The county board of supervisors voted today to draft an ordinance to ban the sale of .50 caliber bolt-action rifles which have never been used in a single crime in this country in 85 years. To bolster their arguments for the urgency of this proposal, the board showed a military video of a semi-auto rifle which is banned in this state firing explosive ammunition which is also banned. When this was pointed out to them, the board protested that they were not using scare tactics, but that a new law was needed to keep criminals, who would have illegally obtained the ammo, from otherwise using it in rifles which they presumably would refrain from purchasing out of respect for the law. You can always tell a politician is hiding his agenda when he argues out of both sides of his mouth.
Another compelling argument for the ordinance was that it was needed to keep terrorists from firing from a mile away on the county's refineries and tank cars. This point was the cause for much personal reflection as I drove back to work along Marina Vista in Martinez, beneath the half-dozen overhead pipelines and a stone's-throw from lines of tank cars. Maybe next year the Sups will ban stones.
In these days of tight budgets, when California's counties are crying that the state isn't sending them enough revenue, couldn't the board have found a more realistic threat to save us from and on which to spend our money? Like, maybe, bathtubs, which kill over 100 each year?