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I agree that Blagojevich's $500 puts an undue burden on the lower income brackets to own a gun. There's a line here, but I don't know where it is. I would say that $140 is below the line and $500 is above it - that's the best that I can pinpoint it. I'm assuming that this amount would be due no more than every 5-10 years or even for a lifetime permit, to be renewed occassionally.
As far as the other items go, dksuddeth, you seemed to agree with definition of "well regulated militia" that I put forward in Post #49, and now it seems like you've flipflopped. Has something changed, or did I misread something?
As for whether or not state testing is a good thing or not, remember that you're already tested on your proficiency in driving, and I seem to recall several instances of both of you (dksuddeth and host) mentioning in previous threads that cars cause more deaths annually than guns. States test for all sort of professional proficiency, and there's the sticky point that the Amendment itself call for a "well regulated" militia. Your fears of Big Brother aside, what's the objection? There is no such provision for free speach or religion in the 1st Amendment, so I don't see how you can try to draw the two together since the Amendment says what it says. It seems to me that the framers pretty clearly wanted the states to make sure that gun owners knew one end of the gun from the other, and requiring a basic skills and safety test doesn't seem onerous to me at all.
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo
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