billeisele

Well then,,,it may be good to stop rambling on and on using 5x more words than are needed on theories that aren't substantiated. If the federal government doesn't care enough to provide the essential service of border control then why should they be tasked with feral hog control? We're all aware of a 10-year old girl that was raped and impregnated by an illegal alien. That may have been preventable with proper border management. Other than the fact that it would cost multiple times more if the government took on the task they would do a much less effective job, especially since it's mostly private land. I guess you'll just remain grumpy since many disagree with your viewpoint. Granted, some that disagree with you are bonafide nut cases. We should also agree that some that want firearms banned are also bonafide nut jobs. If you want we can agree that those numbers equal each other. But let's explore your suggestion. What firearms are you concerned about and how do you propose we remove them from society? If you say AR type rifles, be aware that: - Based on the best info available, all rifles account for only 10% of firearm deaths. If you want we can assume that all rifle deaths are with an AR platform. - Best estimates are that there are 20 million AR type rifles in private ownership. - A quick search on the Palmetto State Armory website shows a price range of $500 - $1800. That's without many of the typical add-ons, mags or optics that increase the cost $200-$1,000 or more. Let's just assume that the average cost is $1,300. That makes the value of the publicly owned AR firearms $26 billion. - Criminals don't obey the law So, what do we do and how do we do it legally to make a material impact on firearm deaths?

You appear to be saying that the 99.9+% of responsible AR owners should be denied the opportunity of ownership because of the 0.1-% with mental issues thus conveying that the problem is the gun not the person. Your post infers a unique knowledge of the shooters mindset, one that hasn't been reliably established or backed up by facts. If there are some I'd be thrilled to read them. The term is used specifically for the ignorant "ban assault weapons" crowd that has no clue what they are talking about. Kinda like Joe and his AR14 comment. You profess to be an aviation guy. Have you ever tried hog eradication from a rotary platform with a bolt action? I mean they use semi and full autos, and some offer belt fed weapons. If one of those pilots went nut job it would be bad. Better ban them too. One of the military manufacturers was one of my customers. Strictly from an engineering perspective it was interesting to see how each piece was milled, the barrels hammer forged then a random weapon from a batch was subjected to repeated mag dumps at the indoor factory range in auto mode to seek a failure point. Simply amazing engineering. Some would say that the "need" is there. The 2nd uses the term "necessary." I'm not in that crowd but understand the sentiment. Don't know what literature you consume but it makes you grumpy and unnecessarily accusatory.

Absolutely agree with everything after the first sentence. No doubt there are lawmakers and others that would prefer to ban firearms. And all or most of them have armed bodyguards and/or government provided security. That gets to the question of why nothing happened for almost 30 years. As I watched the politics unfold it seems that neither party was willing to let the other party have a "win." If one party promotes a bill that is legal and passable the other party knocks it down. It has occurred on both sides. Then there is/was this bipartisan group and their suggestions that finally accomplished something. Biden signed it in June, we'll see what happens. $750 m for mental health type stuff, under the red flag provision a court order can stop someone from buying a gun (suspect that will be challenged in court), the "boyfriend loophole", allows searches of juvenile records, goes after one type of unregistered gun seller, and provides funds for increased school security.

Jerry - My wife taught for 28 years. You are correct. When she had a good leader there were minimal school problems and she enjoyed teaching. Lucky for us her pay wasn't an issue. When the leadership changed and respect went away the problems increased. Teaching was no longer enjoyable. There are many causes of the teacher shortage. Some seek that career because of the schedule and summers off. Respect, pay, working conditions, etc. all play a role, just like any job. In SC the starting pay with a Bachelors Degree ranges from $36.0 - $41.7K. Looking at Richland County, location of the capital, it's $41k. After 10 years it's $46k, and it tops out in 25 yrs at $57k. With a Masters Degree it starts at $44.5k and tops out at $67k. For many folks, those pay levels aren't interesting. Also, there is no incentive. The worst teacher gets paid the same as the best teacher. It's all about time-in-existence, not performance. https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fed.sc.gov%2Ffinance%2Ffinancial-data%2Fhistorical-data%2Fteacher-salary-schedules%2Ffiscal-year-2021-2022-district-minimum-salary-schedules%2F&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK In my company - A lineman with no degree was making $60 - $80. A clerk was making $50+. In the power plant the highest paid guy was an old super nice black guy with no degree but dang he could operate a bulldozer pushing coal around, was making more than the plant manager with his EE degree. When the trains arrive they have to be unloaded, he enjoyed plenty of OT.

