When Gov. Brian Sandoval vetoed Senate Bill 221, he said that requiring background checks for the private sales of firearms is an erosion of Second Amendment rights.
A certain know-it-all pundit gave the governor a hearty horse laugh and said:
“To accept the governor’s argument, it’s constitutional if I buy a gun in a gun store and undergo a background check, but it’s an unconstitutional erosion of my Second Amendment rights if I buy a gun from some guy in the parking lot of that same gun store? That’s simply ridiculous.”
Ridiculous?
No, the real and pertinent reason background checks are wrong is that they are racist. The federal government says so.
Gov. Brian Sandoval (AP photo)
An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal reports that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has unloaded both barrels against companies that conduct background checks on potential employees.
The EEOC discovered that retailer Dollar General rejected 10 percent of black job applicants over failing a criminal background screening but only 7 percent of whites. The editorial noted, “The EEOC calls that three-percentage-point difference a ‘gross disparity’ that is ‘statistically significant’ enough to qualify as discrimination.”
There you have it, background checks are racist.
One of the main reasons for the passage of the post-Civil War 14th Amendment was to assure blacks could not be deprived of their civil rights, as outlined by the Bill of Rights, by the various states. Until then the Bill of Rights only applied to the Congress, not the states. The 14th assured that blacks could not lawfully be deprived of Second Amendment rights, which is precisely what was taking place.
Ridiculous? No, racist.
Come to think of it, what about that requirement that gun stores conduct background checks?
4TH ST8 
There are responsible persons that should be allowed to own and sell firearms and there are people that shouldn’t be allowed to have them for any reason. It’s not the above board dealer or individual that’s a problem, there’s underground sources for guns little different than the illegal drug underground, and there’s other underground commodities that help prop the nation’s economy, governments understand this so largely give them a wink and a nod. Harry Reid boasts of plinking a bunny for dinner and was a fan of the NRA, but no more, and it’s not for the rest of us. I doubt he’s personally in on Obama’s plan , he more likely thinks what he’s doing is what Obama wans,
Reid is no longer a Nevadan.
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It was clear that bill had a snowballs chance in July in front of the MGM at 1500hrs. Yet Mr Thinskin could not bring himself to support a bill that would have had a chance, Roberson’s bill waived the fee and made those background checks voluntary.
That bill had a chance and would have been signed by the Governor. Leaving aside my own thoughts on background checks for weapons sales, why would that supposed “gun loving liberal” stuck so damn tight to a bill he absolutely knew had zero chance of being signed into law?
He certainly won’t answer that question. It has been asked of him multiple times on the Disqus blogs the RJ uses now.
AND what about his claims last session extending those taxes due to sunset was not raising taxes?
His explanation then was since everyone was already paying that money no one was going to see an increase in their tax bill, hence not a tax raise.
Contrast that with 3 days ago calling the governor a flipflopper with this “That’s on top of the taxes he already agreed to raise, once more extending a package of “sunset” taxes that was supposed to expire in 2011, including sales, payroll, business license and car-registration taxes.”
I call bullshit! He wants it both ways.
Mr. Flopflipper will engage only to a point, the point his Thinskin gets a scratch.
FYI. 98% of NYC gun violence committed by non-whites! http://secularright.org/SR/wordpress/mass-shootings-and-urban-violence/ … … … … … … …
NYC has no gun violence! Ask NYP he will set you straight.
Here in Chicago, with the toughest gun laws in the country there were over 30 people wounded and 6 died between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon. Gun control does not work. By concentrating on guns, they are missing the real focus which is crime and criminals. Gun control is not crime control, the issue is crime, not guns.
New York’s “gun violence” is incredibly low, in part because of tough gun control laws, in part because we have great cops, in part because of a bunch of social policies and demographic trends. New York is, by far, the safest big city in America.
As for Chicago, most of the gun violence relates to guns that come over the border from red states.
Or perhaps it is because NYC cops pat down everybody on the streets wearing droopy pants.
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by the way, isn’t it kind of idiotic to blindly say “b concentrating on guns, they are missing the real focus which is crime and criminals”?
stop & frisk is a factor as well — helps find who is carrying a gun in violation of NYC’s strict gun control laws.
also, abortion.
I disagree with you there nyp, The focus in New York appears to be on crime, of which guns in the wrong hand are but a part of the issue. Here in Chicago, the emphasis has been on guns, make the guns go away and something magic will happen and crime will drop. Meanwhile, in a city with the harshest gun laws in the country nearly 50 people were shot over this past weekend and 7-8 did not survive.
The focus here is on guns because the real answers involve heavy lifting that Chicago is incapable of doing. But if the noise is all about guns then everything else is ignored.
I don’t know what “the focus is all on guns” actually means. That sounds like a catchphrase, not an actual argument. In any event, most of the gun violence in Chicago involves guns that come in from places where they are much easier to obtain. NY has the problem on a smaller scale, since people bring them up from Virginia. In any event, I agree that restrictions on the ownership and use of firearms in densely populated urban areas with large concentrations of poor people will not, by itself, reduce crime rates. For that, you need the sort of community policing that NY pioneered and that cities like LA have begun to adopt.
That, plus abortion.
So is anyone for allowing raving schizophrenics to buy all the guns they want? If not, then how would we prevent that from happening without background checks?
Some number of the guns here in Chicago come from Indiana and I would assume other places. We agree then that restrictions in gun ownership in densely populated urban areas in of itself will not reduce crime. The community policing practiced in New York would help, the superintendent of Police here is from the NYPD and is working on that very thing but is not having much luck. Because in the disfunction that is Chicago, the assignement of police forces to each neighborhood is not done by the police department but by the 50 aldermen that rule each ward so the police are assigned to areas with low crime but lots of money. Add to that years of corruption in the police department that has destroyed any trust between the poor and the police force. That is what I mean by focusing on guns and not the heavy lifting required.
OK, I’ll buy most, if not all of that.
By the way, since you know Chicago much better than I do, how safe/unsafe is the area around U of C?
I don’t get down there much, I live west, but I have a friend lives near and teaches at U of C and they like it there. Like anyplace, need to look first areas can change in a matter of blocks and become very unsafe, but I know that my friend and his wife and daughters are very comfortable there.
Co-worker’s daughter is doing a high school summer program there. I think the difference b/w Chicago and NY at this point is that in NYC there are very few places worth hanging out in where I would feel uncomfortable walking. Hope Chicago gets there. It is really my favorite American city.
There are many places she can go, especially with a group or more than just her. The museums are a great place to spend saturdays, as is taking the L up to Wrigley Field for an afternoon game. As in any large city or small one for that matter, she still has to be careful.
I hope Chicago gets there. The corruption is so imbedded in the culture here that it has killed all political courage required to do what needs to be done. I am hopeful for Emanuel, he is taking unpopular steps. Too bad he is a Dem, but if he is successful I’ll vote for him as governor.
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