Gun Laws and Sales Take Unique Twists.

     If there is any logic to American gun laws, past and present, I’d love to hear it.

     The irony and flexibility between different states and communities provide both a progressive and paranoid picture. The United States Senate panel on gun control is considering specific steps forward this week.

     State officials may be battling the federal government soon because the conflicts and confusion provide for an enormous undertaking for a comprehensive plan. It’s impossible.

     But the one thing that isn’t complicated is the enhancement of state revenues through gun sales. State officials are lining up to find a “sin tax” revenue source, and they may have found the butter for their bread. Maryland officials want a 50 percent ammunition tax and Massachusetts wants to impose a 25 percent sales tax on all gun purchases. Nevada officials are considering a $25 tax per gun sale, which would include all gun shows in Las Vegas.

     And the most persistent legislation is coming out of California. House of Representatives member Linda Sanchez, D-California, wants a 10 percent tax on all concealable weapons purchased in the United States to go toward a federal buyback program to get guns off the streets. Meanwhile, the state legislature in California is considering a 5 percent tax on every bullet sold in the state towards a mental health screening program for children.

      In Congress, the Senate legislature would target a new ban on semi-automatic weapons modeled after military assault rifles. It would consider imposing the 1996 ban on all assault weapons that expired a decade later.

     But would it make a real difference in America’s fight against violence?

     Experts say there are already somewhere between 280 million and 320 million guns in the country today. Director of gun policy and research for the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Jon Vernick says research doesn’t find any evidence gun buyback programs reduce crime.

     The powerful National Rifle Association would have you believe we need more guns in America to fight criminals. The NRA released figures recently showing more than 500,000 new members have signed up since the 26 educators and children were shot to death at an elementary school massacre by a lone gunman last December in Newtown, Connecticut.

     The General Social Survey at the University of Chicago says gun ownership in households has actually declined steadily over the past four decades. The survey also says household gun ownership rates have declined from 50 percent in the 1970s to about 35 percent since the year 2000. The national survey is the only one of its kind and is funded by the National Science Foundation.

     But those figures differ with FBI statistics as well as Gallup Research Surveys which show nearly half the households in America have a firearm.

     The Second Amendment of the Constitution allows for the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and that right shall not be infringed.

     To what logic that freedom is allowed is a good question.

     Two small communities in Georgia and Maine have taken a unique but perhaps worrisome approach to the growing gun violence dilemma.

     The City Council of Nelson, Ga., has written a Family Protection Ordinance to be considered in April.

      The two-paragraph proposal reads, "In order to provide for the emergency management of the city, and further, in order to provide for and protect the safety, security, and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing in the city limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition therefore."

     As explained by city officials, the rule would mirror one passed in nearby Kennesaw back in 1982. It would mandate gun ownership in every household. It is also supported by the police chief of Nelson, a city of just 1,300 residents, who has offered free gun safety classes and gun checks, if the law passes.

     “It’s a great idea,’’ said Police Chief Heath Mitchell. “Obviously, if you cannot afford it, don’t believe in it, or are a convicted felon or are handicapped, you are exempt from the mandate.”

     Nelson residents believe it is a great deterrent from crime. They believe criminals will bypass their small town just north of Atlanta, if the bad guys “don’t know what’s on the other side of the front door of the house.”

     Despite the national and international media attention the city of Nelson has received with the proposal, it turns out it isn’t that unique. Similar laws have been passed in Utah, Minnesota, and Idaho since 2000, and a small town in Maine is also currently considering such a proposal. Monday the town of Byron, Maine unanimously rejected a proposal to require every household to own a firearm, but city officials in the 140-resident town plan to bring the issue up again next month.

     Colorado state officials are barking for stricter gun laws. That state has seen two of the worst mass murders in recent American history. Last July, a lone gunman with an assault rifle stormed into a theatre and killed 12 people and injured 58 others in Aurora.

     In 1999, two students shot and killed 13 and wounded 23 others during the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton.

     Yet, just south of Colorado in Arizona, state officials passed a 2009 law that allows residents to enter bars with loaded firearms. Tucson officials recently took in 200 guns in a citywide buyback program with the idea of destroying those guns. State officials are discussing a law that would mandate any guns received in such buyback programs be resold.

     As if we don’t have enough guns without the sale one more in America. The Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics show there are 310 million guns in America which include 114 million handguns, 110 rifles, and 86 million shotguns. After nearly 17 million background checks since 1998, the FBI has denied about 900,000 individual gun sales. In the past year, the FBI denied 7,879 sales due to mental health issues.

