It's Good to Have Priorities

Arizona politics can be entertaining, if it wasn't so bloody tragic. Our state senate has succeeded in tackling one of the states most pressing problems: the lack of an official state firearm:

PHOENIX -- Cost to name the Cardinals stadium after the University of Phoenix? $154.5 million over 20 years.

Cost to Bank One -- now Chase -- for its name on the baseball stadium? $2.2 million a year until 2028.

And the cost to the Colt Manufacturing Co. to get the Arizona Senate to name one of its products the official state weapon? Priceless. Well, actually zero.

That, however, didn't keep the senators from voting 18-12 Tuesday to declares the Colt single action Army revolver. It joins such things as the official state tree, butterfly, gemstone and neckwear, the last being, of course, the bola tie.

But the move annoyed Sen. Adam Driggs, R-Phoenix, who pointed out that all of those other items are generic. This is the first time, he said, lawmakers would be endorsing a brand name.

"This is advertisement for Colt," he said. While the gun in question was first made in 1873, the company still sells versions.

"If the state is going to go in this direction, I think we should get the equivalent of naming rights," Driggs continued. He said Arizona, facing a $1.1 billion deficit next budget year, could use the cash.

Colt named official state weapon

As the state dismantles all our social services in the name of "fiscal responsibility", they don't even generate any revenue from this act. It's pure red meat for the right wing base. Arizona's state policy has become "more guns for everybody, anywhere they want to carry them".