Tim Bishop has submitted legislation to punish firms that use overseas call centers. He is desperate. He needs an issue that he hopes will sneak him past the electorate into office for another two years. Outsourcing worked for him last time, so he is trying to put lipstick on that pig and pass it off as bold, new thinking. What I am thinking is when is Tim Bishop ever going to represent the people who actually live in his district?

How many call centers are in his district that are threatening to move overseas? How may call centers are trying to decide between locating in his district or locating in India? If the answer to either of the above questions is none, why is he spending time on this?

Over twenty years ago, while working at Citibank, they had a customer service center for credit cards in Melville. For cost reasons they were looking at shutting it down and moving it. I was asked to provide an analysis of the telecommunication costs in an effort to keep it in place. Based on the customer distribution, I showed that its current location was the best choice from a telecommunications basis, but it was not enough to offset the people cost. The alternatives considered were Maryland, South Dakota and Nevada. India was not on the list. But if you were a customer service rep on Long Island who didn’t want to move, was the fact that the job was staying in America, give you consolation? Your job went away

So what is Tim Bishop doing starting a trade war with India? How does that help his constituents?

 ”Outsourcing is one of the scourges of our economy and why we are struggling so to knock down the unemployment rate,” said Bishop.

In a previous post on Mr. Bishop’s insightfulness I pointed out that the largest Toyota factory outside of Japan is in Georgetown, Kentucky. Through a new free trade agreement that plant will now begin exporting Toyotas from the U.S. to South Korea. If Toyota didn’t outsource those jobs to the U.S. but kept them in Japan, there would be 7,400 fewer Americans employed in Kentucky than there are today. So how does Bishop square this with his statement that outsourcing is a scourge and contributes to unemployment when this is proof of the opposite? Perhaps if our tax structure wasn’t so abysmal, other companies would locate their factories here? But we have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, so why build here? But when was the last time you heard Tim Bishop pounding the podium for lower tax rates?

With the stimulus plan, Congressman Bishop voted to spend a trillion dollars across the country to be paid for by whom? Well, consistent with the Democratic message of “tax the rich”, when compared to other states, New York is relatively rich, so we get a bigger share of the bill and a smaller cut of the benefits. How did Congressman Bishop’s vote help his district? Most of the money that did come here went to people who already had a job, and a union card, the teachers. Who is backing Mr. Bishop on his phone center folly? The Communication Workers of America. Bishop knows he needs union muscle if he has a prayer of getting reelected.

He also likes the idea of the payroll tax holiday and tells people at his town hall meeting, not to worry about the Social Security Trust Fund losing important funding, that money will come from elsewhere. Where exactly? Does Mr. Bishop have some magic beans or a goose laying golden eggs like a gatling gun? We’re broke thanks to Mr. Bishop and his pals spending, spending, and spending.

So Tim Bishop looks out for Tim Bishop first, Nancy Pelosi second, and if he can help his constituents cut through some bureaucratic red tape, cut through it but not eliminate it, he will do so. But he needs something, anything, to take the voters eyes off his dismal record in Congress, so let’s try another new twist on outsourcing, whether it is germane to his constituents or not. After all, where else is Tim Bishop going to land a job that pays $174,000 a year with his resume?

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

President Obama laid out his jobs plan and its more of the same. Tax more. Spend more. Calling more taxes, savings and more spending, investment. Is this president incapable of learning from his mistakes or is he going “all in” for a class warfare strategy to get reelected?

But it is not just the president. Democrats in Congress are circling the wagons and backing the president to the hilt, but they are starting to get nervous. They are worried if President Obama’s ratings keep falling, they may be dragged down with him.

In the First Congressional District of New York there will be a rematch between professional politician and Democrat Tim Bishop vs. entrepreneur Randy Altschuler. Bishop was in academia before getting elected to Congress in 2002, and that represents the sum total of his career. He eventually rose through the ranks at Southampton College, but just a few years after he left, in 2005, the college closed its doors, eventually being bought by the State University of New York.

After many years of fiscal mismanagement, the University announced a multi-million dollar capital campaign, launched a new interdisciplinary CORE curriculum and the construction of a new library (almost completed) to re-vamp the campus. After one year of a 10-year plan however, Long Island University officials ceased all plans and Long Island University decided to effectively close the campus. This forced most students to either move to University’s Nassau County location, C.W. Post Campus or transfer elsewhere.

