Obama In 2012? Some Reasons To Say No!

I don't know about you, but in 2008 I actually voted for "Change I could believe in." Thanks to the record-setting incompetence of  George W. Bush and his band of born again lunatics, the Democrats scored a stunning victory in the midterm elections of 2006, and then took control of 2/3 of the national government in 2008.  But while Barack Obama and his Democratic Congress were celebrating the new age of progressive politics, the American economy was still on life support and bleeding, no hemorrhaging, jobs and home foreclosures. Most certainly, the nail in the coffin of the McCain campaign was the economic crisis brought on by his party's religious adherence to an unregulated financial system. Undoubtedly, Sarah Palin's Betty Boop-like responses to questions posed by the national media did not help McCain, but it was the economy in free-fall that finally did him in.

So there was Obama Inc., ready for their New Deal moment in American history. . . and they let it slip away.  No, that is too kind, they got behind it and pushed it off a cliff. Think not? Let me cite a few examples to make my case.

First, all presidents get a fair amount of political capital to spend in their so-called "Honey Moon Period." But in a time of great crisis, the Honey Moon can lead to monumental opportunities.  Franklin Roosevelt, in his "First Hundred Days,"created the modern welfare state and built a regulatory system that would be in place for America's greatest period of economic growth.  Using his New Deal majorities in both houses of Congress, he changed America's domestic economic landscape with lightening speed.  As the New Deal express pulled out of the station, FDR did not give a damn if any Republicans got out of the way, let alone if any got on board.

What about President Obama.  Instead of using his moment to restructure our national economy and give hope to those who were crushed by thirty years of tax breaks for the wealthy, or rein-in the greed mongers on Wall Street, Obama decided for the photo-op of reaching out to Republicans to try and build a new consensus. And how did that work out?  Does anyone believe that President Obama is appreciated and respected by the party of Mitch McConnell and John Boehner? If anything they hate him more now than they did in '08.

Secondly, the time to initiate monumental healthcare reform was not while the American economy was deep in the throes of the second worse recession in our country's history.  What we needed in 2009 was a massive economic stimulus tied to the creation of millions of new jobs.  As much as we need fundamental healthcare reform, the vast majority of American voters were perfectly happy with the healthcare benefits they were receiving at the time. Instead, they were reeling with the looming prospect of being out of work and losing their family homes (as millions eventually did).  Had Barack Obama led with a call for a second New Deal to rescue America's middle class, the Democrats would still control all of the Congress and the "Tea Party" would only reference an event in Boston Harbor in 1773. The President used most of his political capital on a half-baked healthcare reform act and what was left on a luke warm economic stimulus.  With the exception of the auto industry, most of the Obama stimulus came in the form of tax relief and extended unemployment compensation. Meanwhile we now have over thirteen million Americans still out of work, and about five million being foreclosed on and tossed out of their homes. And what is the mantra of the Democrats going to be in 2012. . . yeah the economy still sucks, but it would be sucking a hell of a lot more if we weren't in office!  Anyone want to run on that slogan?

Like it or not, American presidential politics is about solving crisis level problems now, not fixing things that will be broken down the road. I have no doubt that we will all be enrolled in a single-payer universal healthcare program in the not to distant future, there is no way to avoid this.  But right now, if you are over 65, in the military, or have a job with medical benefits (as are most American voters) the pre-Obama healthcare system was working just fine.  And any reasonably smart sixth grader knows it is foolish to repair something that is not yet broken.  On the other hand, we now have more people out of work for a year or more than any other time in our history, including the during Great Depression, and nothing has been done for them. Further, we repaired  and re-financed Wall Street and the major banks to the point where they paid out all time record bonuses in 2010, and yet there is no end in sight to the mortgage foreclosure crisis. The Republican Party was all but finished and the Obama administration brought it back to life.

Third, the foreign policy agenda of George W. Bush has not only been continued, but enhanced. Guantanamo is still open and functioning.  Ten years in and there are more Americans in Afghanistan than there were in 2008 with no end in sight.  And last week President Obama signed an extension of the Darth Vader Dick Cheney inspired Patriot Act so more Americans can be spied on by the NSA.  Where oh where is there a semblance of the progressive foreign policy that Obama campaigned on in 2008? Remember how he chided Hillary about her vote to go to war in Iraq?  Do you really think that President Obama represents a new way forward on the world stage?

