Open Carry Comment

    My colleague, Mark Chao, recently blogged on the new open-carry legislation currently under review. I agree with his argument and would support it any day, but I could perhaps enhance argument by bringing to light the entire reason for having a gun in the first place.
    The second amendment exists so that the people can form a militia, if the government ever becomes tyrannical and turns into a dictatorship overnight, in which case the people can "rise up" and take back the land their ancestors fought for. This argument does not stand any longer, as a common militia would not be very effective against the most expensive military in the world. Furthermore, that argument barely even makes sense considering the soldiers of this military are husbands and wives of the citizens they will hypothetically be suppressing. With that said, it is true, however, that one may want to own a gun to keep their family safe. But to carry it in public for all eyes to see? Like Chao said, the most powerful element of a handgun is its stealth - the hidden weapon.
    I noticed that Chao expressed a quote: "There's nothing to fear from honest people carrying their legal weapons openly and peacefully." (Kathie Glass). Surely, there's nothing to fear from honest people, like there's nothing to fear from a dictatorship. Look at Communism. The theory is great, the reality is not. Such as in real life, people are not always honest, especially those with weapons. Wearing a weapon requires a certain authoritative personality. And people "carrying their weapons openly and peacefully"? Isn't a weapon a symbol of everything that is not peaceful?
    Furthermore, I agree with Chao's argument about how people might respond. That is, a potential criminal will target the person with the weapon first. There's a reason the bank security guard either dies first or gets cuffed first. You just don't know how people will respond in that situation, so it is better to conceal the weapon. Despite this post, I'm not completely against owning weapons. I think owning a handgun at home is okay, but not something like an assault rifle or shotgun. At least, people shouldn't buy a rifle to protect their family - buy a handgun. Buy a rifle to shoot deer. Buy a shotgun to shoot deer. Don't ever buy an assault rifle because that weapon was created entirely for the purpose of killing others as effectively as possible, hence the lightweight, easy-to-use, easy-loading, and fast-shooting qualities of such a gun. Like Chao said, the only people that would open-carry handguns are "boastful" and "overbearing"; the kind of people just looking for others to say, "Look at the gun I have! I have it! It's mine! I have a gun and I can shoot it! Look!" Catch your breath, open-carry advocates. Protecting a bunch of strangers should not be your prerogative.

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Local Health Care Helpers

    Karina Kling, an author for News 8 Austin, wrote an article about Insure Central Texas and the volunteers that work there. Apparently, this place is a volunteer facility where people can go to get help in signing up for Healthcare.gov as well as help with choosing a plan that's right for them. Lately, there haven't been that many people that have applied, or used this facility for that purpose. Kling states that the group says that about 2000 people have come through the doors of the facility but they could only register about 10 people on the first month, and only a few more the next - a mere trickle of what is required. They remain hopeful, however, that in the month of December, things will pick up, as the website becomes less trafficked. With three weeks to go, it is necessary that people get registered for this health care, and groups like Enroll America will help in this effort.
    In my opinion, Rick Perry has curbed the health care exchange effort. Texas turned down the money to set up the Healthcare exchanges so it made it more difficult for people to do. Most of the Republican states did. They didn't have to accept the money, so they didn't accept the money. It could have been billions of dollars from federal funding in Medicaid. If they don't take the money, then the Health care Exchange will have a hard time and then the Republicans go and blame the exchange's faults on Obamacare, rather than the fact that they broke the system. So, no one will be able to join this exchange and we'll need these volunteer associations to help us figure it out. And even when we do, people won't be able to get onto the system since there isn't the funding for the system to work.

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