« Ind. Courts - "Man Who Refused To Hand Over Arrest Video Acquitted: 66-Year-Old Man Took Video On Cellphone" | Main | Courts - "A Significant SCOTUS Term, With Bigger Cases Ahead" »
Sunday, July 03, 2011
Ind. Law - "It's the law, for better and worse"
This editorial from the July 2, 2011 Indianapolis Star begins:
If you're a pedestrian, you no longer can assume you have the right of way.If you're a motorist who likes to multi-task in traffic, you're free to do so as long as you're not texting or emailing.
If you're a liquor store clerk, you may be back to playing carnival age-guesser.
If you're a city or county government leader, you've been disarmed from regulating guns in your community.
Of the bevy of new Indiana statutes that took effect Friday, many should produce positive change in important areas of Hoosier life. Others, however, raise serious -- and humorous -- questions about the Indiana General Assembly's logic and priorities.
To take the most ominous first, a legislature obsessed with the desires of gun owners dramatically expanded the public venues into which firearms can be carried and the latitude for transporting them in cars. Most egregiously, the legislature deprived municipalities of their home rule in the paramount area of public safety. State lawmakers may think guns in hospitals make those institutions safer, but the decision should be left to those local officials who know their hospitals. We're betting they would differ with the Statehouse.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 3, 2011 02:09 PM
Posted to Indiana Law