Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Stupid Is As Stupid Does
  Police State piece by Geoff Metcalf

“You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.“ —President Lyndon B. Johnson

Albert Einstein once defined “Insanity” as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” That is precisely what the power crazed; myopic congressional democrats continue to do in reaction to their angst over the second amendment and the constitutionally reaffirmed God given inalienable right.

They ought to know better. Overwhelmingly, the American people have rejected the gun grabber’s pleas to disarm all except the government.  Americans (even those who do not own guns) recognize that if government ever bans guns, only bad guys and a small contingent of police types, will have guns.

Among the gaggle of single issue voters (abortion, immigration, property rights, taxes, oil, military defense, etc.) guns and the Second Amendment advocates have been, and remain, the 800 pound gorilla.

Many of the single issue groups organize and make noise and/or videos, however, gun owners/supporters (more than any others), do way more than just make noise. They vote, and they get others to vote…and vote big.

An entire bumper sticker industry exists for pro-second amendment types.  Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, James Monroe, Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry all trumpeted the refrain, “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.“

Jefferson quoted Cesare Beccaria’s 1767 words, “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.“

However, once again, an elitist band of sycophant liberals seems intent on compelling you to accept the gospel according to them. Notwithstanding the huge statistical data of empirical evidence offered ( see Dr. John Lott http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/ ) to refute their quest they seek to return to the well.

Only a myopic fool incapable of learning form past scars would presume to package something as insidious as H.R. 45, Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009. Sponsored by Illinois Democrat Rep. Bobby Rush this omnibus gun grab seeks to “bring gun ownership in America to an end.”

Buried in the minutiae of H.R. 45 ( http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.45 ) is the Brady crowd’s erotic dream:

· a national database of current firearm owners
· psychiatric testing
· fingerprint requirements
· specific requirements and restrictions
o on gun use
o and storage,
· and a whole lot more.

“It takes semi-automatic firearms and handguns – the guns people use for personal self-defense,“ Gun Owners of America’s spokesman said, “and sets up a licensure system, that is, the government would have to give you permission to own a gun.

The government can therefore also deny that permission, and it would mean an anti-gun administration could use it to effectively ban most guns from private ownership.

The key and tragic flaw of this plan is the conversion of a “Right” into a “Privilege”. If liberal Harvard law Professor Dr. Laurence Tribe’s recognition of the second amendment as an “individual right” were insufficient, the United States Supreme Court has finally acknowledged that fact.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but even the Second Amendment and the Bill of Rights doesn’t “give” us ANYthing. The Bill of Rights merely recognizes God given inalienable rights. Rights that no one (least of all Congress) can either give OR take.

Despite H.R. 45 having remained dormant in the House Judiciary Committee since it was introduced, it remains like a rotting piece of fruit just waiting for the next gun scare or school yard shooting.

H.R. 45 is a do over of 2007’s H.R. 2666, which contained much of the same language and was co-sponsored by 15 other representatives including Barack Obama’s current chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel. H.R. 2666 was also assigned to the House Judiciary committee, where no action was taken. H.R. 45 currently has no co-sponsors and is likewise assigned to the House Judiciary committee.

Calvin Coolidge once observed, “It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.“ H.R. 45 screams to be killed.
In the Federalist, Number 46, it notes, the Constitution preserves “the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation. . . (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.“

Geoff Metcalf

Posted by Geoff Metcalf on 3/4/09

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