Commentary by James Shott
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) gave a speech on the Senate floor last week where he said this about the disastrous implementation of the Affordable Care Act: "Despite all that good news, there’s plenty of horror stories being told. All of them are untrue."
This abjectly stupid remark ignores the problems millions of the people Harry Reid serves as Majority Leader have encountered at the hands of this Democrat-created nightmare, some of them with life-threatening consequences.
Some say he really was alluding to claims made in ads paid for by the Koch brothers, about which he specifically commented shortly after that major gaffe, claiming the Kochs are trying to “buy America” through Americans for Prosperity, a 501(c)(4) started by David Koch and Richard Fink.
He believes that the Koch brothers are the single greatest threat to liberty, “spending hundreds of millions of dollars telling Americans that Obamacare is bad for them.”
However, Koch Industries donated less than $3 million in the 2012 election cycle, earning 77th place on the Top Donor List of OpenSecrets.org. Americans for Prosperity is reported to have spent $40 million, but does not appear on the Top Donor List.
Top Donor organizations ahead of Koch Industries include: the National Education Association, #5 at $14.7 million; the United Auto Workers, #8 at $13.3 million; the American Federation of State/County/Municipal Employees, #10 at $11.4 million; the AFL-CIO, #14 at $9 million; and the Service Employees International Union, #18 at $6.6 million. Ten more labor unions beat Koch Industries in spending. Organized labor is “buying America” to a much larger extent than Koch Industries and Americans for Prosperity combined.
Harry Reid misleads us on political spending, and lied to us during the 2012 campaign about Mitt Romney having paid no taxes for 10 years. He epitomizes the sordid aspects of partisan politics, and simply cannot be believed.
*****
On May 5, 2010 Latino students at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California turned out to celebrate their Mexican heritage on Cinco de Mayo.
When some American students showed up at school wearing American-flag shirts, school officials ordered the American students to turn their shirts inside-out or go home, to avoid a repeat of the unrest that had occurred during past observances of this date.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld the action of school officials.
So, when students from Mexico attending American schools want to flaunt their Mexican-ness in the face of the American students by waving Mexican flags on a Mexican holiday, and some American students decide to show their patriotism by wearing American flag shirts, the school authorities believe that the American students are wrong, and the Mexican students are right, and a federal court agrees with them.
Disgusting!
Whacky, radical rulings like this one have earned the Court the nickname, “The 9th Circus.” The Mexican students should not be allowed to stir up sentiments by waving a foreign flag around to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. If they prefer Mexico to the U.S., perhaps they should just go back.
*****
Congressman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, has produced a tax reform plan based upon three years of hearings and discussions with bi-partisan groups.
Hardly anyone who pays taxes will argue against reforming this overly complex system. The last round was in 1986, and at that time the tax code was more than 26,000 pages. Thirty years later, the tax system is a incoherent mess that negatively affects prosperity, job creation and investment, and is regulated by a tax code that has nearly tripled in size to roughly 75,000 pages.
Each year the tax code gets further complicated with more special interest loopholes, credits, and carve-outs.
Rep. Camp would make several changes to the code, like eliminating loopholes, reducing tax rates, whittling down the current seven tax brackets to three, and lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent, the highest in the industrialized world, to 25 percent.
In those 75,000 pages are goodies for numerous interests, and they will scream bloody murder if their special goody is on the chopping block. The Heritage Foundation’s Stephen Moore notes that we can “expect the White House to lambast this plan as a ‘tax cut for the rich,’ but the evidence from history shows that lower tax rates are usually associated with higher overall tax receipts and more taxes paid by the rich. In the 1980s after two rounds of Reagan tax rate reductions, income tax receipts doubled, and the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent, 5 percent, and 10 percent rose as the economy expanded.”
This plan simplifies the tax code by allowing millions of tax filers a larger standard deduction, meaning they don’t need to itemize and can use the EZ form. For those who do itemize, the mortgage and charity deductions remain.
While the Camp plan isn’t perfect, and produced quite a few knee-jerk criticisms, it has many advantages, and is certainly a good start toward finally transforming the current tax code into something that is sensible and easy to understand. Let’s hope Congress has the courage to follow through.
Cross-posted from Observations
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Bill of Rights. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Bill of Rights. Tampilkan semua postingan
We’re at home one evening, and someone is banging on the front door!