So why, I ask again, should anyone who voted for President Obama in November of 2008, be foolish enough to vote for him again?  Surely if there were any real progressives on the horizon, I would be supporting someone else.  Unfortunately, the only alternatives to President Obama are so much worse than he could ever be, he is guaranteed to have my vote again.  I mean come on, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, and Newt Gingrich?  Next to that fools' parade President Obama is the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln.  The collective economic policy of those clowns is to completely deregulate private industry, you know, like in the run-up to the 2008 recession.  And my favorite,  they all want us to refuse to raise the debt ceiling and default on Americas bond obligations, something we have not done all the way back to 1789. Oh yeah, they want more substantial tax cuts for the richest among us, an end to a federal minimum wage and unemployment insurance, all because those poor billionaires are barely making ends meet and the rest of us should bask in the glow of their opulence.  Any of you get Christmas cards from a Wall Street Banker?

Winston Churchill once said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.  And President Obama may be a less than enthusiastic choice for president. . . until you look at the available alternatives, yikes!  Now let me see,  where did I put my "Change We Can Believe In" button? I know it is around here somewhere.  

Reflections Upon Retirement - No Politics This Time

So far so good. . . no remorse or anxiety four days after retiring. For a person as impulsive as me, that means I am home free. From here on out, my primary concern will be to forestall the physical and mental ravages of aging for as long as possible.  First up is a health and fitness program.  I found a picture of myself at 33 and that handsome fellow would not recognize what he morphed into at 63. But like the bloated hunk of marble from which Michael Angelo carved David, inside this amorphous flesh pot is a stud muffin waiting to be reborn. If all goes well on my diet and exercise program (begun this morning) I should be ready for prime time in the Spring of 2012.  I will keep you posted with periodic photos on Facebook. I am sure you will all be duly inspired.

Working back to the title of this rant, allow me to briefly reflect on the things I have learned after three and a half decades of teaching. This rant will be dedicated to the things I have learned about my profession.  Later reflections will be dedicated to other areas of my life experiences.

First: there is nothing more stupid than the manner in which teachers are compensated. Salaries are based on years of service and number of college units earned.  That's it! Every other career-based endeavor compensates its employees based on competence, professional achievement, and the completion of established job-related goals.  It is no wonder that American education is in deep trouble.

Second: where is it written that new school administrators must always find it necessary to adopt and mandate a new set of curriculum and instruction "bells and whistles" and then impose them on everyone?  I have had seventeen principals in my teaching career and they all rush headlong down a similar path. What ever happened to that tried and true adage, if it ain't broken, then don't fix it?  There are already enough teaching methodologies to create a country full of great schools, and no new idea, or worse, new technology, can ever fix what is wrong with a bad teacher. Further, as in every profession there is no such thing as one size fits all.  Not even in the military, which is why our Special Ops programs are so damned good, right Osama?

Third: teachers who are working to get out of the classroom should be fired as quickly as possible.  This will solve two problems. First, the number of lousy school administrators will be drastically diminished, and secondly, the number of highly motivated students will be dramatically increased. Any newly appointed administrator who says, "I really miss being in the classroom" is a liar and should be fired as soon as possible.  For if that were true, said administrator never would have left the classroom in the first place.  Managing and teaching require different skill sets and very few people are blessed with both. Further, anyone really good at managing people can find many more lucrative opportunities in other professions, leaving education to draw mostly from the shallow end of the talent pool.

Fourth: since bridge toll-takers, medical and dental assistants, casino card dealers, telemarketers, retail management trainees, and damned near everyone else have higher starting salary than do teachers, why is anyone surprised that so few talented people want to enter the profession? I have spent the vast majority of my teaching life in front of truly gifted young people and I can count on one hand the number of them who have opted for careers in secondary education. Quality college graduates are not all that rare, but quality teachers are. In every other society that claims to value education, professional teachers are among their highest paid workers.  Not in this country.  It is only in education that Americans are willing to buy a Fiat, and then act surprised when it fails to perform like a Ferrari.

Fifth: Not everyone in this country needs a traditional college education, so why do we spend so much money pretending that they do?  Truly, factory jobs are disappearing, but technical positions in health care, electronics, energy production, agriculture, environmental management, and communication, are begging for a cadre of trained young people to fill high paying jobs with great career opportunities. Ours is a world of highly educated people living well at one end and an army of low paid and unskilled service workers at the other.  With national drop-out rates averaging thirty percent, isn't it time to create a public technical skills track for those teens not suited for or desirous of a four year degree program?  The for-profit sector has already figured this out, but since most of those so-called schools are totally unregulated, the quality of their graduates is highly problematic.

