The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly … Again

Posted on by under guns, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry

Much happening these days … it seems that we cannot even come up for air between ‘breaking news’ stories.  I don’t know about you guys, but some days I feel like I’m living inside a fictional novel, a dystopian one at that!

The good …

Congratulations are in order to the state of Washington this week.  Yesterday, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed into law a package of gun control bills.  The first was a ban on the sale of military-style semiautomatic weapons, making it the tenth state to join efforts to prevent the distribution of AR-15s and other powerful rifles often used in mass shootings. 👍 The rest of the package includes a 10-day waiting period on gun purchases, gun safety training requirements and a provision allowing the state attorney general and consumers to sue gun manufacturers or dealers under public nuisance laws if they negligently allow their guns to fall into the hands of minors or “dangerous individuals.”

The other states with assault weapon bans are:  California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Illinois.  Are these, then, the only states of the 50 where state legislators actually care more about the people they have sworn an oath to than they care about the profits of the gun manufacturers?  Just 20% of the states in the nation give a damn about our lives … that’s pretty damn pathetic if you ask me.  You might notice that all of these ten states are above the Mason-Dixon line, and all are largely states with a Democratic majority.  Hmmmm … I wonder what this says?

The bills were signed just yesterday, but already two groups, the Second Amendment Foundation and the Firearms Policy Coalition have filed lawsuits saying the laws violate the constitutional rights of citizens to keep and bear arms.  As I’ve said many, many times before, with every so-called right comes an accompanying responsibility.  When you don’t accept and honour the responsibility, you lose the right.  Simple as that.  I just hope the courts see it the same way, though I’m certainly not holding my breath.

The bad …

On March 13th 2020, Breonna Taylor, a full-time ER technician for the University of Louisville Jewish Hospital, was asleep in her bed when three policemen broke down the door to her apartment and shot her to death.  They were looking for someone who was not living at the apartment and was not there, but they operated under the premise of “shoot first, ask questions later.”  Needless to note, Ms. Taylor was Black, and the officers involved were white.

The three officers were fired from the Louisville Police Department, but only one, Brett Hankison, faced criminal charges, and those were not for killing Ms. Taylor, but for endangering a neighbor.  So why, you ask, do I bring this up now?  Because, my friends, Myles Cosgrove, the officer who actually fired the shots that killed Breonna Taylor, has just gotten a new job.  In law enforcement.  Yes, that’s right … apparently in Kentucky they actually reward white cops who murder Black women, for ol’ Myles has just been awarded a job with the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office.

But lest you think the good people of Kentucky are taking this lying down … oh no!  There was a protest when news of his new job was announced!  All of about a dozen (in case you’re a Republican, that’s about 12) people showed up to protest!  Wowee wow wow.

And the ugly …

Out in Iowa last week, the Iowa Senate passed a bill that would allow children to work longer hours and work in currently banned roles, like serving alcohol at restaurants.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr …

The bill would allow kids under 16 to work up to six hours a day, which is two more hours than currently allowed for that age group. It would also allow 16- and 17-year-olds to serve alcohol at restaurants, even though they are too young to buy alcohol.  Not surprisingly, the bill passed along party lines and I bet you can’t guess which party is all for putting kids to work.  Yep, you guessed it … the Republicans are all in for it.

The bill, Senate File 542, still has to pass the Iowa House and be signed into law by Governor Kim Reynolds, but the very fact that 32 elected officials thought this was a good idea is simply chilling.  Proponents of the bill say it would “teach children valuable skills through workforce training programs.”  Just another in a series of Republican measures attempting to ensure that our young people aren’t properly educated, that jobs requiring important, critical-thinking skills, are reserved for those in the upper classes, similar to the southern states efforts to ban books and the teaching of our real history.

23 thoughts on “The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly … Again”

  1. okay, that bill from Iowa is just stupid. the idiot who came up with the notion that it’s okay for teenagers to serve alcohol shouldn’t be allowed the leadership role he or she was given. We are surrounded by idiocy.

