Vin Suprynowicz

A version of the The following column appears in the July 10 edition of “Firearms News” — formerly “Shotgun News” — on newsstands now.

After college, Don Beyer, now 65, went to work at his father’s Volvo dealership, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. In 1986, he and his brother Michael bought the business, soon expanding it to nine dealerships, including Land Rover, Kia, Volkswagen, and Subaru franchises.

Beyer did well. He’s now reportedly worth $48 million. If he’d stopped there, we would surely congratulate him for using his talents to provide his neighbors with a product they obviously need and want.

But Don Beyer had ambition. From 1990 to 1998 he served as Virginia’s lieutenant governor. In 1998 he was the Democratic candidate for governor, but lost to Republican Attorney General Jim Gilmore. Oh well.

But by then Don Beyer figured something out. He signed on as National Treasurer for the 2004 presidential campaign of former Vermont Governor Howard Dean. When Dean’s campaign imploded, Mr. Beyer went on the serve as chairman of the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign for Virginia. In 2007-08, he endorsed and campaigned extensively for Barack Obama. He served as chairman of the Mid Atlantic Finance Council of the “Obama for America” campaign, and served on that campaign’s National Finance Council.

If money is the lifeblood of politics, Don Beyer had shown himself to be the man who can open the floodgates.

Such efforts have their rewards. In June of 2009, Barack Obama nominated Don Beyer to the post of Ambassador to Switzerland and Lichtenstein (Lichtenstein being judged too small to deserve its own, separate ambassador.)

Perhaps Don Beyer was chosen for this post because of his interest in helping America emulate a nation where every male head of household keeps a machine gun at home, and because of his unusual (and previously unrecognized) combined fluency in German, French, and Italian -– though I doubt it. I do know that in December, 2010, Beyer “attracted public attention” when it was reported he’d warned the Swiss government against offering asylum to Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange. By 2013 Mr. Beyer had resigned to return home and run for Congress from Virginia’s 8th Congressional District, where I doubt he was underfunded. He won.

Why is all this important? To demonstrate that — while he’s only a freshman congressman — Don Beyer is not some wet-behind-the-ears kid wandering the Capitol hallways, trying to find the men’s room. Although bills submitted by freshmen — and minority party freshmen, at that — are rarely given much chance of immediate passage, a bill proposed by Don Beyer is not necessarily something dreamed up with a couple of buddies over a poker game down at the firehouse on Friday night.

TO SET UP A NATIONAL GUN REGISTRY

And what a bill Don Beyer has submitted! Back on April 12, he offered up H.R. 4905, the “ATF Enforcement Act,” a bill “to restore the ability of law enforcement authorities to enforce gun safety laws, and for other purposes.”

Said Act would “eliminate the Senate confirmation requirement for the appointment of the Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.” Hm.

It would eliminate legal “limitations relating to firearms trace data” as well as the “Prohibition on use of firearms trace data to draw broad conclusions about firearms-related crime.”

It would eliminate the “prohibition on consolidation or centralization in the Department of Justice of firearms acquisition and disposition records maintained by Federal firearms licensees.”

It would eliminate the “prohibition on imposition of requirement that firearms dealers conduct physical check of firearms inventory.”

It would eliminate the “requirement that instant check records be destroyed within 24 hours.” You might want to read that, again.

It would eliminate “prohibitions relating to ‘curios and relics’ and importation of surplus military firearms” and the “prohibition on denial of federal firearms license due to lack of business activity.”

It would eliminate “prohibition on (the) search (of) computerized records of federally licensed firearms dealers who are out of business.”

It would eliminate the “prohibition on denying, or failing to act on, application to import certain shotgun models on the basis that the shotgun was not particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes.”

I guess we could also call it the “Gun-Grabbers’ Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Wet-Dream Bill.”

There are two points to be made. The first is the reaction to this proposal from Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, Charles Schumer, and the other chief hypocrites among our statist gun-grabbers — “hypocrites” because they, of course, have never objected to the government bodyguards, funded by us taxpaying peasants, assigned to protect their oh-so-valuable lives and on occasion even those of their children, 24/7.

