Law Enforcement In Connecticut Knows What the Second Amendment Says Even If The Lawmakers Don’t

Yesterday The Examiner posted an article about the latest development in Connecticut’s war on gun owners.

The article reports:

Gun rights legal expert and activist David Hardy reported Friday that 250 law enforcement officers in Connecticut have signed an open letter stating that they will not enforce the new anti-gun and magazine laws, which they consider to be a violation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

David Hardy is reporting that Tyler Jackson, the head of the Connecticut Peace Officers Association, has emailed him a letter stating that the head of the Connecticut Peace Officers’ Assn has released an open letter stating that the police will not “be party to the oppression of the people of the state by enforcing an unconstitutional law.” So far 250 LEOs have cosigned the letter.

The Second Amendment states:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Why is the State of Connecticut attempting to disarm its citizens?

Moving to North Carolina from Massachusetts has been something of a culture shock in a number of areas. One of those areas is the attitude toward guns. Generally speaking, I can assume that wherever I am in North Carolina there are probably at least three or four people around me with concealed carry permits that are carrying guns. Although I am not particularly interested in carrying a gun myself, I feel perfectly safe in the midst of people who do concealed carry. Actually, I feel safer than I did in Massachusetts. I know if someone comes into the mall with bad intentions, he will be met with a number of armed citizens with good intentions. That’s a good thing. Most of the mass shootings we have had have been in gun-free zones. People who intend to harm people generally like to do it where they will meet the least resistance. I have no problem with gun permits, but guns should not have to be registered, and they should not be subject to seizure by the state or federal government. Taking guns away from law-abiding Connecticut citizens is not gun control–it is disarming the civilian population–never a good idea!

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Losing The Second Amendment

On Wednesday Guns.com posted a story detailing the latest chapter in Connecticut’s war on gun owners. A law was passed at the end of last year that required certain gun owners to register their weapons with the State of Connecticut by December 31, 2013. Many gun owners simply did not register their guns. Others sent their applications in late or their applications were delivered late. Those people recently received a letter from the state:

https://www.rightwinggranny.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/CT-Assualt-Weapon-Letter.jpg

The long and short of it it–if you missed the deadline, we will take your weapon away.

The article states:

According to the Journal Inquirer, 106 rifle owners and 108 ‘large capacity magazine’ owners in Connecticut were recently sent letters from the state police advising them that they had missed the deadline for registering their now-illicit firearms and accessories.

The state knew these individuals had these items because their registration applications were sent in, but postmarked too late to be processed.

This should be a wake-up call for anyone who doesn’t see gun registration as the beginning step of gun confiscation.

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Civil Disobedience In Connecticut

On Monday the Hartford Courant posted an article about the progress in Connecticut’s attempt to register all military-style rifles with state police by December 31. The effort has not gone well.

The article reports:

By the end of 2013, state police had received 47,916 applications for assault weapons certificates, Lt. Paul Vance said. An additional 2,100 that were incomplete could still come in.

That 50,000 figure could be as little as 15 percent of the rifles classified as assault weapons owned by Connecticut residents, according to estimates by people in the industry, including the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation. No one has anything close to definitive figures, but the most conservative estimates place the number of unregistered assault weapons well above 50,000, and perhaps as high as 350,000.

This law instantly created between 20,000 and 100,000 new criminals–people who did not register their rifles. The article reminds us, “By owning unregistered guns defined as assault weapons, all of them are committing Class D felonies.”

The article reports:

The law was adopted after the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Its main provision was a dramatic expansion of guns classified as assault weapons banned for sale in the state. The ban now includes any semiautomatic firearm — that is, one that reloads a round after each pull of the trigger — if it has even a single military-style characteristic, such as a pistol grip.

Any semiautomatic firearm banned for sale could remain legal if its owner registered it by Dec. 31. Those that were made before the state’s first assault rifle law in 1993, and were not deemed to be assault weapons in that law, do not have to be registered.

