Guns

Dear Senators Cardin and Mikulski, and Representative Sarbanes:

I am enough of a realist to understand that guns will never be banned in this country. But gun ownership should come with powerful responsibilities.

It's time for gun owners and the NRA to cooperate with the rest of us and take steps to hold gun owners accountable, to properly screen and train gun owners, and to pay for the damage their gun ownership costs society. Our country incurs billions of dollars in damage, death and destruction each year due to guns. We need to hold the gun owners responsible for those costs. And it's well past time to make sure that only responsible people own guns.

The idea that anyone should be able to go out and get a gun and then use it without proper training is insane. Everyone who wants to own a gun should be required to take classes not only on its use, but also on what it can do to the human body, the decision making process for using a weapon, and police instruction on deadly force protocol.

Prospective gun owners, or current owners, should also be required to submit a clearance screening session signed by a licensed psychologist.

Gun owners should also be required to have a liability insurance policy to cover its misuse, either by the legal owner or by someone who steals or borrows it. They should be held accountable for everything that gun does under its registered ownership. In the current instance of the Newtown Tragedy, The gun-collecting mother should have had a liability policy that would cover the losses incurred by the school district, costs to local police jurisdictions, and the costs, including funerals, these parents are experiencing, plus at least a million dollars for each victim's family for pain and suffering.

It's time to end the talk about doing something. Just do something. And don't worry about whether it's constitutional. Let the Supreme Court decide that issue later.

Jake Spencer

Edward Good:

MY GENERATION:

I was born in 1946 and I am a Baby Boomer. We were the Hippies, rock and roll and we will change the world. We listen to JFK and joined the Peace Corps, we saw man walk on the Moon the world was ours to make better.

"My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
John F. Kennedy

"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals"
Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."
Robert Kennedy

John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy all died so we would have a better country and now we see a extremest Republican Party wanting to end all hard earned victories that made America the envy of the World.

I call this my generation and I wrote this Quote of the Day about it:

My generation, where are we taking this country?

My parents generation was called the "Greatest":

They gave us so many things:
**They fought to give us unions: --- 40 hour work week --- Benefits --- Vacations --- Safety at the work place and many, many other wonderful things that improve the quality of our worker’s and family’s lives.
**They gave us women's rights that gave women the right to vote.
**They ended children being exploited in the work force.
**They gave us a education system better than any in the world.
**They fought a war that kept the world free.
**They gave us Social Security.
**They gave us Medicare and many safety nets.
**They gave us Civil Rights.
**They gave us the science and technology to go to the moon.
**They gave us technology for the Internet and Freedom to express ourselves.
**They gave us laws to protect the air and the water.

My Generation will be called "The Greediest Generation" The Baby Boomers.

We have a party called the Republicans that is run by people from My Generation,
I call them the Party of Scrooge:

**They want to control women at every level from jobs to contraception
**They want to destroy the unions.
**They want to suppress as many voters and they can.
**They want to end child labor laws and again exploit children.
**They want to end the Public Education System.
**They want to start a WAR in IRAN after they started a illegal war in IRAQ
**They want to Privatize Social Security
**They want to destroy Medicare and all the Safety Nets.
**They want to roll back Civil Rights.
**They want to end real Science and use right wing ideology
**They want to end the freedom of the Internet.
**They want to end the EPA and protection of the Air and water.

Please help me in 2012 and save my Generation from themselves by Voting Democratic.

Many times I have heard that there is no difference in the parties to this I came up with this Quote:

"When we encounter those that say there is no difference in the Parties, one simply puts that nothing that the Democrats support hurts or tries to control people, everything that the GOP supports hurts or tries to control people"
Jeff Carlson.

Turnabout fair play?

Consider for a moment that the Republican strategy of voting as a block against everything the President proposed, and filibustering all of his nominees, succeeds for them. A fed up electorate votes Romney into office just to end the deadlock. Because this was a successful strategy, what would prevent the Democrats from pursuing the same strategy? Logically, in this case, they should.

Would the Democrats then be criticized more than the Republicans have been for the same strategy? What is fair in love of country vs. the war of politics? If this were a just world, the GOP would loose the presidency, the congress, and a good number of senate seats for putting party ahead of country. But the press have not framed the situation in such a way that the American people fully understand the betrayal of office the Republicans have undertaken. Once the Democrats pursued the same strategy, it would suddenly become clear to all that what the Republicans had done was not only despicable, but also a breaking of their oath of office.

I suspect in this case, however, that the Democrats would be more heavily criticized if for no other reason than it was the second time around for this strategy.

This is all theoretical, of course, because I don't believe the Democrats would be unethical enough to pursue the same strategy. And that, I am sure, is what the Republicans are counting on.

Dunking Stool Next?

Didn't the MD Supreme Court rule a few years ago that we (Gays) were not entitled to court relief because we were "not without political power," and therefore should seek relief in the legislature?

I don't recall the Court saying anything about a referendum too? What's next, the dunking stool?

> Washington Post: "But Maryland voters could get the final say: Opponents are widely expected to launch a petition drive that could put the issue on the November ballot."