Let us praise the gun show loophole

The weekend brings an embarrassment of riches. Two large loopholes beckon, one in Sioux Falls, the other in tiny Wells, Minnesota. My usual suspects couldn't agree on a destination, and I've decided to trail along with the westering outfit to the Dakota Territory Gun Collectors Association loophole.

But I confess I'll miss being at Wells. We traditionally loop there amidst several hundred tables in the Wells public school building. The local sportsman's club runs it, and profits are generously shared with the school. Every few years someone up in the Twin Cities SSR discovers, gasp, a loophole right there where Johnnie and Suzie matriculate, and teevee is pleased to amplify their outraged shrieks. The Wells folks -- school board, city council, churches and all -- just grin them down and keep on loopholin'.

The last stink got a lot of coverage, and the club decided to toss the banners a bone for their damp diapers. It changed the name from the "Gun Show" to "Sportsman's Show." I hear they passed the resolution unanimously, laughing uproariously.

I'm not looking for any specific loophole item, but I have not been able to go very many days lately without thinking about how nice it would be to have a nice shiny vintage Colt or SW DA with a big hole in the barrel.

Try the 700 Club

Anyone looking for cheerful spiritual uplift might want to avoid TMR for while.

While I am not ungrateful for the spring melt, three or four days of rain, sun-free sky, huge piles of filthy snow, and boot-sucking mud are beginning to irritate me. In the public market yesterday, smiles were severely rationed.

Halt! Your papers!

"The Wall Street Journal":

"Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain."

This is the latest incarnation of an old idea which has been implemented helter-skelter, primarily through the Social Security system and some immigrant control programs such as the "voluntary" e-Verify.

But now, led by Schumer and Graham, your senators are thinking of making it universal, something like the much-battered Real ID plan.

In the 1950s and 60, progenitors of Schumer-like statists made international reputations at the expense of a South African government which required "passes" of all black persons traveling away from their home village environs. The hysterical proto-Schumers weren't upset at the pass system as such, only that it did not apply also to whites. The Left held then, as it does now, that tyranny is acceptable if universal; only discrimination makes tyranny naughty.

(Secretly, of course, the 60s American Fabians welcomed the African diversion which permitted hours of self-righteous spewing in lieu of those politically dangerous chores of handling crucial domestic problems such as how to make Peter Paul and Mary shut up.)

You might write your senator and ask him if he'll pretty please say no. Or at least promise us the United States Internal Security and Domestic Passport Law of 2010 will not let the cops run your pass book though the health, firearms, and credit rating databases. To do that a vital government object would have to be served, such as satisfying the morbid curiosity of your demented ex-brother-in-law who owes you money and currently has a job as a Department of Homeland Security computer programmer.

The Dog bites Grandma

His Obamaness is so desperate to salvage anything from his foray into the world of socialized medicine that he's now touting bounty hunters to hound your grandma.

Dog and his tattooed offspring will make damned sure Granny didn't claim to be sick when she really was just pissed off because the cable teevee went on the futz and she had to go the hospital so as not to miss any episodes of "All My Rotten Kids" or whateverthehell soap she likes.

Look, folks, keeping people from stealing money, even government money, is something a proper society does. So is getting stolen money back to its rightful owners.

But at what cost? Medicare and Medicaid years ago hung signs along the Yellow Brick Road to the public trough: : "Come and Get It. Quacks and Thieves Welcome." Professional hypochondriacs got engraved personal invitations.

And now electronic posses are to be deputized to wade through your most intimate records. Yeah, Washington says it will be limited to health records for people using Medicaid and Medicare. This is the same Washington that told us to go a-nationbuilding in the Middle East 'cuz there were all those nukes in Iraq.

I bet uttering the word "privacy" in Washington these days draws smirks from across the spectrum of conventional political thought -- and probably gets you a looksee for the no-fly list as a dangerous radical.