Guns in the US will not disappear. Banning a scary looking semi-auto rifle will not stop gun killings. Banning high cap mags may have no impact. Both will only prevent legal ownership and criminals do not obey laws. Gun free zones are a primary target for shooters. About 10% of gun killings are with a rifle, 90% are with pistols. Focusing primarily on scary looking rifles is not productive. A 50% success rate only reduces gun killings 5%. Over the 3-day July 4th weekend in Chicago there were 68 shootings and 8 deaths. No national media coverage. Amen for the citizen that was willing to stop the shooter from killing more than 4. Until the facts are recognized and addressed nothing will change. Only one person has answered the basic question: What can be done to reduce gun killings without impacting people's rights under the 2nd? We've previously agreed that better background checks are needed. If it's legal to delay a purchase to the age of 21 that might help. But.....Only 60% of shooting data is comprehensively reported by law enforcement for the FBI database. Better data should yield better solutions. That's something that should be easy to fix. The AP stated, “The (media) coverage has given people the impression that things are different today, that we’ve never really experienced these (mass killings) before. But we have. It’s more common now, but it’s still extremely, extremely rare,” given the size of the U.S. population, said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University who has been tracking mass killings since 2006 along with The Associated Press and USA Today. Most homicides are one person killing another."

Yep. Certainly there are other requirements, but then stating them would make the post less sensational. But maybe there isn't. SC also has a shortage, and pay is a problem. They are slowly addressing it but it remains a problem. They allow people without a teaching certificate to teach if they have specific expertise in the field they teach. Often it's in math, foreign language or science.

Greenwood IN mall shooting. Hooray for a good guy. "The real hero of the day is the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in that food court and was able to stop the shooter almost as soon as he began," Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison said.

When the waste stream issues are included renewables become a major problem. Batteries, solar panels and wind turbine blades are a problem. The toxic materials in solar panels are serious. Unfortunately the cost to recycle is 10-30 times higher than the value obtained from the recycled materials, that makes recycling unlikely. Once in a landfill those chemicals will leach into drinking water. There are plenty of articles on the topic. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2021/06/21/why-everything-they-said-about-solar---including-that-its-clean-and-cheap---was-wrong/?sh=434e1aba5fe5 "But the volume of solar panel waste will destroy the economics of solar even with the subsidies, they say. "By 2035,” write the three economists, “discarded panels would outweigh new units sold by 2.56 times. In turn, this would catapult the LCOE (levelized cost of energy, a measure of the overall cost of an energy-producing asset over its lifetime) to four times the current projection.”"

Another wonderful politician. Senator Karen Peterson (D) Louisiana accused of using political funds for personal expenses including gambling debts. "Sen. Peterson formed the "Karen Carter Peterson Campaign Fund (KCPCF.) Monetary donations were accepted by the KCPCF with the belief that the funds would be used to aid in the re-election campaign for Peterson’s position as State Senator. According to court documents, Sen. Peterson “diverted, and caused her friends and associates to divert, campaign funds from the KCPCF to Peterson's personal use for the purpose of obtaining and using money and property from contributors to the KCPCF by means of materially false and fraudulent representations and promises for nearly seven (7) years.”"