Sixth: When I started teaching words like respect and honor were incredibly important.  Today all one hears is the phrase "self-esteem." Some time in the 1970s, the touchy-feely crowd decided that American kids needed to be lavished with unearned praise so they could feel good about themselves, without having actually accomplished anything. The result was going to be a generation of self confident kids breaking all achievement records. Of course, this movement totally failed in making kids more productive, but it succeeded in creating a sense of entitlement in children who never even attempt to excel at anything.  Mere participation became the criterion for the nauseatingly over-used, "Good Job!" Showing up is not worthy of reward, doing the work is not exceptional, these are minimal expectations and deserve no commendation whatsoever. Cheers to all the Tiger Moms out there and to all of you syrupy praise lavishers. . . way to screw-up your kids.

OK, that is enough for now, but you can rest assured, I will be back with more. . . soon.

"Say It Ain't So Joe, Say It Ain't So"

Now that all the hard data is in, I find myself in a distinctly curious position for a hard-core progressive.  Like a latter day Alice, I have stumbled through the looking glass where everything is topsy-turvy. Unlike Alice, I have not been consuming any psychotropic drugs, nor have I seen any talking rabbits or door mice.  So I must conclude that I have arrived at my latest conclusion in a reasonable state of sanity, at least by my minimalist standards. So here goes! After no small amount of thought I find myself in agreement with the Tea Party crowd in concluding that the lion's share of blame for the Panic of 2008 belongs to the federal government. OK, wait.  Before you decide to call 9-1-1 in fear that I have totally lost my sense of reality, please read on for my explanation.

First, however, I must explain why I am placing less blame on corporate America as would be the appropriate response for a true liberal. More than any other sector of our society, the behavior of the business community is always clearly predictable.  Privately held businesses usually have two overriding goals: to maximize their profits and to grow to a point where they can become publicly held corporations.  Publicly held businesses (like those listed on the NYSE) have one goal: to increase the share-holder value of their common stock.  Looking back at the behavior of both the industrial and financial sectors of our economy in the run-up to the Crash, these facts make the behavior of the entire business sector totally understandable.  Ethics, morality, product quality, safety, and even national citizenship, always come in behind the primary responsibility of every CEO, which is to increase profits and drive up the price of the stock.  Thus, businesses performed exactly as they should have, and they performed exactly as they did in the weeks and months preceding every economic down-turn in American history.  And to drive home the point even more forcefully, after all the public hand-wringing and mea culpas in the theatrical Congressional hearings into the causes of the Crash, corporate America quickly returned to its pre 2008 behaviors. Corporations are not you and me, they don't care about people, they are solely focused on profitability, or they quickly cease being corporations. Just because five of nine Supreme Court Justices personified corporations in the Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, does not alter the fact that businesses are not living entities.

Without a doubt, the financial sector of our economy, in a binge of unbridled avarice, must shoulder some of the blame for the hardships visited on the bulk of the American people.  But so what?  Does anyone really believe there is such a thing as business ethics?  If so, just look at  the history of every industrialized nation and the misery that unregulated businesses rained down on their fellow citizens. That is what they do.  Everything else is cosmetic window dressing for wishful and often naive  consumers. Does anyone really believe that banks like us? Auto companies care more about our safety than their bottom line? Insurance companies are just like a good neighbor? Oil companies care about the environment? There is such a thing as "clean coal?" Need I go on?

At the turn of the 20th century here in the United States, the  people had finally had enough of laissez-faire capitalism and demanded reforms from their governments.  In 1904, progressive Republicans (now there is a catchy phrase, but that is what they were), and later progressive Democrats were swept into office and corporate American was called to task. One regulatory bill after another raced through the Congress and each was quickly signed into law by Presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson.  By 1916, middle class Americans had consumer, environmental, and financial protection laws that were so successful, most are still with us today. And at every turn, big business screeched and howled that the American way of life was doomed.  Does anyone besides the Congressional Paul family really want to go back to a world of no food and drug safety, no minimum wages, no child labor laws, no forty hour work-week, no workplace safety, and no consumer safety laws?

