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The Gun Lobby Outvotes D.C.

MetalChris

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Duct tape alert!

Source

The measure to at long last allow District of Columbia residents a voting member in the House has run afoul of the gun lobby that is determined to deny Washington another fundamental right: to regulate firearms.

The Senate approved the bill, but only after a callow roster, including a significant number of Democrats, caved in to the lobby and attached an amendment that would strike down the city’s reasonable laws for gun registration and trigger locks and its ban on assault weapons and sniper rifles.

The gun lobby’s malevolence now extends to the House, where Democratic leaders suddenly pulled back a clean bill. The leadership is agonizing, trying to convince Democrats from pro-gun districts to resist gun lobby pressure for the dangerous amendment. “This is Democratic members doing something to kill a basic civil rights bill,” Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city’s nonvoting House delegate, complained to The Hill newspaper.

The Supreme Court struck down Washington’s ban on handguns in the home last June. The same decision found that local government can impose reasonable gun restrictions.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in a political bind that calls for true leadership in reminding her members of the basic principle of representative government that’s at stake. Unfortunately, she made clear the Democrats’ wariness over gun control in demurring from Attorney General Eric Holder’s call to eventually restore the federal ban on assault weapons. “We need to enforce the laws we have right now,” she said, parroting the pro-gun line.

Ms. Pelosi, who has championed Washington’s cause, should not allow the gun lobby to deny the district’s taxpaying citizens their right to a vote in the House — or their right to safer homes and streets.
 

wylde007

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How, exactly, is it the GOVERNMENT'S FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT to regulate firearms?

That is contradictory in its entirety to the FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT of the people to keep and bear arms.

Governments don't have rights. They have responsibilities and duties. Most of those should involve protecting the rights of the people.

Simply ludicrous.
 

Toymaker

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The NY Times.....it figures.:quirky

Onlythe Presscan get away with printing lies under the guise of an opinion.

Thank God for the First Amendment.
 

Deanimator

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Just allow DC residents the right to own guns without onerous restrictions, and the problem would vanish like Teddy Kennedy's last gin soaked braincell.
 

wylde007

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MetalChris wrote:
That's what I thought! Apparently we're both just a couple of "Constitutional extremists."
In another day and time (fast-again approaching) we would be known as PATRIOTS.

But hush-hush... we don't want people to know what we're on about or they might want in on it!:lol:
 

Hef

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Governments don't have rights. People have rights. Governments have powers and authority, which is delegated to them by the people.

The Bill of Rights does not limit our rights to those specifically enumerated. It limits the power of government to control the free exercise of our rights.

I guess nobody told that guy.
 

Sonora Rebel

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This is a prime example of liberal educated fuzzythink. Goverment (this one at least) has no Rights... fundamental or otherwise. Government has duties and responsibilities to the PEOPLE who established/elected it... but no RIGHTS!

This is just another example of the obfuscation that has taken place in the education system abbrogating the actual rights of the peoplefor some sort of governmental permission to exercise them. This isn't mere semantics... it's a whole thought process that's been subverted and eroded by the liberal (MARXIST) education system and useful idiot MSM fellow travelers for the past 40 years or more.
 

AZkopper

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Besides the vomit-inducing "fundemental right of (the city government of)Washington" aspect of the article, I'm glad to hear that the Senate "caved in" to the "gun lobby" (ie: "Freedom loving Constitutionalists"). Hopefully the blue dog dems with the repubs will get the House to "cave" as well.
 

Alexcabbie

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Pointing out this kind of drivel from the New York Times is sort of like putting up barriers, cones, and yellow tape around a pile of Great Dane dog-do.

Or maybe like pointing out the rash on a smallpox case.

Or even like standing at the edge of the river and shouting "water!!"

By this time I bet I could make up a boilerplate news article with blanks to insert certain key phrases and from that generate every gun-related "article" the NY Times ever has or will put on the newsstands.
 

Task Force 16

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The Senate approved the bill, but only after a callow roster, including a significant number of Democrats, caved in to the lobby and attached an amendment that would strike down the city’s reasonable (more like UN-reasonable)laws for gun registration and trigger locks and its ban on assault weapons and sniper rifles.
I don't recall any of the DC gunrestrictions as being reasonable.