     But firearm sales are a $5 billion annual industry in America, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. And that insures America continues its prominence as the most gun violent country per capita in the world.

America's Transparent Fiscal Cliff Mirror

      Where is this fiscal cliff I keep hearing Americans talk about?

     Does anybody really know? Can anyone show me a picture or even define what exactly is a fiscal cliff?

     Over the past nine months, I have traveled through twenty-seven different states throughout the country from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean in search of a landmark I'm unable to locate.

     It doesn't exist. No one can offer concrete facts and figures. And there within lies the problem.

     We don’t even have a starting point in the debate. The argument should have taken place years ago.

     The real issue here, ladies and gentlemen, is transparency.

     Apathy and ignorance dominate the American public. Fiscal cliff, you ask?

     It’s a catch phrase. Two buzz words. Talk points, as they call them today.

     What you need to know is The U. S. is in debt for $16 trillion dollars and counting. Such a debt obviously doesn’t occur overnight. In general terms, less than half the population is working to support the remaining human beings wandering around our country. That’s a huge problem.

     So why do we talk about this fiscal cliff like it’s Santa Claus’ business.  Because it might as well be. We didn’t care when the national debt started, didn’t pay attention when it rose to monumental levels, and even now we aren’t talking about realistic ways and means of getting ourselves out of delinquency and financial ruin.

     Maybe the debt will just go away with the winter weather pattern.

     NOT!

     We are all to blame for this miserable blizzard that has hit the American economy and the idea that something concrete will be done to solve the upcoming crisis is as Bob Dylan would say, “Blowin’ in the wind.”

     When was the last time you really believed the public had a say in what the national government does and does not do? When was the last time you got involved? How difficult would it be to get straight answers about the fact and figures?

     The answer is right before the American public’s eyes, and we are too busy blowing and powdering our noses to see it. We’re letting our rights, power, and financial welfare fade away and swirl down the drain with each passing day.

     The United States Constitution protects us all. We still have rights. It’s guaranteed. Yet we allow ourselves to be trampled over by greedy lobbyists, selfish corporate entities, and an arrogant Wall Street gang that make Bonnie and Clyde look like angels.

     If you had valuable equipment in the garage, you’d make sure the doors and windows were locked each night before you went to sleep at night. We leave the doors wide open to local, state, and federal thieves. Then we make excuses why we can’t close the windows or shut the light off. Then we wonder why the cars and valuables have gone missing by morning.

     Americans have been feeling the current financial heat and economic stress for half a decade now. We haven’t heard any concrete answers for our unemployment, housing, taxation, and banking woes. Yet the wizards in the know play with numbers. Continue to play with numbers to furnish their needs ahead of the people they work for. And we fear China? We have enough to fear right here at home in Washington, D. C.

     Records show six billion dollars was spent on the most expensive election in America’s history in 2012, including some $129 million in completely anonymous funds, thanks to a ridiculous U. S. Supreme Court decision. And yet, after one of the most grueling, negative, and polarized elections in modern day history, what really happened?

     The same players are in the same hot spots. President Barack Obama was re-elected, perhaps as the lesser of two evils. House Majority Leader John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi returned to their cozy power spots as the 113^th Congress opened. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid faced off against Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell over the fiscal cliff myth with basically the same arguments they have been arguing over for more than a decade.

      “We must restore the American public’s confidence,” chanted Pelosi, referring to the fact that the 112^th Congress was rated as the worst ever by the American public .

     Then Pelosi went out and ordered a photo of the women in the 113^th Congress super-imposed or “doctored up” to include four women who weren’t at the photo shoot on Capitol Hill. She ordered staff to throw their individual photos into the group shot, if they were posing along with the fifty-seven other women who made up the historic largest female contingent.

     That must have been some restoration project.

     We need open debates in America. No more backroom deals. Live discussions. Facts and figures intelligent minds can understand. Formulas that actually make logical sense.

     So I’m shouting out, via a blog, for something new that should actually be an old way to educate. Transparency. Open documents. Use of the internet to give us money trails for government finances that the real and true bosses, the American public, should be able to review at their leisure.

     There are easy ways to achieve this goal. It’s a silent revolution. You can read on as I enclose some of the ways to get involved. It’s all free reading and doesn’t really matter to me how involved you get.

     After all, it’s your dollars and your debt.