So why, you may ask am I blaming government for the economic crisis we now find ourselves struggling to get through? Sorry Tea Partiers, but it is not because our economy is over-regulated. Instead, the great miscalculation of our national government, going back to the Reagan era, was in its failure to remember the lessons of our history.  Our economy may work best for the top one percent of us when it is entirely unregulated, but for all the rest of us that is a recipe for disaster. From 1980 until the crash of '08, both Democrats and Republicans bought into the Wall Street blather that an unregulated financial services market is really good for America. The resulting collapse stands alone as proof that that argument is as bankrupt today as it was in the Panics 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, and the mega-crash of 1929. The rest of us have always prospered when government was there to limit the greed of our economic Brahmans, and we have always suffered when those limits have been removed.

The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives made a big deal in the first week of January about having a public reading of the US Constitution.  Even though they selected out parts they found problematic (all references to slavery in the first seven articles), it would have served them well to have actually listened to the words they did recite.  The Framers of the pinnacle of our entire legal system prefaced its text with a bold series of promises, collectively called The Preamble.  All Americans were told that they could expect to be safe from all enemies, foreign and domestic.  We were told that political liberty was being established for all of us upon the ratification of the document.  And, we were told that under the Constitution, the new government would "promote the general welfare."  There is no mention of the welfare of a select few being secured at the expense of everyone else. The general welfare means just that.  Henceforth, the government of the United States was tasked to make certain that all of us might prosper, and thus we came to expect a minimum and reasonable standard of living for ourselves and for those who came after us. For over two hundred and twenty years, our society has been a work in progress where each generation of Americans was a little better off than the previous one.  Should we now begin to move in the opposite direction? Or should we demand that our government lives up to the promises of the Founding Fathers who stated that the blessings, freedoms, and commitments within the Constitution would be there "for ourselves and our posterity?"

Second Amendment Problems

"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."  That my friends, is the complete text of the 2nd Amendment.  Far too many latter day buckaroos have no idea that the right to be armed is contingent upon maintaining state militias.  Back in the 1790s, the citizens of our newly established republic were deeply concerned about security against the British, who had yet to live up to the terms of the Treaty of Paris, especially in their promise to abandon forts along the western frontier.  Further, the British were still inciting Native Americans in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys to make war on the American whites settling beyond the Appalachians.  Since there was no way that the all but bankrupt states could afford to muster official state militias back then (maybe now again too), private citizens would be called on to form ad hoc militia units to defend their communities against these threats.  At the time, cap and ball muskets were state of the art weapons and the Second Amendment guaranteed that the states would have a ready supply of "volunteers" if the need arose.

Fast-forward 200 years and we see that all Fifty states have well-armed and well-trained state militias, now called National Guard units.  They are afforded state of the art military weapons and are called upon to defend both state and country as the need arises.  Thus, the "original intent" of the 2nd Amendment, for all you so-called originalists out there, has been satisfied without the need for every citizen to be at the ready for a sneak attack from those dastardly Brits, or the local Indian Casino.  One would think that the text of the 2nd Amendment would be about as relevant today as is the 3rd Amendment.  Give that one a read and you will see what I mean.  But no, the gun lobby of the NRA and firearms manufacturers, along with their paranoid toadies in Congress have simply edited out the first, and primary clause of the 2nd Amendment.  Think not?  Then show up at a gun show and ask the people shopping for the latest sniper scopes (mostly white men) to quote the entirety of their most hallowed text.

The reason for this is actually quite simple.  Do you remember the charitable organization called the March of Dimes?  Sure you do, it was originally formed to raise money to fight the deadly disease Infantile Paralysis more commonly known as Polio.  Thanks to their efforts, and lots of school kids gathering all those dimes, Jonas Salk and his research staff developed a vaccine to protect us all from this scourge.  In the words of George W. Bush, "Mission Accomplished" (in this case those words were actually true).  So what happened to the March of Dimes?  Did they disband?  No.  Too many highly paid fund administrators needed to keep this cash cow alive, so they just re-invented themselves.  And to their credit, they found an ailment much less likely to yield a cure, Birth Defects. Some fifty-six years after polio went down, the March of Dimes is still a driving force in the private charity industry and a great many people make a very fine living managing all those dimes (even though they no longer collect "dimes" from little kids.

