Huh. The Journal Gazette had a gun control editorial this morning that I didn't totally hate:
States can give their residents permission to carry a gun in public – but they can attach requirements with that permission. In Texas, for example, residents must take 10 hours of classes in gun use and safety, qualify on a firing range and pass a 50-question test to receive a carry permit. And every five years, they must recertify their license, which requires more classes. Ohio also requires training to receive a carry permit.
Indiana, however, requires no training or proof of skills – and allows Hoosiers to obtain a lifetime carry permit, ending a renewal process that could identify people who no longer qualify.
Three years ago, the Indianapolis Star – using the database of Indiana handgun permits – found that state police wrongly approved gun permits in Lake and Marion counties for Hoosiers with criminal histories. State lawmakers responded in their 2010 session – by making secret the previously open records of people who received state permits.
Also in that session, lawmakers passed a rare bill against the interests of businesses, creating a law allowing workers to keep guns in their cars parked at businesses. Previously, businesses had wide ability to regulate what employees can and cannot bring to their workplace property.
I'm ambivalent about the guns-in-parked-cars legislation, which, I think, is the proper state of mind when two sets of rights are in conflict. But the lifetime permits coupled with the complete absence of a proof-of-skills requirement is just a dumb idea. The fact that Indiana is a lot looser with its regulations than supposedly gun-crazy Texas ought to make us pause and reconsider.
Comments
"The fact that Indiana is a lot looser with its regulations than supposedly gun-crazy Texas ought to make us pause and reconsider."
Why? What evidence would you offer to bolster that? Has there been a series of incidents involving permit holders that we are unaware of?
Tim, you can't come up with any evidence?
Do the names Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith mean nothing to you? They weren't lynching people on scant evidence in Texas in 1930.
What about the name Robert Welch? He was known mostly as a retired candy maker until he founded the John Birch Society in 1958 with a dozen followers, mostly from Indiana, and the leaders of the conservative movement, Bill Buckley and Barry Goldwater, were denouncing the Welchites by 1964.
Are you unaware that the Klan was stronger in Indiana than in any other state?
Southerners are stereotyped as being stupid, hate-filled, and dirty, but judging from the actual evidence, Indiana doesn't take a back seat to anybody. People are pretty much the same, no matter where I've lived and worked.
As usual Harl, my point soared copletely over your head....
If we have looser concealed carry stips than Texas it does not matter, and our stips need not be tampered with absent some conspicuous increase in Indiana concealed carry permit holders suddenly running amok. I abhor the notion of new laws and regulations based on a "gee, but what if" .....
Tim, if you want peopleto see your point, take your hat off. Either that, or say what you mean.
Indiana government is fairly oppressive.
A few years ago, there was a big stink because a local Indiana government sold off an owner-occupied house for unpaid taxes without notifying the owners that the taxes were overdue, or even posting a sign on the property saying a public auction of the place was scheduled. In Texas, banks won't refinance a house because the government won't allow foreclosure except for a mortgage taken out at the time the house is sold.
I'm not sure about Texas, but in many states, voters have to approve levies for property taxes, whether they be for the library, the schools, or the general fund. In Indiana, the politicians raise the real estate taxes without bothering to ask.
I remember an associate who had recently moved from Benton Township (Payne) to somewhere north of Cook Road about 3 decades ago, who was really upset because he was having to build a mound system for $30K instead of putting in a leech bed and septic tank himself for $500, borrowing a backhoe from his father. There were no building codes, no building inspectors, no mandatory leech tests on the farm, but in Indiana, he complained, you had to hire a licensed electrician to change a light bulb. My brother, rewired his entire Texas house from knob-and-tube to grounded romex with no permits or inspections required.
You think Indiana has lax laws? In New Hampshire, issuance of a CCW has been almost mandatory for the last half-century. Connecticut established a board back in the 1960s to review denials of CCW (but no reviews of issuances). In Pennsylvania, they issue CCW permits, but they are meaningless, since the state constitution guarantees the right to carry firearms in public.
I don't think I should carry a gun, because I struggle to see well enough to pass Leo's new captcha. I carry homemade grenades instead, though. If I can't throw one within 25 feet of my target, I'll need to invest in some microwave ovens. http://tinyurl.com/ck4qmwf