That’s not an impressive record from a Democrat who likes to blame everything on President Bush. I wonder if he apologized to his successor at Southampton College for the terrible mess he left them. Since entering Congress he has voted with Nancy Pelosi 97% of the time. More than $5 trillion has been added to the national debt since Tim Bishop has been in Congress under both a Republican and a Democrat in the White House. However, with the recognition that spending has to be reined in, Bishop has given it lip service, but he cannot seem to bring himself to cut any real spending. The only thing he has seemed to offer up is closing a tax loophole on five oil companies which would close 0.2% of the current year budget deficit. With the U.S. Postal Service announcing an $8.5 billion budget deficit, Tim Bishop was out fighting to keep a superfluous post office in Setauket, NY. In addition, he voted against stopping the National Labor Relations Board from killing 2,500 jobs in South Carolina being created by Boeing. This has to stop. Tim Bishop cannot control his urge to spend, so he has to be replaced.

President Obama says we cannot cut our way out of the situation we are in. But we managed to spend our way into this mess. In Tim Bishop’s district, over $100 million of stimulus money went to school districts, who reported creating fifteen jobs. The green initiative that Obama and Bishop support has already spent $19 billion and has created only 3500 jobs; that’s $5.4 million per job! This administration guaranteed loans to a company called Solyndra, that is now bankrupt only one year after getting the loan guarantee. One of the biggest investors in Solyndra was also a campaign bundler for Obama, raising $84,000 for his presidential campaign.

Bishop’s challenger, Randy Altschuler, has created two companies and created hundreds of jobs. He decided to go into politics as he contemplated the future facing his young son. We need people in Congress who have felt the burden of trying to create jobs under the anti-business environment that exits today in America. We cannot continue to live in a fantasy world of spend, spend, spend and things will be better.

Think of a very successful company like Home Depot, which has created thousands of jobs. One of the founders of that company Bernie Marcus was recently interviewed by Neil Cavuto. Many of the suggestions he had to fix the mess we are in, have been advocated here, but they are also the very opposite of what those who are strangers to private industry are advocating, people like Barack Obama, Tim Bishop, and Chuck Schumer. We need more of the thinking and experience of those who have lived under the rules of Congress in private industry and less of those whose careers have been around telling others how to live their lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHUREbTn0Qo

It’s time to send Tim Bishop home and put some fresh thinking and problem solving in Washington. That’s why I support Randy Altschuler.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Chuck Schumer by DonkeyHoley

Today in New York City, the bastion of blue, in the bluest of states there is an upset in the making. Republican Bob Turner is leading Democrat David Weprin for the Congressional seat vacated by the disgraced Anthony Weiner, a protegé of Senator Chuck Schumer.

The margin is a remarkable 6% (47%-41%) the day before the election. I walked two election districts yesterday, and not a Weprin sign was visible and the support for Turner was strong. Registration in the district is 3:1 Democrat. The national party is pouring money into the race on the Democrat side, $500,000 – $800,000 recently, and robocalls featuring Bill Clinton have begun. Unions are also being summoned to get out in force.

Why is this so important to the Democrats? Part of it is history. This seat was held by Chuck Schumer before he ran for the senate. His hand-picked protegé, Anthony Weiner, replaced Schumer in Congress. These were two of the most strident, aggressive progressives in Congress (Schumer still is)  and two politicians who never worked in the private sector, but have all the knowledge and experience to tell everyone else how to run their lives and what is good for them.

The Democrats also puffed out their chests when Kathy Hochul won a special election in upstate New York in a traditionally Republican district, where another Democrat ran on the Tea Party line. Hochul attacked her opponent’s support for Paul Ryan’s budget plan that would actually save Social Security, in the typical “scare the seniors” tactic. The Democrats felt they had the signature issue they needed to carry them all the way to 2012. When Weprin tried to carry that ball forward, he ran into a buzz saw named Ed Koch.

“This is former Mayor Ed Koch. I’m calling set the record straight on something. David Weprin is making phone calls trying to scare seniors. They’re NONSENSE. Weprin should be ASHAMED of himself. Bob Turner is running for Congress to PROTECT your Medicare and Social Security. It’s why I ENDORSED BOB TURNER for Congress. If anyone tries to scare you with LIES about BOB TURNER, tell ‘em ED KOCH told them to KNOCK IT OFF. BOB TURNER is the BEST candidate for senior citizens in this race. Don’t believe anything else. Send Washington a message:  Vote for Bob Turner for congress on September 13th. Bob Turner is supported by Rudy Giuliani, the Liberal Party and me.”