So too, the advocates of a well-armed civilian population (fire arm manufacturers, gun retailers, gun lobbies, toady Congressmen, and not too few gun nuts) have re-invented the meaning of the 2nd Amendment.  Today many of the latter day militia wanna-bes have convinced themselves that they are the only bulwark preventing our 221 year-old Republic (counting from the ratification of the Constitution) from rapidly devolving into a tyranny.  That alone should be grounds for preventing these delusional patriots from ever being able own lethal weapons. And, thanks to the heretofore mentioned gun promoters, these same people are convinced that they are all in eminent danger of being assaulted or killed by vicious gangs of roving criminals.  Forget the fact that violent crime in this country has been declining for quite some time (see FBI website for actual stats), more and more deadly weapons are being purchased now than at any time in American history. Perhaps the most alarming fact to emerge in the aftermath of the Tucson shooting was the record sale of multiple round pistol magazines by people who actually believe their personal liberty may be in jeopardy.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if a proliferation in gun ownership actually resulted in a safer society? Were that the case I would have purchased an AK-47 years ago.  But a look around our planet at the countries with the most guns free-floating among their respective civilian populations reveals just the opposite. And now with states like Arizona and Tennessee removing most restrictions on carrying and concealing, it must be incredibly reassuring to know that the loud mouth next to you at a ballgame or in a bar can add bullets to his alcohol induced bravado.

That Pesky Old Document!

Prodded by the so-called "originalist" Tea Party Republicans, newly seated Speaker, Republican John Boehner of Ohio, called for a "complete" oral reading of the US Constitution, as the first official act of the 112th Congress.  So, with great theatrical fanfare, members of both parties marched up to the lectern and read a portion of our hallowed document.  Other than as a publicity stunt, there does not seem to be any real substantive reason for this display.  However, some importance may be gleaned from those elements of the Constitution that were purposely edited out by the Republican leadership.  Any references to slavery, like the infamous three-fifths compromise in Article One and the fugitive slave clause of Article Four were missing. This seems a bit hypocritical to me, especially since the reading was demanded by people who claim that the legality of the Constitution is only valid within the context of its "original intent."

If in fact originalism is a legal premise, and most constitutional scholars seem to think that it is not, then anything included after the "original" ratification of 1789 would be invalid. Or are they claiming that this philosophical legalese does not begin to apply until after the Bill of Rights was ratified?  Then does that mean that women may not vote, slavery is again legal, US Senators may not be directly elected, only white male property owners have fully franchised civil rights, presidential terms may not be limited, and (one I am sure the Tea Party crowd and the super rich would love) a graduated income tax is illegal?  One must ask, with out really expecting an answer, just when does "original intent" kick in?

On the other hand, the very authors of the US Constitution, so heralded by the political right, actually built-in some mechanisms that totally invalidate the idea of an interpretation of the Constitution being fixed in time. Remember those parts that the Republicans did not want read on the floor of Congress?  Those and many others have disappeared over time because the Founding Fathers added Article Five to the sacred text.  In case you missed the reading, Article Five establishes the processes for amending the document.  And, oh yeah, everything in the Constitution may be amended away.  Further, at the end of Article One, Section Eight, these same American patriots added the so-called "Elastic Clause."  This little gem says that Congress can do whatever it deems "necessary and proper" to insure that the enumerated powers listed earlier in Section Eight be carried out.  It seems that even the Founding Fathers were not originalists, or they would have written a much more inflexible body of national law.

Without the application of too much intellectual depth, it is pretty clear that the Tea Party and ultra conservative wing of the Republican Party are not really interested divining the intent of Washington, Madison, Hamilton, et al, but in doing their own bit of "revisionism" to make the Constitution fit their narrow political agenda. Or maybe they really are interested in buying and selling people again, and insuring that only white male property owners can vote.

Off Center, Born Again!

As you can see, I have decided to re-start "Off Center (A Periodic Rant)."  I hope that all of you who were followers of my commentaries will come back again as both readers and contributors.  For the past few months I have been consumed with the intellectual and emotional process of making my decision to retire from my teaching job.  Further, it has taken a great deal of intellectual energy to keep my classes fresh and challenging for this, my last batch of high school seniors.  At some later date, most assuredly after I have been away from the day to day grind of teaching, I will use this space to reflect on my career.  But for now I am going to pick-up where I left off in offering some more progressive reflections on the issues facing our society.

