Clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right
It’s been half a century since Jack Finney’s 1954 novel (and Don Siegel’s 1956 film adaptation) “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” introduced us to the notion of “pod people” — creatures that look like our neighbors but turn out to be pod-grown clones lacking nearly all human qualities including, presumably, any sense of irony.
If David Letterman convenes an all-races child chorus to sing us a song on his TV show, we’re already laughing even before we find out what Politically Correct cliche he’s going to lampoon. But when the simpletons (or do they just consider us simpletons?) now in charge at the White House surrounded themselves with little children, chosen by race, who had written in letters detailing such well-thought-out policy prescriptions as “I love my country and I want everybody to be happy and safe” in a ceremony announcing yet another try at the standard police-state “disarm the civilians” agenda last Wednesday, did the jaded commentators of the Lapdog Press give them the dose of the ridicule they deserved?
The government makes school attendance mandatory, turns those little propaganda camps into self-defense-free zones by barring staff from going armed (180 degrees opposite of the policy Israel has used to stop school violence dead in its tracks since 1974), and then Clarabelle Biden asserts that when violence strikes “It’s hard for the nation to comprehend.”
Mr. Obama lines up the white kid and the black kid and the Hispanic kid (was there even a Muslim kid?) behind him and tells Grant and Julia and Hinna and Teja to wave, says “What we should be thinking about is our responsibility to care for them, and shield them from harm,” but then has virtually no specific proposals to deal with scary young men who spend half their lives in darkened rooms blowing things up on video, let alone arming our teachers.
Nor can he even entertain the thought of simply disbanding the vastly expensive and absurdly ineffectual government schooling monopoly, putting parents back in charge of their own kids’ educations, a system that worked pretty well till the current, compulsion-based Prussian system was imposed on America at bayonet point in the years following the Civil War.
The chief speech-reader claims 900 Americans a month “die at the end of a gun” — without telling us how many were suicides, how many were felons shot by cops while committing crimes, how many died in drug-turf disputes directly attributable to his own beloved federal War on Some Drugs. (His high-school nickname was Barry the Stoner, and he can’t even take a stab at getting the Drug War repealed?)
The statists who want only the police and the army to be armed — the Nazi-Bolshevik model — always accuse the NRA of advancing self-defense rights only because “They’re in the pay of the gun manufacturers.” Looking at the way gun sales have skyrocketed in the past month, the manufacturers should save their biggest payoffs for Obama and Biden.
And they’ve done it all merely by threatening to re-enact gun bans that have already been proven useless and have about as much chance of making it through this Congress as a new requirement for police stations to hand out unlimited free marijuana.
Not, for the record, that such nonsense ever “protects the children,” anyway. As my friend John Lott pointed out in Investors Business Daily last week, when jurisdictions ban guns, “In every single place that we have data for, murder rates went up. Chicago and D.C. provided spectacular failures within the U.S. But this has been true worldwide. The U.K., Ireland and Jamaica, despite being island nations that can’t blame a neighbor for supplying guns, have suffered more murders after gun control was passed.
“What has happened when Americans have been allowed access to guns? … Concealed handgun permits and gun sales have been soaring over the last four years, as regular people have worried that Obama would push through gun control. Yet, murders and violent crime have been falling. … The states that have had the biggest increases in concealed handgun permits and gun ownership have seen the biggest drops in murder and violent crime rates.”
Furthermore, gun bans are anti-woman. Ask any rape victim or battered wife or girlfriend how the equation changes when the lady has a gun.
The leaders of Wednesday’s bizarre pod parade even mentioned pressuring doctors to ask patients if they have guns at home, despite the fact that’s barred under the president’s own health care law. As government agents under Obamacare, maybe they could also ask if we’ve filed our taxes.
Yet not a single member of the press responded by asking Mr. Obama “Since you mentioned it, sir, how many guns are in the White House, today? Start with the Secret Service agents, and don’t forget the Marines. How many have magazines holding more than 10 rounds? How come you deserve that level of protection — as do your kids — but a working gal living alone in a ground-floor apartment in Georgia or Southern California does not? Are the presence of these firearms in your house a sign of mental illness?”
Just as confusing to many, though, was what appears to be the president’s most pernicious proposal, “universal criminal background checks” on the transfer of firearms.
The notion that inner-city drug gang members will do anything but laugh at such a requirement is absurd, of course. But the significance to the law-abiding citizen could be startling.
To date, the federal government has imposed a background check requirement on handgun sales — yes, even at gun shows — through their regulatory authority over federally licensed firearms dealers.
But Erich Pratt, spokesman for the Virginia-based civil rights group Gun Owners of America, reports that legislative proposals already sent to Congress indicate the goal now is to require even a widow or daughter trying to sell or give away grandpa’s old hunting rifles to travel with the prospective recipient to a federally licensed firearms store — which could be hours away, for rural Nevadans — and there pay to have a “background check” performed on the buyer.
And if the background check database is down, that day or week?
“Therein lies one of the dangers of giving government bureaucrats the power to approve or deny law-abiding citizens the ability to exercise their rights,” says Mr. Pratt. “And probably the most pernicious and dangerous part of this, you already have (New York Gov.) Andrew Cuomo saying that once everyone is in the database, confiscation is an option.”
January 22nd, 2013 at 6:59 am
This is a hot topic right now obviously. We covered it on the last episode of our show too. Interesting Rasmussen poll last week that says 65% of Americans recognize individual gun possession as protection against government tyranny. I would never have guessed the number would be that high.
January 22nd, 2013 at 8:58 am
“The leaders of Wednesday’s bizarre pod parade even mentioned pressuring doctors to ask patients if they have guns at home, despite the fact that’s barred under the president’s own health care law.”
One of the President’s promised 23 Executive Orders: (16.) Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
There is little doubt in my mind that the push will begin for mandatory registration, and confiscation of all “banned” firearms, before this is all over. If nothing else, it will make ‘lesser’ infringements more palatable o our spineless solons.
January 22nd, 2013 at 12:14 pm
“Background checks,” however convenient or thorough, can’t begin to identify people who actually want to harm others, with guns or anything else. The criminals, both official and freelance, will find a way to do what they want regardless of any “law.” Only individuals who accept responsibility for themselves and their legitimate dependents can counteract the evil intent of aggressors.
January 22nd, 2013 at 1:06 pm
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