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1

Interesting to see the gun "restriction" bills in Texas (and lack of "advocacy" bills). Wonder if it has something to do with all the guns there?

Posted by Chris | April 16, 2008 2:09 PM
2

Arkansas and West Virginia passed these bills because these bills are conservative nonsense. People who are committed for 14 days -- people who are, by definition, temporarily affected by a trauma or a personal crisis -- are no more likely to be violent than the average person.

Male journalists, however, are more likely to commit gun violence than the average person. It makes much more sense in every way to ban male journalists from owning guns forever than rape victims, molestation victims, etc. Start pushing that bill to close the "Josh Feit Loophole," please.

Posted by poppy | April 16, 2008 2:10 PM
3

Chopp must go, for countless reasons.

Posted by Postureduck | April 16, 2008 2:45 PM
4

Gun control mistakes the proximate cause for gun violence with the ultimate cause, which is usually some form of mental illness or social pathology (usually including some combination of alienation, paranoia, vigilantism, bigotry, and poverty).

Legislation to limit access to guns does nothing to deal with mental illness or social pathology, and it alienates a lot of decent people whose experiences with guns comes from a proud family or cultural tradition going back generations. If we want to stop this kind of thing, we need to work at fixing the underlying mental illness and social pathology. Even keeping guns away from certain classes of the mentally ill doesn't really have much of an effect. What we really need is a supportive way of dealing with mental illness that provides help for everyone and considers the public health implications of potential gun violence on par with the individual rights of likely gun violence perpetrators.

Posted by Cascadian | April 16, 2008 3:53 PM
5

Josh you are such an idiot. I have no idea how you ever got a job covering politics. You may understand POLICY, but you don't understand POLITICS. The fact is that current leadership went from being in a minority to being in a super majority by a POLITICAL strategy. would you rather have a budget that reflects Democratic principles or republican principles? Is millions in cuts for teacher colas, low income housing, and low income job creation worth passing a few liberal policy bills? f*ck no.

Posted by JJ Milk | April 16, 2008 4:44 PM

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