My mother used to drag my father into some of the world’s most expensive stores. She’d point out how ugly something was (my Mom has impeccable taste). “At least it’s expensive,” my father would pronounce. That’s how it is with gun control. Not only is civilian disarmament ugly — in terms of trampling on Americans’ right to keep and bear arms — it’s also an enormous waste of taxpayer money.
To wit this little gem from Connecticut’s stamfordadvocate.com: “State police are seeking 39 additional workers — at a cost of $2.6 million — to handle an avalanche of new duties brought on by gun laws passed after the Newtown school massacre.” Pah! That’s a drop in the bucket. The real cost of the Constitution State’s unconstitutional gun laws is . . .
. . . the Office of Fiscal Analysis estimated the legislation would cost up to $17 million through the 2015 fiscal year, including more than $4 million for state police.
And we all know how good the government is at estimating costs. Come what may (i.e. a doubling from original estimates) gun owners and tax payers (and especially tax-paying gun owners) are on the hook for Connecticut’s feel-good security theater gun control.
Some of the cost of the gun bill will be defrayed by $35 fees for eligibility certificates to purchase guns and ammo, but the remainder will ultimately be borne by taxpayers . . .
Taxpayers would cover most of the $1.9 million in wages and $700,000 in fringe benefits needed to pay civilian employees to process paperwork for background checks, gun registries and permits established under the nation’s toughest gun legislation.
I don’t think the word “tough” means what the Advocate thinks it means. I’m thinking tough means unconstitutional, expensive and burdensome.
Administrators recently told a legislative committee that as of the end of last year state police had 1,000 gun transactions to log into its system. That number has now swelled to 62,000.
There are also 2,720 sets of fingerprints to be processed for pistol permits, along with 9,326 applications.
Which doesn’t include the new requirements for ammunition purchase. Can’t wait to see what that’s doing to the system. Meanwhile, here’s a heads-up from a reader named Brad in Maryland where legislators also “got tough” on legal gun ownership . . .
Have you guys been following what is pretty much infringement on 2nd Amendment rights in Maryland with respect to the background check process? Even now, before the dreaded new “Gun Safety” bill goes into affect on Oct 1st, the waiting period is horrendous. People getting the “Not Disapproved” back from the MD State Police has bee averaging about 70 days. The MDS has stated that it takes them a week to get through 1 day’s worth of applications.
Should these and other slave state wise-up and roll-back their gun control regulations, or should they be forced to do so by the U.S. Supreme Court, the bloated bureaucracy created by these laws will be a lasting legacy, and an ongoing threat to personal liberty. In case you didn’t know.