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9.14.2004 posted by William 10:06 link |
From the Washington Post: "A majority of the U.S. House of Representatives is supporting legislation that would repeal virtually all of the District's gun restrictions, targeting one of the nation's most stringent handgun bans while the presidential candidates are battling over gun limits."
The bill "also would deny the District's elected officials 'authority to enact laws or regulations that discourage or eliminate the private ownership or use of firearms.'" Once again Washington, DC is the vulnerable sandcastle to a Republican Congress's rogue wave. When DC residents voted on a medicinal marijuana referendum (expected to easily pass), Congress delved deep into the city's budget and elminated the funding to count the votes. Now they want to undo the sovereign laws passed and supported by citizens in order to further their own ideology. Republicans hate DC because it is overwhelmingly black and Democratic, and they are encouraged in their animosity by the political gains they achieve back home in Podunk by trashing the city at every turn as an example of what is wrong with the country. So intead of allowing citizens the right to elect a voting representative to Congress, even though they pay taxes, representatives from states far away meddle in the affairs of a city 80% of which they have never seen -- Anacostia, Northeast, the neighborhoods in which easy access to firearms combined with the lack of opportunities and jobs for young black men and the high profits created by the black market for illegal drugs results in frequent shooting deaths. You may remember the bill's sponsor Mark Souder from such progressive legislation as the Higher Education Act and a bill to replace FDR's visage with the Gipper's shining, senile mug on dimes. He doesn't even live in DC, but in Northern Virginia, where it is already legal to carry a handgun pretty much everywhere. In a comparison surely calculated to appeal to DC's black residents, Souder declares "This is a constitutional issue, not a home rule question...The fact is, we didn't allow the District to have home rule on the selling of slaves, either." Part of slavery is the denial of self-determination and the right to vote, so I'm not sure which side of that issue Souder is trying to imply he's on. And finally, aren't Republicans the party of smaller, less intrusive government? They seem determined to ignore that plank of their platform in practice, while having their cake and eating it, too (see Bush, George W. - tax cuts, Iraq war funding). Republicans should practice what they preach with regard to the reach of federal government and let the 600,000 residents of the capital city of the nation decide for themselves how best to run their city. |