The AR-15, a type of rifle, not a brand, is among those that must be registered and represents 50 percent to 60 percent of all rifle sales in the United States in recent years, federal figures show.

Sorting out the number of potential new felons is a guessing game. State police have not added up the total number of people who registered the 50,000 firearms, Vance said. So even if we knew the number of illegal guns in the state, we’d have a hard time knowing how many owners they had.

As logical as gun registration may seem to lawmakers, its history is not a positive one. Historically gun registration has been the prelude to a seizure of guns by a tyrannical government. An unarmed population is much more easily controlled than an armed population. There is also the small matter of the Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. It will be interesting to see of Connecticut attempts to enforce its new gun registration law.

I really don’t understand a lot about the concept of assault rifles, but I do wonder about a statement in the Hartford Courant article. The article states that this law was passed in response to what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I totally agree that what happened at Sandy Hook was a terrible tragedy, but is there anything in this law that is actually related to that event or that would have prevented that event?

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An Unconstitutional Solution To A Horrific Event

Yesterday The Blaze reported that Connecticut gun owners have begun registering their guns in order to comply with new gun laws that will go into effect on January 1.

The article reports:

Charles Gillette, who was registering magazines, told the news station that he would have a problem with it if the state was trying to ban the magazines or firearms, but said “if they want to just know where they are, that’s fine with me.”

However, not one gun owner who was registering firearms or magazines said they think the new laws will reduce gun violence.

“If people are going to do things illegally, they’re not going to be here registering their gun,” Jared Krajewski, another resident registering firearms, said.

For now, in Connecticut, the law is the law. The new gun control measures were put into place following the tragic school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

Common sense tells us that those who have nefarious future plans involving their guns will not be in line registering those guns. All this law does is put a new restriction on law-abiding gun owners–it will have no impact at all on those people who choose to ignore the law. Newtown was a horrible tragedy, but this law may be setting the stage for an even more horrible tragedy–potentially letting criminals know which households have the means to defend themselves if they are robbed.

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Private Property Rights Are Important In America

One of the foundations of the American republic is the concept of private property rights. Occasionally those rights have been under attack and the battle has been lost–for example the Supreme Court decision regarding Kelo and the State of Connecticut. (n June of 2005, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the City of New London, Connecticut, could, under the rule of eminent domain, seize the homes of several homeowners in order to use the land for a purpose that would generate more tax revenue for the City.)  Due to tough economic times (and basic karma), the plant that was built on that site closed and moved to Groton.

At any rate, property rights of Americans have been threatened on numerous occasions. The latest threat comes from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following the plan already outlined in Agenda 21.

Today’s Washington Examiner is reporting on a new EPA rule:

...the “Water Body Connectivity Report” – that would remove the limiting word “navigable” from “navigable waters of the United States” and replace it with “connectivity of streams and wetlands to downstream waters” as the test for Clean Water Act regulatory authority.

…If approved, the new rule would give EPA unprecedented power over private property across the nation, gobbling up everything near seasonal streams, isolated wetlands, prairie potholes, and almost anything that occasionally gets wet.

Smith and Stewart (House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas and Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah, chairman of its environment subcommittee)accuse EPA of “pushing through a rule with vast economic and regulatory implications before the agency’s Science Advisory Board has had an opportunity to review the underlying science.”

If this sounds familiar, it is. This is the language used by the United Nation‘s Agenda 21 program:

As I reported in December 2011 (rightwinggranny.com):

One of the aspects of Agenda 21 is the location of vernal pools and the ‘corridors’ that connect them. Those pools and corridors are then used as excuses to severely limit the use of property. Property owners can be asked to make alterations to their property that are extremely expensive and that might cause them to abandon the property. Property owners can also be severely limited as to what they can do on their own property.

A land grab is a land grab. It doesn’t matter whether it comes from the UN or from our own government–it is still a land grab. Pay attention–this could be coming to your town soon.

