote — she’s considered pretty much a pawn of the NRA, and the fact that she voted against the amendment suggests that she’s feeling major heat in terms of a primary challenge….

What I want to know is:
Why the hell is there a provision about concealed weapons in a *$%@ing credit card bill?!?!? This unrelated amendment crap is my biggest complaint about the way our government works. It’s the root cause of so many other problems; it makes our laws unnecessarily complex, and it makes it much harder for the average voter to understand the policy positions of election candidates. It’s truly frustrating, and I’d love to see some new congressional rules that require bills to be more tightly focused.

Abuse of the legislative process? Wow.
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Hey guys, check this out–http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/05/kick_obama_off_campus_1.asp

Insert “dyslexic Senate – right to arm bears” joke here.

arbitrary, I don’t know that a “single subject rule”, which is in essence what you propose would be Constitutional

Gee, the National Mall, which includes the following:
* Washington Monument
* Thomas Jefferson Memorial
* Lincoln Memorial
* Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
* World War II Memorial
* Korean War Veterans Memorial
* Vietnam Veterans Memorial
is a national park. I can’t wait to visit the Lincoln memorial with an M-16 slung across my back.

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.
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The Constitution gives the Congress rather free rein in how to go about it’s business. It provides more detail about how the Legislature and Executive interact but the House and Senate Rules are pretty much up to the House and Senate and are determined more by tradition than by any Constitutional mandate.

I don’t know that a “single subject rule”, which is in essence what you propose would be Constitutional
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As long as it was self-imposed by Congress, I see nothing that prohibits such a rule.

I recommend that everyone keep this bookmarked:
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http://www.usconstitution.net/const.txt
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You never know when you might need it.

I agree if it’s a rule. But enshrining a single subject rule into law would be problematic.

Does this mean that anybody can carry a concealed weapon into any National Park? Or must the person have a valid “conceal carry” permit from some issuing authority? For example the local state government?

Some stories reference “restoring a Bush policy” on this. Anybody know about that?

Anecdotally, I was in Rocky Mountain National Park on a very popular trail. On my way back to my car, I passed two guys in camouflage carrying rifles with scopes — it was not hunting season, and there’s no hunting in the park anyway.

When I got back to the parking lot — a major one with shuttle buses and the like — and I asked the senior ranger if this was permitted. He had no idea.

Maybe we can start seeing reasonable funding for our beleaguered parks system.

Will this become the “Grohnie Law” after the family that was tortured in Yellowstone N. P.?
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I agree, it’s macabre, but, with the GOP being pro-torture and pro-Guns In Parks, it looks like the perpatrator of this crime might just have a poltical home…

Insert “dyslexic Senate – right to arm bears” joke here.
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Gilda Radner (Rosanne Rosanna Danna) did the best one from SNL. It was a whole skit.

gysgt213 Says:
Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 9:20 am
“In short, the bill will reward the guilty and punish the innocent.”
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Well now, isn’t that special! Welcome to the new and improved Democrat way of “Change we can believe in”. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
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What was the meme not long ago? “We need more regulations!!!”, shouted the Democrats. “We need more government oversight to the banking fiascal”, so says the Democrats.
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If you mess with our capitalist system, sooner or later you will get “screwed” gysgt. Sooner or later. But look on the bright side, if you really get pi$$ed enough, you can always go out to your local National Park and shoot up a bunch of squirrels. Just saying.

No skin off my nose; I can’t anymore afford to visit any national parks anyway. Personally, I don’t see why they bothered; the days when the US was “a nation of laws” have long since passed. Now it’s “anything is legal as long as you can get away with it”. Nixon won!

New Amex slogan: Don’t leave home without it. Your gun, that is.

“You can see who voted how by going here. Looks more regional than partisan to me…”
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Regional is partisan, Karen. I thought you were in Texas.

Paul Dirks: And as mentioned the other day, it is a pretty blatant abuse of the legislative process.

Yes, yes, yes–one of my fantasies is a Congress that votes on one issue at a time with nothing “slipped into” a bill considering some completely unrelated matter.

shepherd: true in some ways. but it is shifting. look at the democratic gains in the senate, coming largely from what used to be red states in the west. not so hard to win statewide in montana as a dem any more, but still almost impossible to do so if you don’t support gun rights. also, i say watch the demographics in texas.
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georgiac and PD: there are germaneness rules in the senate, but i’m not all that well versed on them, i will admit. parliamentary procedure there gives me a headache whenever i try to learn anything about it. all i know is that there are lots of ways to get around them.

Three words: Line Item Veto

Dick Durbin for Majority Leader http://tinyurl.com/qbtdzn

“Timing is everything in politics,” said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma and the champion of the gun proposal.
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Like adding a pro-gun amendment to a totally unrelated bill at a time when so many nut cases think the president wants to take their guns away, forcing him to either approve it or veto and set off a riot.
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So sleazy.

KT:

By the way, do you get to retain your US citizenship when Texas secedes?

Off Topic
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A spokesman for Norm Coleman’s challenge just talked to Greg Sargent and check out what he said.
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http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/senate-republicans/top-coleman-fundraiser-concedes-growing-hardship-but-pressees-on/
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The NRSC has just plowed another $750,000 into Coleman’s recount effort, raising questions about whether GOP donors are funding an effort they know is doomed merely to keep the seat empty as long as possible.
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Asked about this, Van Dongen said the goal was to put Coleman in the seat, but added: “Is it better empty than in Franken’s hands? Hell, yeah.”

