Much to my surprise, and pleasure, I read that there are actually some towns in the U.S. that require homeowners to have a firearm in the house if they are legally able to. The proposed plan is called the Civil Emergencies Ordinance, and basically requires among other things that homeowners own a firearm to deter crime. Granted the small town in Idaho where this plan is being proposed doesn’t have a lot of crime now, I can guarantee you that their crime rate will drop drastically.

It will be interesting to see the actual results a few years down the road. If it has a significant impact on crime, I wonder if it will change the minds of the liberal politicians who want to take away our right to bear arms.

To read more about this story, click here.

Read more from Scott at ConservativePosts.us

The other day, Venezuelan President Chavez said President Bush "walked like John Wayne".  If I were President Bush, I would probably take that as a compliment, but with everything else President Chavez had said about Bush over the past few days, he probably didn't mean it that way.

Imagine how safe we'd be from terrorists and dictators like Chavez.  Afterall, who would want to mess with The Duke?

Read more from Scott at ConservativePosts.us

There are these sick whack jobs out there who feel that there is nothing wrong with having their war protest within a few hundred feet of a military funeral.  Is it just me or are these people sick?  I mean, I don't like drunk driving, but I'm not about to go protest it outside a victim's funeral.

There are better ways to protest the war.  Ways that don't interfere with the grieving families of fallen troops.  Try this one for example; write a letter to your elected officials - you know, someone who can actually do something about it!

Thankfully there are some states who are stepping in to prevent these atrocities from happening anymore.  New Jersey became the 12th state to limit these protests at funerals. 

Some will argue that the protesters have freedom of speech, and therefore should have the right to continue with their protests at military funerals.  But you have to remember that when speech is intended to cause harm or incite violence (i.e. yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre) certain speech can be illegal.  In my book, these protests do nothing but incite violence, and if nothing violent happens to be done at a particular funeral all that shows is the restraint and discipline of the other soldiers in attendance.

Read more from Scott at ConservativePosts.us

Ordinarially, I wouldn't post an article sent to me via email, but this one in particular caught my attention.  I was going to try to recreate the message in the article in my own words, but I'm not sure I would do it justice.  Well, read the article and I'll add my Jerry Springer-esque "Final Thoughts" at the end.  And one more note, in my articles I take great care to ensure that all statistics and other data are accurate.  Since I am not the author of this article and I did not do the research for it, I can not verify that it is 100% accurate.  If you have evidence to the contrary, please forward it to me and I'll make every effort to update the article with correct information.  Enjoy!

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'Morning After' Hangover?
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 8/25/2006

Regulation: The FDA's approval of the "Plan B" contraceptive may become a classic example of the law of unintended consequences. And why are such pills treated differently from other medications?

With the curious acquiescence of the Bush administration, which recently vetoed the attempt to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research on the grounds it felt life begins at conception, the FDA has approved the "morning after" pill, designed to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting itself in a womb, for over-the-counter sale to anyone over 18.

We don't suppose it occurred to the FDA, which has no enforcement powers, that an 18-year-old might buy the pills, also known as Plan B, and pass them on to younger girls? Any adult male over 18 could walk into a pharmacy, buy the drug, coax a girl into having sex and then taking the pill, telling her that everything will be OK.

It is ironic that while we don't want teens to smoke cigarettes, we give them unrestricted over-the-counter access to the morning-after pill, which unknown health effects aside may encourage them to have more sex, and more unprotected sex, even as the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases is rising. In the U.S., sexually active teenagers already face what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls an "epidemic of STDs."

In Great Britain, the morning-after pill is already available without a prescription. And in an effort to lower the teen birthrate, Britain has gone so far as to use public funds to enable women under 20 to walk into local pharmacies and pick up free doses.

Meanwhile, the London Times reports an epidemic of STDs among British teens, with skyrocketing diagnoses among the group over a five-year period.

The morning-after pill provides no protection from any of the 25 known STDs, including HIV, human papilloma virus, chlamydia, herpes, genital warts, syphilis and hepatitis B.

All prescription drugs have what is known as a "safe dose." But if the morning-after pill is available over the counter, there's no limit on how often or how many may be used. In the U.S., women who take birth control pills are required to see a physician. So, why would the morning-after pill, which is many times stronger than regular birth control, be sold on the shelf next to Tylenol?

Silence greeted the announcement by the FDA in March that two more women died after taking another birth control pill, mifepristone, also known as RU-486, bringing to seven the number of women known to have died after taking this drug.

Had it been Vioxx or any other drug made by those evil, profit-making drug companies, the outcry would have been deafening.

In December the FDA announced that 607 of what it called "adverse events" from women who took mifepristone had been reported from September 2000 to September 2004. A total of 237 cases of hemorrhage were reported, with one resulting in death, 68 requiring transfusions and 42 characterized as life-threatening.

