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Ready, aim, click!
If you want to kill something over the Internet, you're going to have to stick with something made of pixels.
A bill banning hunting over the Internet shot through the Senate on Tuesday.
Sen. Mike Waddoups, sponsor of the bill, said Texas has seen some instances where companies would set up a gun on a tripod, hook it up to the Internet and essentially sell the right to pull the trigger electronically.
"A couple of weeks later the animal shows up on your porch in little white packages," said the West Jordan Republican.
While Utah does have the ability to make a rule prohibiting the practice, he said the state should make it even more difficult. Senate Bill 164 passed unanimously and will be heard in the House.
-- Daily Herald
Judging by committee
Utah is, as Sen. Chris Buttars loves to say, one of the few states where "a judge judges the judges."
To protect the integrity of the judicial review system, Buttars is sponsoring a bill that would create a bipartisan review committee that would present its findings to voters.
The committee would post its reviews in voter pamphlets, with complete reports available online.
Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Christine Durham said in a recent speech that she felt the committee was unnecessary.
On Tuesday, the Senate felt otherwise and passed it unanimously to a third reading.
"I doubt you'll have very many people who are out of line," Buttars said. "[But] some people cast a dark shadow and they need to be identified."
-- Daily Herald
NAFTA
It's time for the United States to get out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a Utah legislator believes.
The House Government Operations Committee approved House Resolution 2, sponsored by Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden. The vote Tuesday was 9-1, with two members absent. The bill now goes before the House floor for further consideration.
The NAFTA agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico allows for one of the entities to withdraw if they want to, Donnelson said.
"We're asking Congress to withdraw from NAFTA," he said.
The U.S. has lost 766,000 jobs since the agreement was signed in 1993, Donnelson said.
He said he is also concerned with "future unrestricted foreign trucking into the United States," which could bring in illegal drugs and terrorist activities.
Tom Bingham, of the Utah Manufacturers Association, opposed the resolution.
The U.S. is in a global economy and cannot afford to become isolated, Bingham said. NAFTA cannot be tied to the loss in jobs the country has experienced, he added.
Steve George, a Utah resident, said he supports the bill because when NAFTA was implemented companies took manufacturing jobs to other countries.
Businesses "should be more concerned about the Pledge of Allegiance than their bottom line," George said.
Rep. Eric Hutchings, R-Kearns, said NAFTA "trumps everything -- local laws, state laws and federal laws."
When an agreement between countries supersedes "national sovereignty, we have an issue," he said.
-- Standard-Examiner |
