Once you've convinced the public that it is reasonable and necessary to register buyers of Sudafed, in the interest of reducing meth production, it's not that far a leap to try and apply it to other products as well.
I present to you HB1189, which would create a registry of baking soda buyers and put Arm & Hammer behind the counter. Because crack cocaine is made with baking soda. The danger of crack cocaine is sufficient to justify creating a register that would encompass nearly every single household in the state of Missouri, and give the police a pretext to visit and search your home if your baking soda purchases become suspicious.
I doubt the bill will actually pass, but it's a shot across the bow; a testing of the waters, if you will, to see just how much bullshit we're willing to put up with. We're willing to give up our names and addresses and risk a visit by the police in order to get our hands on cold medicine that has been legally available without a prescription for years. Why not require the same for any other mundane or beneficial item that can be turned to ill uses? Growing lights, and hydroponic systems for example. These are the primary tools of any small-time domestic marijuana producer. We should require anyone wishing to purchase such equipment to register with the state. Ditto purchasers of blotting paper or stamps. And chemistry sets. And pretty soon we're gonna realize it'd just be a whole lot easier if we could track every person's purchases and run through their records to look out for suspicious behavior. Just because Total Information Awareness was tabled due to public outcry during the Bush administration, doesn't mean it's gone for good. I bet Hilary could sell it.
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9 comments:
You are such a sensationalist! I think you should write a book and set it in a world where all this stuff actually has happened. It'd be pretty funny...AND can you just imagine all the silly people it would piss off? :) They'd probably try to ban it or something. LOL.
Um I have also heard about some sort of initiative to ban the use of certain words together. Celeste is not being a sensationalist, she is right. This is ridiculous. You know what else they use in drug production? Water . . . Everybody is a suspect!
And let's not forget knives. My mother's objection to registering gun owners from the get go was that if you were going to register all the guns, then why not the knives too? After all, if you're really pissed off, a knife is an excellent murder weapon. Sorry, Celeste. You will just have to give up cooking fresh vegetables and meat altogether. Those knives are just too dangerous! I'm feeling pretty radical...I have an almost full box of baking soda in my bathroom AND several very sharp knives...but I gave up taking Sudafed altogether.
Thank goodness, Hilary will have to sell herself to the American public, before she will be able to sell that one to Congress.
I wanna bake a delicious, healthy banana bread for my family and this [^&%$^&%$] wants me to have to present I.D. in order to accomplish that?!?!?!?!?
Yay America?
Uhm...with knives you kind of need to be at a very close range with the victim in order for them to be effective. There's a chance that you could hit your target by throwing it, but it's pretty slim. Guns, you don't have to; you can be very far away, hidden, etc... And, the chance of accidentally hitting someone with a bullet is much higher than the chance of accidentally hitting someone with a knife. I mean...come on. If you have to take, not only a driving test, but a written test as well, just to be given access to a vehicle and the open roads, then you should definitely have to do the same for guns. They're both equally as dangerous. And, as far as I am concerned, just based on the number of idiots out there on the road (possibly including me, although I haven't killed anybody yet, and it's been a long time since my last accident) we don't even do enough with the driving licenses. I definitely do not think that just anyone should be allowed to carry a gun, just like I sincerely wish that half the people able to drive would have their privilages revoked. 'Nuff said.
People who hide behind buildings and snipe at people do not register their weapons. They get them illegally because they're going to do an illegal thing. Clearly guns are dangerous...and registering them is probably a good idea, but I don't think it reduces gun related crimes...anymore than making ordinary people register to buy baking soda will reduce the production of crack cocaine.
There is also a fundamental difference between a gun and a car. Your right to own a gun is enshrined in the constitution, whereas your right to drive a vehicle is a figment of your imagination.
In the first case, the government needs to prove WHY you shouldn't be allowed to own a gun. The presumption is that you are, and they have to prove that you aren't fit, due to your criminal history, being a ward of the court, etc. In the second case, you have to prove to the government why you should be trusted to drive.
And mom, I'm surprised at you. Registering guns isn't a good idea. It 1) provides thieves with a shopping list for where to go when they want to steal guns. 2) provides thieves with a shopping list of where NOT to go when they break into an occupied dwelling, and 3) gives a future hostile government or invading force a list of everyone that needs to be eliminated in order for their takeover to succeed. Gun registration = bad. Shall issue gun permit = OK.
Point taken. I am a whimp when it comes to arguing with my daughters, not wanting to offend...I actually am very much opposed to registering the ownership of guns, especially for reason #3. I don't like the idea of the entire U.S. being made vulnerable to hostile takeover because everyone who owns a gun is known and in some database somewhere. But isn't issuing a gun permit the same thing, really? If you have one, then you probably have some guns, right?
Yeah, although it's a little different since a permit only says you're allowed to carry a gun around concealed, it doesn't say how many and what type of gun you have, much like a driver's license just says you're allowed to drive a car and it's your registration that gives the make/model, etc. So while I am vehemently opposed to gun registration, I'm less vehemently opposed to carry permits.
I still have some reservations about them, though, since there have been incidents where anti-gun crusader types have published lists of the names and addresses of everyone with a concealed carry permit. It's public information, after all, so why not?
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