Government

Local government makes no sense today

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Eliminating county and local government a lot of sense…

I am no fan of local government. While I get the desire of communities to have a degree of local control, in modern times where the automobile prevails and development choices impact whole regions, the time is now for more regional government and cutting out of often duplicative local governments. Both municipal and county governments serve no real purpose in the modern age.

It seems like local government agencies have a lot of free time on their hands and taxpayers dollars to waste. Too much taxes, too many elected officials. So much of what they do these days is pass resolutions and meaningless local laws that make political statements about national issues. The few useful things they do are mostly symbolic, allow them to pound their fists in pride, piss off constituents but have no real impact.

There are too many elections, it’s confusing for voters. Rather than electing sixty odd representatives over a period of each four years, if we had only a federal government and maybe a state government then elections could be reduced to ten or less races – and it would make choices much more straightforward and allow people to really understand who they are voting for as their leader.

Getting rid of municipal and county government is not a popular proposition but it’s something that should be considered to save taxpayers money and in the sense of justice and fairness. Each state should have one set of laws and regulations not millions of local laws. Courts and law enforcement should be consistent. Regional variation in justice should not exist.

I get why local government exists, mainly because it’s always existed. But it’s no longer 1800 and it’s really is time for a change.

I’m thankful for our veterans

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Our veterans who stepped up and did a necessary job defending our country regardless of the wisdom of our warmongering politicians. Yes, veterans do it for a job and a career, but some may never return home, as we honor all today. War is terrible thing, it ends too many lives prematurely. Soldiers and military employees are dedicated to upholding and enacting the policies chosen by our leaders and defending our freedoms.

NPR

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Supreme Court to review Trump-era gun rule banning bump stocks : NPR

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a second major gun case this term. On Friday the justices said they will review a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a device the ATF says converts a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun by firing multiple rounds with a single pull on the trigger. Machine guns have been banned under federal law since 1934. Supreme Court to consider whether domestic abusers can own guns Law Supreme Court to consider whether domestic abusers can own guns

The Trump administration reclassified the devices in 2018 after a mass shooting in Las Vegas in which the shooter used bump stocks on 14 guns and opened fire on a music festival, killing 60 people and wounding more than 400 in less than 10 minutes.

Prior to the shooting, the ATF had not classified bump stocks as illegal, but the shooting prompted a re-evaluation of how the devices work, and the agency ultimately banned them as illegal because a single pull of the finger causes the firing of multiple rounds; the ATF said the devices converted legal guns, like the semi-automatic AR-15, into illegal machine guns. A U.S. appeals court blocks a ban on rapid-fire 'bump stocks' Law A U.S. appeals court blocks a ban on rapid-fire 'bump stocks'

The rule went into effect in 2019 after the Supreme Court declined to block it. But in January of this year, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, by a 13-to-3 vote ruled that the classification was illegal.