“The bill would grant rank and file members of Congress the ability to conceal weapons “in nearly every conceivable scenario,” according to information released by Babin’s office, including federal parks and buildings, the national mall, at schools, on military bases and to and from their offices. There would only be a few limited restrictions, including national special security events and other areas under the direct jurisdiction of the Secret Service and commercial airliners.”
My opinion: no, no, no, hell no. You’re not better than I am. If I cannot carry concealed, neither can you.
I will personally contribute $ to any and every primary contender for every Republican who votes for this monstrosity.
No, we can’t. If that was the case, the current Congress, with Republican majorities in both houses, would just pass THAT law.
It is outrageous that they are trying to blatantly give themselves the CC privileges that are denied their constituents. They are not royalty, and they are not above us.
They won’t be able to pass it. The Democrats will gleefully vote against it, and the Republican voters’ outrage will scare enough Republicans into not supporting it.
The OP and I don’t often agree on political issues but we’re in accord on this one.
Regardless of what your opinions are on gun ownership and carrying, I don’t see any justification for giving special legal privileges to Congressmen. They should have to comply with the same laws as everyone else does. Or give every else the same legal privileges they’re giving themselves.
Ha ha ha…oh my, no. The same thing was said when the laws were changed to allow police officers, including retired ones, vastly expanded legal carry. You will note that
It did not occur.
The police, as a group, are not notable lobbyists for universal carry for anubody else.
If we are going to have cc for everybody, then we need to pursue it for everybody. Creating privileged groups is not the correct approach.
The last thing we need here in DC is people from the flyover states walking around the city with guns; they’re all secretly terrified a black person is going to jump out and make them parallel park. You give an Alabama congressman a gun and the first time Colin Powell says god morning to him: BLAM!
Here is the scenario I’m imagining. Louie Gohmert in desperate need to “drain the lizard” decides to use the public facilities, rather than climb 2 floors to the private washroom. Finding the gun and impediment to the task at hand, he places it on the counter next to him, where upon being distracted by deep thoughts regarding the sex lives of carabou, wanders off to do more of gods work.
Meanwhile Arthur Mulligan animal rights radical and founding/only member of the FFFFF (fighters for freedom of furry ferrets), walks in and sees the gun inside the security zone as a sign from god to make strike a blow for ferretdome, and kill Madeleine Z. Bordallo for her support of HR699. Walks to the gallery of a full session of Congress and takes his shot.
At this point every member of the Republican congressional delegation (except poor Gohmert) is carrying. Since after this bill passed any Republican seen without a gun would be branded an soft on 2nd amendment rights and an enemy of the NRA. As one they realize the positive PR they would garner by being the congressman who took down the active shooter. 287 guns wielded by 242 untrained panicked cowboy glory hounds fire 1292 bullets in the direction of the gallery. I leave it the the readers vivid imagination regarding the aftermath.
At least with police officers, you can argue that their special carry status is justified by the additional training they’ve received.
There’s no training requirement in Babin’s bill. There is mention of training but it’s optional. Optional one way, at least - the bill says the agency has to give the training to Congressmen if they request it. Another section of the bill says that if a Congressman chooses to take the training, he won’t have to pay for it.
The fact that most gun control is written to work this way is why it’s absolutely mind-boggling to me that gun control is considered a progressive issue. When you say “well, these people get to defend their lives with guns but not you regular peasants” or “the only people who’s lives are worth defending with guns are people rich enough to afford bodyguards or influential enough to get them assigned”, you’re explicitly going against progressive principles. But that’s exactly the way gun control laws typically work.
I was a deputy sheriff. The idea that cops, as a group, have any meaningful training is hilarious. Some cops, on their own, become skilled shooters. Academy training amounts to little more than “the bullet comes out the end with the hole in it.”
Police are surprisingly strongly in support of citizen CCW, though I don’t think many are very vocal about it.
Police training is a joke, this is one thing that’s pretty universal across every department. They usually have to do an easy shooting test 1x a year.
Are you thinking of Charles Sumner? He got better(ish), and it was pre-war, and the guy was from SC, though maybe there’s another incident I don’t know about.
I agree that’s the huge problem here. GOP Congresspeople shaken by the recent incident propose a law that effectively works like hand gun control in NYC. Robert DeNiro (and actually Trump has or had one too) can easily get a carry permit. I can’t in a million years.
That said, whether De Niro and Trump can get carry permits and I can’t in the US Mecca of gun control is not really at the heart of the issue overall. It definitely looks bad, and loses votes for gun control though.
I don’t know exactly what ‘progressive’ means, it’s somewhat defined by the people claiming to be it, as in fairness is ‘conservative’ to some degree. But practically ‘progressive’ almost always means support of govt driven solutions to problems, and generally dreams of the US being more like Europe. Seeing gun control as a way to fix the historical social problem which causes a high murder rate in the US by rich country standards isn’t really out of line with that. Gun control isn’t ever likely to solve that issue IMO, but I don’t think it contradicts the other elements of ‘progressive’.
And there are always rent seekers who feed off big govt, an elite big govt supports. So being in favor of ‘equality’ via big govt means by definition there will be inequality as it relates to the big govt elite, and its courtiers in the private sector elite. If you’re a rational person in favor of big govt you admit that as among the drawbacks of big govt, but say the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. You also say the big govt elite is needed to rein in the private sector elite (those who don’t make common cause with the big govt elite that is), or less plausibly (though often claimed) that the big govt elite is composed of more moral and less self interested people than the private sector elite.
In CA, it worked the other way around. The Legislature crafted special holes in many of the gun control laws so they dont apply to LEOs or retired LEO, in order to get the buy in of the police. Example- the ban on owned a “assault weapon”.
If this law is passed, it will be interesting to watch the next charity congressional baseball game. All the Rs will be wearing sidearms and trying to bat/run, while all the Ds will be afraid to be the pitcher…