Commentary by James H. Shott
There was banging on the door at 8:20 p.m. The 14 year-old daughter answered the door and found some 30 armed Washington, DC police officers in full tactical gear with a search warrant. She let them enter the home.
After entering the house, the police immediately went upstairs, pointed guns at the heads of the homeowner and his girlfriend, and forced them to lie facedown and be handcuffed.
The 16-year-old son was in the shower. “They used a battering ram to bash down the bathroom door and pull him out of the shower, naked,” said his father. “The police put all [four] children together in a room, while we were handcuffed upstairs. I could hear them crying, not knowing what was happening.”
The police shut down the streets for blocks and spent more than two hours searching the house. “They tossed the place,” the homeowner said. He provided photos to the writer of an article in The Washington Times that he had taken of his home after the raid to document the damage, which he estimated at $10,000.
What horrible crime had the man committed to justify a 30-man SWAT team to block off streets, point guns at and handcuff the adults present, isolate and terrify the children, and trash the home in a two-hour search of the premises?
The search occurred because of a charge by the man’s estranged wife, who had persuaded a court clerk to issue a temporary restraining order against him, charging he had threatened her with a gun. As it turns out, a judge later found the charge to be without merit.
The squadron of SWAT police was searching for guns, for which registration with police is required in DC, based solely on the estranged wife’s fraudulent charge. They found none. They did find other things, according to The Times: “The police found no guns in the house, but did write on the warrant that four items were discovered: ‘One live round of 12-gauge shotgun ammunition,’ which was an inoperable shell that misfired during a hunt years earlier. [The homeowner] had kept it as a souvenir. ‘One handgun holster’ was found, which is perfectly legal. ‘One expended round of .270 caliber ammunition,’ which was a spent brass casing. The police uncovered ‘one box of Knight bullets for reloading.’ These are actually not for reloading, but are used in antique-replica, single-shot, muzzle-loading rifles.”
In DC only registered gun owners can possess ammunition, which bizarrely includes spent shells, and because of this the homeowner, Mark Witaschek, a successful financial adviser with no criminal record, is facing two years in prison for possession of unregistered ammunition.
This is an outrageous use of force, misapplication of the law, and simple overreaction. Did the police perform due diligence before subjecting a good citizen, his girlfriend and children to this intolerable episode? Obviously not. How many of those responsible for this outrage will lose their job or be charged for their malfeasance? Given the increasing number of such asinine actions, it sometimes seems that police breathlessly await an excuse to play army against the citizens for whom they work.
To make this hyperactive episode seem even more ridiculous, one month earlier, thinking he had nothing to hide, Mr. Witaschek allowed the “Gun Recovery Unit” to search his home without a warrant. Ninety minutes later, the police had found one box of Winchester .40 caliber ammunition, one legal gun-cleaning kit and a Civil War-era antique revolver that he kept on his office desk, and even though antique firearms are legal and don’t have to be registered, the gun was seized. Mr. Witaschek keeps his hunting weapons at his sister’s home outside the District.
Such episodes result from the anti-gun hysteria that grips the nation, and this one is an example of the increasing militarization of local police. DC’s 1976 gun law is one of the strongest in the nation, but appears to have had little effect on gun crime.
In the weeks immediately after the law was passed, The Times reported on several gun crimes that occurred, one in which a U.S. Senator was the victim. “Since the ban was passed,” the story continued, “more than 8,400 people have been murdered in the district, many killed by handguns. Nearly 80 percent of the 181 murders in 2007 were committed with guns.”
Looks like the hoodlums didn’t get the message about the new gun law in the District of Columbia.
Based upon data from the Centers for Disease Control and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, a study found that Washington D.C. has a higher rate of gun homicide than Brazil, one of the deadliest nations for gun violence in the world.
In DC, the people who carry weapons are primarily law enforcement and criminals. The criminals are always up to no good, and the police may be too busy terrorizing law abiding citizens who might have accidentally run afoul of the broad, over-achieving gun law to fight the crimes that are being committed against citizens who are restricted from using guns to defend themselves against thugs with guns.
Cross-posted from Observations
There was banging on the door at 8:20 p.m. The 14 year-old daughter answered the door and found some 30 armed Washington, DC police officers in full tactical gear with a search warrant. She let them enter the home.
