by Bob Barr | Apr 6, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Daily Caller “Hotspot” is a word that has gained new meaning these past four weeks. Early predictions that February had brought us simply another seasonal flu of the “coronavirus” type quickly gave way to the harsh reality that the United States, as with democracies and totalitarian regimes alike across the globe, is going to be fighting this virus for quite some time to come. Residents from virus “hotspots” like New York City and New Orleans are being “blacklisted” from travelling into less-affected areas of the country. Even states in America’s heartland, such as Illinois, are emerging as viral hotspots.People everywhere are struggling. The unemployment numbers have skyrocketed. You know things are bad when the ink barely has dried on the presidential signature for a $2 trillion spending bill, and already even Republican senators are entertaining talk of yet another spending bill to come.We now are approaching the middle of April, when many experts predict the number of COVID-19 cases will peak. And yet, at this very time — before hardly any of the federal stimulus money has been mailed from the U.S. Treasury to millions of families that live paycheck-to-paycheck — families in parts of the country may be facing higher utility bills not caused by weather, but by legislatively-permitted rate hikes.Maintaining livable conditions, which is dependent on adequate and constant electrical power for homes, businesses and hospitals, is essential for the success of both mandated and voluntary quarantine efforts. Even during “normal” times, people on ventilators have died because of power shutoffs following their inability to keep current their utility bills. Some states have been getting ahead of...
by Bob Barr | Apr 2, 2020 | Uncategorized |
American Action NewsPolitical maps of the United States routinely distinguish between “blue” and “red” states, with the descriptors providing a short-hand way to differentiate between “liberal” or Democrat-leaning states (blue) and those that are more “conservative” or Republican-leaning (red). While these color-coded distinctions never provided anything approaching a scientific formulation of politics within states, they have remained in common usage for more than two decades.The manner in which states currently are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, illustrates clearly that when it comes to dealing with “emergencies,” red states are equally as eager to push aside privacy, property and other rights fundamental to individual liberty as are their blue counterparts. And it is not only the more “moderate” or liberal-leaning Republican governors, such as Maryland’s Larry Hogan, who figure in such analysis. That Californian Gavin Newsom jumped on the statewide “lockdown” bandwagon early in the coronavirus crisis surprised no one; he is the uber-liberal governor of an ultra-liberal state. Similarly, it came as no great surprise that New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy pushed the envelope of emergency executive power when he closed all gun stores in the Commonwealth (a move he has since been forced to reverse).However, it was not blue states that started the cascade of states canceling by executive orders long-scheduled primary elections due to fears that voters would be susceptible to catching the virus while standing in line to vote. That questionable process was led by red states, including Ohio, Georgia and Louisiana. It was North Carolina, a formerly red state trending to “purple,” that was early to close off its beautiful and popular Outer Banks areas to...
by Bob Barr | Apr 1, 2020 | Townhall Article |
Townhall.com For more than 150 years, gun laws in the United States were essential, as written in the Bill of Rights: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” It was not until the second half of the 20th Century that gun control as we know it took hold. By that time, of course, the United States had survived a bloody civil war, expanded territorially from the eastern seaboard to the Arctic Circle, fought in and emerged victorious in two World Wars, and was the only superpower to stand against the expansionist communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Red China. To say that the Second Amendment was instrumental in these iconic American stories is an understatement. Guns are intimately woven into the fabric of America’s unique, rugged individualism that has seen us survive numerous hardships in our country’s short existence; all without losing our quintessential grit and spirit of freedom. At least, it seems, until now. With the stroke of their pens, a number of far-left local mayors and state governors responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, have declared the Second Amendment “non-essential.” Based not on centuries of American history and decades of legal precedent saying otherwise, these anti-gun officials saw a window of opportunity to make irrelevant, even if temporarily, a sacred constitutional right. Closing down firearms retailers and shooting ranges effectively prevents large numbers of citizens from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to possess a firearm for self-defense; it also impedes the ability of police officers in many parts of...
