Tag: Maryland

Categories
crime and punishment education and schooling general freedom media and media people national politics & policies responsibility Second Amendment rights

Good Guy With Gun

Blaine Gaskill, school shooting, gun, gun control, Maryland, defense, 2nd Amendment

Short version of the story: a good guy with a gun at a Maryland high school stopped a bad guy with a gun. In less than a minute. How? Because the good guy had a gun and was inside the school with the gun.

The bad guy was able to shoot a 16-year-old female student, apparently someone with whom he had a previous relationship, as well as a 14-year-old male before an officer on site responded. This officer, Blaine Gaskill, was on the spot in less than a minute. Gaskill and the assailant fired simultaneously. The assailant fell dead. What exactly happened is still unclear; there has been some media speculation that the bad guy may have shot himself.

But the 17-year-old shooter is dead. The female victim, though still alive, is unfortunately in critical condition. The male victim is in stable condition.

The good guy was armed — with a gun. And he was on site. If you’re learning about the incident here first, it’s because the story isn’t being plastered all over the place 24-7 as it would have been had the shooter been able to wreak much more havoc because nobody could quickly counter him.

So, is it okay to let responsible, well-trained administrators, teachers and others in schools be armed?

Well, ask the question a different way. If you happened to be inside the school at the time, would it be okay to survive when some maniac with a gun starts shooting at you and others inside that school?

Let’s defend our loved ones.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
Accountability government transparency insider corruption local leaders responsibility

Of Protests & Politicians

Prince George, council, county, Maryland, graft, corruption, car

Last Friday, I applauded massive protests that erupted in Romania — over a since-rescinded governmental decree to decriminalize graft up to $47,000. On Sunday at Townhall, I wondered why there weren’t similar demonstrations against the corruption afflicting Prince George’s County, Maryland.

The county, bordering the nation’s capital, lavishes its nine council members with a take-home car or a $10,315 annual vehicle subsidy. The car allowance comes with free gas.*

These emoluments might have gone unnoticed had the politicians proven able to drive better than they govern. In the last five years, they racked-up 16 car accidents and 107 traffic violations.

Councilman Mel Franklin accounts for four crashes — three resulting in injuries to innocent motorists. The cost of totaled county vehicles, and fixing other people’s cars and bodies? Nearly $100,000.

Two months ago, Franklin slammed into a stopped vehicle at a red light. He claimed he was tired. True enough, if being tired of driving drunk counts. The police breathalyzer found him legally intoxicated.

Councilwoman Karen Toles racked up 47 tickets, including one for driving 105 mph on the Capital Beltway. Her excuse? She had been too busy applying make-up and sending emails on her cellphone to notice swerving across the multi-lane freeway at that speed — “executing,” she explained, her “duties as a public servant.”

An ongoing FBI probe has led to the indictment of two other county officials, a guilty plea by a state legislator and another legislator resigned awaiting indictment.**

Obviously, political corruption is not confined to other countries.

Just as obvious, providing top pay and benefits to politicians hardly guarantees the best and brightest.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* And these perks are on top of the councilors’ $114,000 part-time salary, healthcare, pension benefits, etc., etc., etc.
** Five ears ago, infamy found the county executive on a wiretap telling his wife to stuff $80,000 in bribe money into her bra.

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Categories
crime and punishment education and schooling folly Second Amendment rights

Pop Gun Tart

Pop Tart Criminal

America is often said to be a land of second chances.

Just not for 7-year-olds. At least, not when they’re in the public school system.

Back in 2013, a boy then in second grade in Anne Arundel, Maryland, was suspended for two days for what was deemed a “gun-related” offense.

It was also a Pop Tart-related offense.

No, he didn’t shoot a Pop Tart; he bit his Pop Tart into the shape of a gun. There’s a dispute as to whether he then pointed the high-calorie weapon at the ceiling or at other students. Either way, unless the strawberry filing was piping hot (it wasn’t), there wasn’t really anything to fear.

Still, school officials pretty much freaked out.

Of course, the incident did occur just months after the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting, when six- and seven-year-olds were feeling the full weight of adult hysteria about guns, pastries, pointed fingers, etc.

Fast-forward to the present: the Maryland lad’s parents are still fighting to clear this gun-related black mark from his permanent record, fearful it could damage him even decades from now.

I don’t blame them.

