In doing my roundup of gun bills in the Texas legislature, I missed Rep. Jason Villalba (R-Dallas)’s HB 1009 to allow schools to designated one “Marshal” for every 400 students eligible to receive firearm and emergency response training. Existing CHL holders on-staff would be eligible for the training. The measure passed the House and Senate and goes to Governor Perry’s desk for signing.
Dwight was kind enough to provide a quick rundown on a few pro-Second Amendment bills making their way through the Texas legislature. He also linked to the TSRAPAC site, which includes even more bill information. (I’ve also found Texas Firearms Freedom useful, and it includes a few more bills.) Since I’ve been meaning to do a rundown on these, and since I run a full-service blog, here’s an even more brief, high level summary of the state of various bills, with links to the text of the bills themselves:
CHL BAC (HB 153): Would set allowable blood alcohol content for a CHL holder carrying at .08 (same as for DWI), up from the current “0.0″: Passed House, appears to be dead in the Senate.
“Come and Take It” (HB 928): Preempts the federal government from using state officials in Texas to enforce unconstitutional firearms restrictions. Passed House, Democrats in Senate threatening to filibuster.
Campus Concealed Carry (HB 972): Passed House, passed out of Senate committee (SB 182), needs 21 votes to get Senate floor vote.
Ease in CHL fingerprinting requirements (HB 698): Let’s those living more than 25 miles away from a digital fingerprinting shop self-submit fingerprints. Passed House, on the Senate calendar for May 20. (According to TPPF‘s David Guenthner on Twitter, this has passed the Senate, so it’s awaiting Governor Perry’s signature as well.)
Combine revolver/automatic CHLs (HB 3142): Currently, if you pass the CHL practical test with an automatic, you could carry either an automatic or a revolver, but if you passed with a revolver, you could only carry a revolver. This bill eliminates that distinction. Passed House, scheduled for May 20.
For a shocking change of pace, the Friday LinkSwarm will be on Friday:
“How can we ‘gun people’ honestly be expected to come to the table with anti-gunners when anti-gunners are willfully stupid about guns, and openly hate, despise and ridicule those of us who own them?” Read the whole thing.
The lovely qualities of Jihadi Facebook pages: “The further I crawled down the extremist rabbit hole and the more caved-in skulls and headless corpses I saw.”
“The Euro cannot be destroyed by any craft that we here possess. It was made in the fires of Frankfurt. Only there can it be unmade.” What does it say when Sauron wants the ring, er, Euro destroyed as well? Though once again: Austerity hasn’t failed in Europe, it hasn’t been tried.
“It was one thing to do amnesty during the white hot Reagan economy of the mid to late 80s. It’s quite another to do it in the midst of the Obama depression.”
London mayor Boris Johnson thinks it would be a good thing for democracy if the UK were to just walk away from the EU.
Travis County Democratic District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg is out of the clink after serving half a 45 day sentence for DWI. A jury will evidently determine “whether her drunken driving was habitual or whether the recent arrest was the result of a one-time event.” Because lots of people without alcohol problems suddenly decide “Hey, I’m going to go cruising around town with an open bottle of vodka and a blood alcohol level of .239! That sounds like a great idea!” I might believe that…if Lehmberg was 21.
Silly Joanne Chesimard. If she had just served her time, she’d have tenure by now.
Europe is “bleeding out”. Youth unemployment? “59.1% of those under 25 are unemployed in Greece, 55.9% in Spain, 38.4% in Italy, 38.3% in Portugal, 26.5% in France.” More: “Hope and Change economies are crony capitalist systems which pick winners and losers. They maintain the status quo at all costs — and reward those who have captured government over those who innovate.”
So which is funnier, violence against women, or intimidating crime witnesses? Mountain Dew puts both in the same ad! Hilarity ensues! (Oh, and some people think it’s racist. It is, but not any more than a random gangsta rap video.)
People don’t like being bossed around by the political class. But that’s the Democratic Party’s entire model!
“We found 15 Trial Court cases, and 12 Appellate Court cases, where Shariah was found to be applicable in these particular cases. The facts are the facts: some judges are making decisions deferring to Shariah law even when those decisions conflict with Constitutional protections.”
Former New Mexico Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson says that Ted Cruz isn’t allowed to be a Hispanic because he opposes illegal alien amnesty. Maybe they should just declare that you can’t be Hispanic unless you’re a Democrat and be done with it.
Speaking of Cruz, here’s a piece in The New Republic that, when stripped of standard TNR talking points, boils down to “Yes, Ted Cruz could be elected President.”
Another day, another another 20 dead in an Islamist attack on a Christian church.
