Gun enthusiasts have won battle after battle in Richmond for the past 20 years. Now they’re preparing their 2016 legislative initiatives, and Dan takes a tongue-in-cheek look. That’s the subhead underneath Dan Casey’s columnĀ Some big plans for gun laws in 2016 in roanoke.com. Here’s the thing: all of Dan’s “ironic” proposals to the fictional Virginia Rifle Federation make perfect sense. Well Ā almost all of them . . .
1. Guns on planes and trains: Our friends in the Virginia Citizen Defense League already are clearing the way for guns on municipal buses. So the VRF will focus on other modes of mass transit ā Amtrak and commercial airliners.
After all, plane and train passenger compartments are full of innocent sitting ducks, because these places are dangerous āgun-free zones.ā Only criminals are armed there now.
The Mass Transit Gun Safety Act will allow any passenger on a train or plane departing Virginia to pack a handgun. Just imagine if this was the law of the land during 9/11. The Twin Towers might still be standing.
I don’t see anything wrong or funny or unacceptable about thisĀ proposal. My credulity may make Dan yuk it up with his anti-gun associates butĀ his evocation of the 9/11 horror shows you the depths they trawl.
Guns in the workplace:Ā Many massacres occur at places of employment where shortsighted and cowardly bosses prohibit firearms. Usually these tragedies are sparked by gun-toting, fuming ex-workers who have been fired. The problem is, the remaining employees are exposed to these angry nuts.
The Massacre-Free Workplace Act will give workers the right to bear arms in their places of employment for the purpose of self defense. It also will grant employers immunity from liability arising from on-the-job gun incidents. Bosses who maintain gun bans will be subject to stiff fines and incarceration.
This wonāt necessarily prevent revenge-seeking maniacs from bursting in and opening fire at ex-colleagues. But at least it would even the playing field, and mean those nuts could get off fewer rounds before they were struck down with defensive lead.
Again, what?
3. Welfare guns:Ā The government offers many housing-, medical- and food-assistance programs to help alleviate poverty. One example is food stamps. But none of those addresses the glaring firearms gap between the haves and have-nots. Thatās unfair, and we have a solution.
The Supplemental Firearms Assistance Program would correct this oversight by creating state-issued āgun stamps,ā redeemable for weapons and ammo at any Virginia gun store. Any legal resident whose household income is below the federal poverty threshold would be eligible.
We anticipate this program will more than pay for itself through taxpayer savings in law enforcement and food stamp expenditures. After all, once the poor have welfare guns, no longer will they need to call the cops for protection. And theyāll have the tools to hunt for their own meat.
I’m opposed to government intervention in most things. While I appreciate Mr. Casey’s proposal of a firearms voucher program – rather than, say,Ā the Mexican model (government-run gun store – there are still a million ways that could go wrong. I favor a privately-run model.
I’ve discussed something similar with Alan Gottleib of the Second Amendment Foundation: a charity called SAFEĀ (Share America’s Firearms Equally). Assemble a trained team of community organizers (I know, right?) to help low-income Americans overcomeĀ through the practical, bureaucratic and financial hurdlesĀ preventing them from exercising their Constitutionally protected rights. Including a free revolver, ammo, gun safe and training.
4. Bars at gun ranges:Ā Did you know that not one Virginia gun range has a license to serve alcohol? Thatās both outrageous and discriminatory, considering beer is available at many bowling alleys in the commonwealth. Heck, bowling balls can be deadly, too.
Yet gun-progressive states like Oklahoma, Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky and Florida already allow bars at firing ranges. That why weāre proposing the Virginia Beer and Bullets Act.Ā It will stanch an exodus of restaurant and a firing range jobs from the Old Dominion.
Naturally, the ABC permit would be āshall issue.ā
Meh. I don’t see anything wrong with gun ranges having liquor licenses. It’s up to the establishment and patrons to make sure surviving alcohol to patrons is safe. If if isn’t, the license can be revoked, as it is in bars throughout Virginia where a single patron commits a violent criminal act. Oh wait . . .