If the Social Security scare tactics don’t work in a district with a 3:1 Democrat edge, Team Obama is in serious trouble. In a recent New York Times article, other Democrat candidates are starting to distance themselves from Obama so they don’t go down with the ship. This will get very interesting.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours; Please comment below.

Photo by aranami

An intervention is an orchestrated attempt by one, or often many, people (usually family and friends) to get someone to seek professional help with a serious problem. The term intervention is most often used when the traumatic event involves addiction to drugs or other items, such as spending. Intervention can also refer to the act of using a technique within a therapy session.

If you care about Tim Bishop, if you care about your fellow man, he needs our help. From people who know Tim Bishop they tell me he is a good man, a decent man. But he has a problem. He cannot seem to control his urge to spend, particularly other people’s money.

For those who don’t know him, Tim Bishop is a member of Congress representing the First District in New York. With Washington spending over a trillion dollars a year more than it takes in through tax revenues, everyone needs to pitch in to solve the problem, but the only thing that Tim Bishop has offered as a solution is a single tax break to five oil companies that may, or may not, bring in an additional $3 billion per year, which is about 500 times less than what we need to close the budget gap. More importantly, even this meager offering is not a spending cut, but a cry for more money to spend. We have to get tough with Tim. We need to gather around him, tell that we care for him as our fellow man, but if he doesn’t stop spending cold turkey, we will leave him.

The latest example concerns the US Postal Service. The US Postal Service lost $8.5 billion in 2010. As a cost cutting measure they are looking at closing underutilized post offices. In the 21st century we have tremendous growth in electronic communications, e-mail, online file sharing, cloud computing, even the venerable fax machine is going strong, resulting in a corresponding decrease in “snail mail.” So I wondered, two years ago, why my own local post office was putting an addition on the building? In Setauket, New York, the Postal Service announced that it was closing the post office branch there, one of 3,700 such post offices considered for closure. Tim Bishop to the rescue! We shouldn’t shut down an under utilized post office, after all, look at how pretty the building is! Here is what elected officials at a rally for the post office said.

The legislators said Congress should relieve the Postal Service of a requirement, mandated by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, to prefund retirees health care costs. The Postal Service pays more than $5 billion a year into a retirement fund for current and future retirees, according to the Congressional Research Service. Bishop told the crowd of about 80 people gathered on the grass and sidewalk in front of the post office to push Congress for action on a bill that would relieve the Postal Service of its prefunding obligation. “Right now the bill’s not moving at all,” Bishop said. After the rally, Bishop said the bill “would provide financial relief to the postal service.” Englebright said after the rally, “The [Postal Service] is overfunding the pension system … it’s an artificial crisis.”

Boy, do those Democrats love calling things artificial crises. When President Obama wanted to slap another $2-3 trillion on top of the national debt and Republicans finally stood up (with Tea Party prodding) and said STOP, it was an artificial crisis. Just tell that to the IRS when they ask you to pay for it. Just send your tax payment in with artificial Monopoly money. Now closing some post offices to stem the hemorrhaging at the Postal Service is another artificial crisis. So Tim Bishop’s solution is to stop setting aside money for postal workers’ retirement. What a great idea! We can fix the problem when Tim’s no longer in Congress. Let’s make that date January 1, 2013.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Phot by Amanda M Hatfield

Congressional members high tailed it out of Washington after passing a debt limit agreement, but Democrats Steve Israel and Tim Bishop wasted no time in holding a press conference at MacArthur airport on Long Island to blame Republicans for a crisis they created.

“They’re now injecting ideology into our runways,” Rep. Steve Israel, D-Dix Hills, said of Republicans in the House. “They’ve allowed Congress to return home without reauthorizing critical FAA airport safety.”

Wow, that sounds pretty serious. Those Republicans are at it again working hard to make America unsafe.

“Ask yourself if there’s a single company in this country that would solve a $16 million problem at the expense to their corporation of $1.2 billion,” said Bishop, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “No, the answer is absolutely not.”

