Quick Overview of Pro-Second Amendment Bills in the Texas Legislature

May 22nd, 2013

Dwight was kind enough to provide a quick rundown on a few pro-Second Amendment bills making their way through the Texas legislature. He also linked to the TSRAPAC site, which includes even more bill information. (I’ve also found Texas Firearms Freedom useful, and it includes a few more bills.) Since I’ve been meaning to do a rundown on these, and since I run a full-service blog, here’s an even more brief, high level summary of the state of various bills, with links to the text of the bills themselves:

  • Reduce CHL classes to 4 hours (HB 47/SB 864): Awaiting Governor Perry’s signature.
  • CHL BAC (HB 153): Would set allowable blood alcohol content for a CHL holder carrying at .08 (same as for DWI), up from the current “0.0”: Passed House, appears to be dead in the Senate.
  • Requires advanced notice from hotels that ban guns (HB 333): Awaiting Governor Perry’s signature.
  • Open carry for CHL holders (HB 700): Died in committee.
  • “Come and Take It” (HB 928): Preempts the federal government from using state officials in Texas to enforce unconstitutional firearms restrictions. Passed House, Democrats in Senate threatening to filibuster.
  • Campus Concealed Carry (HB 972): Passed House, passed out of Senate committee (SB 182), needs 21 votes to get Senate floor vote.
  • Clarification of display of firearm (SB 299): Technical bill, basically changes definition from “fails to conceal” to “displays.” Awaiting Governor Perry’s signature.
  • Limiting improper 30.06 signage (HB 508): Prevents cities from improper, unenforceable posting of PC 30.06 sign. Passed House, on the Senate calendar for May 20.
  • Ease in CHL fingerprinting requirements (HB 698): Let’s those living more than 25 miles away from a digital fingerprinting shop self-submit fingerprints. Passed House, on the Senate calendar for May 20. (According to TPPF‘s David Guenthner on Twitter, this has passed the Senate, so it’s awaiting Governor Perry’s signature as well.)
  • Prevent asking for a Social Security number on a CHL application (HB 1349): Passed House, passed Senate committee, pending vote in the Senate.
  • Sell rather than destroy confiscated firearms (HB 1421/SB 343): Awaiting Governor Perry’s signature.
  • Combine revolver/automatic CHLs (HB 3142): Currently, if you pass the CHL practical test with an automatic, you could carry either an automatic or a revolver, but if you passed with a revolver, you could only carry a revolver. This bill eliminates that distinction. Passed House, scheduled for May 20.
  • Eliminate “Gun Free Zones (HB3218): Died in the House.
  • I can’t find any online record for the stuff scheduled for May 20. I’ll let you know if I do.

    The Ten California Cities Most Likely To Declare Bankruptcy

    May 21st, 2013

    Who’s next on the California bankrupt city hit list? Well, USA Today has been kind enough to take a stab at it, and offers up the following likely candidates, listed alphabetically:

  • Atwater
  • Asuza
  • Compton
  • Fresno
  • Hercules
  • Mammoth Lakes
  • Monrovia
  • Oakland
  • San Jose
  • Vernon
  • Wait, Vernon? Vernon hasn’t already declared bankruptcy? The city that would probably win “Most Corrupt City in California” if not for stiff competition from Bell?

    If I had to wager, I’d pick Vernon, though Compton and Mammoth Lake are also good candidates…

    A Tiny Smidgeon of Random Obama Scandal News

    May 20th, 2013

    Been busy, stuff on my plate, fish to fry, insert polite noise here.

    So, a few links:

  • True The Vote founder harassed by the IRS, OSHA, FBI, and ATF.
  • Three Fox reporters targeted by DOJ. At this point I think it’s far to ask if Obama flipped through All the President’s Men looking for management tips.
  • A bushel of pinocchios for Lois Lerner (via Instapundit).
  • Are all these scandals making it easier for illegal alien amnesty to pass?
  • LinkSwarm for May 17, 2013

    May 17th, 2013

    And here’s another Friday LinkSwarm!

