(1) The deep Colt blue was mostly gone. Long ago, in the era of home-accurizing GI 1911s, someone stippled the frontstrap and mainspring housing. Otherwise it was a perfectly straight and decent WW1 1911, and at a negotiated $650, I was a buyer.
Then the federal government jackbooted my butt. Neither of the two Iowa FFL dealers I know was at the Sioux Falls show, nor were any CR holders. So I walked away, money sadly in pocket, pistol still on the Salt Lake City dealer's table.
Thanks to the feel-good FFA of 1968, my masters denied me the privilege of a perfectly harmless transaction. No irony exists in the fact that if the show had been held ten miles to the east, just across the state border, I could have bought the old war horse perfectly legally -- in the same state which officially permits me to buy, own, and carry about anything short of an NFA machine gun or whippit.
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(2) Not far from me runs Highway 86, connecting I-90 with this little resort area. It's an ancient, hilly two-lane. It arguably carries enough traffic to justify planned rehabbing.
The Iowa DOT recently held a meeting to "seek public input" (Stop that disrespectful snickering, right now!) on the plans. Landowners along the route were there to input displeasure at the eminent domain procedure which would take strips of their land on one side of the road when government already owns the land on the other side.
Our Iowa bureaucrat explained that the public land was DNR/USFWS-owned for the benefit of mosquito ponds, snakes, tadpoles, and swamp grass. True, the relatively tiny reduction would amount to a fart in a hurricane in terms of wildlife habitat, but federal law prohibited diversion of even one square inch of it. Sorry folks.
Federal law pays far less attention to forced seizure of folks' front yards. In other words, If you're a snail darter you're gold. If you're a taxpaying citizen, piss off.
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The good doctor Ron Paul proposes to shut down about half the federal government. Sir, that would be a reasonably good start.
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1 comment:
Let me attempt to explain the well honed bureaucratic resaoning on the eminent domain question. First, shift your mental gears back to about 1600. A King is the ruler of all the land. The benevolent King sees the need for his subjects to have a nice road so they can bring their tribute to the castle. So, in the name of the public good, he takes a suitable strip of land from all of the intervening estates and dedicates a road. That's eminent domain---taking from private ownership for public good. On the flip side, one cannot take from the Crown, so none of the King's land is sacrificed to this noble endeavor. The same reasoning goes into adverse possession. You may adversely possess against your neighbor, but you cannot adversely possess against the Crown. Ergo, moving public land from one public good to another is a big no-no. Just unthinkable when there is private land to be had. I didn't say it made sense. JAGSC
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