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I don’t think the voters of Minnesota would appreciate that sentiment.

sgwhiteinfla Says:
Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 11:53 am
“Off Topic”
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(sung in the tune the “Army’s song”)
And the Trolls keep trolling along….lalala. The Troll’s on its way.
Count off the cadence loud and strong (TWO! THREE!)
For where e’er we go,
You will always know
That The Trolls Goes Trolling Along.

It is a sad day in America when fear of our own Government has driven people to purchase and demand the right to carry sophisticated military style weapons.

Fear really does matter. …………..

http://thefiresidepost.com/2009/05/12/why-fear-matters/

“…what used to be red states in the west. not so hard to win statewide in montana as a dem any more, but still almost impossible to do so if you don’t support gun rights. also, i say watch the demographics in texas.”
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Well, sure, as long as you’re a Democrat like Webb or Tester and willing to kowtow to the NRA and the terrorist boogeyman lobby.

Callihan should be Callahan, stupid fingers.

Funny how all those Montana folks that I’ve observed over the last eight years while on my annual vacation trip to Glacier National Park seem to be quite happy visiting there without their loaded guns on display.

I should note that I am a gun owner, and hunter, myself.

I wrote the following to the President, under the heading of policy issues:

“Dear President Obama,

“It’s my understanding that a provision that would allow visitors to National Parks to carry loaded firearms if the state they are in allows same has been insertted into the credit card reform legislation. I cannot even begin to tell you how that offends my wife and myself. One of the more enjoyable things about our National Parks, at least the ones I’ve visited here in the West, has been the absence of worry about people carrying loaded firearms, and now Senators have the incredible nerve to take that away from us. This move was adamantly opposed by the National Parks Foundation, of which I am a supportive member.

“I can’t see this as anything other than a symbolic gesture of acceptance of the ugly violence that pervades our society, and it ruins, going forward, our otherwise peaceful experience of fine vacations I have enjoyed in our National Parks. Now we will have to deal with thuggery and potential gun violence even there.

“That’s not even mentioning the tension it will create for the Park Rangers, particularly the law enforcement officers. Have you no perspective, taking away the peace found in our wonderful Parks?

“Inserting this provision stealthily in the credit card reform legislation is disingenuous in the extreme.

“So, my policy question is: why would anyone place such a burden on the Park Rangers, who are Interior Dept. employees?”

Thomas Finlay
Saint Helens, Oregon

“…what used to be red states in the west. not so hard to win statewide in montana as a dem any more, but still almost impossible to do so if you don’t support gun rights. also, i say watch the demographics in texas.”
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Let me also say that I don’t think “partisan” means the same thing to you (and most people) as it does to me. To me, partisan, among the public at large means mostly southern, mostly rural, mostly ignorant dumbsh*ts, who’s minds have been turned to mush from listening to AM talk and FOX news (take a look at this chart again and tell me I’m wrong), versus the rest of us. In politics, partisan means those who support working-class-centered public policy versus those who support, through their actions, continuation of the corporate control of public policy. When it comes something like loaded, concealed handguns in public parks, you have the perfect unholy alliance of ignorant, rural dumbsh*ts and the gun manufacturers lobby working politicians who are held sway to some extent by both of them.

shepherd: to me, partisan means aligned according to political parties, which is not the same as ideological or regional. also, i’m from texas, and have a different view of its salt-of-the-earth citizens, many of whom i am related to. then again, see my latest post.

Karen: I’m living rural myself and love the character of my friends and neighbors as well. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t thoroughly indoctrinated in brain dead, right-wing political views; they are. As a result they have no idea who are their friends and enemies in politics and government. There, the partisan war is between “conservatives” both Republican and Democratic, who are perfectly willing to let corporate interests continue to write our public policies and Liberals and Progressives who want policies designed to benefit everyone. I think you know that’s the case, who is whom, and where almost all of the political power lies.

“…to me, partisan means aligned according to political parties, which is not the same as ideological or regional.”
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To me there is the bigger “partisan” divide, between Maxine Waters and Steney Hoyer than between Steney Hoyer and John Boehner because, to me, it’s about policy outcomes more than political theater. YMMV.

Does this pertain to gun owners in general or CHL holders?
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In other news, my state’s legislature pleased me today: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6432279.html

Because there’s a big difference between gun owners in general and CHL holders.

While I’m beleaguered by more democratic (congressional/executive) spinelessness, as someone who grew up in the Nat. Parks (my father a retired NPS lifer), I’d have to say this is indeed symbolic. When you’re 30 miles from trailheads in vast wilderness, a gun ain’t such a bad thing and bill or no bill they never did/will know what you’re carting in.

sgwhiteinfla,

I’d like to point out that both Democratic Senators from my state, Oregon, voted yea. There is no threat of NRA pressure here in Oregon. Rather, there is a general mood of individual liberties that causes the majority of non-gun owners here to support gun rights. There are also a lot of urban liberals like myself who oppose this, but it’s not a major issue either way; we have concealed weapons allowed in supermarkets and neighborhood playgrounds. If we were going to make it a major fight, the first thing would be to fight over having them in high density areas. And if they’re allowed in high density areas, it seems stupid and hypocritical to ban them in low density areas.

Anyways, remote areas are the places where there is the best argument for having a gun, because law enforcement might be hours away. That’s especially the case in some the wildlife refuges that aren’t part of a high use National Park and would not normally have any law enforcement present. And if there is no officer in the area, and there is not even cell phone access, then there is a legitimate argument for carrying a weapon.

And also I find it generally insulting to suggest that Ron Wyden, of all frickin’ people, folds to pressure from any group. He is one of the greatest Senators in Oregon history, and he does what he thinks is right. He really doesn’t care if he votes with or against this group or that group. Oregonians are very independent, and when national groups send us a bunch of slanderous crap in the mail about some politician, it really doesn’t hurt them.