After entering the house, the police immediately went upstairs, pointed guns at the heads of the homeowner and his girlfriend, and forced them to lie facedown and be handcuffed.
The 16-year-old son was in the shower. “They used a battering ram to bash down the bathroom door and pull him out of the shower, naked,” said his father. “The police put all [four] children together in a room, while we were handcuffed upstairs. I could hear them crying, not knowing what was happening.”
The police shut down the streets for blocks and spent more than two hours searching the house. “They tossed the place,” the homeowner said. He provided photos to the writer of an article in The Washington Times that he had taken of his home after the raid to document the damage, which he estimated at $10,000.
What horrible crime had the man committed to justify a 30-man SWAT team to block off streets, point guns at and handcuff the adults present, isolate and terrify the children, and trash the home in a two-hour search of the premises?
The search occurred because of a charge by the man’s estranged wife, who had persuaded a court clerk to issue a temporary restraining order against him, charging he had threatened her with a gun. As it turns out, a judge later found the charge to be without merit.
The squadron of SWAT police was searching for guns, for which registration with police is required in DC, based solely on the estranged wife’s fraudulent charge. They found none. They did find other things, according to The Times: “The police found no guns in the house, but did write on the warrant that four items were discovered: ‘One live round of 12-gauge shotgun ammunition,’ which was an inoperable shell that misfired during a hunt years earlier. [The homeowner] had kept it as a souvenir. ‘One handgun holster’ was found, which is perfectly legal. ‘One expended round of .270 caliber ammunition,’ which was a spent brass casing. The police uncovered ‘one box of Knight bullets for reloading.’ These are actually not for reloading, but are used in antique-replica, single-shot, muzzle-loading rifles.”
In DC only registered gun owners can possess ammunition, which bizarrely includes spent shells, and because of this the homeowner, Mark Witaschek, a successful financial adviser with no criminal record, is facing two years in prison for possession of unregistered ammunition.
This is an outrageous use of force, misapplication of the law, and simple overreaction. Did the police perform due diligence before subjecting a good citizen, his girlfriend and children to this intolerable episode? Obviously not. How many of those responsible for this outrage will lose their job or be charged for their malfeasance? Given the increasing number of such asinine actions, it sometimes seems that police breathlessly await an excuse to play army against the citizens for whom they work.
To make this hyperactive episode seem even more ridiculous, one month earlier, thinking he had nothing to hide, Mr. Witaschek allowed the “Gun Recovery Unit” to search his home without a warrant. Ninety minutes later, the police had found one box of Winchester .40 caliber ammunition, one legal gun-cleaning kit and a Civil War-era antique revolver that he kept on his office desk, and even though antique firearms are legal and don’t have to be registered, the gun was seized. Mr. Witaschek keeps his hunting weapons at his sister’s home outside the District.
Such episodes result from the anti-gun hysteria that grips the nation, and this one is an example of the increasing militarization of local police. DC’s 1976 gun law is one of the strongest in the nation, but appears to have had little effect on gun crime.
In the weeks immediately after the law was passed, The Times reported on several gun crimes that occurred, one in which a U.S. Senator was the victim. “Since the ban was passed,” the story continued, “more than 8,400 people have been murdered in the district, many killed by handguns. Nearly 80 percent of the 181 murders in 2007 were committed with guns.”
Looks like the hoodlums didn’t get the message about the new gun law in the District of Columbia.
Based upon data from the Centers for Disease Control and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, a study found that Washington D.C. has a higher rate of gun homicide than Brazil, one of the deadliest nations for gun violence in the world.
In DC, the people who carry weapons are primarily law enforcement and criminals. The criminals are always up to no good, and the police may be too busy terrorizing law abiding citizens who might have accidentally run afoul of the broad, over-achieving gun law to fight the crimes that are being committed against citizens who are restricted from using guns to defend themselves against thugs with guns.
Cross-posted from Observations
We must take a serious look at our laws and how they are enforced
Most people are for law and order, and most obey the laws that keep society functioning. And most have great respect for the men and women who have the sometimes-dangerous job of enforcing those laws.
That said, some laws are just plain dumb and should be done away with, and what is more important, there are so many laws, rules and regulations today that no one can know all the decrees from the federal, state and local governments that affect him or her, and therefore it is impossible to obey them all. This over-regulated environment puts each of us in the position of likely being in violation of one or more of them at any given moment.
