“The Way I See It” is an attempt by the columnist to enlighten readers on a subject as he views it,
and does not necessarily reflect the views of this publication. William Brayshaw invites your comments and questions.
Obama and ‘Gun Control’
Following his latest stated Agenda of “squeezing every bit of change he can” out of his last year in office, Barack Hussein Obama continues to usurp powers of Congress to make laws, and to infringe on Constitutional rights. He is using his executive authority to order DOJ and other bureaucracies to issue rules and regulations “under color of law” with the power to punish citizens “with the force of law”. And with little or no expected impact on crime.
I watched the video of his anti-gun news conference. It was a very emotional display of speculation, spin, fabrication, exaggeration, and out-right lies. Background checks are a fact that every gun dealer must do for every sale. The Anti-Gun fascists are seeking to turn any “sale or transfer” by anyone into being subject to a “background check”. A gun dealer pays a substantial fee to get his license and must give his license info, the purchasers info, and the gun’s info to NICS or other checking authority. How does an ‘unlicensed’ person do this, and who will pay for it? I got my first Federal Firearms License soon after it became law in the mid 60s. I filled out a single page application and paid $6 or $7 for 3 years, and got my license in a couple of weeks. What do you think it is like now? And the “Individual Sale or Transfer” may be simple at first, but you know once established it will get much stricter and expensive. And the NICS check may be ‘free’ at first like it is for licensed dealers, but do you think it will last? Of course not. There will soon be a charge, and how much? $5? $20? $100? And the ‘Checking Authority’ will not tap one computer key until the payment is made. And what constitutes a “Transfer”? An actual sale, of course, but also a gift within the family, or even loaning a gun to a friend for a hunting trip. And when the gun is returned, that is also another “Transfer”. What about a professional guide that has a client have his gun malfunction? To lend him a spare gun would be a “Transfer” by many definitions, some insist to let someone shoot your gun at a range could and should be deemed a “Transfer”. This is Liberal Gun CONTROL, it is all about CONTROL for the sake of CONTROL. Like ObamaCare, it is impractical, unenforceable as explained, based on lies, and doomed to failure. He & Lynch intend to make it illegal for gun owners to sell, or even give away their guns without being a licensed gun dealer.
Obama tearfully reminds us of past “mass shooting”, but does not note that the vast majority of these shooters passed Background Checks, many after arrests or reported incidences of mental problems. Others used ‘family owned guns’, and in the awful Sandy Hook case, the shooter murdered his mother to get her guns. The recent California Jihadists used a ‘straw-man’ purchaser. I don’t see any instance where Obama’s expanded background checks would have stopped a single one. Only honest people obey the law anyway.
Obama also emotionally praised the young black high-school athlete that was shot in a ‘drive-by’ while protecting 3 girls with his body. This is heroic behavior on that outstanding young man’s part, and I place a large part of the responsibility for his death on Obama’s shoulders. If he and Federal law enforcement spent as much time breaking up gangs and arresting those violent psychopaths as they do trying to disarm law-abiding citizens there would be much less of that. Furthermore, Obama’s divisive political policies often excuse violent behavior and even encourage it, while criticizing and even punishing police for trying to prevent violent crime, especially in the “Black Community”. I find this curiously strange for our Socialist Democrat Black President unless he wants to increase violent crime in those areas. If Obama really wants to stop gun violence he should enforce the dozens of existing gun laws instead of begging for more that only affect the law-abiding citizens.
Obama continues to try and ban “semi-auto assault rifles” and “extended magazines”, even though homicides by rifles of all types is less than those by hammers or bare hands. What he calls “assault rifles” are really the “modern sporting rifle”, “semi-auto” or self-loading rifles with detachable box magazines are now the most popular design in many popular calibers, except for very large game or extreme long range shooting. They also may provide citizens with an effective means of defense in event of an emergency. This seems to be the real reason that some of “The Powers That (Shouldn’t) Be” object to them so much. They have very little use in crime except by Muslim terrorists and psychopaths, and they will get them even if they have to steal them from the military and police, or smuggle them in by terrorists and drug cartels.
The technology for his vaunted ‘Smart Guns’ does not exist. What does exist is a pistol that requires a bracelet or ring as a wireless computer controller. Not only is it 500% more expensive, but it has a very high failure rate. Totally unacceptable.
If they want effective ‘gun laws’, they should stop non-citizens from buying guns, prosecute criminals that own guns and even brag about it on Facebook, monitor mosques that are known “activist” for Jihad and Sharia law, and use their vast intelligence gathering capabilities against criminals and terrorists, not Constitutionalists, conservatives, Christians, veterans, TEA Party activists, and others that support a Constitutional Republic. But those Patriotic Americans are the ones Obama considers to be his “enemies”, because they resist his failing “Socialist Democracy sliding into Dictatorship”, and want secure borders, a functioning economy, honest monetary policy, and Constitutional government.
Also the greatest positive impact on crime has been the popularity of Concealed Carry Permits. There should be National Reciprocity based on the 14th Amendment. There is a huge legal travesty where the Lib/Prog Socialist use it to force all States to license Same-Sex Marriage, but a Texas citizen can not take legal firearms in a Texas licensed pick-up to Maine on Federal highways to hunt bear and moose without facing arrest in NJ, NY, CT, or MA for simply having their guns inside their truck.
Another very positive effect on gun crime and accidents is to teach gun safety in schools. But the ‘Liberal/Progressives’ do not want children to be safe and knowledgeable about guns, even to avoid them if not supervised by a responsible adult. They want to condition children to fear, and somehow blame guns, even if the cost is many deaths due to ignorance and ‘fascination for the forbidden’.
For true data on gun ownership and murder rates see:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/pELwCqz2JfE