Congressional Lesson: Case for a Third Party

image from politico.com

During the last presidential election, I tried to spread a single point across my personal social circle as well as social media. Everyone seemed to be focused on reelecting President Obama or Governor Romney, but almost nobody was looking at the alternatives. I said it then, and I still say that the two party system of government in our country has the capability of doing far more harm than any one man ever could.

Now we find ourselves in a government shutdown and on the path to “falling off the fiscal cliff.” We want to blame our federal government, but what could we have done differently? Did we not vote our leaders into office?

People are often afraid to commit to any third party often because the simply doubt a third party could ever be as popular or powerful as the Republican or Democrat parties. That is the beauty behind this concept. 

Third parties never have to be the majority in order to be effective. They simply have to be strong enough to make sure no single party has over 50% of the House of Representatives or the Senate.

This scenario would help to eliminate the deadlock that is often associated with party line voting in Congress. It is up to us. We have the ability to change the future for our children and grandchildren. 

What do you guys think?

Gun Control

Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are the leading cause of death in the United States today. They certainly account for more deaths that the 32,000 who die from car accidents, or the 80,000 who die from excessive alcohol use, right? How about the 443,000 who die from smoking or the other 400,000 who die from obesity?

In 2011, 8,583 fatalities resulted from firearms. Of those, 6,220 were from handguns, 323 were from rifles, and 356 were from shotguns. 1,694 fatalities were caused by knives or cutting instruments, 496 were from blunt objects, and 728 people were beaten to death by hands, fists, or feet.

An assault rifle is an automatic weapon, primarily used by military or police forces with the sole purpose of killing other human beings. These weapons are widely criticized by the American public because they are not generally used for hunting, sport shooting, or self defense. The beauty is, assault rifles have been banned for 30 years.

Assault weapons on the other hand, are semi-automatic firearms that function the same as any other socially acceptable weapons (hunting, sport shooting, or self defense), but have similar cosmetic features as those that are used by the military or police forces. In other words, they are scary looking because they take advantage of technological advances of our time.

Spokespeople that support gun control are taking advantage of the ignorance of the average American people when it comes to guns. They want to use the term “assault weapon” to scare you into thinking that it is something that it is not.

The Virginia Tech massacre was the deadliest school shooting in our nation's history. The gunman shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others. Surely he used those scary assault weapons, right? Nope. He used two handguns.

High capacity magazines are another joke that they are trying to sell on the American people. Since the overwhelming majority of firearms deaths in the United States are committed with hand guns, they must be talking about those, right? More than likely not though, since the average number of rounds in a handgun magazine is already 10 or less. Most handguns cannot even support that many. At Virginia Tech, the shooter had a backpack with 19 full magazines in it. Would things have been different if all the magazines had only 10 rounds (which they almost all did, already)? Probably not. What about Columbine? Certainly that would have made a difference, right? They had 16 magazines and most of the deaths were attributed to a sawed-off shotgun.

This assault weapon ban is new and will cut down on all future firearms deaths though, right? Wrong again. As the President would say, “we've tried his way, and it didn't work”. The previous assault weapon ban was active between 1994 and 2004. Did it cut down on firearms deaths then? According to a study conducted by the National Research Council in 2004, academic studies of the assault weapon ban "did not reveal any clear impacts on gun violence" and also said "due to the fact that the relative rarity with which the banned guns were used in crime before the ban ... the maximum potential effect of the ban on gun violence outcomes would be very small.” Oh, but we will do it more effectively this time, right? Nope. President Obama is asking for the exact same ban to be reenacted.

This whole thing isn't really about guns or even about safety. It is about the systematic removal of the rights that make this country what it started as. It is about the gradual increase in big government control and how they are effectively convincing us that it is not only okay, but done for the better of society. We are being dooped and most of us don't even know that it is happening. But hey, they talked us into reelecting Obama, right? We have a system of government in place that no longer allows us to pick the best people to lead us. Instead, we are given a choice between two people who we are most likely to vote for. Americans are enabling this type of management and most of us don't even know it. This is the reason that I do not claim to be a member of the Republican party anymore. I want people who are chosen because they are the best suited for the job.

Stay tuned for a video on the topic.