5. Guns for kids:Ā Last year, we defeated legislation to prohibit adults from allowing children under age 5 to handle or fire a gun. In 2016 weāll carry that success forward and explicitly legalize children-with-guns through a package of commonsense legislation titled, āKids Have Gun Rights, Too.ā
Weāll start with a measure that allows pupils to carry pistols in public schools. Right now, like planes and trains, schools are dangerous āgun-free zones.ā Imagine how many elementary students in the Sandy Hook massacre would still be alive today if only they had been able to return fire.
In conjunction, weāre pushing for taxpayer funding of our āEddie Eagletā program, which is gun training for pre-schoolers. Itās never too early to learn how to safely handle a Glock, you know?
Another measure would lower the minimum age for buying a handgun, or getting a concealed carry permit, from 21 to 15 1/2. This is a no-brainer, because thatās the minimum age to get a learnerās permit to drive. As statistics show, cars are more deadly than guns.
In future years, we intend to lower the gun-buying age even further. Thatās because driving is a mere privilege, but carrying guns is a right enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The forefathers established no minimum age for that.
Society confers Constitutional protections to adults. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.Ā I’m laughing too hard to type. And glad that Dan understands the true meaning of common sense gun control.
If they can’t argue from hyperbole they don’t have much to say –
Take away the statistics from statistically-invalid studies, hyperbole, straw man arguments and ad hominem attacks and they are silent.
It’s always funny when they actually make perfect sense when trying to make fun of POTG.
Snark really doesn’t work unless theres a person making stupid faces, and the hyperbole should probably also not make perfect sense to a reasonable person. They probably read the first 2 and said “crap, need to go full rtard on the rest.”
My very thought. Especially to anyone who was, say, born after 1990, that first point in particular isn’t a joke.
Agree…
Agree…
Welfare’s a bad idea…
Agree…
Agree…
Wait a second, where’s the punch line?
GUNS ON AIRPLANES!
Hand out handguns to everyone as they board the plane. Who would want to commandeer an aircraft with 100 to 500 guns pointed at them??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lDb0Dn8OXE
The audience laughs at his “crazy” ideas, but behind the malapropisms and the Joe-Schmoe delivery, Archie is closer to the truth than they realize. That show was brilliant.
Archie’s best gun line ever: “Would it make you feel better, little girl, if they was pushed outta windows?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzFWRPiNXOI
It’s my biggest problem with Stephen Colbert. His character NEVER lost an argument when using conservative principles, yet he was totally against what his character said. Feel vs. logic.
Archie is a genius! Too bad Carroll O’connor was such a left azzwhole in real life. It would have been funnier if he’d brought up the evil Nazis…
Half the passengers get a gun, the other half get ammo, as they board the plane That way at least two people have to concur before a weapon can be loaded.
Check them back in when you deplane.
Even better: every adult gets a handgun and ammunition … but only one in six handguns have ammunition that actually functions. (The other five out of six handguns have ammunition that looks functional but have non-functional primers.)
I’d have to test mine. Just like the bank robber in Dirty Harry, “I gots to know!!”
Hmmmm, interesting idea! A well-regulated militia . . . Limit eligibility to only those passengers who can both show:
– a State-issued CWP; and,
– a TSA Pre-v/ card
With these two, we would have both State qualification to bear arms and Federal vetting of the identity and negligible security risk of the individual. Who could ask for more?
Putting TSA in control of anything more than wiping their own behind in the bathroom is never acceptable in my book. Giving them the power to exercise (even with what would be considered a previously unavailable) right is even worse to me.
Yep, we have Wilshire Gun range here in OKC with a full liquor bar (and cigar lounge). Zero problems. Suck on that Danny boy.
Yep. Plenty of private gun clubs serve alcohol. The rules are simple:
1) Shoot first
2) Drink second
3) Drive home.
I seem to remember an organization that was testing out a program where they were giving shotguns to residents of low income / high crime neighborhoods. Anybody know what I’m talking about?
