In Response to ATX United's Post "Gun Crazy"

                My disagreements with this post reside mainly in some of the misconceptions regarding the motives for maintaining a firearm in a vehicle, but lie in some broader-scope opinions as well. 
                I don’t think the main reason people want to have their guns in their vehicles is to prevent an attack while walking from their car into work, or to even prevent attacks on others (though there are some ways this could happen, but I haven’t heard too many cases of it).  One main motivation for maintaining a weapon in the car is to prevent attacks while traveling, like carjacking or mugging.  The likelihood of this or any other self defense scenario is highly debatable of course and I would suspect largely depends on your locale, but the chance is there I suppose.
                Another is simply transporting the firearm.  While the frequency of this situation is again debatable, a lot of people fire their weapons recreationally more than anything else, and spend a copious amount of time at their local gun range honing their craft.  Many do this directly after work.  It can be a great relief from the daily grind to go to the range and safely discharge a couple hundred rounds.  The idea here is that the firearm is stored in the trunk, with ammunition in a separate container.  While in the military I observed this a lot with members using the on-base range facilities.  But federal installations aren’t really subject to these bills I don’t believe, as this is focused more on company-related carrying restrictions.
                Then there is of course the main bone of contention in this debate, and that is the presumed idea of one’s vehicle as an extension of their domain or private property.  Actual law differs in this in this regard depending on your location, but the idea seems fair enough to me.  If police have to follow the same protocols of searching your vehicle as they do for searching your car, I don’t see why one’s vehicle wouldn’t be seen as their domain.  However, citizens without concealed carry permits do have to follow certain rules about storage, usually consisting of some of the ideas above about separate containers. 
                I can see the wariness of companies to have employees with weapons in their cars, especially as ruthless as these companies can be with `”RIF-ing” and layoffs.  But I more so agree with the bill’s attempt to defend one’s choice in what they have in their own vehicle. 
                An interesting consideration in this legislation though, in my opinion, is the safety issue regarding volatile ammunitions.  Theoretically, ammunition can become unstable and “cook off” at relatively low comparative temperatures easily seen in vehicles especially in the southwest.  At press time, I haven’t been paying much attention in the technology of ammo storage so I can’t really comment.   I do know that most primer-fired cartridges are being engineered to be safer by the day.  I would suspect also, though with not fortifying research at hand, that even a small amount of insulation such as an ammo box or merely being put in a trunk out of direct sunlight would mitigate these concerns severely.  The included restrictions around flammable and/or combustible material facilities makes sense to me, however, due to the large risk should any type of spark be introduced.  I would go as far as to include some radiological facilities to the list, as certain voltages and signals are suspected to be capable of causing inadvertent ammunition discharge.
                In the bigger-picture of firearm legislation, my offering is this:  People are irrationally paranoid of guns. Period.  They fear what they do not understand, as humans are generally want to do, and have this idea that anyone with a gun can and will use it at will with no regard to laws or sanity.  This is certainly not the case.  People always fail to realize the staggering, gargantuan amount of safe and effective firearm use which occurs every day.  Right now, projectiles are exploding from barrels both rifled and smooth all over the world in controlled circumstances at ranges, and unfortunately but necessarily on battlefields, all around the globe.  24-7, 365, there are guns safely being fired.  So when we hear of incidents of gun violence or gun accidents, they are the extremely miniscule statistic outliers.  They are the car accidents that by our logic should make us never drive again and outlaw cars everywhere.  So fear not these bills aimed at relaxing firearm restrictions, and actively engage in the education and purveyance of shooting.  I think you’d be surprised. 
                And no, I am not a member of the NRA hijacking a community college state government class blog, in case you might have been wondering.

Oh No He Dit-ehn, Girlfriend!

             Every time I sit at this keyboard, I try to make a conscious effort NOT to pick the story that everyone is buzzing about.  What would be the point really?  If the story is the same and the only thing that differs from commentary to commentary is, well, the commentary, it would be akin to being kept abreast of John Mayer’s Slurpee purchases on Facebook.  “Bainfreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze LOL”.  Additionally, RCGTT being a blog aimed at local and state affairs, I really cannot believe it myself: (sigh) this post is regarding the news of the death of Usama Bin Laden.

            But how?  Well, you tell me.  A quick Google search for local and state news stories (I should have known better) brings me to YNN’s site.  It is not a bad layout, to be honest.  It looks like on a normal day, any number of interesting and provocative news nuggets could be had at the user-friendly click of a touch screen or mouse.  Nevertheless, there it is. The entire first page, six major headlines, all with either UBL’s name, 9-11, or “Al Qaeda”  in the text of their titles, all taking the news and twisting it to fit into a local scope.  “Austin Firefighter Feels Closure in Bin Laden Death”...”Texas senator burned in 9-11 attacks expresses relief”...and the like.

            I do not know what I was really expecting.  My personal feelings regarding the events are conflicted at best, being ex-military but also having a brain, albeit an uncultured one apparently, as I didn’t know burials at sea were a Muslim tradition.  Further research needed on this, I am afraid.  I am also not naive to the sentiment our country has for this sort of news, some of it even being warranted in my opinion. 

            My beef is in the pure lack of options in news articles as of late.  I do not run a newspaper, so I may be a bit biased in my opinion.  However, there simply has to have been something else going on this last week.  I do not understand why if a story is huge--as this one obviously is--everyone on the staff from the Editor in Chief to the food critic has to chime in.  Is that not somewhat a form journalistic cheating?  Well it is at the very least boring to me.  It appears lazy and contrived.  It is embarrassing to see so many columnists stretching the editorial-“wedgie” of a connection between UBL and the auto sales section on G7.