Piranhas in Cheyenne

HB78 failed last week, and HB46 didn't make it even that far. The local paper's editorial pages argued strongly against 78, though I doubt that's what did it in. NRA's emails suggested that it competed with other bills regarding what Wyoming would do with its revenue surplus, and lost; the website for the Wyoming legislature also listed at least two other bills in the House that aimed to liberalize concealed carry. HB78 just went the farthest of them.

As I have said in other venues, concealed carry is liberalizing and expanding rapidly, such that I predict in 10 years all but two States will offer shall-issue CCW permits at the most restrictive, and many will have permit-free carry like Vermont has always had and Alaska recently adopted. Those two hold-out States will be at risk of losing Federal monies because they do not allow uniform CCW for their own citizens nor reciprocity with other States' CCWs. What Wyoming failed to get in HB78 this year will be back, again and again, until it is law. Permit-regulated concealed carry leads the way and makes permit-free laws palatable, passable, and therefore possible.

And someone will always be unhappy with it, even with the very idea of it. Since Wyoming Tribune Eagle does not load much of its content online, I can point you to neither their editorials nor to the lettitors they spawned. As I receive WTE only on Sundays, I can't riffle through the back issues to recreate the dialog either. Their copyright feathers might also get ruffled if I OCR'd them for reproduction here.

But what little I see still shows stark and embarrassing illiteracy on the part of concealed-carry opponents.

In particular, one Roger MacDonald-Evoy seems to have jumped the shark, by misidentifying the Second Amendment as the States' Rights Amendment, and arguing that the Second Amendment is a State or collective right.

I didn't know that anyone had designated one of the articles of the Bill of Rights as a states' rights amendment per se---as a Federalist, I assert that a) States have no rights, merely powers, which were intended to be broad, and b) the Federal government's powers were enumerated---relying on just one article to set this principle forth seems redundant on the one hand, and pitiably inadequate on the other. But we Federalists, though outspoken, are scarce. Other Constitutional philosophies, and even unconstitutional ones, prevail.

Don't get me wrong, I like Mac-evoy, as he calls himself; I've worked a little with him, and he shares some of my tastes, such as Firesign Theatre and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. He's a witty fellow, and I'm a little surprised and disappointed he didn't prepare himself better for one of the blogosphere's best-illuminated topics.

The letters to WTE's editor today lit him up, including one from HB78's original sponsor. Again, I apologize that I can't link to them, because WTE doesn't put their content on-line. Mabye Macevoy thought this would be a simple appeal to logic, no more effort or trouble than stepping gently across the swamp of irrational redneck gunlove. Instead, he has piranhas roiling the water up to his 'nads and no firm place to stand.