One of those "adverse events" was the death in 2003 of 18-year-old Holly Marie Patterson, who lived in the San Francisco suburb of Livermore. After discovering she was pregnant, Holly went to a Planned Parenthood clinic to take the pill and, after following the prescribed procedure for using RU-486, died when fragments of the fetus left inside caused septic shock.

Despite demonstrable benefits to many, medicines such as Vioxx are routinely pulled off pharmacy shelves and their makers subjected to colossal lawsuits if patients suffer adverse side effects through misuse or inherent risks to a particular user.

Shouldn't public policy in this area also mirror the Hippocratic oath?  First, do no harm.

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It's not bad enough that children, not even old enough to drive a car, are having sex in astonishing numbers.  Now parents have to also worry about how they plan on "dealing" with having unprotected sex.  Does society place a higher value on a woman's "right" to use these "morning after" pills or on the woman's life itself?  The track record of these drugs are more than enough to cause concern about their safety, but not enough for anyone to do anything about it.  How many more young women need to die or face the near death consequences of taking these drugs before they are pulled off of the market?  If your answer is anything more than zero, you should seriously sit back and reconsider your priorities in regards to this issue.

Read more from Scott at ConservativePosts.us

Imagine this:
What if one day someone was to exercise their First Amendment rights to speech and it killed someone (maybe they said to someone jokingly, “go ahead and jump see if I care”). What if, because of that person’s speech the government decided to start issuing permits to make sure people used their speech responsibly. In order to get this speech permit, you must be at least 21 years of age and have no felony convictions on your record. You must fill out an application attesting to the fact that you have passed various courses to prove that you can use your speech in a safe manner. You must provide previous employment information, as well as information about your relatives. Also you will be fingerprinted for your background investigation, as if you were a criminal. After this process is completed you must wait 8 weeks for the FBI to finish processing your background investigation in order to obtain your permit. Once you have obtained your permit, you are free to speak your mind, except of course in government buildings (schools, post offices, etc.), some public parks, some municipalities, and by the way this permit is only valid in the state that granted it to you.  Don’t even think of speaking freely once you have crossed state lines, if caught using your free speech in another state, you could be thrown in jail and charged with a felony.  Also, you are not able to speak on behalf of anyone who does not have a speech permit, and they may not use your permit in order to freely speak their mind.

You may be thinking right now that this guy is nuts. It is impossible for the government to put such harsh restrictions upon rights granted to you by the First Amendment.  I would agree.

That is until I considered the very next Amendment to our Constitution.  It reads “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”.  Who is the militia that this Amendment talks about?  It is you and I.  Consider 10 USC § 311 (a), which says “The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and...under 45 years of age who are...citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.”  And § 311 (b) “The classes of the militia are (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.”

Why then, did I have to wait until I was 21 to obtain my State Permit to carry a concealed pistol/revolver? Why did I have to go through the 8 week long application process to obtain the permit? Why was I fingerprinted as if I were a criminal? I don’t even have a speeding ticket on my record! Most importantly though, why can’t I carry my gun outside of the state that issued the permit?  Just because I live in State ‘A', does that mean that I won’t ever have the need to defend myself in State 'B', 'C', or 'D'?  It seems like my right to keep andbear arms has been infringed.

To explain, consider the following situation:
A businessman is traveling from Boston to New York City. The man owns several firearms for self defense that are registered in Massachusetts, but is unable to bring his protection with him since he will be crossing state lines. When he arrives in New York City, he parks his car and gets out to find that a man with a knife has snuck up on him.  Thinking that the man only wants money, the businessman reaches for his wallet.  After he hands the thief the money, the thief kindly thanks the businessman with several stabs to the chest. The thief walks away from the situation unharmed while the businessman lay next to his car bleeding to death.  Not only isn’t the thief harmed, he most likely won’t even be caught.  All for a few dollars.

James Madison once said, “I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” Indeed, this is what we are seeing here. Local governments have the sole authority to grant/deny concealed carry permits, and in most cases without one of these permits you can’t be in possession of a firearm within that territory. They claim that it is for safety that they don’t want unregistered people carrying firearms in their territory. Who is protected by this? Is it the law abiding gunowner, who only wants to carry a gun to defend himself, or is it the criminals who will use a gun against an unarmed citizen? It seems to me as if the criminals, who are going to carry a weapon regardless of what the law says, receive the most protection from this law (just a few paragraphs earlier I was the one who was nuts!).

The thing that lawmakers have to understand is that guns are not dangerous by themselves. It is always the operator, the person in possession of the gun, who will determine if a gun will be dangerous or not. If the FBI has determined in my background investigation that I am not a threat to society when I am armed in my home state, how then am I a threat to society once I cross state lines? And if I’m not then why am I not allowed to be in possession of a firearm elsewhere?

If you agree, contact your lawmakers, and be sure to cast your vote in this year’s election for  someone who recognizes your right to keep and bear arms.

Read more from Scott at ConservativePosts.us.