How many senators does it take to screw in a light bulb?  Of course the answer is 60 — and thank god for that.  The Senate narrowly rejected an ammendment (which has to be approved by 60 votes — not a majority of 50+) attached to the new defense bill which would have allowed people to travel between states with concealed weapons, no matter the laws in the states to which they are traveling.  In other words, anyone who has a gun permit, which is about as easy to get these days as a driver’s license in some places, could legally carry their hidden firearm on the streets of your home town, no matter what your local laws dictate.

My home town happens to be New York  City, and I am so grateful to the two dissenting Republican Senators Richard Lugar of Indiana and George Voinovich of Ohio, because while its one thing to have a gun in your house, it is entirely different to bring it out with you at night.  HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO A BAR?!?!?  There are so many morons out there (see below)… adding weapons to idiocy is never smart.

400 big city mayors, who came together to form Mayors Against Illegal Guns,  agreed with me, including my own, Dictator Bloomberg, and sent a letter to the Senate pleading with them to come to their goddamn senses not to pass the bill. While this is clearly a case of the Federal Government imposing itself on State’s Rights, which is like, the main platform for conservatives these days, it was of course a Republican sponsored and supported bill.

The debate forced senators to wrestle with issues of states rights, sometimes in ways that seemed to clash with the general philosophies of their parties. Many Republicans, who typically favor limiting the ability of the federal government to dictate to states on social issues, voted in this case to limit the ability of states to insist on their own rules for concealed weapons carried by people from other states.

That said, however, 20 democrats also voted for the bill (NOT including my new Senator, Kristen Gillibrand, who was previously considered gun friendly but voted with her brain this time around).  Why do people think this is a good idea?  I know the argument – 

– but it doesn’t sit well with me.  Is the good of the one really more important than the good of the many?  Do we really live in a state of such fear that we generally feel a need to arm ourselves at all times?  Maybe if we fixed the broken things in this country — health care, the economy, the middle-class — crime wouldn’t consume our streets.  Is adding weapons really the answer to the problem?