On January 5th, the progressive organization Move On issued this statement, “Today, with Move On members at his side, President Obama cracked down on the illegal gun sales of high-volume gun traffickers”. They went on to say that the move was “overwhelmingly popular with the majority of Americans” and that “The NRA lost today. Big time”. Really.

Last month still another bill proposing to ban certain types of rifles and magazines was introduced in congress. According to the NRA, last month 124 Democrats “introduced HR 4269, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2015, a bill virtually identical to S 150, introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in the Senate in 2013”.  That legislation didn’t pass and there’s little likelihood the new bill will either. But it does explain why I’m suddenly getting emails quoting and referring to Diane Feinstein - now - even though the quotes are almost two years old.

Previously I wrote about Travis Bishop, the proprietor of the gun shop in Martinsburg that reported an alleged attempted straw purchase of a firearm - in violation of federal law. In the column I noted that local television station, NBC affiliate WHAG based in Hagerstown Maryland had not responded to an invitation to cover the story and according to Bishop were not interested in covering the story. I had reached out to WHAG to get their input for my column and had not heard from them prior to my deadline to submit my column to the Spirit.

Voltaire was, according to Wikipedia a “French enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher.” He believed in freedom of religion, freedom of expression and separation of Church and State just like our Founding Fathers. He was a versatile writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works.

In breaking news, the winner of the Time Magazine readers’ poll for Person of the Year is Bernie Sanders with “a little more than 10% of the vote”. That was nearly double the second place winner, Pakistani girls’ education activist, Malala Yousefzai and nearly triple the vote garnered by Pope Francis and President Obama. Lately I’m having some interesting, if not downright fun conversations with Bernie Sanders fans.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. However, while we were celebrating the holiday congress was at it again. It’s another, we have to pass the bill to see what’s in it - but with additional intrigue thrown in for good measure.