“You cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy, you can only punish. And I warn you, that a wicked law, like cholera, destroys everyone it touches — its upholders as well as its defiers.” — Spencer Tracy as lawyer Henry Drummond in “Inherit the Wind”
Gun ownership and dog breeding aren’t exactly in the same ballpark as whether or not a teacher should go to jail for explaining the theory of evolution in a public school, but lawmakers appear to be ever busy, making up new laws to restrict personal freedom.
What’s a little nuts is we keep electing them, and they keep doing things to us.
Cases in point: U.S. House Resolution 45 and N.C. Senate bill 460.
I’m a little reluctant to tell you HR 45 also is called the “Blair Holt” bill. I don’t know the unfortunate young man — he was a 16-year-old honor student shot and killed on a Chicago city bus during a gang-related dustup — but Sen. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., has decided the way to prevent gang shootings is to register all guns in the United States.
Yep, that ought to do it. Registering my 12-gauge duck gun with BATFE ought to put a big dent in the Crips’ and Bloods’ armories.
The National Rifle Association is turning hand springs over the legislation. Does anyone besides me think it was ironic that NRA signups and gun sales went through the roof as fast as bank stocks fell once the new president took office?
Rush, a former Black Panther Party official, also recently returned from Cuba, where he found Fidel Castro to be a fine fellow. We assume Sen. Rush didn’t visit Cuban jails to speak to political opponents of the country’s leadership or ex-school teachers who didn’t spout the party line. The administration also decided the drug wars in Mexico were fueled by U.S. gun shows. At the Dixie Deer Classic, I couldn’t remember if bazookas were legal for deer at Uwharrie or the Sandhills, so I didn’t buy one. Silly, forgetful me.
As for SB 460 (primary sponsor Sen. Don Davis, D-Snow Hill), it assumes an owner of 15 or more female dogs is a commercial breeder and incapable of managing and maintaining animals in good health without state intervention.
Apparently, citizens who agree with or are members of the Humane Society of the United States, a well-known anti-hunting group, convinced the good senator that every rabbit hunter with a dog lot full of beagles is a curmudgeon intent on abusing his dogs because Starvin’ Snoopies hunt rabbits with more gusto than well-cared-for hounds.
The bill defines as commercial anyone maintaining 15 females during the span of 12 months, yet doesn’t define intact females nor does it say what dog age is considered adult. Not only that, apparently Sen. Davis doesn’t know thousands of North Carolina citizens breed dogs without creating problems and don’t require state inspections. Nor do most citizens know SB 460 is reactive legislation to the closure of a substandard kennel — which means the closure and removal of dogs is evidence that current laws adequately deal with such situations.
We’d also never suggest a quid pro quo and the anti-hunting crowd would offer political support to pliable politicians. Nah. Never happen.
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