What's worse than so many decrees from so many sources, however, is what seems to be a growing tendency of law enforcement agencies at all levels to imagine that even tiny infractions warrant the most dramatic responses.
Case in point: After making a purchase at a Charlottesville, Va. grocery store one night, a 20-year-old University of Virginia student and two roommates were approached in their car by a group of six men and one woman in street clothes. "They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform," she recalled in a written account of the incident.
Police say one of the group jumped on the hood of her car. The girl said one drew a gun, and they tried to break out car windows. Unsure who they were, the girl tried to flee the dark parking lot and called 911. Given the circumstances and stories of people being assaulted by phony police officers, who could blame her?
It turned out to be a squad of plainclothes state Alcoholic Beverage Control officers who suspected the girl had purchased beer in the store – she hadn’t – and was under-age. She spent the night in jail as a result.
Question: Who at the ABC thought this procedure actually made sense? Is it reasonable for a squad of plainclothes agents to approach three female college students in a dark parking lot, fail to adequately identify themselves, point a gun at them, jump on their car and try to break out the windows because they think one of them had bought beer that she might not be old enough to purchase?
Prosecutors dropped charges against the young woman, describing her as having panicked at the sight of plainclothes agents who approached her and her roommates.
Case 2: When the Leander, Texas police wanted to serve a warrant on Bradly Simpson, they sent officers to his home. When no one responded to the knock on the front door, a couple of officers walked around the side of the house toward the back yard whereupon they saw two German Shepards coming toward them. One officer pulled his gun and fired three shots. The police said the dog was growling and aggressively coming at them. Fortunately, the officer’s aim was not good and only one of the dogs was hit, but only wounded.
After that spectacle, the police were unable to serve the warrant because they were at the wrong address, and in the wrong neighborhood. Worse than that, not far from where the dog was shot the home owners’ terminally-ill six year-old grandchild was playing.
Worse, yet, the home owners said neither dog was aggressive, that they were merely curious about who was visiting their home, and had never behaved the way the police claimed. And, as it turns out, the lady of the house is a professional dog trainer, and therefore knows about dog behavior, and furthermore noted that there are routinely customers visiting her home, so strangers don’t spook her dogs.
And what heinous crime prompted the police to go to Mr. Simpson’s home to serve the warrant? He had an expired vehicle registration.
Leander police officials say what happened was "an unfortunate accident." Wrong: What happened is that the police screwed up.
The number of rogue law enforcement personnel that intentionally abuse their authority and position is surely very small. Nevertheless, instances of over-aggressive law enforcement action and plain dumb mistakes like these are indefensible and intolerable, and there appears to be a growing attitude toward over-aggressive behavior.
To maintain the public trust and respect government and law enforcement are going to have to stop doing stupid and dangerous things like these examples, and even worse incidents that have caused serious injury and even death for innocent citizens.
Solutions? Do we really need so many law enforcement officers that seven of them can spend nights sitting around in one store parking lot waiting to catch an under-age person buying beer? Does an expired registration really justify armed police visiting the vehicle owner’s home?
What about accountability? Officials that exercise bad judgment or act rashly must be disciplined, encouraging them to carefully consider how to properly and safely do their jobs, and also demonstrating that public officials really take seriously their duty to adequately serve the people they work for.
Something must be done, and the sooner, the better.
Obama Supporters Sign Petition to Repeal the Bill Of Rights
Stolen from (with permission) Wake Up America
This one will get your dander up.
Click here if video fails to load.
Mark Dice asks California beach goers if they'll sign a petition showing support for Obama in his quest to repeal the Bill of Rights.
This one will get your dander up.
Click here if video fails to load.
Mark Dice asks California beach goers if they'll sign a petition showing support for Obama in his quest to repeal the Bill of Rights.
Data mining breeches our Founder’s concept of liberty and privac
Collecting data from phone calls of Verizon customers is one thing. Collecting email information on millions of Americans is something else. Both of these activities stir concern and break the bounds of constitutionality, but the invasion of privacy is far greater in the collection of email data.
Phone call data consists of phone numbers, dates and call duration, but not the conversation itself. Email data, on the other hand, not only has email addresses and date information, but the actual message as well, which often includes names and attached text and media files.