I'm not aware of any overt action to keep him away. But....much like I suspect is happening on the Dem side with Biden, I'm holding out the hope that there are many Reps that realize Trump 2.0 would not be good. I have no clue "how the soup is made" in the political gamesmanship of the DNC or RNC. With people's willingness to forget and forgive, and the concept of "recency bias", it does make me wonder what would happen if Trump did something outstanding then came out and stopped most of his negative behaviors. In the last election some think that if he had stopped demeaning people and, in general, shut up, he would have been reelected. I doubt he's capable of doing that. We'll see.

Uhhh.....because many believe that he's mentally deficient. Oftentimes when he speaks freely he makes big mistakes. Most remember his 90-second rant where he said AR14 instead of AR15 and called semi-autos machine guns while insulting the auto union worker, "You're full of shit." The State of the Union flub was terrible, "Putin may circle Kyiv with tanks but he'll never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people." His writers have to be more careful now that they know he'll read everything on the teleprompter, "end of quote, repeat the line." A March poll showed that, "Only 40 percent believe that Biden is mentally sharp enough for the job." I get it, people make mistakes. At his level and with his frequency that excuse isn't acceptable.

Joe - Not sure Newsom or the party would want CA front and center. One thing I hate about politics is how deep they will go to dredge up the past, then twist and restate information. CA has many issues that the rest of the country is probably not interested in embracing. One would be fuel prices, another would be the AB5 and independent trucker issue. According to AAA the current US average is $4.66, CA average is $6.01. Both parties will need to choose a candidate after the mid-terms. We'll see what happens. More interesting will be to see if the Reps can keep Trump away.

Good point. Just wanted to get the gun data straight. Bottom line is both are a big problem. Hopefully some of the recent proposed legislation on guns will be passed. Then how about the drug smuggling that comes with illegal immigration and other smuggling. Just saw this in a Biden article with him reading the teleprompter about banning assault weapons. The poll research on this topic would be interesting. "Suicides accounted for about 54 percent of all gun-related deaths in the United States in 2020, while 43 percent were murdered, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The other 3 percent were classified as gun-related deaths involving law enforcement, unintentional, or had undetermined circumstances. In 2020, handguns were involved in 59 percent of all gun-involved murders, according to the FBI. Only 3 percent involved rifles, which includes firearms that are sometimes called “assault weapons,” and shotguns were involved in 1 percent of gun-related homicides. The other 36 percent involved other guns that were classified as “type not stated,” the data show." My beef with the gun control yelling is some think that addressing "assault weapons" fixes the problem. Reality says otherwise.

I respect your opinion, even when we differ. In this case I appreciate the accurate stats. Seems that we'll disagree on border security. Agree, it's not in the Constitution. But from a practicality standpoint it makes no sense for the border states to have that role. It sure is nice that the "port of entry" for US folks returning through the Vancouver airport is in the departing airport. I do think that smaller government is better - meaning that there are things they should stay out of. One specific reason is that the feds have no clue how to be efficient or effective with money. I worked directly with the feds for 25 years, the waste was unbelievable. I actually lost a bid because my price was too low so, according to their reasoning, "there was no way we could do the job correctly." I learned to bid higher and just give them a bunch of stuff for free. Crazy. The DHS budget is about $60 billion with Border Patrol getting $5, expected to increase to $5.4. That's some serious money. US Border Patrol in Charleston was one of my customers and the spending/waste was evident. They have a training center there and do the port security. Of course, only part of the $5.4 is spent at the southern border, and there's inflation, etc. It makes no sense for individual states to perform that function. The gun data is somewhat off. The data I've seen shows: 2021 - 40,200 deaths, suicide (62%) - 25,000, remove mishandling, and self defense and you have 14,200 murders. 90% of those are with pistols in urban areas and/or gang related. That leaves 1,400 with rifles and a smaller number are "mass shootings." I've seen stats in the 400-600 range that meet that definition. All gun deaths are bad. Some say that suicide will occur regardless of the method, not sure I agree with that. It's not a good comparison to compare 38,000 to 40,200. It's also crazy to continue to focus solely on so called "assault" weapons as the problem. Especially when pistols are used in 90% of the non-suicide fatalities. And yes, there are options to manage that problem that don't infringe on the rights of legal gun owners. We discussed that before and I'm all for it.

