Look What NRA Paranoia, Coupled With Congressional Cowardice Will Get America

UPDATE

This amendment failed to pass today in the United States Senate.  I am very pleased.

However I am NOT pleased with the  ’yes’ vote from Senator Feingold.  I love our Senator, which is why I am even more troubled with his rationale on this vote.  On the flip side Herb Kohl actually voted for my concerns this time, and I am thankful to him for that.

Over the past couple weeks I have been reading about this matter.  Today it was summed up concisely in an Op-Ed piece.   The article points out the way conservatives love to talk, but then forget to consider what they do runs counter to the words they spout.  Be mindful before you read the excerpt below that the Republican Party’s 2008 platform insists that Congress should respect the limits imposed by the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution, which declares that authority not granted to the federal government is reserved to the states.  Having said that consider the following.

In New York, the state imposes careful restrictions on who may carry concealed firearms. With the Thune amendment, New York and other states would be obliged to recognize licenses from jurisdictions which choose to issue them practically for the asking.

For example, in Ohio and Missouri, virtually any resident without a criminal record or prior hospitalizations for mental illness can carry a gun. Under the Thune amendment, that Midwesterner could legally carry the gun straight into New York, despite New York’s more stringent rules.

It gets worse. States like Florida and Texas are willing to issue carry permits to nonresidents under policies just as lax as those of Ohio and Missouri. The Thune amendment would provide a legal backdoor to a New Yorker who does not qualify for a carry permit under New York’s state law. The undeserving local applicant could obtain a permit down South, and then be entitled by federal law to carry his concealed gun around New York.