Let us honor the filibuster. Think of it as a precautionary dose of Valium to be taken before doing something massively stupid. Or counting to ten before you ballkick the boss.
You don't even need to use it. The mere threat settles things down. Three weeks ago, it looked like the left would insist on trying to gut the Second Amendment and, in consequence, face at least 41 senators saying "no" at great length and handing HIs Ineptness the place where the pants fit tight.
That would have been the optimum result, but it really wasn't in the cards. The national drama contest after Newtown all but guaranteed that we would lose something, just as did the World Trade Center bombing. When the mobs circle up for a an intense tear jerk, it's hard to stop them, harder yet when they're led by our wet-eyed national primo and his dependable cadre.
At the moment it appears we will lose something but could actually gain a mite from the Toomey-Manchin "compromise" designed to ward off the filibuster. The New York Times reports:
The bill also enhances some gun rights. For instance, it would allow gun owners who have undergone background checks within the past five years for a concealed-carry permit to use the permit to buy guns in other states, and it would relax some of the restrictions on hunters traveling with their guns through states that do not permit them. It would also allow active members of the military to buy firearms in their home states, currently prohibited when they are stationed outside their state.
Tearing down the iron curtains of state borders for interstate gun purchasing is long overdue, even if it depends on holding a Mommy-May-I Card from our state bureaucrats.* So is expansion and clarification of the federal innocent-passage doctrine.
What we lose is our right to make our own judgements about people to whom we, as private citizens, can responsibly sell or trade our guns. In return, America will gain precisely nothing. Inter-thug trading in Glocks will continue merrily, especially in neighborhoods like ones our president organized before beginning his climb up the federal pay scale.
The content of the Senate bill as reported here needs to be viewed cautiously. A wide internet ramble turns up no actual legislative language..
The Toomey web site is as close as I can come to a draft of the legislation. I suppose you can trust it to the extent you can trust any elected nabob to tell you the truth.
(The actual bill may not yet be written. Picture Mountain-Dewed young staff munchkins spending this night hunched over word processors, large bags of chemically flavored corn chips close at hand.)
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*I hope no one reminds the gun-ban left of a consequence they can't see. When the state CCW becomes some sort of national pass for firearms purchases, the demand for them will soar. Okay by me, but I expect the Feinstein gang will develop a new interest in the price of Depends.
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