4
The potential for misbehavior is enormous, particularly with email data, given the nature of the information available to prying eyes. Some comfort may be taken from the idea that intelligence personnel who use this information are not susceptible to political influences unlike, say, Internal Revenue Service workers. That does not relieve the concern for our privacy, however.
Hardly anyone doesn't want to the government to find plotting terrorists or discover terrorist plans before they are acted upon, even if it involves tapping phones, capturing emails or other covert measures. But the routine collection of massive amounts of data in the hopes of finding a couple of useful pieces of information is over-the-top and unjustified. Its use has increased since the practice was first introduced after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and has increased exponentially under the Obama administration, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
The way it is supposed to work is that when the government has reason to believe that one or more individuals – like let’s say Irv Huffington or Ahmed Ali-Yahoo – may be planning an attack, it goes to court to seek an order allowing it to tap their phone or take whatever actions it proposes to do. It doesn't simply start collecting the records of millions of people hoping to find the Huffington or Ali-Yahoo needle among millions of data bits in the haystack.
Here's what the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution says: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
That language is precise and unambiguous. It does not allow judges to give anyone, or anyone to just take the information of millions of Americans in the hope of finding something hidden away among huge collections of data.
In order to get permission to breech a citizen's privacy, the government must request permission by offering a compelling reason and support that assertion under oath, describing explicitly the place and persons under suspicion. Nowhere in the 4th Amendment is the term "fishing expedition" mentioned or implied, nor is there language allowing nosing around in the private lives of millions of citizens who empower the government because it makes things easier, and it does not depend upon what the meaning of "is" is.
The Founders viewed "general warrants," or dragnet searches such as we are witnessing today, as tyrannical. That view is not mitigated by the advent of terrorist acts that kill dozens, hundreds or thousands, nor by the amazing technological advances since the mid-18th century; general warrants still are tyrannical.
The United States has Constitution protections for a reason: because the Framers understood from first-hand experience how government can slither into impropriety, tyranny and oppression unless it is clearly and firmly prevented by statute from doing so. The U.S. Constitution was created not to limit what the people may do, but to limit what the government may do.
We are told, and many of us believe, that in order to be safe in these perilous times, we must give up much of our liberty and privacy for security, but Benjamin Franklin expressed this idea about that: Those who willingly give up liberty for security will have neither, and deserve neither.
It is a point of shame for the citizens of the United States that so many Americans have no functional knowledge of the principles upon which our nation was created or of the meaning or power of the US Constitution. That is a prime reason that so many on the political left are able to mis-think so many things with such great success.
As a nation we have grown lazy and tone deaf as our government has grown to gargantuan proportions and ridiculous levels of expense, and burst through the top and sides of the constitutional box our much-smarter-than-we-are Founding Fathers built for it.
When they look out on the US landscape and see that some things that aren't working well, they think becoming more like left/liberal Europe is the answer, without even the suspicion that the reason things aren't working is because they have been trying for decades to become more like Europe and less like the United States of America, which under the US Constitution became the freest, most prosperous and most successful nation in human history, while liberal socialist and communist governmental models have always failed.
New York State Non-Compliance Resistance to the NY Safe Act Arms Bill
Link to video (full 33 minute version) from January 29, 2013 Q&A forum
From YouTube:
"Residents of Erie County, New York overflow the State's dictating / Q & A forum concerning the
unconstitutional NY Safe Act arms bill.
The passion and anger from the people is evident of Erie County resistance.
After the first speaker spoke, the second one was introduced. A request from an audience member to
recite the Pledge of Allegiance was ignored by theState. So the people took over and assertively
recited it anyway.
The State attempted to have private interviews with the media which alienated the crowd further, who
then demanded transparency. Then the State wanted the questions from the audience to be private, which riled folks even more.
Questions asked by Western New Yorkers covered: non-compliance, penalties, jury nullification, 2nd
Amendment profiling into domestic terrorists, government tyranny, police, sheriff, and more.
Other topics, and especially on the people forming militias was missed due to full camera memory.
Welcome to blue collar Buffalo.
* * *
Clarence, NY (WKBW) -
A question and answer session on New York's new gun law turned testy, as gun owners unleash a fury of anger on the new legislation.