I heard about it back when — they were doing some programs in Dallas or Houston or somewhere — but haven’t heard anything since. I’m guessing the whole thing just died a quiet death.
It’s not the kind of thing the gun culture can sustain very well. We tend to be leave-me-the-hell-alone types, which means that on the whole we make terrible community organizers; it’s the busy bees who can’t leave anyone alone ever who make these things run.
As for money, there’s no convenient federal grant program to fund it, and we seem to be lacking in the quixotic billionaire department, which is a mixed blessing; conservative/libertarian businessmen are too busy making money (which is what business is for) and otherwise leaving everyone else alone to fund community organizers, even for a good cause.
I would think a federal grant to subsidize fast-access gun cabinets/safes would be more useful.
THAT’S common sense gun safety laws.
Then why not focus on reducing laws that prohibit people from starting their own businesses, and increase laws that incentivise starting your own business? Essentially, open up the road to prosperity so the poor and middle can start businesses and make better money.
The other option would be to start charities to get people out of poverty, but this is incredibly difficult to do since the government is already doing it for us with the welfare programs.
Actually, one method, that may work: gun buy back programs. Take all of the working guns that the police bought, and then distribute them to poor family’s that want one. Better than destroying them.
Anything that serves to subject gun-control to ridicule is grist for the mill.
It recently dawned on me, for example, that our gun laws permit an alien lawfully in the US to buy guns, but not to export them for such purposes as arming the Mexican Autodefensas, the Yazidis or Kurds in Iraq.
Conversely, our gun laws did not inhibit the ATF from running guns down to Juarez for the Sinaloa cartel nor from licensing exports to the “legitimate” government of Mexico and its police. Likewise, to arm the legitimate government of Iraq which abandoned our donated munitions to ISIS.
We should all thank God that He endowed only His Chosen red-blooded American People with the inalienable RKBA; and none-other, who He condemned to look exclusively to their legitimate states (e.g., the Islamic State) for personal security.
Meh. Lefties aren’t in favor of anything that doesn’t involve free sh!t or dead babies.
Lefties don’t care what you do, so long as it’s mandatory.
I’m a lefty and I don’t favor free shit or dead babies (unless they’re baby spiders).
But I shoot rifles right handed, so maybe I don’t count as a full lefty.
If you’re a lefty who shoots righty, does that make you bi?
Ralph, does your question make you bi-curious? As in curious about their being… know what? Never mind. It wasn’t even that funny to me. Sorry.
I seriously don’t know if he thinks he’s being clever or not. I mean, his supposedly humorous, presumably sardonic comments about “dangerous gun-free zones–nobody but criminals are armed there”–is he trying to say that non-criminals actually ARE armed in such places? Or that criminals actually either don’t go to such places, or that if they do, they meekly either disarm or go away when they see the “gun free” signs? Seriously? OTOH, he’s obviously trying to play it for laughs here–isn’t he? I’m mystified, I guess because I just can’t believe that he is so bloody stupid as not to see that his outrageously over-the-top gun-nut persona is making statements that are patently logical, let alone not even close to being uproariously ridiculous.
This is not the first column he’s written on gun control, so I guarantee he’s trying to show how “extreme” gun rights people are.
Dan Casey has written some truly hateful columns. He once wrote a “reply to a schoolchild in Massachusetts” explaining how bigoted, racist, and homophobic everyone in Virginia is. Pissed off all my lefty friends who like Virginia. I don’t know why they keep him on at the Roanoke Times. Then again, this rag was the first to publish lists of concealed carry permit holders back in 2007.
The only problem I see with Dan’s proposal is the welfare guns. Recipients will quickly trade their guns to their drug dealer in exchange for another fix, which is a transaction made in heaven, since both parties get what they really want.
That’s not how I want my tax dollars spent.
“Heck, bowling balls can be deadly, too.”
It’s yet another reason I gave up bowling for sex… Your balls are lighter and you don’t have to change you shoes!
Plus their rental fees are insane. I prefer to give somebody else the shaft.
The rental fees for sex are even higher, especially if you want one with all her teeth.
