On the Western Banks of the Shenandoah

For a fourth straight year, the Triggerman bill has managed to gain traction in the General Assembly, this time passing the Senate. However, it failed to garner the number of votes that will ensure an override when it is (almost certainly) vetoed by the Governor. Garren Shipley has more:

Tuesday’s vote was 24-16, three votes short of the 27 needed to override a gubernatorial veto.

Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Obenshain said his bill fills a glaring gap in Virginia’s capital punishment laws.

“The poster child for this bill is none other than Charles Manson,” Obenshain said.

The object of the bill is to allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for those who are directly responsible for murder, even if they don’t do the actual killing.

“He did not wield the knife, but no one in the Tate-LaBianca murders had a blacker heart,” Obenshain said.

Closer to home, the 2002 D.C. sniper attacks illustrate a glaring hole in the commonwealth’s laws, he said.

If not for a recently enacted anti-terrorism statute, Virginia could not have sought the death penalty for John Allen Muhammad — the man who instructed then-juvenile Lee Boyd Malvo to shoot random people at varying locations around D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

I find it very hard to comprehend how those who oppose this bill cannot see how authorizing or ordering the pulling of the trigger warrants the ultimate sanction. Is the brutal gang leader who thrives on power just not, if not moreso, culpable than the young man who is in over his head in gang activity? Death penalty opponents often trot out the argument that crime rates do not go down with the ultimate sanction. However, if gang leaders live in fear that they can be executed for ordering executions of their own, I feel to see how this would not be an effective deterrent and, at the very least, get some of the worst elements of our society off the streets.

From the “Great Idea” file: Senator Mark Obenshain has revived former Delegate Allen Louderback’s dream of privatizing liquor sales in the state. From nvdaily.com: 

Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, said Monday that he plans to introduce a bill that would require the state to unload the 331 liquor outlets and wholesale wine distribution business.

While the finer points are still being worked out, previous studies have found the commonwealth could realize some $700 million in new revenue — or 23 percent of this year’s budget shortfall — every year.

“ABC sales aren’t that impressive,” Obenshain said. Virginia’s stores made a profit of about $104 million last year, roughly equal to the amount of wine and liquor taxes the stores took in.

Taxpayers could do much better by letting the private sector take over, he said.

Farming out the operation of ABC stores was just one of hundreds of recommendations of a 2002 report on government efficiency and effectiveness chaired by former Democratic Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.

I have long been a fan of this proposal. I agree wholeheartedly with Louderback’s simple summation:

I don’t believe that the government should be in enterprises that the private sector can do.

Certainly I understand the argument that by keeping sales under strict control of the government has the potential to keep it out of the hands of chronic alcoholics and youth. But does it really? Increasing technology has made it nearly impossible to credibly fake an ID in many states. Law enforcement and independent training by businesses has done more than anything to ensure the that youths and alcoholics do not have ready access to alcohol. With the sort of cost savings that are possible under the switch to private sales, now is high time for a change.