It is the responsibility of law enforcement agencies to enforce the law. We have immigration laws. Homeland Security owns that task and has the US Border Patrol for that purpose. If it's not the responsibility of the feds then it's interesting that they are complaining that TX is doing something about it. If it's not the feds job then should the US Border Patrol be abolished? Along with illegal immigration comes drugs, sex trafficking, vicious gang members, known terrorists, and more. Fentanyl (and the generic class of synthetic opioids and precursor chemicals) are primarily produced in China and smuggled to and in through Mexico. The death rate from these drugs has increased from about zero in 2014 to ~70,000 in 2021. Seems that would attract more attention. Then there is sex trafficking of, primarily, woman. We can't ignore that if we're screaming about a SC ruling. Yes, many immigrants are hard-working, law-abiding (except for illegal entry), productive people. Only time will tell the overall outcome from illegal immigration.

He could start with leadership on border security. That is a primary function of the federal government.

Joe - the info is interesting but I'm no lawyer or historian and unsure of how that applies. I am watching with interest what is occurring at the State level. Reading an article today it said: - NC governor signed an Ex Order to continue access to abortion as provided under NC law and shielded any involved person from being extradited to another state. They are legal up to 24-28 weeks and longer if medically necessary, but not for the purpose of sex selection. - CO, Maine, Massachusetts and RI signed similar orders - SC banned abortions past 6 weeks with exceptions for rape and incest - TN is up through 6 weeks with no exceptions

I found the media clip, read it and listened to what she said. Why anyone would think that is OK is beyond me.

U R sounding like a grumpy old guy and seem upset that I read a lot and am aware of others written thoughts. Sorry to bring more info to the convo that disturbs you. And you ignored my statement, "It would have been nice if the SC had left it alone."

An interesting perspective. I guess we'll see if the doomsday predictions come true.

LOL Is this when the "You can't handle the Truth" quote comes out? No, kidding. It would have been nice if the SC had left it alone. Some are saying that there should be limits, referencing how many times should one be allowed to have an abortion simply as a form of birth control. When there was no rape or incest, no health issues, no deformed fetus, no nothing just that a baby isn't wanted. For some it's a valid question.

Yep. So which Court one was correct? The current Court wrote a fairly scathing opinion of the original ruling saying it was, "....egregiously wrong," the arguments "exceptionally weak" and so "damaging" that they amounted to "an abuse of judicial authority." Without reading the full SC opinion, the appendix, references, and the consenting and dissenting documents then all of us are forming opinions based off of summary info we've seen.

We agree. It would be great for that to occur. What the SC said was that it can't be done based on the Constitution. Congress could take action. We'll see if that occurs. It's so emotionally charged and tainted with strong religious beliefs the politicians may not want to get involved.

They reversed R v W because their analysis determined that there is no basis for it in the Constitution. The decision making was passed back to the States where, apparently, it belongs. It seems silly to automatically assume that the States will "clamp down on people's rights." At the State level the citizenry has the opportunity to be legally involved in the process.

Ms Wendy - The way I understand it is the SC ruled that R v W was not based on the Constitution and the gun laws are firmly supported under the 2nd A. That's fairly simple to understand. I'm sure that hundreds, if not thousands, of hours were spent by dozens of legal minds reviewing the Constitution and associated laws or whatever. I'm comfortable with the fact that they are, or should be, fully capable of making that analysis. Whether politics tainted the thinking is another issue. I certainly hope it didn't. By moving the abortion issue to the State level the electorate has a voice. The South Carolina politicians will have discussions, I'll be watching with interest. I know the position of our Governor and disagree with it. We should note that various courts have put holds on certain State actions that limit access to abortions. IMO It's appropriate to have meaningful discussions by each State that allow the citizens to be heard. It would be nice if religion were left out of it but I doubt that will happen.