Does that sound like a fascist takeover to you? Meet Andrew McDaniel, a far right Republican extremist who looks like a supporting actor in a monster movie but who actually represents Missouri's 150th House district. That's mostly Dunklin County, down in that little piece of the state (the "bootheel") hanging off the southeast tip between Arkansas and Tennessee. The closest thing to a city is Kennett, population between 10 and 11 thousand. It's one of the most Trumpified counties in the state. He beat Hillary there 8,026 (76%) to 2,360 (22%). And it's part of the most backward congressional district in the state, Jason Smith's 8th district. Last year Smith was reelected with 73.4%, easily the biggest win for any of the state's 6 Republican congressmembers. Dunklin County is one of the smallest of the district's 27 counties-- and one of the reddest-- R+52. State Rep. McDaniel was reelected last November against Democrat Josh Rittenberry, 6,525 (75.4%) to 2,132 (24.6%). You get the picture: politically, hell on earth. Imagine having to live there-- and it gets worse.I'm certain it won't shock you to know that Rep. McDaniels is a freaking gun lunatic. He thought the best way to draw attention to his legislation to give huge tax breaks to anyone who buys some guns-- especially a nice man-killing assault weapon-- would be to overreach a little in the verbiage. So he wrote 2 bills that, on their face, would force every male between the ages of 18 and 35 to buy both a handgun and an AR-15.These are the two bills:
• HB 1108: The McDaniel Militia Act, which requires every person between 18 and 35 years of age who can legally possess a firearm to own an AR-15 and authorizes a tax credit for a purchase of an AR-15.• HB 1052: the McDaniel Second Amendment Act, which requires every person 21 years of age or older who can legally possess a firearm to own a handgun and authorizes a tax credit for a purchase of a handgun.
McDaniel, who seems to be missing a couple of screws, says he wrote the bills with the intention of compromising and letting the mandates be dropped in order to pass the tax credits, which is what his pals at the NRA are actually looking for. He hoped that the extreme nature of the bills would inspire press coverage. "I merely planned for media to write about it," he wrote in an e-mail to Splinter, "but would ultimately amend it to take out the mandates and requirements (age and type of gun) and turn it into a gun tax credit bill."
Essentially, McDaniel just wanted the press to give his insane-sounding legislation a signal boost so his slightly less insane proposal-- the tax credits-- gets some free press. Missouri, by the way, boasts the seventh-highest rate of gun violence in the country, which costs residents an estimated $1.9 billion dollars each year. Nevertheless, McDaniel has decided his time as an elected official is best spent trolling the people in his state.It’s not very often that a politician makes it so clear just how full of shit they are. On the other hand, though, this shows just how seriously this guy takes his job: not at all.Meanwhile, laws requiring citizens to pack heat aren’t an entirely new phenomenon. Kennesaw, GA, requires “every head of household residing in the city limits [...] to maintain a firearm,” while a similar ordinance was passed in the small Utah town of Virgin in 2000. Great country we have here. In the wake of the massacre by the lunatic Trumpist last week, New Zealand has decided to ban AR-15s. Different kind of place.