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What Did Your Child Learn In School Today?

Today’s Daily Caller posted an article about a quiz given to a ninth-grade Health Class in New Canaan, Connecticut. The quiz is entitled, “How WELLthy Are You?”

Some of the statements in the quiz:

“I vote for pro-environmental candidates in elections” is one of the statements.

“I write my elected leaders about environmental concerns” is another one.

Still other statements in the section include “I report people who intentionally hurt the environment” and “I try not to leave the faucet running too long when I brush my teeth, shave, or bathe.”

For example, the “Spiritual Health” section contains this hopelessly confused religious statement: “I have faith in greater power, be it a God-like force, nature, or the connectedness of all living things.”

The article further reports:

A score of 35-40 points in each category allegedly indicates that New Canaan ninth-graders are “practicing good health habits” and “setting an example” for “family and friends to follow.” It is mathematically impossible for ninth-graders to achieve this score in the “Environmental Health” section if they “rarely, if ever” vote for “pro-environmental candidates” or write to “elected leaders about environmental concerns.”

I have no problem with encouraging high school freshmen to protect the environment and to be politically aware. I do, however, have a problem with telling them what their criteria should be when they vote. The article points out that the students are told that they do not have to answer all of the questions. I would like to suggest that they not be asked to answer any of the questions, and we go back to spending health class encouraging good individual health habits. This quiz sounds more like brainwashing than a quiz.
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Insurance Companies Are Businesses–They Have The Right To Make Money

One of the things that seems to be missing in the comments by the few politicians who actually support ObamaCare is the understanding that insurance companies are businesses–their goal is to make a profit. If the rules of the game are such that the insurance companies cannot make a profit, they can easily choose not to participate in the marketplace involved. We are now seeing that dynamic in ObamaCare.

CNS News reported yesterday that Blue Cross, Aetna, United, and Humana, the major health insurance companies, will not be participating in the health-insurance exchanges in various states.

Aetna, an insurance company founded in Connecticut, has pulled out of the exchanges in Connecticut, Georgia and Maryland, saying that the limitations that would be imposed on them by those states would not allow them to make a profit. The company never planned to participate in the California exchanges, and will not be doing so. They are, after all, a private company in business to make a profit.

Senator Max Baucus recently stated about ObamaCare, “I just tell ya, I just see a huge train wreck coming down.” He is one of the Senators who supported ObamaCare when it was passed. I think he is right.

 

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Depending Where You Live, Renewing Your Drivers License May Be More Complicated Than It Has Been In The Past

A friend posted the following on Facebook:

I went with Howard to DMV this morning when he renewed his drivers license for the first time since the new government program went into effect. Since we had the required documents with us – certified birth certificate, passport, proof of social security, tax bill, and utility bill it was less of a hassle than I expected it to be. However, there were a few people ahead of us that were told that they didn’t have all the documents needed for a verified drivers license.

I was puzzled by this post and did some investigating. It seems that Connecticut has a new program for renewing driver’s licenses.

The Examiner posted an article on this change in March 2012, and the Connecticut Mirror posted and article about it in September 2011.

The Connecticut Mirror states:

Connecticut launched a campaign today to publicize how to obtain a driver’s license that meets the stricter verification standards of a federal “Real ID” law passed in 2005, but never implemented in face of objections from two dozen states.

Beginning Oct. 3, drivers in Connecticut will have two choices when renewing their licenses: accept a license stamped “not for federal identification,” or provide proof of residence and immigration status for an ID with a gold star.

The Examiner reports:

The Real ID Act, enacted in 2005 in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks, sets forth certain requirements for state driver’s licenses and identification cards in order for the cards to be accepted by the federal government for “official” purposes. The purposed federal program, expected to go into effect in 2017, would require verified state identification to enter government buildings, pass airport security even for domestic flights, and possibly other commercial transactions.