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  2. You would have thought……
    No I’m only state obvious common sense.
    Everyone regular to your blog knows this already Jill, and any wayward rightest who journey in protesting against your post…..Why bother?
    Separation of states into nations, another step closer.

    Take c are you guys

    Liked by 2 people

    • Sigh. Yeah, as Hugh used to tell me, I’m spitting into the wind. Every now and then someone tells me I helped them to understand a situation better, or made them think about something a bit differently, but I know I’ve never changed any minds.

      Liked by 2 people

        • I have definitely found that to be true these past few years. Time was we could discuss things without heated argument, but no more. Today, you’re either “them” or “us” and there is NO middle ground, no room for discussion, no desire to listen to what the other ‘side’ has to say. And admittedly, I’m guilty of that, too.

          Liked by 1 person

          • Yes me too. A few times I have tried to find common ground but it only served for the person involved to stay on their platform not even acknowledging I had written something, much less responding.
            It does harden ones attitude.

            Liked by 1 person

  3. It is a good move for Washington to change their gun laws, but the sad fact is that there are already far too many assault rifles circulating in the US. And what of the ones already owned? I doubt the law can be enforced retrospectively.
    Allowing children to work longer hours (or at all) is a step back to Victorian times. It won’t end there, I’m sure.
    Best wishes, Pete.

    Liked by 2 people

    • You are so right about that, and there is literally no way to even know, in some states, who owns them. No, it cannot be enforced retrospectively, but … it’s a start. I just wish we could get a federal law in place again banning all assault weapons, but it won’t happen until there is a firm Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress and a Democrat in the White House, too. By then, it may be too late.

      No, it won’t end there. Sigh.

      Liked by 1 person

  5. According to Republicans, the only use of education is to produce wage-slaves. So why bother with an education? Send them to work as young as possible, and keep them stuck in the same dead-end job forever. That’s sll peasants are good for.
    Meanwhile they want their own progeny to become so in-bred to turn into idiots.
    I pity their kids, who are taught they are superior. But I can’t condone their treatment other children, for they are the hope of humanity!
    Meanwhile, hooray for Washington. And Boo to Carroll County!

    Liked by 1 person

      • The USA is one of the worst offenders, for sure, but they/you are not alone in that. Great Britain is as bad, oŕ worse if that is possible, as far as democracies go. Non-democracies, it is no use even talking about them.
        We need to do a lot of work, for which we will get no reward. I just wish we were 30 years younger when this BS started. No, we were 40 years younger when it started, but we were too blind to notice.
        Ost of what we learned we posdibly learned too late!

        Liked by 1 person

        • Some days, I think it has passed the point of no return, that there can be no turning back, no re-setting of our democratic foundations. Too many are willing to accept the Republicans’ promise that “this may hurt, but it’s for your own good.”

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  6. Oh boy! I have a feeling that the signers of the Bill of Right would never have signed if they could have foreseen the danger they were creating for future citizens. Yes, back then people probably needed the guns, if only to shoot dinner for the family, but now? No way.
    I heard about the Louisville shooting by the police. It’s scary just knowing that happens any place in the world, but to happen practically in my back yard is worse. What ever happened to the Police identifying themselves before even entering the place. Have they done away with that part of the Miranda rights law? Glad I don’t live in Carroll County. I do have to say though that I have been a Police Dept. volunteer as well as a graduate of the Citizen’s Academy at the Owensboro Police Dept. and while there are a few of them I wouldn’t trust around me most of them are outstanding officers. Even the officer who took me on my first ride-along had a great sense of humor when he tried to turn the wrong way on a one way street and I had to point it out to him.
    So now it’s okay for my grandkids to work in bars serving drinks to drunks huh? Actually, my youngest grandson is 19 now so almost legal age for drinking, but one of my great grandsons is 17 and I would hate to hear that he was working in a bar even doing cleanup duty. And one day soon those politicians are going to wonder why there are so many young drunks on the roads every day. Especially if one of them is injured by said young drunks who began working in a bar or liquor store at a very young age. What a load of bull crap!