Tim Bishop, a man who has spent his entire career in academia and government is now an expert on what private businesses would do in a given situation. But as we have all learned by now, that when Democrats lips are moving and they are calling people terrorists (which you know are never real terrorists), hostage takers, racists, etc., etc. that they are probably covering up the real issue.

The Two Real  Issues

As you have probably guessed by now the issues are not safety and they are not about foolish fiscal management. The issues are a Democrat union power grab and wasteful spending. First, the union issue.

The House passed an FAA funding bill that the Democrats in the Senate, led by Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, stopped cold, and then, of course, blamed the Republicans. The labor issue was described by the New York Times as follows:

The House also passed a long-term F.A.A. bill that included a measure to repeal a rule of the National Mediation Board, which oversees union and labor issues in the airline and railroad industries. The new rule, which passed after President Obama appointed two of the board’s three members, reversed a 76-year-old rule and made it easier for unions to win a representation election. Under the old rule, workers who did not vote were counted as “no” votes; under the new rule, only those casting ballots were counted.

So we have a labor rule that had been in place since 1935, on how union representation elections would be conducted. President Obama appoints two far left members to the National Mediation Board and they reverse the rule. Unions represent only about 7% of workers in the private sector but they are bedrock supporters for the Democratic Party. While Obama tries to refashion America in his own image, the Democrats blocked this bill for that reason and somehow it is the Republicans who are the villains.  The Republicans keep doing what they were elected to do, they keep passing legislation in the House; the Democrats do not seem to pass anything and they block whatever legislation the Republicans pass. Who do you think is the problem?

Wasteful Spending

The other issue concerns funding for a program called Essential Air Service (EAS). EAS, by law, was supposed to expire twenty three years ago, but Congress keeps it alive. It was created after Jimmy Carter deregulated the airlines in 1978 as a way to ease the impact on rural airports by subsidizing them over the ten years after deregulation. The budget for EAS has grown from $50 to $200 million. This program should be eliminated. Those heartless Republicans wanted to cut $16.5 million from the program. The Republicans said that in the overall scheme of things it’s not a lot of money, but we have to start somewhere. Tim “I haven’t found a program I can cut” Bishop naturally jumped in to call the move foolhardy. Well, just what is the EAS?

Essential Air Service

This program subsidizes air service to 140 airports around the country. Here are some examples:

• An airport in Lewiston, Montana. In 2007 it reported that it averages 0.6 passengers per flight. In other words, for every ten flights, six of them had ONE passenger and four of them took off EMPTY! You, my fellow Americans are paying for this.
• Three airports in Kansas in Dodge City, Garden City, and Liberal (no pun) are all within 75 miles of each other and yet we subsidize all three
• Chuck Schumer’s favorites in Messina, Plattsburgh, Ogdenburg, and Saranac Lake are about as close to the large airports in Montreal and Ottawa as Stamford, Connecticut is to JFK airport in New York.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., issued a typical defense of EAS, which supports service to six airports in New York. “There is no question about it,” he said. “Access to air travel is good for businesses, good for jobs, and good for the financial health of the community.”

The politburo has spoken. The central committee of the Democrat party has decided which airports are important and which ones are not, the free market be damned.

Okay but what about places were there are no alternatives such as the 45 subsidized airports in Alaska? In Alaska there are no Interstate highways. The Alaska Railroad only runs from May to September, and air travel is the only transportation available to some remote areas. Surely these places deserve the subsidy. Do they?

In Alaska there is something called the Alaska Permanent Fund, which was created at about the time the North Slope opened up to oil exploration. It collects about 25% of the oil royalties and invests it for Alaska and Alaskans. As of 2008 there was about $28 billion in that fund. There is also the Permanent Fund Dividend which is an annual payment from that fund to Alaskans and in 2010 it paid out $1,281 to every Alaskan who was eligible. If 45 airports, that benefit Alaskans, are in need of a subsidy, why not use this fund to subsidize it instead of using the taxes of someone in New Jersey? The same should go for other states. It’s called the Tenth Amendment. If we eliminate this program, as Congress said it should be eliminated after 1988, we could save $200 million. If we can’t agree to save $200 million, how are we going to save $2 trillion?

