Can I see your license, please?

Let me talk about licenses and permits. For what do you need either or both of those 2 things?

• To drive a car
• To get married
• To fish
• To operate a boat
• To put a movable sign on the streets of Newburyport
• To build or expand or renovate a house
• To dump trash or recycling at a city facility
• To own a dog
• To operate a business
• To own a gun

I'm sure there are many others that I've left out - and that's not even mentioning certificates: birth certificates, death certificates, etc.

Now Bubba comments on my other post (here) about the waterways permit suggests that we may not need the old gun permit or building permit. I'm not sure if he was being serious, but I think he was. He makes a valid point.

I'm on the fence about gun permits, because real bad guys usually don't apply for them. Of course, I trend towards outright bans on citizens being armed, but guns scare me. I do understand the 'pro' argument, however.

But building permits? Without building permits, someone could do any old thing they want, such as building a second deck on their home ... I ask you isn't that rather excessive?

Kidding Bubba aside, a city needs to have some control over what the city is going to look like, if there is a building free-for-all. I could tack on a tar paper lean-to out back. I sure could use the added room.

And of course, there is a need for a city to generate revenue in those 'cute' little ways.

I got a gun ... and I know how to use it! (Maybe)

I was thinking, while cleaning my gun a bit ago ... ah, I'm kidding. I don't own a gun.

I did touch one, at Kittery Trading Post, at the urging of my ex-boyfriend. It was really important to him - don't ask me why. Maybe because he owned one.

There have been exactly two times in my life (at least that I can recall) where, if I had had a gun in my hand or in close proximity thereto, I might have shot the person standing or sitting in front of me. I might have.

I think most of us have probably had those moments. It's a fine line that we walk, between law-abiding and law-breaking.

But I digress ... I recently read a story in The Flint Journal about people who gathered to support Michigan's open carry law. These people, including women, were babbling at a park and in the paper about their right to carry a gun. And it is their right.

Well ... it seems to me that no woman should go on record as a gun carrier. Because now the really bad guys (those that read the paper or who were lurking on the outskirts of the demonstration) know that those women have guns on them.

And as I pointed out in a comment to the story, what's to stop one of two of the bad guys from jumping the women from behind and taking their guns, now that they know who the women are? Or even the men, for that matter?

This is the kind of lack of common sense that disturbs me. Trumpeting Being Rambo, or Rambette, trumps common sense.

So ... maybe I do own a gun. What was I doing looking at guns at the Kittery Trading Post, after all? Only The Shadow (and my ex) knows for sure ...

Editorial off the mark

I'm surprised by this editorial ("From Our View") in today's Daily News. It's about the "right to bear arms."

It took more than 200 years but the U.S. Supreme Court finally settled, once and for all time, what the Second Amendment to the Constitution means. It means that any individual in the United States, who is not otherwise disqualified by reason of mental illness or criminal record, has the right to own a firearm.

What the hell does that mean, once and for all time? Does that mean it can never be amended? Yikes, that's scary. Good thing the bits about slavery being A-OK and women (and black people) not being able to vote had already been amended.

And did whoever wrote this do any research? Read this, from FrontPage Magazine and written by a constitutional lawyer:

In our search for the issue actually before the Heller Court, and to understand what that case actually decided, we have to look to the penultimate paragraph of Justice Scalia’s opinion for the Court, some sixty-three pages later: “In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.” (Author's emphasis.)

This, and only this, is what the Supreme Court majority decided in District of Columbia v. Heller: the handgun ban and the inoperative requirement for home possession.

Because Heller is hedged by those four elements—“home,” “lawful,” “immediate,” “self-defense”—and, as I show below, because other important questions remain unanswered, judicial interpretation of the Second Amendment rather than ending with Heller has just begun.

Most of the other stories covering this decision clarify what it really was all about - but not our Daily News.

The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact. (The International Herald Tribune)

City officials expressed confidence the city would prevail in any court challenge, asserting, among other things, that the 2nd Amendment as part of the Bill of Rights restricts the federal government and does not apply to state and local governments. (The Chicago Tribune)

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. The handgun ban in Washington, DC, which is not a state, was struck down.

For all the chest-thumping taking place among gun advocates, last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling doesn’t mark a huge change in the nation’s approach toward ownership of firearms. (The Kansas City Star)

Handgun bans really don't work anyway - at least not in this country. Bad guys get guns whether it's legal or not. Average citizens who own guns, at least according to the press, rarely use them unwisely and in some cases actually prevent crimes from happening and/or they apprehend criminals before first responders can get there.

But hey, did Neil Entwistle legally own that gun with which he killed his wife and baby daughter? How about Charles Stuart, who killed his pregnant wife, which led to the death of their son?

Just as the framers of the Constitution, as learned and intelligent as they were, appeared to wrestle with this issue (that's why the wording is so ambiguous), so now are we.

I disagree with the Daily News - this ain't over, once and for all time.