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As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

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90% of New Yorkers defy the state’s new gun registration law

Rebellion: A report in New York strongly suggests that more than 90% of the population is refusing to register their weapons as required by the new gun control law rammed through the legislature after the Sandy Hook massacre.

The article also notes that sheriffs and the rank-in-file have no intention of enforcing the registration part of the law either.

This story illustrates why it is essential we take great care in the laws we pass. If we write bad laws, we not only oppress innocent law-abiding citizens, we foster contempt for the law, which in the end can cause the collapse of civilized society and even more oppression.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • Edward

    It isn’t just the laws passed, it is also the enforcement of them and the leadership’s attitude toward them. A president’s influence is strong: America’s youth and their culture were dramatically changed when President Clinton redefined sexual relations.

    Is it possible that New Yorkers are merely observing Obama’s lackadaisical attitude for following laws?

    Obama himself has violated his own signature law, Obamacare, so many times that it is hard to keep count.

    Millions of Americans are now scofflaws when it comes to Obama’s signature law. Of the 45 million people who didn’t have health insurance in 2013, only about 5 million followed the law and signed up in 2014.

    Obama violates the Constitution (the supreme law of the land) for many of the policies that he enacts, bypassing Congress as though they don’t matter and only get in his way.

    Then there are those around the president who likewise are careless about following laws. Tim Geithner was nominated and approved despite having misreported his taxes — and he was put in charge of taxes. (The taxing agency has proved itself pretty careless with the law, too.) Obama’s Attorney General said that he would never prosecute “my kind,” meaning that he would willfully let people that he favored get away with crimes (which seems to include people who work for the Obama administration).

    If the President of the United States and his administration can set the example of being contemptuous of our laws, why shouldn’t the rest of us — including New York’s sheriffs — become equally contemptuous, even of Obama’s laws?

  • Cotour

    Two observations Edward,

    1. One technicality, the Constitution is the frame work of American law from which all law is developed, it itself is not law in the respect that you might mean.

    And

    2. The Sheriffs of N.Y.S. are elected officials and are defying Governor Cuomo’s opportunistic un Constitutional, both by the U.S. Constitution and the N.Y.S. Constitution, and political move after the horrible Sandy Hook massacre by a mentally ill boy who was empowered to do what he did by his irresponsible mother (and father IMO). A purely reactionary and political pandering move about ridiculous rules for individuals to follow.

    Remember “you don’t need 10 bullets to kill a deer” as Cuomo is famous for saying, like that has anything to do with the second amendment or anything else.

  • mpthompson

    General enforcement of these laws doesn’t matter much. What’s more important is they allow more tools for selective enforcement in the future against inconvenient people.

    Are you a progressive running for a congressional district? Is your opponent breaking a law that 90% of gun owners are ignoring? Great, club him or her over the head with it. Bonus points if you can get your opponent arrested and on the evening news in handcuffs.

    Is a local uppity business owner failing to service some imagined protected class du jour? Great, go after the business owner with this law if they happen to be a gun owner too.

    Nothing is more thrilling to a progressive than a law that 90% of the people are ignoring as it is useful in so many ways.

  • Edward

    Cotour,

    Two observations:

    1. I keep recommending that you read the US Constitution sometime. Now would be a good time to do so. Please take special note of Article VI, Section 2:
    “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.”
    http://constitutionus.com/#a6c2

    To abridge the relevant part: “This Constitution … shall be the supreme Law of the Land.”

    2. The point is that being a scofflaw is increasing in popularity, in Obama’s America (land of the formerly free).

    3. Oops — three observations: It seems that we disagree on more than we previously thought.

  • Cotour

    Maybe I am splitting hairs here. I am trying to come up with distinct examples of Obama violating more current laws passed as a result of the Constitutional structure but I believe that he is really an overall offence to the fundamental intent of the entire thing, from the body of the document right through to any and all law passed as a result of it.

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