I have been both fascinated and saddened by all that has transpired in the wake of the senseless shootings in Tucson.  Without a doubt, these killings were an example of an all too familiar horror story of contemporary America.  A young man, slipping further and further into a hellish madness, systematically isolating himself from all that is nurturing and supportive in his community, finally unleashing his raving demons, embarks upon a bloody killing spree that stuns the entire country.  And, like before, there is an impulsive rush to explain, understand, appoint blame, and even politicize, before all the facts are in.  From the wacky fringes of the blogosphere and talk radio, to the hyper partisan pundits of twenty-four hour cable  television news, to the calmer voices of the mainstream traditional media outlets, everyone has offered a take that above all else, justifies and promotes their own particular political and social agendas.

If you have been following my entries over the past two years, then there is no need for me to de-code these events from the perspective of a committed progressive Democrat.  On the other hand, a look at those elements of this tragedy that are not subject to a potentially biased interpretation of the facts, may serve to shed some light on the all too familiar circumstances that contributed to so much bloodshed.

First, there can be little doubt that Jared Loughner was a deeply troubled young man on a collision course with a violent end.  The evidence of his decaying sense of reality has been exhaustively documented.  And yet, under Arizona state law, and the laws of more than thirty other states, he was perfectly within his rights to purchase, with incredible ease, a 9mm semi-automatic pistol with a number of thirty-one round extended ammunition magazines.  The state of Arizona has a rigorous background check and  licensing process for almost every conceivable human activity, including for those wishing to cut hair and manicure nails, but it sees nothing wrong with a Mogadishu-like approach to gun ownership. All partisan rhetoric aside, why are so many of our states so willing to make the acquisition of these horrific instruments so incredibly easy?

Secondly, the mayors of Philadelphia and Newark New Jersey were interviewed shortly after the tragedy in Tucson and they were adamant about how little attention is being paid to the gun violence in America's large cities.  Without a doubt most of that violence is perpetrated by people who own their guns illegally, but the vast majority of their guns were legally manufactured in this country.  Gun manufacturers know that a percentage of their product will never be sold legally, but they continue to produce them in ever greater quantities.  Somewhere between leaving the Smith and Wesson, Colt, and Remington factories and arriving on our streets, a legal entity is making a fortune selling guns to all comers.  But because of the strangle hold that the gun lobby has on our state and national legislatures, nothing is done to interdict this lucrative trade, nor to stem the production of so many more guns than could ever be sold through legitimate commercial businesses.  No matter how far out one's interpretation of the Second Amendment may be  no one could possibly argue this system of runaway firearm proliferation is  what the Framers of our Bill of Rights had in mind.

Next, I honestly have no problem with law abiding citizens who feel the need for a source of home protection in being able to purchase a gun.  But this idea of demanding the right to openly carry a loaded weapon out among the rest of us is selfishly unsafe and downright bizarre.  If nothing else, Jared Loughner proved that one can wreak unspeakable carnage in a matter of seconds, once he had pulled his weapon from beneath his sweatshirt .  And it is pure fantasy to believe that some gun toting citizen could have reacted decisively and quickly enough to save any lives.  It takes law enforcement officers and our military years of rigorous training to learn how to most effectively use their weapons, and even they make their share of tragic mistakes.  So what now, we all pull out our guns and open fire and all our bullets magically find the appropriate targets?  That is juvenile fantasy at best and a gross violation of civic responsibility at its worst.  Yet that is what many gun advocates are now promoting. Incredibly, some on the far right in Congress have called for members to begin packing heat on the House and Senate floor.  That could make for some interesting outcomes during heated debates. Are these people that crazy?  What are they thinking?  Just in case a person in the gallery wants me dead I will quickly spin, draw my pistol with lightning like reflexes, and then get off a spectacular shot putting down an evil doer one hundred feet away.

Finally, the very least we should do is reinstate the Brady Bill ban on all assault weapons, magazines, and ammunition from our society, with the exception of our military and our law enforcement personnel.  Military-style assault weapons have one purpose and one purpose only and that is to kill as many people as possible in the briefest period of time.  As all the rest of the civilized world is moving further away from the kind of violence that these instruments of death create, we seem hell bent on plunging into headlong into the abyss.  And to those of you who are so paranoid that you believe that your M-16 is the only thing protecting you from a tyrannical American government, then I would suggest two things.  One, you are way too delusional to be entrusted with such powerful weapons in the first place, and two, you aren't really much of a patriot after all if you are convinced that our democracy is little more than a sham waiting for the first opportunity to enslave you.  May I suggest you take your guns and conspiratorial beliefs to a place where they might actually be applied. . . Somalia, The Sudan, North Korea, Iran, or Burma. Now those people could really use someone like you.