Vote v Buy

    Is it easier to buy a gun than to vote?

 So you want to do your civic duty and go vote. You drive to the polling place and park you car.  You walk in and present your government issued drivers license. They scanned the bar code on the back. Ask you to verify the address then sign the tablet screen they were using.  You are then given a ballot and directed to a voting booth.  After filling out the ballot you dutifully take it to the tabulation machine. Out the door you go proud of yourself.  Easy Peasy.

  Feeling good about your civic duty you decide to exercise your civil rights and buy a firearm.  You drive to the local firearm dealer and go in.  At the gun counter you stand there admiring all the freedom on display.    A clerk comes up and asks to help you.  After trying several firearms you decide on a Smith and Wesson M&P AR15. Great says the clerk may I see your divers license. You hand it to him and he hands form 4473 from the ATF.  

  Please read the above form or go to www.atf.gov . You are to answer each question truthfully under penalty of perjury.  If you falsify any answer you are committing a Felony punishable by up to five years in prison in addition to fines!

 So you fill out the front, sign and date the back.  The clerk calls into NICS.  That is the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.  Now if you answered truthfully on the form one of three things will happen.  After a wait of what seems like hours the answer will be YES you can buy the firearm; NO you cannot buy; or nothing.  Yes and no are pretty straightforward but silence could mean anything.   It could be millions of God fearing American citizens are buying boom sticks at the same time.  It could be lunch break.  Whatever the cause if no answer is forthcoming from NICS after three days you can go ahead and buy the gun.

  Obviously buying a gun is harder.  The example I gave you is from the Great state of Missouri.  If you live in the People’s Democratic Republic of Illinois you will need an additional government issued ID.  In Illinois it is called a FOID card.  That’s Firearm Owners Identification card.  That requires you to have gone to a gun store previously and filled out a form.  Got your picture taken.  Payed a fee and wait 6 weeks or more for the FOID card to come in the mail.  In Illinois you cannot buy a gun without this card.  In Illinois you cannot handle a gun without this card.  You go to a gun store in Illinois to look at guns the first thing they will ask is for your FOID card.  No card no handle.

  Many states also require waiting times depending on whether you are buying a handgun or long gun (aka: rifle or shotgun).  These waiting times can range from 2 days to 2 weeks.  It may also require additional background checks by police or the state which could lead to months of delay (for example New York City).

  Still think it’s easier to buy a gun than to vote?  Any gun purchase you try in a store goes through NICS.  Every gun show I’ve attended in Missouri or Illinois has required a gun purchase to go through NICS.  Every internet gun purchase requires the firearm to ship to a federally licensed dealer who will use NICS before they transfer the gun to you.  But the lie continues because it’s repeated over and over again.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Joseph Gorbbles

Candy Time Machine

   It’s just a little thing really. A bag of candy at Bass Pro. However when I picked it up it propelled me to 1963.  I was 8 years old again.

  I am sitting in my Dad’s car eating these peanut butter bars waiting for dad to come out of the hospital.  Mom was taking care of me and my little brother Steve keeping me quiet with candy. I remember dad coming out and for the first time in my life I saw my dad crying.  Grandma Janie, his mom, had died.  I asked mom about what was going on. When she told me I stupidly said out loud what I was thinking. “One down and two to go”. Mom looked at me in horror and exclaimed “don’t say that”. 

  By the end of the year mom’s mom passed away as well as her grandma.  In between those deaths JFK was assassinated.

What happens to a man reaching the twilight years that causes him to review events in his life?  Am I looking for forgiveness?  Am I trying to justify my actions of so long ago?  Or is it just a memory tied to a little piece of candy the little 8 year old me wishes to keep.  To keep it in that memento drawer with all the little and big events of ones life.  

I will eat that little piece of candy and remember.  I will also look forward to the next memory of a life lived.  A life of love and loss.  To put it another way: life.