What voting rights? The residents of DC do not have any Constitutional voting rights in either the US Senate or HoR. DC is not a state and thereforethe residents donot have a right to representation in Congress. At least that's the way I understand the Constitution.
 

deepdiver

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Task Force 16 wrote:
The Senate approved the bill, but only after a callow roster, including a significant number of Democrats, caved in to the lobby and attached an amendment that would strike down the city’s reasonable (more like UN-reasonable)laws for gun registration and trigger locks and its ban on assault weapons and sniper rifles.
I don't recall any of the DC gunrestrictions as being reasonable.

What voting rights? The residents of DC do not have any Constitutional voting rights in either the US Senate or HoR. DC is not a state and thereforethe residents donot have a right to representation in Congress. At least that's the way I understand the Constitution.
Well yeah, but that is because you read what is actually written in the Constitution without taking into account that it is a living breathing document meaning that anything in it can be reinterpreted at will to meet any political agenda that comes down the pike.
 

unreconstructed1

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wylde007 wrote:
MetalChris wrote:
That's what I thought! Apparently we're both just a couple of "Constitutional extremists."
In another day and time (fast-again approaching) we would be known as PATRIOTS.
but before we can be known as "patriots" again, we must first be known as extremists, then as insurgents, then even "rebels". only then can the ones who survive be remembered as "patriots"
 

Huck

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MetalChris wrote:
Ms. Pelosi, who has championed Washington’s cause, should not allow the gun lobby to deny the district’s taxpaying citizens their right to a vote in the House -or their right to safer homes and streets.
I guess the paper of making up the record has missed the fact that under the pre-Heller D.C. gun laws the people of D.C. did not have "safer homes and streets". Far from it.
 

The Donkey

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Task Force 16 wrote:
The Senate approved the bill, but only after a callow roster, including a significant number of Democrats, caved in to the lobby and attached an amendment that would strike down the city’s reasonable (more like UN-reasonable)laws for gun registration and trigger locks and its ban on assault weapons and sniper rifles.
I don't recall any of the DC gunrestrictions as being reasonable.

What voting rights? The residents of DC do not have any Constitutional voting rights in either the US Senate or HoR. DC is not a state and thereforethe residents donot have a right to representation in Congress. At least that's the way I understand the Constitution.
If the Constitution does not allow the legislative process to give DC residents greater voting rights, then the Constitution burped, and needs to be fixed.

I hope the legislation passes: if it is overturned by the Supreme Court, I hope DC gets its voting rights by amendment.
 

deepdiver

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Either civics wasn't taught in all gov't schools or some people weren't paying attention. We learned that DC was intentionally not a state and did not have congressional representation in 5-6 grade civics class. The constitution did not "burp" in this regard. Actually, DC residents did not even have a vote in presidential elections until around 1960 by constitutional amendment.
 

Citizen

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deepdiver wrote:
Either civics wasn't taught in all gov't schools or some people weren't paying attention. We learned that DC was intentionally not a state and did not have congressional representation in 5-6 grade civics class. The constitution did not "burp" in this regard. Actually, DC residents did not even have a vote in presidential elections until around 1960 by constitutional amendment.
Just look at the sewer DC has become with Home Rule.

Bad idea to give that crowd a vote, even by amendment.
 

unreconstructed1

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DC was never meant to be a city either. the constitution specifically lays out what DC was meant to be, which is a District. it was meant to be a meeting place for the seat of government, and to be used for that purpose alone.

Interestingly enough ( for those of us who still give a damn about the constitution), the constitution authorizes that this district shall be a size "not exceeding Ten miles squared", yet according to Wikipedia, DC is actually:





Area

-City
68.3sqmi(177.0km[suP]2[/suP])

-Land
61.4sqmi(159.0km[suP]2[/suP])

- Water
6.9sqmi(18.0km[suP]2[/suP])



anyone see something wrong here?
 

TFred

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unreconstructed1 wrote:
DC was never meant to be a city either. the constitution specifically lays out what DC was meant to be, which is a District. it was meant to be a meeting place for the seat of government, and to be used for that purpose alone.

Interestingly enough ( for those of us who still give a damn about the constitution), the constitution authorizes that this district shall be a size "not exceeding Ten miles squared", yet according to Wikipedia, DC is actually:

Area

-City
68.3sqmi (177.0km[sup]2[/sup])

-Land
61.4sqmi (159.0km[sup]2[/sup])

- Water
6.9sqmi (18.0km[sup]2[/sup])

anyone see something wrong here?
"Ten miles squared" is 100 square miles. Looks like they have 31.7 square miles to spare.

TFred
 
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