{"id":4823,"date":"2009-05-22T12:15:49","date_gmt":"2009-05-22T17:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4823"},"modified":"2011-09-01T07:50:14","modified_gmt":"2011-09-01T12:50:14","slug":"betty-mccollum-lying-to-the-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4823","title":{"rendered":"Betty McCollum: Lying To The People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lost in among the rest of the news this past week was an amendment to a bill full of regulations on credit cards by Tom Coborn which, when signed, will allow legal carry pemit holders <\/em>to carry their firearms in national parks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though it’s mired in a bill that is otherwise full of miserably bad ideas, the amendment would allow people who are demonstrably law-abiding citizens (the only kind that can get shall-issue permits<\/em>) to do in national parks pretty much the same thing they do everywhere else in our society; nothing out of the ordinary.\u00a0 In the states nationwide that allow civilian carry (currently all but Wisconsin and Kansas), and especially the 40 “shall issue” states (where the burden is on the state to prove that a citizen can’t <\/em>have a permit), permittees pretty much cause zero crime and create zero problems (inevitably, after lefty politicians, reading off the scripts the gun-control<\/strike> victim disarmament lobby give them, predict gore in the streets).<\/p>\n

There is, after all, a reason that of the 32 states that have passed “Shall Issue” laws since 1983, none <\/em>have repealed it via legislative action (and only Minnesota’s was overturned, on a picayune administrative technicality by an intellectually-dishonest judge, giving us a one-year gap before the legislature swept up the judge’s mess).<\/p>\n

Of course, my “representative”, Betty McCollum, is not one to let facts, evidence, and twenty years of statistics get in her way.\u00a0 When blinkered ideology demands, she is right there, waiting to Mbark out the talking points on cue, like a trained ideological seal<\/a>.\u00a0 Paul Schmelzer describes her reaction over at the Minnesoros “Independent<\/em>“:<\/p>\n

The language of Coburn\u2019s amendment stated that the rule would \u201cprotect innocent Americans from violent crime in national parks and refuges.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Minnesota Democrat McCollum characterized the amendment as \u201ca political game played at the expense of millions of families who will visit our national parks seeking enjoyment, recreation, and peace.\u201d She continued:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a shameful example of the failure of the legislative process and I would urge President Obama to veto the Credit Cardholders\u2019 Bill of Rights and send it back to Congress to take the guns out. What rationale is there for the need to carry a concealed weapon on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial? <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Actually,\u00a0McCollum is asking the wrong question<\/strike> reciting the wrong question, from\u00a0the notes handed to her by one astroturf anti-gun group or another.\u00a0 The real question, in the wake of last year’s re-affirmation in the Supreme Court’s Heller <\/em>decision that the Second Amendment is a right “of the people”, is “what rationale is there to prevent people who are demonstrably two orders of magnitude more law-abiding than the average citizen<\/em> from exercising their legal, licensed right?”<\/p>\n

The only rationale can be for politicians to score political points with the NRA. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not that that’s true, but to the extent that there’s accuracy in the statement – that\u00a0pols need to beware of the NRA – then good.\u00a0 The more the merrier.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Our national parks are treasures. They don\u2019t need to be protected by random people carrying loaded, concealed weapons around millions of vacationing families.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One wonders if McCollum even has a conscience; she lies so fluently.<\/p>\n

“Rep.” McCollum; concealed carry permit holders are not “random people”.\u00a0 They are people who have passed background checks, taking skills courses, and are quite demonstrably better, more law-abiding, more trustworthy, more stable than 99% (literally) of your constituents.<\/p>\n

Speaking of lopsided margins (emphasis added to the Mindy <\/em>story by yours truly):<\/p>\n

The [original credit-card bill] was divided into two parts in a parliamentary maneuver. [Senator] Coburn\u2019s amendment passed the House by a 279 to 147<\/strong> margin, and the credit card reform bill passed on a separate 361 to 64 vote. In the Senate, the combined bill passed by a 90 to 5 vote<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Betty McCollum: Liar?\u00a0 Puppet?\u00a0 Lying Puppet?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lost in among the rest of the news this past week was an amendment to a bill full of regulations on credit cards by Tom Coborn which, when signed, will allow legal carry pemit holders to carry their firearms in national parks.\u00a0 Though it’s mired in a bill that is otherwise full of miserably bad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gun-free-zones","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22331,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4823\/revisions\/22331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}