Feel Good Legislation

I saw this in an email and wanted to pass it along. I could see myself in the same situation, you have to be very careful what you vote for.

Often times, even I feel helpless when I think of the anti-gun machine's power and drive. Sympathy is a VERY powerful tool, and it is incredibly easy to use sympathy to pass, what I like to call, "feel good legislation".

Let me explain "feel good legislation" a bit. The other day I accompanied a friend to a speech given about the animal production industry. The speaker sat on a University animal science board (or something), and he was speaking to Animal Science majors about the challenges they face in their industry.

Let me say this- I am not a farmer, but I love a juicy steak. I like bacon, eggs, milk- basically, I am not a vegetarian. Granted, I have no problem if you chose that way of life (as long as you respect my own decisions, of course).

Anyway, I'm not a farmer, but I like to eat animals, and I recognize that Milk and Eggs don't come from the grocery store- they come from hard working individuals who see the opportunity they have in meeting a demand.

I also believe we have a responsibility and duty to be respectful in the way we harvest these animals- to me, that is just common sense.

Well, during the speech, the speaker talked about how one regulation the 'opposition' is trying to pass is a law that would make it so that a calf couldn't be separated from its mother until a five or six weeks after birth.

It sounded reasonable enough to me, but when all of the students (most of whom you could tell were farmers) gasped, I knew it must be bad.

I later talked to my friend about this comment, and he explained to me how those weeks are the most fruitful period in a cow's milk production, and that to pass such a law would literally cripple the dairy industry.

Can you see why this would scare me? I can TOTALLY picture myself sitting in a voting booth, getting to a proposal that was snuck in that said "Proposition 2 would require farmers to separate cows from their offspring only after five weeks", and thinking to myself, "Sure, that makes sense to me!".

THIS is 'feel good' legislation.

Everyone wants to FEEL like they are doing their part, as long as it doesn't involve any work.

THAT is how, I am pretty sure, most anti-gun bills are passed. When someone who has never been around guns sits in a voting booth and reads:

"Proposal 2 would make it harder for people to commit mass murders by limiting the magazine capacity on assault weapons to ten rounds,"

....who WOULDN'T vote for that?? If you don't know that the phrase "Assault Weapon" is hogwash and that an empty10 round magazine can be replaced with a full one in about .2 seconds, you have NO way of detecting the scentless B.S. in that wording.

See what I mean? If you aren't directly involved in an industry, it can be VERY easy to be "sympathized" by FEEL GOOD legislation. --Tim Schmidt - USCCA - Owner / Founder