New York: New gun law text

It is here, and, Cowboy, it swings a wide loop. The state senate passed it yesterday, and by the time you read this it may have cleared the Albany house.

I read it from the enacting clause to the final word,* but I confess a degree of eye-glaze and some confusion. Much of the language modifies other laws which are referred to only by statute number. It is quite unnecessarily wordy. I understood as much as I did only because of career experience in extracting actual meaning from political gobbledygook.

The standout quality is its impact on subjects other than firearms control. It affects the mental health system, family law, education laws, and a variety of other criminal and tort procedures. A cursory reading suggests that this is a useful guide to what the United States will be when the extreme Left and the neocon Right finally achieve their post-constitutional America . This is true even if you eliminate the bill's actual gun-control  provisions.

For just one -- there are several others -- example: There is a one-day procedure for declaring an upset  spouse a "protected party" and imposing a variety of restrictions on his or her mate.There are complicated administrative and judicial reliefs written into the law, but for most real-life purposes, for many or most people, they are permanent.  And this occurs before any finding of legal guilt.

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The actual firearms restrictions tend strongly toward the the Pelosi/Feinstein solution to violence. Another coat of pancake makeup.

Thumb-hole stocks become illegal on semi-automatic long guns. So do barrel shrouds.  So do "pistol grips" if they are "conspicuous."

Seven rounds becomes the legal capacity limit for nearly all detachable magazines. (Someone is going to make money with new seven-rounders for millions of Colt Woodsmans, Ruger Standards et. seq., Browning Nomads,  Hi-Standard HDs. And so forth.)

Higher capacity magazines already possessed are legal to own, but not use, for one year, after which they must be sold for out-of-state use. The alternative is confiscation and a criminal charge. (New York doesn't mind the horror of murder  via the eighth round in a magazine provided, of course, that the victim is shot in a place other than New York. Federalism at work.)

There much more, and at the risk of inviting you devote a lot of time to a tedious chore, I suggest you read the bill. It is almost certainly the sort of frightening nonsense which our president lusts for.

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*How many of the lawmakers did before voting, I wonder  (C.f. Nancy Pelosi's "pass it to know what is in it" theory of making law.)

Obama speaks, so to speak

I used to think His Ineptness was only a little more inept than Bush. Wrong. He  is much worse.

I listened as carefully as I could this morning and can not credit this guy with a single syllogism. Not a damn one; not even a credible stab at one.

For the first time in history voters have chosen a man who speaks only in sound bites. We might as well have elected Rick Perry.

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Vote for me come 2016.  I promise to bullshit around with you only for purposes sof mutual entertainment.

Parallelism

The urgency to get new gun-control before the Newtown emotion wears off.

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The urgency to get the girl to a room before the roofie wears off.
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I think it's reasonably sexy

Seeing our British cousins in a funk always saddens me, and it's worse when they seem ready to riot in Piccadilly over high matters of state. So I performed a research study in hopes of offering wise counsel from the Colonies.

That is, I carried a copy of the portrait around, all over the length and width of Camp J country. I enquired of every chap I know, "Would  you (a) kiss this woman and (b) willingly have her on your arm in the A-list haunts of local society such as the American Legion Club?"

To a man, nearly,  it was "Yep" or "Damned Straightt" or "You Bet."  The single exception was my very youngest interviewee who hesitated, shrugged, then brightly added, "But my dad sure the heck would."

It exactly the result I predicted and verifies my suspicion that the English aren't really all that upset about the picture. They are just in one of their periodic states of  national ennui when any excitement, any controversy at all, is embraced as a welcome relief from the boredom of being in Britain.

Personally, I don't think the Kate picture dustup has legs. There just isn't enough emo content in the "poortrait"  argument to excite even an East Ender for very long. What the Sceptred Isle really needs is a good old-fashion war crisis, what with muskets and cannon and brave leftenants waving swords as they lead their companies into into wog hordes.

To that end, and out of pure motives -- a shot of Red Bull injected directly into John Bull's national arteries -- I've dispatched a courier to Buenos Aires suggesting that now would be a compassionate time for a new move against the Falklands. The last one was was such sport, eh wot?