Random Thoughts on Current Events

VSSA's sister organization, the Illinois State Rifle Association, sends a Thursday Bulletin to their membership.  In it, Richard Pearson, the ISRA Executive Director, shares news and thoughts of interest to their membership.  This week's Thursday Bulletin made a couple of great points on current events that could affect gun owners so they are shared below.

The shooting in New Zealand was designed to push gun control and, of course, the choir of canaries in the liberal media started chirping right on queue. Predictably, the media blamed President Trump for the whole thing. I imagine if two asteroids collide in a galaxy 20,000 light years away it would be the President’s fault, according to CNN, MSNBC, ABC and CBS. This illogical blame game will only heat up as we get closer to the 2020 elections.

The left-wing talking heads have brought forth a couple of ideas to tamper with our proven institutions. Their first is to tamper with the United States Supreme Court by “packing” the Court. To do this, the number of Justices would be increased, presumably, with left-wing ideologues to overwhelm the conservatives on the Court. This has been tried before by FDR.

Their second idea is to have term limits on the Justices or to have reappointment hearings every so many years. If any of those ideas were passed, every year we would have a fiasco like the Kavanaugh hearings. Any of these ideas would turn the Supreme Court into a constant ineffective circus, which is what the left wants.

Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren is railing against the Electoral College. The Electoral College was designed as one last step should the electorate elect some clown or traitor to the Presidency. You can tell who should not be elected by the candidates who hate the Electoral College. The Electoral College has worked just fine and should be left alone.

The United States Supreme Court and the Electoral College were both designed to prevent mob rule and prevent tyranny. Most people equate tyranny with dictatorship but that is not necessarily so. Any form of government can become tyrannical including democracies.

Regarding the Electoral College, remember that the United States is a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy. And without the Electoral College, we would no longer be a Republic.  What Warren and other Democratic Presidential Candidates want is a direct democracy where 50% plus 1 rules.  That means states like California, New York, Illinois and a few others, all with large cities and large populations, would decide what the rest of the country does.  That is exactly what the founders tried to prevent.  The Presidential election is not one election, but 51 distinct elections - in all fifty states and the District of Columbia.  You are not actually voting for the candidate but for electors for those candidates.  Those electors then cast their ballots on the appointed date after the election based on what the vote totals were in their state.  It's why the election matters in all fifty states.  Without the Electoral College, the most populous states would decide the election. Much is made about the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016 but the fact is, those numbers were largely driven by running up the numbers in states like California and New York.  While she had a higher number of "popular" votes, Donald Trump won more states, which is exactly how the system was created to work.

ISRA also included a list of the 16 states that currently have "constitutional" carry.   For those interested, those states are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.