  • A reporter comes out and says the IRS harassed him after he did a tough interview with Obama.
  • The IRS knew about the scandal in 2012, but decided to wait until Obama was safely elected.
  • Why was the press so slow to pick up on so many of Obama’s scandals? Part of it is the media watchdogs are sleeping with the wolves.
  • Eurozone shrinks for sixth consecutive quarter and no one knows what to do about it. Well, that’s not true. I know what to do about it: Cut all budgets until they match receipts, reform the welfare state, and abandon the Euro. But I suspect Eurocrats would prefer another six quarters of shrinkage (at a minimum) before they’re willing to contemplate such heresy…
  • Republican in charge of Hispanic outreach in Florida switches to the Democratic Party. That’s some mighty fine staffing you’ve got going on there, Lou…
  • Nurse Bloomberg, putz that he is, is doing his best to ensure that Republicans take the Senate.
  • Those 1967 Israel borders liberals are always harping on sure didn’t do anything to prevent war.
  • Hugo Chavez’s socialist paradise is running out of toilet paper.
  • Dear Depressed People: There’s a tiny chance everything isn’t hopeless bullshit.
  • Obama Scandals Midday Update for May 16, 2013

    May 16th, 2013

    There’s so much information about various Obama scandals that I’m hard-pressed to keep up, but here are a few nuggets of savory scandal goodness (or rather, badness):

  • The IRS scandal is bad, and it’s nationwide, despite attempts to limit it to the Cincinnati office.
  • IRS demands came from the Washington and California offices as well.
  • And they targeted a lot more than just a handful of Tea Party groups.
  • Holly Paz, the Director of the IRS Tax-Exempt Determinations Office is an Obama donor.
  • Nine lies from Lois Lerner.

    Under a Democratic administration, the IRS was under pressure from Democratic elected officials to investigate political enemies of the Democratic party. The agency did so. Its commissioner lied to Congress about its doing so. When the inspector general’s report was about to make these abuses public, the agency staged a classic Washington Friday news rollout at a sleepy American Bar Association tax-law conference, hoping to minimize the bad publicity. Lerner lied to the public about the nature, scope, and extent of the IRS intimidation campaign.

  • Ted Cruz says Obama is lying.
  • All the scandals converge in an attempt to get Obama re-elected.
  • The scandal calls for a special prosecutor.
  • Obama and Hillary Clinton knew Benghazi was a terrorist attack and knew they were lying about it when they lied about it.
  • How Media Matters, the Praetorian Guard of the Democratic Party Media Complex, stays tax exempt through a shell game. Both 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 versions are far more obviously creatures of the Democratic Party than the NRA is for Republicans.
  • Another Day, Another Obama Scandal

    May 15th, 2013

    I’ve been joking on Twitter that Tea Party membership would count against people during their death panel hearings. Now comes word that the IRS illegally seized some 60 million medical records from over 10 million people in California, and suddenly the joke isn’t so funny anymore. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)

    So we have a powerful and feared government agency, the IRS, which has admitted to targeting Obama’s political opponents, now being accused of illegally seizing confidential medical records. I’m sure there’s no way the information in those records (which included “included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment”) could possibly be used against Obama’s political opponents. (You know, like sealed divorce records.)

    Funny how often supposedly confidential information just magically appears in the hands of Obama Administration bureaucrats. Like those AP phone records. It just happens, like the waxing of a pestilence.

    So what’s next in the hopper of scandal? Or we going to find out the NSA has been monitoring all telephone conversations in America and providing the records directly to the DNC?

    Stay tuned…

    The Obama/Nixon Moment

    May 14th, 2013

    I was about 10 hours ahead of the curve:

    George Will:

    The burglary occurred in 1972, the climax came in 1974, but40 years ago this week — May 17, 1973 — the Senate Watergate hearings began exploring the nature of Richard Nixon’s administration. Now the nature of Barack Obama’s administration is being clarified as revelations about IRS targeting of conservative groups merge with myriad Benghazi mendacities.

    Snip.

    Jay Carney, whose unenviable job is not to explain but to explain away what his employers say, calls the IRS’s behavior “inappropriate.” No, using the salad fork for the entree is inappropriate. Using the Internal Revenue Service for political purposes is a criminal offense.

    The IRS was using the information to build an enemies list.

    In fact, the Obama Administration’s use of the IRS to harass political enemies, and the threat to do so, has been long-running and pervasive.

    The Boston Herald also breaks out the N Word (Nixon):

    President Obama’s second-term campaign slogan was “Forward,” but instead we’ve got cover-ups, congressional investigations and the government persecution of political opponents and reporters.

    That sounds like “backward” to me. All the way to, say, 1972.

    Who would have guessed that just a few months into his second term, President Obama would be compared to Tricky Dick. And by a liberal Massachusetts Democrat — U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano.

    Republicans could not even have scripted this one. The agency most hated by voters, the Internal Revenue Service, admits to going on a Nixonian witch hunt against Tea Party and conservative groups during the re-election campaign.

    This is a story even the most partisan Massachusetts liberal cannot defend. It’s so bad that even Ed Markey is calling for heads to roll.

    The man behind The Pentagon Papers thinks that Obama is worse than Nixon ever was.