Dan Casey is a D Bag. But he’s got a regular column and knows the answer to every problem (just ask him).
I cancelled my subscription to the Roanke Times, in part due to his arrogance. Mostly, I cancelled as that rag basically echoes the lib talking points and takes it cues on social issues from NPR.
My sincere hope is that, due to the loss of my support, the paper will hasten to its ultimate demise; or at least only publish weekly.
Wait, what about kids under 5 in bars THEN handling firearms? There should be a law!!
Everyone can agree it’s common sense!
…make sure surviving alcohol…
Freudian slip?
Amazing that our society makes it possible for an ignorant, egotistical, arrogant, discriminatory, person to maintain employment BECAUSE OF those traits.
#youradickandIllfightyoutilltheend
6. Massacre in Journalism Prevention Act: Each place of business that employs journalists will be required to equip all journalists with weapons, ammunition, and monthly training. Thise joirnaliats will be required to be armed at all times. Being that Freedom of Speech is one of our most precious rights, and given the recent spate of anti-journalist violence, it only makes sense that we correct this glaring lack of protection. Eg Charlie Hebdo and the recent on air shootings in, wait for it…..Virginia. Too soon? Too close to home? Not laughing now are we chucklehead?
On a tangent….I’m glad it is published here because I’m not allowing the FOURTY-FIVE background scripts that Roanoke times wants to run just so I can read the article.
That guy lost out when they took his picture, sorry to go for the way someone looks but that I’m smarter than you smarmy look on his face….nothing he says will work after that.
As to his first snark, well essentially the plane that crashed in PA was crashed because the passengers refused to be used as a manned aluminum missile tube aimed at the US Capitol and they fought back. If they had been armed they could have just shot the hell out of the bad guys and maybe lived to tell the story.
Oh yeah, one of the gun ranges near me has a bar, and there has never been a problem. Hell, the ATF already manages both anyway, so why not??
Dan has never been anything but a dead tree outrage click bait troll. The Roanoke times is dying a slow death along with the few old folks that still read their stale wire service reports and cross word puzzle. There has not been one thing the have printed since Calvin and Hobbes ended worth reading.
Dan’s best work for purely inadvertent ironic reasons was the piece he penned after a Black Friday Best Buy mini riot appealing to the better nature of his readership. The goof was oblivious to the papers complicity in having run ads that helped whip up the mob.
That poor hoplophobe, he thought he was being hyperbolic. *smh* Gotta do better’n that.
“Society confers Constitutional protections to adults.
Where are children protected? (I’m not saying you are wrong. I am actually curious)
I do think his absolute gutless whining about the 5 yr old thing is hilarious. I’d take my kid shooting. She is a very precocious 5 year old. I think I’ll start her on a pellet gun, though. Because convenience if nothing else, haha. The wife even said it was okay! š
Defensive gun use in transit and in the workplace has a pretty good track record. No argument there.
While I wouldn’t favor a gun welfare program, perhaps a tax credit or deduction for firearms and ammo would be appropriate. After all, that would be supporting good citizenship.
The Edwardsville Gun Club here in the St. Louis Metro-East is the oldest gun club in the country. We serve alcohol without any trouble. As far as I know, we have never had an alcohol related gun injury in the history of the club (1879).
I’ve taught kids as young as 6 that are joining Cub Scouts shooting BB guns. I was 5 when I first shot a .22. What’s the problem? My grandmother’s first .22, which came to my mother is now my son’s, who is 12 now. He was wanting either an Xbox One or a Mossberg 500 for Christmas. However, he’s fallen in love with the Mosin-Nagant after shooting one a couple weeks ago. However, he would take exception about the Glock. He was also shooting a friend’s XDM and prefers a manual safety.
Being in Illinois, I would certainly look for reducing the age restrictions. At the very least, it should be the minimum age for military service, though I wouldn’t oppose the idea of driving age. (I cannot believe there has not been a real challenge to the 21 year old minimum unless there’s parental permission.)
Comments are closed.