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How many of those do you get a day? Amongst shooters in the current administration, they are getting popular. Here are a couple:

Senate Bill SB-2099 will require us to put on our 2009 1040 federal tax form all guns that you have or own. It may require fingerprints and a tax of $50 per gun.

This bill was introduced on Feb.. 24. This bill will become public knowledge 30 days after it is voted into law. This is an amendment to the Internal Revenue Act of 1986. This means that the Finance Committee can pass this without the Senate voting on it at all.

Sounds scary, except it doesn't actually exist. There is no SB-2009 in this Congress. You can search on bills at Thomas, which is the Library of Congress website where bills are registered.

Another is HR 45, Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act.

Very Important for you to be aware of a new bill HR 45 introduced into the House.

This is the Blair Holt Firearm Licensing & Record of Sale Act of 2009. Also go to http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-45

I've written about that in the past. Still no co-sponsors, it is sitting in Committee going nowhere.

Here's a Civics lesson:

Steps In Making a Law

1. Write your bill
2. Submit it
3. Get it assigned to the appropriate committee
4. Go get a bunch of co-sponsors
5. Have hearings
6. Get a financial impact statement from the Congressional Budget Office
   
7. Pray it gets out of committee
8. See if you can pass it on your side (Senate or House)
9. Send it to the other side
10. See if they pass it
11. Have a Conference Committee to reconcile the Senate and House versions
12. Both sides pass it again
13. Send it to the White House and see if it gets signed

Most bills die at step 3.

Paying attention to things is good, though......

Of Bad Guys and Good

There was a recent murder at a WalMart. In this crime, one of the criminals walked up to a armored-car guard, pulled out a gun, shot the man in the face, killing him and injuring another innocent bystander, stole the guard's money bag, and calmly walked out the store to his waiting car. http://www.thenewstribune.com/311/story/764728.html

In a recent piece (http://firearmslegislation.blogspot.com/2009/04/self-protection-is-not-vigilantism.html), I discussed the fact that honest people legally arming themselves is a rational thing to do. There are just people in the world that are not nice (to say the least). http://firearmslegislation.blogspot.com/2009/04/disarmament-as-public-policy.html

I certainly don't think that any legally-armed person could have done much of anything to stop this crime. By the time this felon had drawn his gun and shot the guard, it was all over. One could argue that it is more likely that more innocents would have been hurt had someone shot back.

What strikes me about this crime is not only the level of violence, but the absolute disregard for life shown by the criminals both in their action and their comments during the subsequent interrogation. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2009/06/04/2009302279.pdf

Turpin initially denied any involvement, even claiming it wasn’t him on the
video. Eventually Turpin admitted he was involved and it was him on the video. A
detective asked if there was anything he would like to say to the family of the
dead guard if he had the opportunity.

He hung his head and said softly, “Sorry, I guess.”

The detective said, “You guess you’re sorry? A man was shot dead for money.”

“I wouldn’t apologize. What would that do. He’s already gone.”

“If you would have gotten away with this,” the detective asked, “how would you have felt?”

“Bad, but, but I would have gotten over it because of the money.”

What those who don't believe in personal protection just don't get is that there are some very, very bad people out there. They just don't care about the rest of us.

And that's why I carry.