“We think Senate Bill 1487 is probably the most offensive and improper overreact (sic) of state government into local affairs that I’ve ever seen in my career. With having the enormous threat of withholding state shared revenues, which is generally about 40 percent of a city’s operating budget as a hammer — it is simply a matter of saying ‘You (comply with the law and sell seized firearms) or we issue this virtual death penalty.’” – Ken Strobeck in Tucson’s destroyed gun total hits 4,820; lawmaker wants city to stop [via tucson.com]
States rights. Cities rights. Democratic pols rights. Tyrants always use the same rally cry.
And you can bet your bottom dollar that if/when HRC gets into power & extends her tentacles throughout the federal government, the feds will use the power of the purse to withhold federal funds from states that don’t enact ‘common sense’ firearm legislation. It seems that the rights and freedoms of individuals are eroding more and more every day.
Honestly, I don’t think she’s going to get elected. I live in liberal central and I haven’t heard any support for her and have had a couple of folks that voted for barry say they’re voting for Trump.
“Trump takes lead.”
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/11/01/abc-newswashington-post-tracking-poll-donald-trump-now-leading-hillary-clinton/
And this is the poll that had her up 12 a week ago… AAANNND they are weighting democrats a full 10 percentage points over, the largest oversample yet.
I hope that you’re right!!!
jwm,
Before Barry’s re-election, I heard from people who had never voted Republican in their lives tell me, with anger and passion no less, that they were going to vote Republican for the first time ever because there was no way they were going to vote for Barry a second time. And yet Barry supposedly won re-election.
So, I cannot help but wonder if the same dynamic will happen again. I guess time will tell.
Personally, I put more stock in the explanations of why the polls up to this point have been inaccurate/misleading.
Crowd size, signs, word on the street, Hillary has VERY LITTLE support but that doesn’t mean much if you selectively poll demographics and control the voting machines.
Uncommon_sense
I’ll also be a first time voter this election, for whatever good it might do.
When I see things like this I feel like Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 looking at all the people around me and thinking they are all just walking corpses that don’t even know it yet.
Come on, you don’t need a time machine to see what is coming. Hillary is going to win by a landslide and we are going to have to fight if you want to actually keep our guns after that happens.
Let me get this straight. If Mr. Ken Strobeck and his ilk desire to meddle in your affairs — including taking away 40% of your money — that is perfectly fine. But, if someone meddles in his affairs and takes away 40% of his money, that is monumentally offensive and an improper overreaction. Got it.
Note that government takes away every bit of 40% of many people’s annual income when you combine federal and state income tax, Social Security and Medicare tax, state sales tax, and local property tax. Example: federal income tax = 15%, state income tax = 4%, Social Security and Medicare tax = 15.3%, state sales tax = 4%, and local property tax = 5% for a total of 43.3% !!!
And yes, Social Security and Medicare tax IS 15.3% because you pay half of that and your employer pays the other half rather than paying that money to you. And self-employed people pay all of it.
And it gets better. Literally everything you and I buy is more expensive because the business selling it has to pay taxes. If their taxes were lower they could charge less (competitors lowering prices would force them to anyway). Businesses don’t pay taxes, their customers do. Of course, every business is also a customer of another business, so they are paying those taxes too, which means that cost is also passed on to the you and I, the final customer.
Trickle down … taxation.
Yes, but we all like our roads and not having people starving in the streets.
Binder,
Roads? Many local governments no longer pave the local roads unless the local property owners agree to pay between $5,000 and $12,000 to repave the local roads … ON TOP OF ALL THE OTHER TAXES THAT THEY ALREADY PAY.
As for people starving in the streets, the answer is simple: work if you don’t want to starve. No matter how you slice it, forced charity at gunpoint — and that is exactly what government tax-funded entitlement programs are — is heinous, obscene, and destructive. If government only took 5% of our money rather than the 40% or so that they take now, that extra 35% of our money would create an economy with plenty of jobs for everyone and no one would have to be out of work and starving on the streets.
We are in a vicious downward spiral now. Excessive taxation has removed too much money from the economy. That reduces the demand for products and services. That reduces work necessary to produce products and services. That reduces incomes and increases poverty which increases demand for government entitlements. That increases demand for more taxation. And that removes even more money from the economy … and the entire cycle keeps repeating toward economic armageddon.
The answer to people starving in the streets is soup kitchens, free food for anyone who asks, even if they pull up in a Rolls limo. Totally paid by federal dollars. Cancelling all transfers of cash will pay for it easily. You need stations along N-S Interstates, as people in the North will suddenly realize they’re about to freeze to death, and we no longer have free housing. They’ll be walking south as a result. Those concerned with their safety can buy a bus and begin transporting, at their own expense. The nation would be transformed in less than a year, probably with no more than a million or so deaths of totally useless people.