Connecticut rolled out its verified driver’s license and identification card program, called SelectCT ID, in October of last year. Connecticut will phase in the new verified driver’s licenses over the next six years as driver’s licenses are renewed. At least for the first renewal, Connecticut residents are given the choice of obtaining a verified driver’s license or a regular driver’s license. If a regular driver’s license is chosen, it will not be acceptable for official federal government purposes. As early as 2017, people without verified state identification may need to show a US passport for domestic air travel.

So let me get this straight. You don’t have to show an ID card to vote, but you have to bring all sorts of additional documentation to get a drivers license that will allow you to board an airplane as a passenger.

This is a total “Beam me up, Scotty” moment.

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Something Is Very Wrong Here

NBC Connecticut is reporting today that three recipients of the Medal of Honor will present the Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s highest civilian award, the Citizen Honors Medal posthumously to the six educators that were killed trying to protect their students in Newtown. Connecticut on December 14th. I think that is wonderful–they are being awarded this medal because they were killed trying to protect their students.

However, there is another group of shooting victims that is being denied the honor they have earned. The Department of Defense is refusing to award the Purple Heart to those soldiers killed on the attack at Fort Hood, Texas.

On April 2, Military.com reported:

A position paper, delivered by the Pentagon to congressional staff members Friday, says giving the award, for injuries sustained in combat, to those injured at Fort Hood could “irrevocably alter the fundamental character of this time-honored decoration.”

If you are attacked at your base and people are killed, isn’t that combat? Admittedly it is unplanned combat, but isn’t a lot of combat unplanned?

The article at Military.com further reports:

Thirteen people were killed and 32 injured in the November 2009 shootings on the base. Maj. Nidal Hasan, the alleged shooter, awaits a military trial on premeditated murder and attempted murder charges.

Fort Hood was a terrorist act–it was not ‘workplace violence.’ Maj. Hasan yelled “Allahu Akbar” as he fired. We are at war–this was an attack by the enemy. We need to acknowledge that and make sure that all the victims of that attack receive the honor and benefits they are entitled to. Meanwhile, we do not hesitate to honor civilians in equally awful situations. Both groups should receive medals in a timely fashion.

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Altering The News To Fit A Political Agenda

The Independent Journal Review posted an article on Tuesday detailing some of the erroneous reporting on the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. At issue is the type of guns used–the shooting is used as a justification for banning what are called assault weapons, but it has recently come to light that assault weapons were not used in the killing. So why is the President in such a hurry to ban them?

Pete Williams, who is NBC’s chief Justice correspondent, reported that only four handguns were found inside the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The article further reports:

The correspondent makes it clear over and over again that he confirmed this information with federal and state officials. Now, a lot of media reports contradict this one, but somebody’s lying. The report that an ‘AR-15-style’ assault rifle was in the trunk of murderer Adam Lanza’s car is up for dispute as well. If one examines footage from police breaking into Lanza’s car, one sees police clearing a round from a “long gun of some type” that does not appear to be ‘AR-15 style’ or ‘assault-style.’

…In a nation of 311 million people, the odds of being killed by a rifle is about one homicide per million people, which is far less than the odds of being murdered by a blunt object. But we don’t hear the media arguing about regulating hammers and clubs. Again, when 99.7% of registered gun owners are law-abiding, gun control is not about guns, it’s about control.

Before we limit our Constitutional rights to solve a problem that isn’t there, we all need to step back and take a deep breath. If an assault rifle was not used in the crime that has caused us to rush to legislate stronger restrictions on gun ownership, what is the reason for the rush to legislate?Enhanced by Zemanta

Some Of Many Reasons The Damage From Hurricane Sandy Has Not Been Repaired

On Monday the Wall Street Journal posted an article telling the story of one homeowner‘s struggle to rebuild her damaged home in Connecticut.

