Reading the President’s “sweeping” new “gun regulations”, it occurs to me – I was right.
The “war on guns” is one of this electoral season’s candidates for “war on women”; it’s an attempt to get Democrat, especially Black, voters, to come out for an election where there won’t be The First Black President Ever sending tingles up peoples’ legs, and vote for a geriatric white woman. If Obama, or any president, were serious about violence, he’d send the National Guard into Saint Louis, Baltimore, Oakland, Newark, Camden…
It is, like everything Obama has ever done, a lot of big talk combined with a few little nuggets of unconstitutional abuse of power.
With the help of our friends at the Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance, rather than read the bill, let’s just sort it out.
You’re Being Redundant, Again, All Over: Restating things that are currently law, including:
- Background checks
- Calling for enforcement of existing federal gun laws; Obama’s prosecutions are down 30% over Dubya’s.
- Ensuring dealers notify law enforcement if guns are stolen.
- Denying the mentally ill the right to keep and bear arms, with due process, (although the Administration seems to want to remove due process from this)
- Asking communities to keep guns out of the wrong hands. Paging Rahm Emanuel. And Eric Holder.
- Ensuring dealers have federal licenses, and have criminal penalties for not complying with the rules
- Watching for large numbers of sales, in conjunction with other factors. This already happens.
- Ensure criminal data is forwarded to the NICS database from the states completely and promptly.
Talk, Talk, Talk: Stuff the President can ask for, but needs Congressional approval and, most of all, funding:
- Funding for 200 new Keystone Kops. Er, ATF agents. Tomayto, tomahto.
- 500 million in mental health funding.
- Mining Social Security information for info about mental health.
- Funding for “Smart guns”. Good luck with that.
Peace And Joy Through Memos: Calls for sternly worded memos and announcements, including:
- Demanding the AGO write a letter to the states about coughing up mental health info
- Telling the AGO to write a memo about domestic violence
Even A Blind Squirrel Can Find A Nut: There are a few things buried in the proposal that aren’t actually stupid:
- Overhauling the background check system to make it open 24/7, and cut down on bottlenecks. This is especially important if Obama insists on constantly launching waves of panic-buying.
- Investigating illegal online trafficking in guns. Presumably excluding Eric Holder. But still.
- Defining responsibility for reporting thefts at the manufacturer/carrier/dealer level (might be good, provided it doesn’t merely serve as the basis for endless litigation)
- Help for the mentally-ill.
Have You Really Thought About This?: The President mentioons “removing the stigma” of mental illness – in the same metaphorical breath as he demands taking guns from people at slightest sign of it.
Would You Like Hobnails With Those Boots?: These are proposals that are completely unacceptable, and pretty much stupid to boot, including:
- If the President really is trying to put firearms trusts in the hands of politicized local cops, this will be a big problem.
- Denying guns to people whose finances are being a managed by Social Security, for no other reason.
You First, Barry: Things like:
- “Smart” guns”. I’ll use them, Mr. President, when your Secret Service detail does.
- Not to mention the police, to say nothing of the military. They won’t. Either will I.
Here’s the solution no one will consider:
Implant “pop-up’s” in the heads of all people – like those you get in a turkey. When someone goes clinically nuts, the white coats sweep them up and haul them off for “re-education.”
Problem. Solved.
You’re welcome.
One of the fundamental problems of the Obama administration is that with all of the “executive orders” that fundamentally change the LAW, is that more and more folks begin to distrust the government as being a fair arbiter of law enforcement. When you see the law being capriciously changed to fit the whims of the leader everyone else begins to doubt the legitimacy of the laws and government. That may be the biggest long term effect of the Obama presidency.
Re: smart guns. People on the left never hear about the problems with them. A few months ago I read a Joe Nocera column in which he lambasted the NRA for opposing mandatory ‘smart gun technology’ on new firearms. There was no mention of the reliability and security issues with smart guns, though those issues are the reason the cops and soldiers don’t want them. I don’t think that Nocera was hiding anything, I think he simply did not know about the issues with so-called smart guns. He consults ideologically driven sources for his columns because he believes that they are unbiased and based on ‘fact’, unlike those conservative sources.
The President can put your name on his Enemies List and thereby keep you from flying on an airplane, ever again. There’s no explanation for getting on the list and no way to get off.
The President can give his Enemies List to the IRS to have you audited, your friends audited, your political organizations audited.
Now, the President can give his Enemies List to the FBI Background Check folks and prevent you from buying a firearm ever again.
There is no Due Process, no Redress of Grievances, no Rules of Evidence, there is only raw power because . . . He Won.
I can’t wait for Donald Trump to become the next Republican President. Payback, baby.