I couldn’t go to the NRA annual meeting in Houston this weekend, as much as I would have liked to, because I went to a family even in Houston last week.
But fortunately, Ted Cruz is there.
“The Constitution matters. All of the Constitution matters. You don’t get to pick and choose.”
And while we’re on the subject, I suspect that the Comanche and Apache warriors of the 19th century would far rather have bad-ass war machines named after them than be depicted as the wimpy, politically correct proto-Greens Hollywood tries to make them out to be…
A random basket of gun news, including more fallout from the Senate’s failure to restrict gun rights:
“Why is opposing the will of the majority a mark of “cowardice,” as Giffords says, rather than a mark of courage?… I suspect that Giffords credits the majority with wisdom only when the polls are going her way, just as she credits politicians with integrity only when they agree with her.”
Here’s one woman who isn’t having any of the gun-grabbing blather: “You say, ‘If it saves just one life.’ I hear ‘Except yours, you stupid bitch. We’d rather you get raped and murdered while waiting for the police to arrive.’” (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Gun owners care year in and year out. And they vote on the issue. This had little to do with the fearsome power of “the NRA”, or their fundraising efforts. It had to do with gun owners who will do their best to unelect any politician who votes to deprive them of what they view as constitutional rights. Those gun owners are more likely to live in swing states than the most avid gun controllers: progressives who cram themselves into a handful of cities. And they vote on the issue, unlike progressives, who, for all their furor at the outcome, put a large number of issues–taxes, abortion, welfare programs, and so forth–much higher on their list of priorities. By 2014, the odds of any “No” vote losing their job over it are pretty slim.
They say that hindsight is 20/20, but when it comes to issues where the media elite disagree with actual voters, the MSM has always been at war with Eurasia.
Take a look at this Jennifer Steinhauer piece from yesterday explaining that gun control never really had a chance. “They were no match for the reason Democrats have avoided gun control fights for years: a combination of the political anxiety of vulnerable Democrats from conservative states, deep-seated Republican resistance and the enduring clout of the National Rifle Association.” That’s a long-winded way of saying “Voters.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Now look at this piece from December 17, 2012 by that same Jennifer Steinhauer:
Demonstrating rapidly shifting attitudes toward gun control in the aftermath of a massacre in a Connecticut school, many pro-gun Congressional Democrats — including Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader and a longstanding gun rights supporter — signaled an openness Monday to new restrictions on guns.
Snip.
The receptiveness to new gun laws from figures like Mr. Manchin suggested the National Rifle Association, long one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, would face a strong test of its influence in the coming months if it sought to fend off tougher restrictions.
Snip.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats made it clear that they were ready to consider changes after years of pointedly avoiding fights over gun laws lest they face adverse political consequences in swing states and districts.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who has the strong backing of the N.R.A., said Monday that there should be “stricter rules on the books” regarding guns, and he called the school shootings “a game changer.”
So: Victory for the Second Amendment was impossible right up until it was inevitable.
Manchin-Toomey went down in flames today, a cloture vote falling six votes short (including four Democrats (Baucus (MT), Begich (AK), Heitkamp (ND) and Pryor (AK) voting no) of the 60 it needed.
Let’s catalog what Democrats won’t be getting during the current congress, shall we?
No national gun confiscation regime, like the one imposed in Australia.
No ban on civilian gun ownership, like Sen. Diane Feinstein has admitted she wants to impose.
No universal gun registration act.
No national “high” capacity magazine ban.
No modern sporting rifle (AKA “assault weapon”) ban.
No reinstitution of the Clinton-era cosmetic modern sporting rifle ban.
And, with the defeat of Manchin-Toomey, no “universal background check” as a prelude to a national gun registry.
This is one case in which the Senate’s deliberative style has worked in conservative’s favor. If Harry Reid had been able to ram through a vote days after the Sandy Hook massacre (as happened in New York), it’s very possible some sort of gun control might have passed. But with time for the knee-jerk emotional response to die down, and for the NRA and gun owners across America to mobilize, all Democrats managed to do was endanger a few senate careers, both among themselves and the RINO herd. Remember Michael Moore declaring how the NRA was doomed?
Didn’t work out that way, did it?
Instead, they got…well, let’s Mr. Wonka break it down for them:
That’s some mighty fine political ad targeting you’ve got going on there, Lou.
The same Ted Cruz that pantsed David Dewhurst in the Republican primary runoff because Dew wasn’t conservative enough?
The same Ted Cruz who was endorsed by Gun Owners of America? (You know, the gun rights group that’s like the NRA, but not so squishy and eager to compromise.)
The same Ted Cruz who beat his opponent in the general election by 16 points?