The article relates the homeowner’s story:

Our first exposure to the town zoning authorities came a couple of weeks after Sandy. We’d met with insurance adjusters, contractors and “remediation experts.” We’d had about a foot of Long Island Sound sloshing around the ground floor of our house in Connecticut, and everyone had the same advice: Rip up the floors and subfloors, and tear out anything—wiring, plumbing, insulation, drywall, kitchen cabinets, bookcases—touched by salt water. All of it had to go, and pronto, too, lest mold set in.

Yet it wasn’t until the workmen we hired had ripped apart most of the first floor that the phrase “building permit” first wafted past us. Turns out we needed one. “What, to repair our own house we need a building permit?”

Of course.

Before you could get a building permit, however, you had to be approved by the Zoning Authority. And Zoning—citing FEMA regulations—would force you to bring the house “up to code,” which in many cases meant elevating the house by several feet. Now, elevating your house is very expensive and time consuming—not because of the actual raising, which takes just a day or two, but because of the required permits.

The article further explains that there is also a zoning limit on how high your house can be–so if you meet the requirement to raise it, you have to make sure you don’t raise it too much.. The homeowner goes on to detail the maze of government gobbledygook encountered in trying to repair and re-occupy his home.

The article concludes:

We’ve spent a few thousand dollars on a lawyer to appeal to Zoning, many thousands in rent, and hundreds getting a fresh appraisal of our house. The latest from our lawyer: Because of our new appraisal, we may be able to “apply for a zoning permit.” “Apply,” mind you.

I used to think that our house was, you know, our house. The bureaucrats have taught me otherwise. But then I also used to think that Franz Kafka wrote a species of dark fantasy. I know now that he was turning out nonfiction.

Our problem is not the lack of money to repair the damage from Hurricane Sandy–it is the government bureaucracy that is hindering the homeowners from getting back into their own homes.

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Chutzpah On Parade

There is currently a debate in Congress on how to prevent mass murders. When you consider that mass murders are as old as civilization and have involved everything from knives to guns, that is quite a quest. The focus seems to be on gun control–regardless of the fact that the Second Amendment does not allow for the infringement of the right to bear arms. Anyway, Senator Chuck Schumer has added a new level of chutzpah to the debate.

Gateway Pundit reported yesterday:

Schumer on Sunday released a letter he sent to major retailers asking for a voluntary moratorium.

The New York Democrat says consumer demand for guns has gone up in the weeks since the December mass shooting in Newtown, Conn.

Schumer says Congress is debating the issue, and if measures get passed that limit these type of weapons, it won’t help if more of them have recently been sold.

Has it occurred to the Senator that the reason people are stocking up on these weapons is that they fear the weapons will be unavailable in the future?

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Haven’t These People Read The Constitution ?

CNS News is reporting today that Vice-President Joe Biden has stated that “there are executive orders, executive action that can be taken” on gun control.

The article reports:

Biden was appointed by President Barack Obama to head a task force to explore the issue of preventing gun tragedies, following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

It is time for Congress or the Supreme Court to remind the President and Vice-President that at least theoretically, they are bound by the U. S. Constitution.

This is what the Constitution says:

                              AMENDMENT [II.]
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of
a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,
shall not be infringed.

Our free state is protected by citizens who have guns. None of the recent high-profile murder cases involved people who should have had access to guns. The problem is not the guns–it is keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. Executive orders do not trump the Constitution!

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Where Are We A Week After The Newtown Killings ?

It’s been a week since the horrible tragedy in Connecticut. There are screams for gun control, assault weapons bans, police at the schools, and all sorts of things. But an article in yesterday’s Washington Post sheds some light and common sense on the subject.

Charles Krauthammer was a psychiatrist in Massachusetts during the 1970’s. He has an interesting perspective on what happened last week.

Mr. Krauthammer states that there are three parts to every mass shooting–the killer, the weapon, and the cultural climate.

The article points out:

Random mass killings were three times more common in the 2000s than in the 1980s, when gun laws were actually weaker. Yet a 2011 University of California at Berkeley study found that states with strong civil commitment laws have about a one-third lower homicide rate.