We are at least getting a good lesson in why we let elected legislators make laws and only let lame-duck presidents enforce them.
Obama sounded delusional at his press conference about the new exec orders. The vast majority of Americans agree with him, but they keep electing congressman who oppose his ‘common sense’ policies? Hell, he couldn’t get most democrats in congress to go along with his ideas when he had the chance (the press eats it up, though, and, as usual, is uncritical concerning Obama’s delusions). One reason there is so much opposition to his gun control wish list is that most governorships and state legislators are controlled by the GOP. Who, outside of the WH press pool and the Ivory Tower, does Obama represent these days? If Hillary loses in 2016 they will be a rump party.
As for Obama, Nixon didn’t have this contempt for the people.
“If mandatory background checks could save more lives, it would be well worth making it the law of the land.”
Ronald Reagan
And we have them.
Did they contribute to the 50% drop in gun crime?
Good question. The vast majority of sales between parties legally entitled to own guns have background checks today.
Anyway – the idea that we *don’t* have background checks on the imponderably vast majority of gun sales is absurd.
I think that because you don’t hear the MSM crowing about all the gun crimes committed by weapons purchased using the so-called ‘gun show loophole’, the number is very small.
The plan of hiring more ATF agents is loco. Congress can stop it, and the GOP base will love them for it. If the media calls them on it, the GOP candidate has an excuse to bring up fast and furious, and Obama’s mass release of federal inmates and illegal immigrant felons — by executive order.
As a bonus, they can show the video clip of 2008 Obama claiming that his expertise as a constitutional law teacher tells him that Bush’s executive orders were illegal because they were meant to bypass congress.
Obama is a lousy president. He only needs to be a little smarter than his supporters.
Really, I think the GOP needs to bring up how this President has been downright brutal on people of color. Roll tape on black and hispanic unemployment rates. Roll tape on what happened when he failed to back the process in Ferguson–hundreds of blacks are dead as a result, if reports are to be believed. Roll tape on hundreds of dead Mexicans due to Fast & Furious. Roll tape on over 1500 IRS agents who should have been prosecuted and fired for crimes….but were not.
My favorite part of Obama’s speech was when he compared US gun laws unfavorably with the gun laws of a communist dictatorship.
I don’t think that there is a GOP plant within his speech writing corps. That was pure Obama at his clueless ‘best.’
I have to throw this out.
Over the course of my years on this planet, I have bought and sold several guns from both private sellers and dealers.
In all cases, I knew the other party. They either were a friend or family member. I believe that the majority of private sales are of this nature. In fact, many of the gun owners that I know, conduct their sales similarly.
I know this happens.
And while I will neither confirm nor deny that I’ve ever bought a gun this jibes with about half of what I’ve heard.
The ATF agents thing is more pure Obama. Like Bill Clinton, he thinks government employees are doing God’s work — they aren’t just working to survive or greed’s sake like you (or Donald Trump).
ATF agents aren’t cops. Most people never want to have any dealings with any feds (including the ATF and the FBI) in their life, ever. You want money to hire 500 more cops, most people would say ‘sure!’ (Swiftee ain’t most people).
The number of Americans, Left and Right, who hear about hiring more ATF agents and think “gosh! That makes me feel good!” must be in the single digits. But Obama’s JD and of course the ATF think that federal government lawyers and law enforcement are the only thing stopping the United States of America from becoming the Republic of Gilead.
Mitch, you’re forgetting about the hundreds of “private sales” that happen every day at busy gun ranges.
“Hey, nice gun.”
“Thanks. Wanna try it?” (hands gun over) (“Sale” 1)
(Bang, bang, bang) “Sweet. Thanks.” (hands gun back) (“Sale” 2)
“Your welcome.”
I’m so glad that I added stock from all of the major gun manufacturers to my portfolio a few years ago. Despite the current woes of the rest of the market, those stocks are rising.
Thanks Obamanus!
Bento, why do you think it is most people welcome more coppers, but shun the federal hun? Do they think they are different species somehow?
I think a lot of the problem lies in the fact that the Feds have no accountability. They’re under Civil Service rules so it’s essentially impossible to fire them for behaving badly.
If you live in a smaller town, then the cops have feedback and if one of them is bad people will complain and the police chief usually decides to save his job by sacking the bad cop. But if you’re in a big town like St. Paul with a media-savvy police union you’re stuck with nearly unaccountable cops.
Still, even in St. Paul local cops are more accountable than the Feds, which is why folks fear the Feds much more than local cops.
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Has it occurred to anyone, especially Obama, that pushing this now in an election year is going to backfire (pun definitely intended) because the NRA is a damn powerful organization and their membets VOTE. I have to admit some of these regulations make sense but once you talk about getting the federal government involved support drops like a rock