PSA from Milwaukee Sherriff Gets Him in Hot Water - Video

Many feel he is trying to encourage vigilante justice.  Protecting yourself in your own home isn't being a vigilante.  Asshats.

The NRA Goes All Orwellian

There, I said it.  I am so astonished, flabbergasted, and appalled at the presser that Wayne La Pierre and the NRA held today.  While he started out just fine, it just got creepier and yes Orwellian as it went along.  

A federal program that puts an armed guard in every school across the country?  Uh, no.  The security of a particular school system is a local/state issue, not a federal one.  Smitty over at The Other McCain accused me of being so federalist.  My reply, you're damn skippy I am.  What conservative can get behind this suggestion?  This is something that the left would do, not the right.  Not the gun part, but the federal government control part.  I mean the irony of all this is so thick you can cut it with a knife.  Some on the right are heralding this as the great cure-all, and the left is screaming about it.  Neither of things are true.  

First and foremost, I am 100% against forcing a teacher to become a gun toter.  Many teachers would not want to do this, and as an American citizen that is their right.  The second amendment says nothing about every American must bear arms, it says the government can't infringe upon that right.  Even if the teacher was someone who liked guns, I still think it is a bad idea.  All the students would know that the teacher is armed and I believed it could be a huge distraction; especially in schools were violence is an everyday part of life for the student body.  What I would be willing to go along with would be highly trained and certified guard of some sort.  I know where I live the police department has a unit of people who are hired out to all kinds of locations, even to some jewelry stores in the area.  But only if the school system wants this type of thing.  I don't think it should be forced on a federal level.  This is something that state/locality should decide upon.  I know here in Virginia there is discussion if our Constitution would even allow the commonwealth to force this on every school system.  A bill is expected to be put into our legislature next month.  We will see how it goes.  

But the thing that really takes the cake for me is the national database of the mentally ill.  What???????  Does he really think that a person like me deserves to have my name put into a national database simply because I have a chemical imbalance in my brain?   I have been very open and honest about my mental illness on this blog.  It didn't start out that way, but over time I have come to realize that in a very small way I could try to lift the stigma that surrounds mental illness.  

Mental illness isn't really a science.  There is no blood test to determine if you have it or not.  It is more of an art when it comes to getting a proper diagnosis.  Which, by the way, is part of the problem.  There is no way to determine who is going to become violent.  The vast majority of mentally ill people are not in any dangerous to other people.  They are in many ways self-destructive, but not dangerous.  The differences between the two is huge.  

I have been having a discussion about this on my Facebook page and have been told that I am already in a database about my MDD.  True, but that is for purposes of insurance.  While the police/government could get access to that information if they really needed to, but it would take a court order to do so.  The differences between a private company having this information for those type of purposes and the federal government creating one that they alone have access to don't compare in any way, shape, or form.  

Am I going to have to start wearing a scarlet letter to identify myself to others too?  

I have already seen comparisons between La Pierre and Hitler around the intertubes.   I am sorry, but that isn't so far off.  Hitler didn't like the mentally ill either.  I am was not considered a good person to continue breeding, heaven knows I shouldn't create any more mentally unstable people to mess up the landscape and the perfect utopia that due to be created in the imagination of that madman.  

Under no circumstances should anyone be heralding the idea of a national database about mental illness.  If you are, ask yourself, who gets to determine who is mentally ill or not?  Does a woman who goes through postpartum depression get added?  Postpartum depression is something that last a few months and is curable (yes curable) by a short round of meds.  Many women don't even go the route of meds, they push their way through it.  Does a person who experiences a bout of depression after a divorce get added?  Do we add all the over medicated children we have across the country too?  Does he have any idea how this hinder getting medical treatment for such illnesses?  Did he even remotely think this through?  We already have a huge problem with stigma about mental illness in this country.  This would make an already big problem even more unmanageable.  

This is a violation of our freedoms and rights of epic proportions.  It needs to be ridiculed for what it is.  A Orwellian overreach of government.  Wayne La Pierre should be deeply ashamed of his performance today, deeply and profoundly.  SMDH.

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States Rights and the 10th Amendment

The debate is starting to heat up in regards to the rights to the individual states. The 10th amendment says:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

These issues are becoming front and center for a variety of reasons. The stimulus package provisions being one example of this. The stimulus package states that payment for the work done on the projects must be done on scale union wages. The State of California is on the brink of insolvency, so this provision is problematic to them. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has written a letter to President Obama in regards to this provision and requesting an exemption.
Montana has passed a law exempting the state from federal laws restricting guns. All guns and ammunition made in the state that is sold within the state will be stamped Made in Montana, and will fall under only the jurisdiction of the state. This law is due to take effect on October 10, 2009. The basis of the law is that the 10th Amendment is for inter-state commerce, not intra-state commerce.
Leo Berman, Texas State Representative, is introducing a bill that will clarify that Texas is a Sovereign state and that they’re not required to follow any federal law that is not mandated under the U.S. Constitution. He believes that the bill will pass.
In Utah, the Patrick Henry Caucus has been formed. Patrick Henry famously said “Give me Liberty, or Give me Death.” The caucus has been formed to ensure the sovereignty of states rights. They are hoping to set up the same type of organization in all 50 states.
The federal government may find that they are over-playing their hand. The legislators and governors across the country are starting to question the control the federal government is trying to exert, and how they are using money to do it.
This is nothing new; the feds have been doing this for quite sometime. The drinking age being one very good example of this. Under the constitution, the federal government has no right to set a minimum drinking age. In order to get all 50 states to raise the age to 21 they were withholding money for road projects. All 50 states capitulated and raised the age to 21. While I feel that this is a good law, it is how it came about that is disturbing. The federal government keeps usurping on the rights of the states that was given to them by the constitution.
This is an issue that we will be hearing more of as time goes by. The chances of the gun control lobby not bringing the Montana law to court is next to nil. I would venture to say this will be falling to the Supreme Court to decide within the next five years.