Regarding the weapon, Mr. Krauthammer states:

I have no problem in principle with gun control. Congress enacted (and I supported) an assault weapons ban in 1994. The problem was: It didn’t work. (So concluded a University of Pennsylvania study commissioned by the Justice Department.) The reason is simple. Unless you are prepared to confiscate all existing firearms, disarm the citizenry and repeal the Second Amendment, it’s almost impossible to craft a law that will be effective.

The article points out that over the past 30 years, the homicide rate in the United States has dropped 50 percent.

The article reminds us that gun violence is on the decline:

Except for these unfathomable mass murders. But these are infinitely more difficult to prevent. While law deters the rational, it has far less effect on the psychotic. The best we can do is to try to detain them, disarm them and discourage “entertainment” that can intensify already murderous impulses.

But there’s a cost. Gun control impinges upon the Second Amendment; involuntary commitment impinges upon the liberty clause of the Fifth Amendment; curbing “entertainment” violence impinges upon First Amendment free speech.

I tend to think that the fact that the murder rates are lower in states with strong civil commitment laws is significant. An article posted at The Blue Review on December 15th provides insight into what it is like to get appropriate treatment and possible restraint for a troubled child.

It’s time to look at all the elements of the tragedy at Newtown–not just the ones that are politically expedient.

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Don’t Let The Facts Of A Tragedy Get In The Way Of Making A Political Point

What in the world happened to fact checking in the media reporting of the tragedy in Connecticut? It seems as if almost everything reported as the tragedy unfolded on Friday was wrong. It would be very nice if the media would check the facts before reporting them. Silence would be better than misinformation. Some of the erroneous reporting has been that the shooter‘s mother was a teacher at the school–that has been proven false, that the shooter entered the school by being buzzed in because he was known–it is now known that he entered by breaking a window, and I am sure there is other misinformation that I am unaware of.

The most egregious misreporting has been related to the weapons used in the shooting. Breitbart.com reported today that the shooter did not use automatic weapons–one of the weapons used was an assault rifle, but it was not an automatic weapon.

The article reports:

Although only semi-automatic, it is important to note that Lanza broke Connecticut laws by possessing the handguns, because you have to have a permit to own and carry a handgun in Connecticut. The paperwork on both handguns was in his mother’s name, which means the guns weren’t even his to possess and he had no permit carry (he was not legally eligible for a permit to carry because he was only 20 — you have to be 21 to get that permit).

Regarding the AR-15 it is what politicians commonly call an “assault rifle” (although the “AR” does not stand for that). It has a completely different set of Connecticut laws by which its owner must abide, many of which Lanza broke just by taking the gun into his possession, transporting it to a school, and transporting it in a way other than is legally stipulated for the transport of an assault rifle in Connecticut.

It was not legal for the shooter to have these weapons. I question the wisdom of his mother in having these weapons when she knew that her son had mental issues, but they were legally her weapons. Her son had no right to them, and she should have taken extra precautions to limit his access to these weapons. There are many combination lock weapons storage safes available. The problem was not the guns–it was the fact that a mentally unstable person was able to get his hands on them.

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About That Fairness Thing

Thomas Sowell posted an article at Townhall.com dealing with the subject of fairness in tax policy.

Mr. Sowell describes the supposed justification for higher taxes on the rich, and then asks a questions we should all be asking:

He pointed out that a child born to a poor woman in the Bronx enters the world with far worse prospects than a child born to an affluent couple in Connecticut.

No one can deny that. The relevant question, however, is: How does allowing politicians to take more money in taxes from successful people, to squander in ways that will improve their own reelection prospects, make anything more “fair” for others?

How much has the billions of dollars spent of the War on Poverty actually helped alleviate poverty in America?

Mr. Sowell points out that giving money to single mothers has not helped alleviate their poverty problems–instead, it has increased the number of single mothers. Since children raised by a single parent do not do as well as children who grow up with their two original parents, increasing the number of single parents is not ‘fair’ to anyone.

