Sen. Joe Booth has been quite taken aback by the negative reaction from the people and from the Markell Administration over his .357 Magnum … er ah HB 357 bill. He has now taken to calling Governor Markell a liar.
Booth accused Markell of spreading misinformation, stoking the fears of preachers and anti-violence workers who staged the rally in front of a day care center. But John Thompson, a Delaware gun rights lobbyist who wrote the bill for Booth and Atkins, said on Tuesday that he did, in fact, intend for it to apply to the places Markell and the protesters fear would be forced to allow guns.
Hey Boothie, perhaps you and John Thompson need to get together and talk. Thompson, who is the head of the DSSA, an affliate of the NRA, said he intends the bill to gut all gun control regulations throughout the state of Delaware.
“This bill was written to reach any regulation by a state agency that would prohibit firearm possession or ownership,” said Thompson, a lawyer and the sportsmen’s association’s lobbyist in Legislative Hall.
So what happened here is that Booth let some freakin NRA lobbyist write his own legislation, and then Booth, the typical Republican that he is, didin’t do his homework. He doesn’t bother to actually read the legislation before he files it, and yet proceeds to tell the media and draft a bill synopsis that says the bill only applies to public housing agency. So who was spreading misinformation here, Boothie? And then little boy Boothie tells the teacher that it was really the Governor’s fault he didn’t do his homework, because the Governor didn’t call to remind him to do it.
“A simple courtesy call from the governor would have resolved any confusion about the bill,” [Booth said]. […] “It’s just a little unusual for the governor to stake out his claim without even discussing it with us,” Booth said. “Then again, the governor was in Germany, so he hadn’t had an opportunity to discuss it with us.”
You see, the problem here is that the only confusion about the bill that exists anywhere is in Booth’s own mind. The people who actually read the bill, and the person who wrote the bill, all agree that the bill guts all gun control regulations promulgated by the State of Delaware. Only Booth is confused, and that is because he didn’t read his own bill. Still, Booth continues on, stammering fast like a child caught in a lie.
Booth said any accusations that lawmakers were trying to sneak the bill through the General Assembly with deceptive wording are unfounded [except that they are well founded if you listen to the bill’s real author]. “I don’t think there was any sneaking,” he said. “What I think was sneaky or underhanded was giving a very liberal interpretation of the bill.”
This is rich!!! Once again, he is calling Jack Markell a liar, all because little Boothie didn’t read his own bill and because he had someone else do his homework, and he got caught. And unless Joe Booth thinks John Thompson and the NRA are now liberal organizations, the Governor’s interpretation of the bill is the actual interpretation of it. John Thompson and Jack Markell are in agreement as to what the bill says and what the bill does. Only Joe Booth, who didn’t write or read the bill, is left out in the cold here.
Now, you notice that John Atkins has been silent in all of this. And that is because he is a gun nut, and is opposed to all gun control regulations and legislation. John Atkins read the bill and was perfectly fine with it. And that is a perfectly legitimate position to have. It is the wrong position, but a position nonetheless. Indeed, many people downstate in Sussex County are opposed to gun control legislation. Say what you will about John Atkins (and I will say alot about the man), he is at least representative of those constituents in Sussex County.
Why isn’t Joe Booth? Booth has been running around like a chicken with its head cut off where this bill is concerned. He puts his name on a bill written by an NRA lobbyist and then is surprised that the bill overturns all gun control legislation? Really, Joe? As a Sussex County Senator, you have to wonder why Joe Booth didn’t go the Atkins route. He wouldn’t get in trouble with his constituents if he had gone all Second Amendment on our asses. So why is he dancing around?
Could it be that Joe Booth fancies himself a future in statewide politics? If that is the case, he knows full well that the bill as written won’t fly up north, where two thirds of the votes in the state are. And if that is the case, this whole episode shows that Downstate Joey is not ready for primetime.