Frustration boiled over for people who feel as though they are law abiding citizens, being turned into criminals.
For many, it was a chance to vent anger at Albany.
One WNYer even said "You put a brown shirt on Mr. Cuomo and put him on
television, he would look just like Hitler."
Another chimed in, "Angry people get together, they form militias
folks. This country, this WNY is prime for something like that!"
Western New York gun owners say they SAFE Act and its ban on assault weapons makes no sense.
One of the big concerns -- who is footing the bill for making changes to guns that are now considered assault weapons. State officials told the crowd the gun owners are the ones responsible.
People in the crowd also had a lot of questions about the registration laws. One gun owner asked,"What is the penalty if you don't register it? 'Cause I guarantee there's a lot of people that aren't going to."
At times, advocates felt answers were incomplete or political."
Link to video (short version)
Link to video (full 33 minute version)
From YouTube:
"Residents of Erie County, New York overflow the State's dictating / Q & A forum concerning the
unconstitutional NY Safe Act arms bill.
The passion and anger from the people is evident of Erie County resistance.
After the first speaker spoke, the second one was introduced. A request from an audience member to
recite the Pledge of Allegiance was ignored by theState. So the people took over and assertively
recited it anyway.
The State attempted to have private interviews with the media which alienated the crowd further, who
then demanded transparency. Then the State wanted the questions from the audience to be private, which riled folks even more.
Questions asked by Western New Yorkers covered: non-compliance, penalties, jury nullification, 2nd
Amendment profiling into domestic terrorists, government tyranny, police, sheriff, and more.
Other topics, and especially on the people forming militias was missed due to full camera memory.
Welcome to blue collar Buffalo.
* * *
Clarence, NY (WKBW) -
A question and answer session on New York's new gun law turned testy, as gun owners unleash a fury of anger on the new legislation.
Frustration boiled over for people who feel as though they are law abiding citizens, being turned into criminals.
For many, it was a chance to vent anger at Albany.
One WNYer even said "You put a brown shirt on Mr. Cuomo and put him on
television, he would look just like Hitler."
Another chimed in, "Angry people get together, they form militias
folks. This country, this WNY is prime for something like that!"
Western New York gun owners say they SAFE Act and its ban on assault weapons makes no sense.
One of the big concerns -- who is footing the bill for making changes to guns that are now considered assault weapons. State officials told the crowd the gun owners are the ones responsible.
People in the crowd also had a lot of questions about the registration laws. One gun owner asked,"What is the penalty if you don't register it? 'Cause I guarantee there's a lot of people that aren't going to."
At times, advocates felt answers were incomplete or political."
Link to video (short version)
Link to video (full 33 minute version)
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Passing more laws and restrictions to control lawful gun owners
By James Shott
There are of people who are confused about our country’s founding principles, quite a few of whom are in positions to influence and dictate to others.
Jesse Jackson proposes to hold gun manufacturers responsible for what anyone who buys, borrows or steals their products might do with them. He believes that "these assault weapons can only kill people and in fact are threats to national security.”
Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of New York, who proposed what he called the nation's toughest gun ban, does not know what the 2nd Amendment is all about. "You don't need 10 bullets to kill a deer," he howled, at a recent appearance. Gov. Cuomo seems to think the Founding Fathers fought and died to guarantee our right to bear arms so we can hunt and shoot targets. A shocking number of Americans share this fallacy.
The NRA produced a TV spot pointing out that while President Obama's children attend a school protected by armed guards, the president does not support that same protection for other children. White House spokesman Jay Carney condemned the NRA for using the president's children in pursuit of their agenda, a willful distortion of what the NRA did, which was merely alluding to the security issue.
However, only hours later Mr. Obama festooned himself with children as he announced measures and proposed new laws to restrict the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans in reaction to the mass killing of students and staff in Sandy Hook, Conn.
Prior to Mr. Obama's enacting increased background checks, privacy intrusions, etc., Vice President Joe Biden in a meeting with gun-rights organizations said that "we simply don’t have the time or manpower to prosecute everybody who lies on a form, that checks a wrong box, that answers a question inaccurately,” but his task force then recommended that Congress pass additional laws for the government to enforce.
