Seems like reasonable restrictions on automobile ownership, especially when you consider how dangerous automobiles are.
I bet you such laws would discourage bad drivers, plus get a lot of cars off the road. It might even save a lot of lives !
I still haven't spent my roughly $200 bucks on the .22 I was going to buy a few weeks back. I told myself I would buy myself some ammunition first, because owning a gun without ammunition is, well, pointless. I've been to several Walmarts and a few outdoors shops like DIcks, with no luck -- unless of course I want to come right when they get more ammo in.
.22s are a lot of fun. I've shot one a couple of times and would be great to take up to the Adirondacks for target practice. Also good for shooting squirrels and rabbits. But if I have pay an arm and a leg to get ammo and wait in lines early in the morning, it's just stupid.
I also was looking at getting a shotgun this fall. A shotgun is a totally different tool, for hunting different things. In many ways a shotgun is more versatile, even though shot is more expensive and the range is much less. But with a shotgun shell, you can hit a much wider target, which is good for a moving animal, assuming you don't mind picking all the shot out.
I think I will probably end up picking up a shotgun this week or next, and taking it up to some place fairly remote in the Adirondacks to practice. The local Walmart has almost all the gauges and types of shot in stock, including plain old bird shot. And you can just pick it up off the shelf and take it to cash register just like any other grocery item. Hand gun ammo, yes is behind lock and key, but not shotgun shells at Wally World.
NY State had 45 Congressional Districts as of 1950. It dropped to 36 by 1980, and by 2010 was only 27 districts …
That means in NY State has 40% less representation in Congress then we had in 1950.
In 1950, New York had 14.8 million residents. It was the most populous state in 1950. By 2010 that number had grown to 19.3 million.
However in the mean-time, California grew to 37.3 million people from 10.6 million in 1950, Texas to 25.2 million from 9.8 million in 1950.
Did you know that the Second Circuit applied the Third Amendment to the states of Connecticut, New York, and Vermont as of 1982?
While never appealed, apparently New Yorkers have a right not to quarter soldiers in their homes upon order of state.
I would also think it's an unauthorized taking (deprivation of property) under the constitution for the state to force you quarter soldiers or anyone else in your house.
The Ken Ballew Raid occurred on this day in 1971.
On June 7, 1971, acting on a tip from a teenage burglary suspect that there were “guns and grenades” at an apartment in Silver Spring, MD, ATF Special Agent Marcus J. Davis requested a search warrant for the apartment. Assistant US Attorney Charles Bernstein rejected Davis’ request, citing insufficient evidence for a search warrant. Davis rewrote the request giving Bernstein the suspect’s name and told him that there had been allegations of violent threats in the vicinity of Kenyon Ballew’s address. Bernstein then issued a knock-service daytime search warrant.
The raid was carried out by a task force of ATF and Montgomery County police. All the task force members were dressed in scruffy clothes to “blend in” with the neighborhood. They knocked on the back door and allegedly shouted “Federal officers with a warrant, open up.” Hearing some movement within the apartment, they took a battering ram to the door. It took them six attempts to break down the door. The two residents within, Ballew and his girlfriend, Saraluise McNeil, had both been in the shower when the attack began. He was naked and she was clad only in her underwear. Not having heard anything but the battering of his rear door, Ballew grabbed an 1847 blackpowder percussion Colt revolver while McNeil grabbed her own revolver.
The ATF agent, William H. Seals, seeing the naked man with the gun, yelled, “He’s got a gun” and fired a shot. The next officer behind Seals was County Police Officer Royce R. Hibbs who came through the door firing several shots. At that time Ballew had not fired a shot and none of the first two officers’ shots hit him.
It was only when Police Officer Louis Camillo came into the room and fired a shot at Ballew’s head that Ballew was hit. As Ballew fell, he dropped the Colt that discharged sending one bullet into the floor at an angle. Upon seeing Ballew bleeding on the floor, Saraluise McNeil became hysterical and surrendered to the police officers. This case, which was followed closely by the Washington Post, became a gunowner rallying point against the ATF during the 1970s. It was also one of the cases that Congressman John Dingell (D-MI) referred to when he called the ATF “jack-booted thugs.” This was the same Dingell who, as a member of the NRA board of directors, was later instrumental in the creation of the NRA’s lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA).
Today marks 43 years since the raid of Ken Ballew's house that went badly wrong, and lead in many ways to the modern gun-rights movement.
It's also where the term "jack-booted thugs" comes from after Congressman John Dingell (D-MI) used it to describe the ATF's actions during the raid.
Probably the biggest and most alarming threat to our country is the addiction to government spending. Nobody -- not even conservative republicans -- ever want to cut government due to their fear of cutting popular programs.
But the reality is, we as a country must come to a reckoning -- if we are going to create new programs and laws to deal with "new problems" -- we must cut old programs to pay for them.
We can't just keep on raising taxes, especially not on working folk. There is only so much money to go around in the economy
Silly Putty made into a slug and put in a shotshell is a lot more destructive to what it hits then one might think.