To expand just a bit, the tax burden you’re describing is that of a lower middle class family. Upper middle class families pay substantially more. It also doesn’t include the $3 trillion we spend on regulatory compliance. Or the 11% excise tax on firearms and ammuni tion, which for some of us around here is a real burden. Or the 60 cents or so (depending on state) you pay on every gallon of gas or the $270 you pay for a license for a 6 year old mid priced car. The $4 you pay every month on your cell bill for Obamaphones. Parking tickets for parking on your own property (happened to me twice in 3 days). I could go on, but you’ve probably got the general idea.
Governor,
I agree entirely with your analysis. My numbers were purposely on the low side.
I just wish everyone understood that government takes, on average, at least 40% of our money from us through taxes, licenses, permits, and regulatory compliance.
WAY too many economically illiterate people in this country. They think that somebody else can pay and it won’t effect them. But regardless of how rich a guy is, taking his money always has an adverse effect on the rest of us. He either spends his money which creates jobs or he invests his money which makes even more jobs. People just don’t understand where the money comes from when they get a car loan or when their company builds a new factory. And some people would just rather live comfortably in their poverty living on someone else’s dime than to get up and go to work every day and make a better life for themselves. Ultimately when the government takes from us they take from ALL of us.
The federal government does this sort of thing all the time to interfere with spheres of regulation that the Constitution assigns to the states: the drinking age of 21, Title IX in education, etc.
The differences here are that:
1) The feds use this tactic to enforce not just statute law, but regulations wholly invented by bureaucrats.
2) States have their own sovereignty independent of the federal government, municipalities are mere chartered corporations, organs of state government with no sovereignty of their own.
Hey man, that guy’s self esteem is already fragile enough as it is. Don’t be telling him that he is nothing more than an appendage. It could devastate him!
That guy definitely is an appendage, and I think I know which one.
one city – selling their confiscated firearms – is a virtual death penalty? Please.
It’s not like those guns were not replaced, with manufacturers seeing the profit, the city accomplished NOTHING in that regard, simply spent money to burn up a million dollars worth of product.
Cities have no rights. They’re political subdivisions of the state. Suck it, Tucson! Now you see how the other half lives.
There is something dreadfully wrong with a government revenue structure that funnels 40% of a city’s revenue through state government. And I write that, knowing that most states operate in a similar fashion.
Let the cities levy, collect and appropriate their own tax dollars from their own citizens. Those citizens will either elect fiscally responsible leaders or wind up like Detroit.
The residents pay the taxes to the state. If the stopped and instead payed the city, I’m sure it would not be an issue.
City councils do not want that, it results in demands to reduce taxes or we will fire you. Having the state/fed govt put the gun to your head leaves them bragging about how much of state money (which you paid) or fed money (which you paid) they brought back to benefit *you*.
You see, city charters are superior to state laws…
“City officials said they are acting within their power to make decisions locally without outside interference, as allowed under City Charter rules.”
In a lot of places they are. Usually a state law that overrides local ordinances requires a higher than 50% vote in the state legislation, or large cities could pass laws that favor them over the smaller communities. Most States do not have the “limits” imposed by the Constitution on the Federal goverment.
Would a state constitution override the 2nd amendment? If the state has this power (to preempt) granted through it’s constitution then the city charter is secondary to that.
‘You (comply with the law and sell seized firearms) or we issue this virtual death penalty.’” – Ken Strobeck
Imagine that…having to comply with the law. What a concept. This dude clearly has some overlord issues.
Ken, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
Arizona State Rep. Mark Finchem has a valid point. The auction of the guns Tuscon City Police are destroying would generate revenue that could fund a portion of the $172 million the State of Arizona currently has to supply to City of Tucson making more money available for the State to fund other things.
Supposedly, Tucson, AZ, is one of those cities “gentrified” and now run by refugee liberals from other States. Liberals cannot conceive sound economic practices that do not depend on taking “other people’s money”, and push their anti-gun agenda in deliberate defiance of the State of Arizona’s existing Law. Rep. Finchem is fighting “the good fight” here!
When you look at it closely you observe that where firearms are concerned the lowest levels of Government often generate the most egregious infringements upon U.S. Constitutional Law. Rarely, do low level Governments (namely, Cities) generate enhanced support for the exercise of Constitutionally-protected firearms freedom. “Local sovereignty” seems like a good thing, but can enable petty tyrants. Interesting conundrum.
Thank the gods for double standards – if not for them, politicians would have no standards at all!
Wow. Just wow.
The mental gymnastics required to make a statement like that makes this quote worthy of an “Inside the twisted mind of a gun grabber” headline.
There are no states’ rights.
There are no cities’ rights.
There are only individual rights.
It’s extremely common for people to mix up rights and powers. Helps explain a lot about the world.
Our rules, your money.
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