We need an IQ test for politicians
By GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS
Last Updated: 11:52 PM, April 7, 2013
Posted: 11:06 PM, April 7, 2013

While politicians talk about expanding background checks for gun owners, I’m starting to think that what we really need are IQ tests for political officeholders. The only problem is, that might leave us with a lot of vacancies in Congress and America’s statehouses.

The debacle over New York’s rushed-through gun bill is one example of what happens when enthusiasm meets stupid. But another is to be found in Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), who supports a ban on full-capacity magazines without understanding what a magazine actually is.

Last week, DeGette justified her position this way: “I will tell you these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those now they’re going to shoot them, so if you ban them in the future, the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot and there won’t be any more available.”

Um, ah . . . no. Completely wrong, in fact.

To make things simple enough that even a member of Congress can understand, it’s like this: Magazines aren’t “bullets.” They’re, basically, metal boxes with springs. You fill them up with bullets, and put them in a gun. When the gun fires the bullet on top, the spring pushes a new one up so that it can load into the chamber. When you fire all the bullets, you pop out the box-with-spring and replace it with another.

And, when you have a few minutes, you can put new bullets in the box and it’s ready to go again.

DeGette’s remark was akin to that staple of hippie parodies, the old fogey worried about people “shooting up marijuana” — an obvious mistake that made clear the fogeys didn’t have a clue about the realities of what they feared.

It’s an embarrassing admission of ignorance and incompetence.

But ignorance and incompetence are on regular display among our political class. Its members are good at what they do — but what they do, really, is raise money and win elections. There’s no particular correlation between those skills and any other kind of competence. In fact, given their record of passing increasingly dumb laws, if there’s any correlation at all, it’s a negative one.

Read more:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/ope...IV7GTzFjWJnUuII

I would think that a fairly rigorous test on the U.S. Constitution (to include an understanding of the State ratifying conventions and discussions) would be better than IQ. Ensure that they have a passing grade of at least 90/100% before they are eligible to run in the primary. (This is for US House & Senate and POTUS/VPOTUS. States could have a similar testing requirement on their own constitutions and history.)

Seriously, this should be part of a minimum requirement for these people to seek election to serve us.

We don't need better politicians. We don't.

We need better voters.

Zitat

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Politicians getting smarter on their own is probably too much to hope for. But maybe if voters wise up, a smarter crop of politicians will follow.

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Quote: Heisenberg wrote in post #5

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We have a citizens test and need a voters test as well.

More damage is done at the polling station then at the wrong end of a weapon.

We need to make it at least as hard to vote as it is to buy an AR15 in NYC.

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Quote: FP123 wrote in post #2

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I would think that a fairly rigorous test on the U.S. Constitution (to include an understanding of the State ratifying conventions and discussions) would be better than IQ. Ensure that they have a passing grade of at least 90/100% before they are eligible to run in the primary. (This is for US House & Senate and POTUS/VPOTUS. States could have a similar testing requirement on their own constitutions and history.)

Seriously, this should be part of a minimum requirement for these people to seek election to serve us.

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