Circling back to Mr. Bishop’s remarks, “Ask yourself if there’s a single company in this country that would solve a $16 million problem at the expense to their corporation of $1.2 billion,” it is chutzpah at its highest. The FAA is losing $1.2 billion in tax revenue during this shutdown because Tim Bishop, Steve Israel, Chuck Schumer can’t stand the idea that their union power grab or their automatic pork would be curtailed. As a result jobs are on hold, construction projects stopped, because they won’t even allow a $16.5 million cut, let alone my suggestion to eliminate the whole $200 million. To hold a press conference to blame anyone but themselves is absolutely shameless, but then where is the news in that?

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Congressman Eliot Engel writes a letter to the editor of the New York Times titled, “Banning Gun Imports.” He was prompted to write because of an editorial in the Times titled “Hypocrisy, Locked and Loaded,” but I’ll address that one later. Here is how Congressman Engel sees it. There is a tremendous illegal drug business in Mexico. It has gotten so big and contentious and violent that thousands are killed every year. His solution to the problem in Mexico? Ban the importation of guns into the U.S.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives created a program that would allow the illegal purchases of guns in the U.S. and let the guns walk across the border to Mexico with the idea that it would lead them to the cartel bigwigs. Instead the program backfired, they lost track of the guns, and the guns turned up at the scene of a shootout with U.S. Border Patrol agents where an agent, Brian Terry, was killed. When Congressman Darrell Issa’s government oversight committee started investigating what happened, Democrats circled the wagons to deflect criticism of the Obama administration and instead brought out that old bromide gun control. Chairman Issa would have none of it, provoking the ire of the New York Times editorial board and thus their editorial.

Why not focus on the root causes? The root cause is not guns. The root cause is drugs. Why doesn’t New York’s mayor Michael Bloomberg, instead of launching crusades against trans fats and table salt, launch a crusade against the glamorization of recreational drugs? Perhaps if he could get his Hollywood pals to stop taking drugs and stop glamorizing drugs then maybe there wouldn’t be cartels in Mexico killing each other to supply the drugs, or would that be too uncool?

These drug cartels are swimming in money. They are as well equipped as some armies. Do we really think that instead of buying fully automatic AK-47s at one of the world’s arms bazaars, they instead are buying “cheap AK-47 ‘knockoffs’”, to quote Congressman Engel, at retail in the U.S.? No doubt there are guns flowing into Mexico, where gun ownership is tightly controlled. When there are reports of guns being smuggled across the border in containers of powdered milk, do you think that is destined to a drug cartel, or perhaps a frightened citizen who is trying to protect himself and his family from the cartels?

The left doesn’t want to totally alienate gun owners in America because they could never win another election if all gun owners voted against them. So what you will typically hear is, “I support the right of Americans to own guns, but…” You will hear that from Carolyn McCarthy, who along with Bloomberg is perhaps the most anti-gun politician in American and you will hear it from Congressman Engel:

While I support the right of American citizens to own firearms for legal purposes, there is nothing sporting about AK-47s, which are military-style weapons.

Excuse me, Congressman, but my copy of the Constitution doesn’t include the word “sporting” in the Second Amendment. It is not about sports, it is not about hunting, it is not about target shooting. What it really is about is the people being protected against the tyranny of government. So instead of focusing on guns, perhaps you and your Democrat colleagues all the way up to the White House, should start a campaign with your pals to make drugs “uncool”. While you waiting for the guffaws from your friends to die down, perhaps you should work on sealing the Mexican border. Third, perhaps you should convince the Mexican government to relax their gun control laws so that their citizens won’t be coming here to buy guns to protect themselves, since their government won’t or can’t because they are too corrupt. Focus on solving the problem, not on getting an applause line from your base.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

We have been hearing his defenders try to explain his failed economic policies. “Well, we didn’t know the depth of the problem that we were left with.” How many more explanations of what this administration didn’t know will it take before the rest of America finally grasps that they didn’t know anything when they took office, nor do they today?