    The multiple scandals are so obvious that even the MSM is waking up. Jay Carney has spent six months peeing on reporters’ legs and calling it rain. Reporters have finally started waking up. “Hey, wait a minute! I don’t think rain is usually this warm!”

    And here’s a nice image from Buzzfeed:

    Obama Is Not A Crook!

    May 13th, 2013

    Or so he would have us believe. But the Obama Administration has been acting pretty Nixonian as of late.

    First there’s how the White House lied about Benghazi, and how the CIA’s original talking points were altered to support the lie. (Exactly how those edits in talking points evolved can be found here.) And they’re still lying.

    Then there’s the IRS scandal. Not only was the IRS targeting and auditing Tea Party groups, there were asking for a ridiculous amount of personal information. Like the names of family members and a list of all the members of the news media the group has ever interacted with. Then they released some completed comments to ProPublica before they had been approved, i.e., they weren’t public documents yet.

    And here’s the IRS crew responsible.

    Then there’s that whole getting all AP telephone records for two months thing.

    Time even breaks out the Kleins in an attempt to poo-poo the very idea of Obama’s resemblance to Tricky Dick.

    Indeed, Obama seems to be following the Nixonian blueprint far more effectively than Nixon ever could.

    Of course, there is one big difference between Obama and Nixon…

    LinkSwarm for May 10, 2013

    May 10th, 2013

    For a shocking change of pace, the Friday LinkSwarm will be on Friday:

  • “How can we ‘gun people’ honestly be expected to come to the table with anti-gunners when anti-gunners are willfully stupid about guns, and openly hate, despise and ridicule those of us who own them?” Read the whole thing.
  • Sheila Jackson Lee wants a National Gun Registry.
  • The lovely qualities of Jihadi Facebook pages: “The further I crawled down the extremist rabbit hole and the more caved-in skulls and headless corpses I saw.”
  • Union politics helped create the Baltimore Booty House.
  • “The Euro cannot be destroyed by any craft that we here possess. It was made in the fires of Frankfurt. Only there can it be unmade.” What does it say when Sauron wants the ring, er, Euro destroyed as well? Though once again: Austerity hasn’t failed in Europe, it hasn’t been tried.
  • “It was one thing to do amnesty during the white hot Reagan economy of the mid to late 80s. It’s quite another to do it in the midst of the Obama depression.”
  • Harry Reid unwilling to bargain in raising the debt ceiling? I say fine and dandy. Just cut government spending across the board until the budget is balanced.
  • “Detroit in worse shape than previously thought.” I don’t see how that statement can be true for any story that doesn’t include the word “cannibalism.”
  • London mayor Boris Johnson thinks it would be a good thing for democracy if the UK were to just walk away from the EU.
  • Travis County Democratic District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg is out of the clink after serving half a 45 day sentence for DWI. A jury will evidently determine “whether her drunken driving was habitual or whether the recent arrest was the result of a one-time event.” Because lots of people without alcohol problems suddenly decide “Hey, I’m going to go cruising around town with an open bottle of vodka and a blood alcohol level of .239! That sounds like a great idea!” I might believe that…if Lehmberg was 21.
  • Ted Cruz 1, Obama 0:
  • Texas vs. California Update for May 9, 2013

    May 9th, 2013

    Time for another Texas vs. California update!

  • It’s time for public employee unions to wake up and take a look around. Government services are shrinking, cities are crumbling, and they’re enjoying pay and benefit packages that many in the private sector would kill for. They need to give a little back…Because up and down the state of California, and beyond, public officials foolishly negotiated contracts they can’t pay for without taking a cleaver to basic services, including police and fire protection, park maintenance, street repair.”
  • California’s total government debt, at all levels, is estimated between $848 billion and $1.126 trillion. Funny how the word “trillion” crops up in reference to debt when Democrats are in charge of things…
  • ObamaCare is going to hit California harder than most states.
  • A group of California teacher’s has filed suit against the California Teachers Association for using their money for political purposes. You don’t say.
  • More on Compulsory California union “agency fees.”
  • The New York Times all but comes out and says that the LA Times is an extension of the Democratic Party. Which is why both the MSM and the Left are panicking that it might be sold to the Koch Brothers.
  • Average employee pay at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power rose 15% over the last five years, despite an economic slump that ravaged the city’s budget, records released Tuesday show.
  • In a rare spot of good news for California, their revenue are running just far enough ahead of schedule that they no longer need to make do with internal borrowing between state agencies. But I would suggest that this windfall will prove to be temporary…
  • Texas once again named the best state for business by CEO Magazine. And California was once again named the worst.
  • A tale of two oil states.
  • Raytheon moving HQ from California to Texas.
  • Texas doctors open up a new front against ObamaCare.