Hand Guns in The Hands Of Students

    On Tuesday May 3, 2011, the "Lupita89 " blog posted up an article titled "Thus There is No More Bill"   by Sandra Rangel. The article is about a bill that is up for vote by the chamber and lets students bring guns to school grounds for protection. The gun carrying law will exclude private institutions. The guns would have to be concealed or tucked away underneath the persons clothes.
    Sandra's intended audience are mainly students at public institutions. She say's that she would not like to see this law pass because this would make her feel unsafe on school grounds knowing that student's are walking around school armed. I would have to disagree with her because they are not going to issue a license to anyone. They would first have to go thru a course to get a license to carry the weapon. Than the person would have to purchase the gun. This means that the store would have to do a background check on the individual. So this means that people with bad backgrounds would not get a license. Plus if a person would want to do something bad he would just do it cause hand guns can be canceled with or without a license.
    This article was interesting to read because I own a gun and I am thinking of going thru the course. Its good to read about people's opinion on the whole carrying a concealed weapon subject. Like I said before I would be very comfortable with people carrying guns on school grounds. 

Guns

      I just read an article that was published May 3, 2011 on Statesman.com titled, "House backs bill to allow guns in cars at work " by Tim Eaton. This article is about guns being allowed in the cars of workers at their workplace parking lot.They are saying it should be legal because their car is like their little extension to their home. They say that a lot of people in Texas are hunters and sometimes forget a gun in their truck. If they do forget their guns in their car they shouldn't be worried about being fired for it.  But there is some people that say it should be up to the employer to make that decision.  
     I think that they should be able to keep their guns in their cars because it is their property. There wouldn't be any harm to anyone if there guns were stored in their car. As long as their guns are put away and not in view from the outside, it should be allowed. I also think if they do allow them to have their guns in their car, they shouldn't be allowed to showcase the gun in any way to other people. I do agree that people that work in the oil and gas industry shouldn't be able to store their guns in their cars because if a gun misfire, it can create a devastating explosion. This is one of the places that I think guns shouldn't be able to be stored in cars. In conclusion, as a gun owner myself, I think I should be able to leave my gun stored in my car as long as it is not visible and I wouldn't mind it if others did the same.
   

Betrayed

     On March 24, 2011, the "TexasGovtsa" blog posted up a article titled "Conservative Republicans or Liberal Democrat" by Stephanie. The article is about Rep. Jim Murphy proposing House Bill 1454 which raises hotel taxes. Once he was voted by the people he turned around and is trying to raise taxes.
     Stephanie's intended audience are voters. She trying to say that people vote for politicians because they say there going to help them but at the end they do what's best for themselves.
   I agree with Stephanie about feeling betrayed because if I voted for a person that said he was going to help me and then turn his back on me I would be mad.

Higher Tuition

     The article "Tuition going up at ACC, could go higher" posted by Ralph K.M. Haurwitz on Tuesday April 5, 2011 is about Austin Community College chairman Barbara Mink approving the raising of Austin Community College tuition. They are raising the tuition by 5 dollars a credit hour. I think this is bad because not only is Austin Community College going through hard times but us, the students are also going through the same thing. It won't hurt me much because I am only taking one class. I think that this will affect full time students a lot financially because not only will they have to pay more for school but they will also have to pay their increased living expenses such as transportation and housing. This raise in tuition might force full time students to take less courses in the following year in order to pay their other expenses. The article also said that it will also raise the tuition again in the following year. So this only means that it can only get worse for full time students.
     I think that Austin Community College is trying hard not to raise the tuition by cutting back on expensive equipment and technology but they need to find a way to lower the tuition or keep it the way it is. This makes it harder for people to stay in school when they keep on raising the tuition because a lot of people don't live near the campus and have to drive a long way to get there and this might be tough to handle since the gas prices keep getting higher.

"Fees"

     The article "Your money now belongs to the state, but don't worry - it's not a tax" posted by FUBAR on Monday March 21, 2011 is about the government collecting fees from tax payers and not using it for anything useful. The government calls it fees but if you really pay close attention they are really taxes that you are paying in disguise. The articles clarifies that taxes is money that people hand over to the government. The government is trying to use these "fees" to pay some of the state debt of twenty seven billion dollars. This could help teachers and doctors recover from the economy.
     The author's intended audience is everyone in the state that pays some sort of bills and taxes. Though his claim lacks evidence, it still makes a valid argument. As a bill and tax payer of the state, I do see random surcharges and fees in my monthly bills and I always wondered what it was for and this article has given me insight on the situation. I wish the author would have given a specific example of a "fee" to support his claim.
    I found myself agreeing with the authors claim. I agree with the author that the government should not lie about the "fees" and they should tell us that they are really taxes. They should admit that they have been lying to the taxpayers and be more upfront on what they are really doing. They should use these "fees" to pay the debt cause this would help the people that suffered from budget cuts.         

Dirty Money!

     The article "Turn drug money into tool used against cartel" by the Editorial Board posted on the Austin American Statesman website on February 23 is about money being seized from drug trafficking being used for border security. It says about two-thirds of twenty-eight billion dollars is picked up in Texas. State Senator Steve Ogden said, "That's the Medicaid budget" once he heard that astonishing figure. 

     This idea is not a new idea in stopping crime but the author believes it is an effective one, which I have to disagree with. Since this sort of drug trafficking has been going on since Al Capone's time and it is still going on strong. The article showed some valuable information like the fact that $140 million has been obtained from drug captures and if we make checkpoints, this number could increase by twelve percent. I do agree with the author's point of view that this money should be used to fight the problem of drug trafficking but I do not believe it is the best way to stop crime. I think we should come up with more direct ways of ending the drug problem we are facing.

     We must find an effective way to stop the Mexican cartel from obtaining more political influence since it affects the United States as well. Although this might be an effective tactic, I wish the article could have given alternatives for stopping the transportation of drug money to the United States instead of the beginning of the problem which began with Capone.