The most poorly qualified and inexperienced person to be elected President of the United States is joking about his failures as we suffer through the worst economic mess since the Great Depression and like FDR, he is following a course of action to prolong it and make it worse. FDR could be forgiven because he didn’t know what would work and what wouldn’t. Obama has no such excuse. The following clips sum up this administration.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTRHkRqIjs4

Right now, our economy, more than two years after the official end of the recession, should be roaring back with GDP growth in the 5%-7% range. Instead, it is teetering on the brink of another plunge. Obama has submitted a budget, then pulled it back and submitted a replacement budget that was slapped down by the Senate 97-0. Hope and change has turned to hoping we can survive until election day in 2012, where we can change the administration to one that is not so anti-American.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

As Chuck Schumer, Carolyn McCarthy, the New York State Assembly, and others continue to press for more laws on law abiding citizens while criminals and madmen have their way. I believe it is informative to review the results of this folly first in history and then specifcally in Australia.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_1r6aUJofM

Enough is enough.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Have we tired sufficiently of the ruling class on Mount Olympus, er, Capitol Hill? Instead of citizen legislators who go to Washington as a public service, they go to wrap themselves in power and dictate to the rest of us what is good for us, but that we are too dim to know better. Their key objective every two, four, or six years is to get reelected so that they don’t have to return to dwell among the unwashed mortals. Had enough?

Little by little, Washington is chipping away at our constitutional rights and we battle this tug-of-war as hard as we can, but taking away those rights is their full time job, while keeping them is something we do when we are not earning our daily bread. Chief among these power grabs is the right to bear arms. Every time some evil or deranged person wreaks havoc with a gun, the superior minds in Congress pass or attempt to pass laws that curtail the rights of law abiding citizens believing that until we have the kind of gun control that exists in most dictatorships, we will not be safe. But their attacks on law abiding citizens, particularly on what law abiding citizens own, rather than what they do, only serve to make us less safe and more dependent on the government.

Some Disturbing Examples of “Gun Control”

Tuscon — Jared Loughner displayed symptoms of mental instability beginning in the tenth grade, six years before that fateful day. Both Arizona and federal gun control laws prohibit the purchase of a gun by someone who is mentally impaired or a drug user, of which Loughner was both. But in our politically correct society, no one took the necessary steps to bring Loughner in front of a magistrate to have him legally declared mentally impaired. So, when he went to buy a gun, there was no record of his disability. This is not to say that he would not have obtained a gun illegally if he was denied the legal purchase of a gun, but it was not due to a lack of gun control laws.

Virginia Tech – Here is another case of a mentally disturbed person getting a gun despite well known warning signs. Cho Seung-Hui showed signs of mental problems for at least eighteen months before he shot 32 people dead. The head of one department at the school tried to help him but ran into a brick wall because he hadn’t threatened anyone at that time, so he couldn’t be forced into counseling. Gun control laws were there to prevent him from legally buying a gun. They didn’ t work. Those same gun control laws made sure no one else on campus but the police was able to defend themselves. Those gun laws did work and 32 died.

Long Island Railroad Massacre — Colin Ferguson killed six and wounded nineteen on a commuter train carrying passengers home from New York City. Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy’s (D-NY) husband was one of those killed and her son paralyzed. Ferguson bought his gun legally in California seven months before the crime after an FBI background check and a fifteen day waiting period. What different words put on paper would have kept this particular madman from his rampage? He took three agonizingly slow minutes to empty his gun twice before being tackled during his second reload. The average gun fight lasts 3-5 seconds, but this wasn’t a gun fight. New York’s gun control laws made sure of that. This was a massacre.

The Equal Footing

After the Tucson shooting, the aforementioned Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy had another new solution. Don’t allow the sale of ammunition magazines that hold more than ten bullets. Another law was proposed by Long Island Congressman Peter King (R-NY):

“Legislation which would make it a federal crime to carry a weapon within 1,000 feet of any event which is attended by the President, the Vice President, members of the Senate, members of the House of Representatives, Cabinet officials, including the CIA director as well as federal judges,” said King.

Fortunately this bill went nowhere, but let me propose an alternative gun law that would put this on an equal footing.

I propose that any law restricting the right of law abiding citizens to bear arms apply equally to members of Congress. This would mean that since it is illegal in Washington, D.C. to carry a gun, members of Congress should not be allowed to carry a gun, even if they are former law enforcement officers.

If a citizen in a particular Congressman’s district cannot carry a gun, and if they wanted to protect themselves would have to hire a bodyguard with his own money, then the member of Congress would not be allowed access to any taxpayer funded security. The member of Congress could only hire security out of his own salary, not his office budget, not his campaign cash. He should be as defenseless at home, work and in public as the people he represents.

