Arizona Gun Insanity

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Arizona is out of money. The state can't meet last year's budget shortfall, let alone next year's! The governor has been pushing a plan to pass a sales tax, something that would keep the burden of funding society on the poor and not offend any big Republican donors, and it looks like the Republican controlled legislature is finally ready to put the concept of an increase in the sales tax in front of the voters. It might pass, though I doubt it, and it certainly won't garner my vote.

(Coincidentally, the City of Phoenix has just announced that it will be placing a 2-cent sales tax on groceries.)

The legislature hates the idea of taxes, but the boneheads serving in the Arizona House and Senate have finally run out of tax-avoiding gimmicks. Now they can sit back and let the voters drive the bus for awhile.

Giving the Arizona Legislature any type of respite, however, is always a bad idea - because those goobers can go from bored to batshit crazy in less time that it takes to strap on their guns.

And, of course, the only thing of interest to most Arizona legislators is guns, specifically ways to get more people carrying with less and less government "interference." There are two bills of note currently working their way through the legislative process. The first would allow college instructors to carry weapons on campus, and the second would eliminate the silly requirements of background checks and training in how to use weapons safely. Really!

With regard to the first bill, the one that would allow professors to pack, it is already being portrayed as not comprehensive enough. Some students are proposing that they be allowed to carry weapons on campus as well. One student quoted in the local press lamented, "I don't believe just giving (the right to have weapons) to teachers is enough, because some teachers won't carry." Something tells me that genius will be in the legislature in a few years!

The other piece of legislative craziness was authored by State Senator Russell Pearce, a protege of our notorious sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Whenever it's a slow news day in the Valley of Hell, local reporters can always shake something controversial out of Pearce, and Arpaio too, for that matter. Now the senator wants to completely return Arizona to its glory days of the wild west - no background checks and no training! That could draw in every psychopath in America, but it will undoubtedly be counterproductive for tourism. Who would want to visit a state where every ex-con and lunatic is likely to be armed! Hell, even Wyatt Earp wouldn't put up with that lunacy!

So Arizona is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy - and will undoubtedly fall into that ravine sooner rather than later - and the state's crazy-as-hell rush to the gun shops will kill off one of the state's few money-makers - tourism. This is one more big reason why Phoenix will not be hosting any major political conventions.

When this state goes into receivership, I hope that the first order of the bankruptcy judge is to tell the legislators to stay home. The damage that these fools have already wrought will last for generations!

Enough, already!