Mr. Sowell concludes:

High tax rates in the upper income brackets allow politicians to win votes with class warfare rhetoric, painting their opponents as defenders of the rich. Meanwhile, the same politicians can win donations from the rich by creating tax loopholes that can keep the rich from actually paying those higher tax rates — or perhaps any taxes at all.

What is worse than class warfare is phony class warfare. Slippery talk about “fairness” is at the heart of this fraud by politicians seeking to squander more of the nation’s resources.

We have reached the point where half of Americans pay no income taxes. If we don’t level out the tax burden to the point where everyone pays something, we will find ourselves with a very small number of people trying to support those who are not paying taxes and have no interest in what the tax rate is. We are almost there already.

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Should Foxboro Massachusetts Have A Casino ?

A website entitled nofoxborocasino.com posted the following:

We recently posted a report written by the Mayor of Ledyard, CT (home to Foxwoods Casino) in 2001 entitled: “Report, Fiscal Impacts of Foxwoods Casino on the Town of Ledyard, Connecticut. Mayor Wesley J. Johnson, Sr.; Town of Ledyard; December 2001.”This was written 9 years after Foxwoods opened.

We believe Foxwoods is a good case study of what happens to a small town when a casino is built. Note Ledyard’s population was 15,000, similar to 17,000 in the Town of Foxboro today.

Some Important Statistics Cited in the Report (read the full report here):

  1. The crime rate in Ledyard went up by 300%.
  2. There was a 200% increase in traffic volumes.
  3. Ledyard went to having the highest DWI / DUI rate in the state.
  4. Foxwoods averages 55,000 visitors a day (that is almost equivalent to a Patriots home game–365 days a year!)
  5. Jobs were created, but they were low paying jobs making under $25,000 per year.
  6. And the report concludes with “…. the social cost of problem gambling, inability to regulate land use and uncertainty about where and how future development will occur, will continue to effect the financial stability, rural character and quality of life in our town.”

I understand that a casino brings in revenue, but the experience of Ledyard seems to indicate that it also adversely impacts life in the town. Hopefully Foxboro residents will have access to information on both sides of the issue before they vote.

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Do Politics Influence Where People Choose To Live ?

Map of USA showing states with no state income...

Image via Wikipedia

Yahoo Finance posted an article yesterday entitled, “States Where No One Wants To Buy A New Home.” Since I live in one of the states on the list (Massachusetts is listed as number 7 of 10), I read the article.

The map above shows all the states with no state income tax in red and the states that tax only interest and dividend income in yellow. I am not sure how much of a factor this is in the number of housing starts. It is interesting, though, that none of the states with no state income tax are on the list of states with the lowest number of housing starts.

The article reports:

Surprisingly, our list of states where few permits have been issued recently is different from the typical list of the worst housing markets. California, Nevada and Florida are always on those lists because homes are vacant and home values continue to drop. But the three are not on this list. It may be that prices have dropped so low in these markets that home inventory has begun to move, even if only tentatively. Instead, markets where housing permits are very small in relation to total homes are markets in which builders have abandoned any hope of near-term sales.

In case all you really wanted to do was see the list, here it is:

  1. Rhode Island
  2. West Virginia
  3. Illinois
  4. Michigan
  5. Connecticut
  6. Ohio
  7. Massachusetts
  8. New York
  9. Maine
  10. Pennsylvania

What in the world do these states have in common? I suspect there are a lot of reasons for the number of building permits to decrease in these states. Michigan for instance has lost a lot of businesses due to the tax policies of recent state administrations. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island all have state income taxes and business environments that do not necessarily encourage businesses to migrate there. New York is a very expensive place to live, although I believe the current governor is trying to ease the burden on the state’s taxpayers. It is interesting to me that these are all states in the northern areas of the country. Could it be that as the baby boomers age, they are simply looking for warmer places to live?

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