We have to return to the principle that ours is a government of the people. Laws that are good for the people are good for the government. If we are to be disarmed by law, then the lawmakers should be equally disarmed. I can almost see Chuck Schumer grabbing the microphone in front of a rolling TV camera to scoff at such parity. “We would be in danger at any public event. We would not be able to hold town hall meetings!” I have news for you, Senator Schumer, that was the whole point of the 2nd Amendment, that if you took too much power to yourself, you should be afraid of the people.

That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. — The Declaration of Independence

So, is there a libertarian member of Congress who is willing to take this equality proposal and turn it into legislation?

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Carolyn McCarthy is a victim. Her husband was tragically killed and her son paralyzed by a madman, Colin Ferguson, who opened fire on a crowded Long Island Railroad train killing six and injuring nineteen. McCarthy, who was a Republican, switched parties and ran for Congress on the gun control issue after her Congressman Dan Frisa voted against an assault weapons ban that she supported and she won the seat. She has been on a mission ever since to impose tighter and tighter restrictions on guns, believing that will make the world safer. She wants you to feel her pain, literally.

The assault weapon ban was part of a campaign to ban all guns. It was a starting point; the thin end of the wedge. Put that ban in place and work to expand it. But when you come right down to it, no one has really been able to define what an assault weapon is other than it looks more menacing than other guns.  There was no legal definition of an assault weapon prior to the ban. Think about it. There was great urgency to enact a law to prevent something we can’t define but, don’t worry, we’ll come up with something. Isn’t that ass-backwards? Congress, in the most blatent political pandering, rushed to pass a law to ban something that they couldn’t even define. How did they know it was a bad thing if they couldn’t define it? It didn’t matter. What they were banning was something that included the term “assault weapon” and applied to guns. As long as one gun was affected, they considered it a success. Here are some of the critical components that differentiate an assault weapon from non-assault weapons:

• For rifles:
  • Folding or telescoping stock
  • Pistol grip
  • Bayonet mount
  • Flash suppressor, or threaded barrel designed to accommodate one

Can anyone seriously call this thoughtful legislation? These features somehow make a weapon, unreasonably dangerous? A pistol grip? a bayonet mount? a folding stock? Yet, when this ban was debated you would think that Congress was trying to prevent hand grenades being packed in the kiddie’s lunch boxes.

McCarthy Slips?

“I think when you think about just common sense here, large capacity clips [sic] that can basically, in my opinion, be weapons of mass destruction, should not be available to the average citizen,” McCarthy said in an NPR interview.

Finish the thought. It should only be availabe to criminals? Although I don’t believe that is what she meant, probably meaning law enforcement and the military, but that is what it means in practice. All of these gun laws that pertain to what people own, rather than what they do, only constrain law abiding people. A criminal will get whatever they want or feel they need for their situation. A criminal who wants a gun, will get a gun.

Also, a criminal intent on causing mayhem will take the time to prepare for his attack. Colin Ferguson carried with him on that train 106 rounds of ammunition and he was re-loading for the third time when he was finally tackled. Consider the homeowner who hears glass breaking in the middle of the night and his child call out, because four armed men have broken in. The homeowner doesn’t have time to go rummaging for all the necessary equipment. Pants, check; gun, check, holster? extra magazines because Carolyn McCarthy says my magazine can only carry ten bullets… On the other hand if the homeowner could grab his gun that already had fifteen or twenty rounds or more, he could focus on protecting his family immediately.

The average gunfight between armed fighters lasts around three to five seconds. On the Long Island Railroad that fateful day, Colin Ferguson methodically shot his victims for three minutes or thirty-six to sixty times longer than an average gunfight. Why was he able to do that? Because he was armed with a gun and everyone else was not. The only hope for those passengers in New York was to have a plainclothes or off duty cop in that particular car on that particular train at that particular time. They had no such luck.

Carolyn McCarthy wants to make sure that you are similarly defenseless at home, at work, or on your way to work as her husband and son were. The tragedy is, that if New York didn’t have such strict gun laws, her husband might be alive today and her son not paralyzed. But Carolyn McCarthy wants you and your family, not just in New York, but everywhere in America to be as defenseless as her family was that infamous day. No thank you. When confronted with a deadly foe, it is not enough to dial 911 and wait. Dial 911 by all means if you can, but once you have done that, you need to protect yourself and your loved ones. That’s what the Second Amendment is really all about.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.