The president said on the campaign trail in 2008, "I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I will not take your hand gun away." This statement, along with other statements and actions, illustrates his confused notion of how the U.S. government is designed. He is only the President of the United States, not its emperor, and there are two other branches of government that are co-equal with the Executive branch. He also seems not to realize that the American people pay him to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," not alter it to his liking.
In addition to guaranteeing Americans a broad range of personal rights, such as free expression and to own weapons sufficient to ward off tyrants and thugs, the Founders established a system of checks and balances to prevent any of the three co-equal branches of government from gaining too much power. You would expect someone claiming to have been a constitutional law professor to understand this.
The tragic murders of 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook school has proved to be too tempting a morsel for the president and his fellow 2nd Amendment enemies to resist. Rahm Emanuel's "Chicago crisis rule" still holds: the Sandy Hook crisis has not been wasted.
The first information reported about the incident was that an "assault weapon" was used at Sandy Hook, and that was enough to launch a new fusillade of gun control rhetoric and proposed measures to end such violence once and for all. However, more than a month after the horrific shooting conflicting information about whether an "assault weapon" was even used at Sandy Hook has finally leaked out. NBC News' Pete Williams reported that, in fact, four handguns were found in the school, and the only "assault weapon" anywhere around was found in the trunk of a car. And what about rumors of a second person arrested there?
What actually happened at Sandy Hook? We don't really know. Reporting of the incident by an incurious media has greatly helped the emotional reaction to the shooting overpower sober and rational analysis, and the mania to ban "assault weapons" has been reborn.
It's easy to blame weapons and move on, believing the problem is solved. But the easiest solution is often wrong, which is the case where mass murders are concerned. The problem with focusing on "assault weapons," even if one was used in these horrible incidents, is that it ignores the true problem: what motivated some nut-job to kill lots of people?
The one thing common to all mass killings -- shootings, bombings or whatever -- is one or more persons filled with evil intent or who is/are mentally unstable, or both. "Assault weapons," or rocket launchers, or M1 Abrams tanks in the hands of 99.9 percent of Americans would result in zero deaths. You do not increase the security of the people by restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens.
Our forefathers paid too high a price to guarantee our personal liberty to sacrifice some of it in a vain attempt to fix a problem that is not caused by the people having too much liberty.
Once lost, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to regain.
Cross-posted from Observations jshott.com
Feinstein: Domestic Enemy of the Constitution
"No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." (Thomas Jefferson, Proposal to Virginia Constitution, source)
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” (from Thomas Jefferson's "Commonplace Book," source)
"...to disarm the people - that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them." (George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380, source)
As a result of her actions against the Second Amendment rights of American citizens, Senator Dianne Feinstein has proven herself to be a domestic enemy of the Constitution of the United States. Threats of this kind to our most basic rights are intolerable and the Constitution must be defended. Feinstein has demonstrated a clear lack of understanding of our Constitution, which she has sworn to support and defend: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God." (Oath of a Congressman)Who will now defend the Constitution and the rights of Americans?
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing." -- Adolf Hitler, April 11 1942 (source)The following list is taken directly from Senator Feinstein's website (Summary of Feinstein Legislation.pdf):
Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of:Feinstein's remarks from an interview in 1995 where she tells the reporter that she would take them all if she could get the votes (unclear whether she means all types of firearms or all types of "assault weapons"):
- 120 specifically-named firearms
- Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one military characteristic
Strengthens the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state bans by:
- Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds
- Moving from a 2-characteristic test to a 1-characteristic test
- Eliminating the easy-to-remove bayonet mounts and flash suppressors from the characteristics test
Bans large-capacity ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than 10 rounds.
- Banning firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons” to address attempts to “work around” prior bans
Protects legitimate hunters and the rights of existing gun owners by:
- Grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment
- Exempting over 900 specifically-named weapons used for hunting or sporting purposes and
Requires that grandfathered weapons be registered under the National Firearms Act, to include:
- Exempting antique, manually-operated, and permanently disabled weapons
- Background check of owner and any transferee;
- Type and serial number of the firearm;
- Positive identification, including photograph and fingerprint;
- Certification from local law enforcement of identity and that possession would not violate State or local law; and
- Dedicated funding for ATF to implement registration
--Against All Enemies
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Disclaimer: These opinions are solely my own, and do not reflect the opinions or official positions of any United States Government agency, organization or department.
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