NC Republicans and their warped ideology

Couples heading to the magistrate need a "cooling off" period:

Could a 30-day waiting period for marriages performed by magistrates be in North Carolina’s future? Rep. Bill Current, R-Gaston, said he hopes the idea results in making marriages stronger.

“Most ministers won’t marry you unless they talk to you for a while,” Current said, explaining why the suggestion wouldn’t put a similar requirement on ministers. Current said that local and state officials spend a lot of time trying to fix problems that are a result of marriages falling apart.

Not only will this bill (if and when it's written) curtail freedoms by imposing such restrictions, it also shows preference to religious entities over secular ones. And on top of that, it adds an additional cost (marriage counseling fees) onto the shoulders of young couples.

Going by their stated philosophy, Conservatives should be dead-set against something like this. But it just goes to show, government is bad, unless its power can be used to shove morality down the throats of citizens.

So Rep. Current thinks it's a good idea for couples to "cool off" for 30 days before taking the marital leap, but when it comes to buying a deadly weapon designed exclusively to kill people (pistols), look what he decides to cosponsor:

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

AN ACT to repeal the state law that requires a person to obtain a license or permit to purchase, sell, receive, or otherwise transfer a pistol or crossbow.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1. G.S. 14‑402 is repealed.

SECTION 2. G.S. 14‑403 is repealed.

SECTION 3. G.S. 14‑404 is repealed.

SECTION 4. G.S. 14‑405 is repealed.

SECTION 5. G.S. 14‑406 is repealed.

SECTION 6. G.S. 14‑407.1 is repealed.

SECTION 7. G.S. 14‑408 is repealed.

No waiting period, no permits required, no records kept about said handgun, nothing.

For all you "defenders of the family" reading this, here are some things you should want to know:

More than five times as many women were murdered by an intimate acquaintance (605) than by a stranger (113) in the year 2000. Additionally, while firearm homicides involving male victims were mostly intra-gender, 95 percent of female firearm homicide victims were murdered by a male.

Domestic violence against women is a disturbingly common occurrence in the United States. Estimates from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) indicate that from 1993 to 1998, women were victims of violent crimes by their intimate partners an average of more than 935,000 times a year. During this period, intimate-partner violence comprised 22 percent of all violent crimes against women. Although firearms are used in a relatively small percentage of domestic violence incidents, when a firearm is present, domestic violence can and all too often does turn into domestic homicide. Congress, recognizing the unique and deadly role firearms play in domestic violence passed the Protective Order Gun Ban in 1994. The law prohibits gun possession by a person against whom there is a restraining or protective order for domestic violence. In 1996, Congress passed the Domestic Violence Misdemeanor Gun Ban, which prohibits anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence or child abuse from purchasing or possessing a gun.

An analysis of female domestic homicides (a woman murdered by a spouse, intimate acquaintance, or close relative) showed that prior domestic violence in the household made a woman 14.6 times more likely, and having one or more guns in the home made a woman 7.2 times more likely, to be the victim of such a homicide.

This is just a taste of what North Carolinians could expect from a Republican-controlled legislature. A fractured, misinformed, counterproductive, and, in many cases, downright dangerous approach to public policy.