    Liked by 3 people

    • I’ve long said that if they could have foreseen the future, there would not have been a 2nd Amendment, and the other Amendments would have been worded a lot differently. My own representative in Congress claims that the “right” to own an AR-15 is a “constitutional” right, to which I say, “BULLSHIT!”

      There is what they call a “no-knock warrant”, which is what they had on the night Breonna Taylor was killed. It is issued when police can make the case that their own lives would be in danger if they had to knock and identify themselves.

      I still believe that most police officers are good guys who have a tough job, but like with anything else, the bad ones give them all a bad reputation. I find that if I see an armed police officer in a store or on the street, I go the other direction just as fast as my old feet will take me. ‘Tis a sad state of affairs.

      Yep, from age 16 up, it is legal (in Iowa, anyway) for them to serve alcohol. And from age 14 up they can work as much as 6 hours on the night shift! Forget about time to study, eat, or sleep … let’s just turn them into slaves! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr …

      Liked by 1 person

      • Well, in Iowa I guess there will be several more idiots coming on in the future. Hopefully no more states will follow this example. But there is always hope that the parents will step in and say a resounding “NO” to kids who ask if they can work at night. Surely there are still some adults who will see the danger for the kid who works serving drinks at night to a room full of adults who may or may not be drunk and pedophiles looking for their next victim.

        So many of our original rights have been ignored I’m not sure what we have a right to do lately. Except of course the right to purchase assault rifles and go on a killing spree if we are wanting to commit suicide by cop. Until each of the people who refuse to ban these weapons have lost someone due to their stupidity it won’t happen, but eventually some person will find a way into a congressional meeting and open fire. That might change the minds of whoever is still alive in the end but what a hard way to learn a lesson for the ones who live.

        And what a crock! A warrant that allows anyone to break in a door without making sure they are in the right place is a lot of crap. People move all the time for different reasons. I mean, I’ve moved two times in the past year and each tie it had to be into a room vacated by someone else. I moved about five times when I first moved to town and one of those times did get a visit from the police who were looking for a former resident of the house i was in. Also some officers came over to ask me if I had seen anyone in an area behind that house the night before I actually moved. Not sure what happened, but I saw them looking around a vacant lot across the driveway from my new but very temporary residence. After the night I heard gunshots in the street in front I started looking for a better address. I sure loved that house though. It had a stained glass window in the living room.

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        • Regardless of the law, parents can say “No, my child is not going to work nights, and is not going to serve alcohol to a bunch of lushes. My child is going to concentrate on his school work and get a good education so he can get the hell out of Iowa someday!” But sadly, there are some parents who would probably welcome the extra income and not give a second thought to putting their child to work.

          You’re so right … about rights. It seems the 2nd Amendment is the only one people in this country care a whit about. Oh, they care about free speech in the 1st Amendment, but they expect it to be completely unfettered with no responsibility at all attached. Oh yeah, and if you’re a woman, or if you are trans, then you lose the right to seek life-saving healthcare without the permission of law enforcement, Congress, and the Courts. By which time you’re dead anyway. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr …

          You’ve lived in some scary neighborhoods, my friend, as have I. In fact, we average 1-2 shootings here in da hood every year, and it’s not unusual to see the Sheriff on our street, knocking on someone’s door. There was a fatal shooting two doors down a couple of years ago … must’ve been 20 cops here, all with guns drawn. I wanted to know what was going on, so I stepped out on the back patio and the cops shouted for me to go back in, but ol’ stubborn butt that I am, I said, “Not until you tell me what’s going on! I live here and I have a right to know!” Sometimes my brain fails to engage properly! 🤣

          Liked by 1 person

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