Unfortunately, last week the Maryland State Board of Education upheld the suspension. A spokesperson for the local schools claimed it was warranted because of the lad’s “long history of disciplinary issues,” adding that the school “has gone to every conceivable length to assist that student.”

The attorney for the family says they will appeal.

My kids have been homeschooled, but next year my youngest will attend a public high school. I just hope we can find a good, inexpensive attorney to go with her.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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local leaders term limits

Saving Term Limits

Most ballot measures to enact term limits triumph. According to U.S. Term Limits, 100 percent of such measures did so in last November’s elections. Voters also rebuff most attempts to weaken or repeal term limits.

But not all.

Politicians who loathe term limits often use all their resources and cunning to assail them. Occasionally they claw out a victory. Thus, last month Arkansas voters narrowly approved a multi-deceptive ballot measure with provisions to weaken the state’s legislative term limits. The measure passed despite everything pro-term-limit activists could do to expose the dirty tricks.

On the other hand, anti-term-limits forces in Prince Georges County, Maryland narrowly failed to flabbify term limits from two four-year terms to three four-year terms despite generous funding of the anti-term-limits campaign (primarily by local developers).

Much of the credit for saving Prince Georges term limits goes to University of Maryland sophomore Shabham Ahmed, creator of nothreeterms.com, who campaigned relentlessly against the measure. Ahmed believes that the vote was close only because some voters misunderstood what the measure would do; voters “do get caught up in the political propaganda.”

“People are tired of politicians in our county as it is,” she says. “Extending term limits would only increase the likelihood of creating a regime in politics, and voters don’t want that.”

No, we don’t.

But the politicians want that. And they’re not done yet.

Fortunately for the residents of Prince Georges County, defenders of term limits like Shabham Ahmed aren’t either.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability free trade & free markets ideological culture

The Visible Hand Drops the Ball

One of the great things about the Obamacare fiasco is that we get to revisit many of the left’s talking points for the last half-century and more — and hand the points right back, underlined.

How many times have we heard about market failure? A relentless litany.

Today’s topic? Government failure.

How many times have we been told that markets aren’t as important as we think, since what really matters is managerial know-how? The “visible hand” and all that. It was a book, if not a movie. And its basic message was that a few college-grad experts — highly trained technocrats, all — mattered more than competition. Government experts have the information. They have the skills. The techniques are known. Don’t give us any of that “free market” mumbo-jumbo, they say.

And yet, while the federal government’s efforts to build a usable healthcare.gov website proved feckless, lame and wildly expensive, Obamacare’s increasingly unbelievable proponents kept the patter going. Some states were doing just fine, they offered. Maryland, for instance.

Well, no.

The Old Line State has had just as much trouble in its new line of pushing online medical insurance policies as other governments. Biggest problem? You mean, other than not being able to put up a usable website on schedule? Or getting only four people signed up on launch day?

The Washington Post informs us that state officials ignored warnings that “no one was ultimately accountable for the $170 million project and that the state lacked a plausible plan” for its scheduled launch.

The evidence is in. Want a new market “exchange”? Don’t turn to government.

Rely, instead, on folks competing in the real market.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

Running the Asylum

After an election in Idaho wherein legislators saw three of their laws rejected by citizen-initiated referendums, Senate Bill 1108 passed the senate and headed its way to the House. It would impose draconian new requirements to qualify a referendum or citizen initiative.

“There’s a perception that this relates to Props 1, 2 and 3,” explained the bill’s author, Sen. Curtis McKenzie (R-Nampa). “This doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

Voters in Maryland approved the three legislative enactments petitioned to statewide referendum votes last November. But why risk a veto from the people, eh? Legislation has been introduced to dramatically increase signature requirements, restrict pay for petition circulators, and block websites from providing online help to those wishing to sign referendum petitions.

Sadly, the federal government’s executive branch seems no fonder of citizen input than do state legislators. The White House petition website recently hiked the signature requirement up four-fold to get an official response — from 25,000 people to 100,000 folks.

“Raising the threshold so steeply and so suddenly,” Rachael Larimore wrote in Slate, “sends the message that maybe the White House doesn’t really want to be bothered with the problems of the people.”

Obviously, the White Houses isn’t alone among political power centers in opposing citizen involvement. To keep track of assaults on the initiative, referendum and recall, please consult Citizens in Charge’s 2013 Legislative Tracker.

I’ll keep it updated; you keep your local “representatives” checked.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.