(Also note 26 of the gun-grabbing congresscritters engaging in the recent gun-banning “sit-in” in Washington are gun owners — see http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2016/06/total-hypocrites-26-of-the-democrats-at-the-gun-control-sit-in-own-guns-3377916.html .)

The reaction of those hypocrites being, so far as I’ve been able to determine, no reaction whatsoever.

If these character had an ounce of moral or ethical fiber (stop laughing, please), they’d be racing in front of the TV cameras, shouting, “Whoa, there, hold on a minute! In order to win approval of this current background check system — which I’ll have to admit in passing costs millions of person-hours, and even more millions of dollars, but has never resulted in the conviction of a single convicted murderer for trying to illegally buy a gun at a licensed gun store — we made sober and sincere and morally binding promises that the results of those checks would be destroyed within days, that those buyers’ names would never -– could never — be linked with weapon serial numbers in order to set up a national registry, which could eventually be used to facilitate a big confiscation. And now comes this freshman punk, this millionaire Obama fund-bundler, trying to dishonor and discredit and renounce and go back on our sober promises? This could make us look like we don’t stand by our agreements! We demand he withdraw this monstrosity and apologize!”

START PLAYING THE GAME THEIR WAY

Instead, silence. Why? Because, as with any other totalitarians — no matter whether this year they call themselves state socialists, or fascists, or “Progressives,” or whatever — to these government gun-grabbers a “promise” is nothing but a short-term compromise to get another 10 or 20 percent of what they want. Before the ink is even dry they’re gathering back in their office to break open the champagne and ask “OK, now how do we get the next 10 or 20 percent? Remember, our long-term goal is to see to it that no one but our Army and our police forces and our armed bodyguards can ever own or carry another functional modern firearm anywhere in this country. We’ve got to break the back of any potential resistance! Where can we back down these redneck gun-nuts, next, by claiming it’s all ‘for the chillldrennn’?”

They don’t care that Rep. Beyer’s bill may not pass this year. The point is to have it in the hopper, ready to go the next time their insistence on doping up the nation’s young males on Ritalin and Luvox (not to mention turning a blind eye to the lunatic young male Muslims in our midst) leads to another “tragic massacre,” providing a conveniently emotional excuse to squeeze the coils of the python a little tighter.

Which leads to my second point. Why are the forces of freedom always on the defensive? Why can’t OUR guys submit some bills that will just be sitting there, waiting, the next time these freedom haters decide to leave for vacation a couple of days early?

At the very least, the Freedom Forces should have some bills drafted up, submitted, and ready to go, stipulating that:

1) The stamping or other placement of serial numbers on firearms is hereby discouraged, since it only encourages registration schemes. Any laws, orders, or regulations which can be interpreted to require the stamping of serial numbers on firearms are hereby repealed;

2) All adult Americans are encouraged to carry loaded handguns with them at all times, especially when visiting any courthouse, courtroom, government office building, legislative chambers, leased premises of the Treasury Department or the IRS, and the like. Any laws, orders, or regulations tending to discourage, encumber, inconvenience, ban, tax or regulate such freedom-enhancing behaviors are hereby repealed.

3) The importation and manufacture of fully-automatic firearms — belt-fed and otherwise, both newly manufactured and vintage — and of grenade launchers and rocket launchers, and of appropriate ammunition for each of these Instruments of Freedom, for sale to American citizens and residents without the requirement of any license or permit for said manufacture, sale, purchase, or possession, is hereby encouraged, in keeping with the purpose and intent of the Second Amendment — i.e. “that every man be armed” — in order to discourage executive branch agents and employees from usurping powers not specifically delegated. Therefore any and all laws, orders, or regulations tending to discourage, encumber, inconvenience, ban, regulate, or tax such freedom-enhancing behaviors are hereby renounced and repealed.

(The gun-grabbers keep talking about “military-style arms,” which have been effectively banned for “civilian” — non-police — possession in this country since 1934. Since they apparently don’t know what real “military-style arms” are, let’s finally show them.)

4) Since we find it a prima facie violation of the First Amendment ban on “an establishment of religion,” by seeking to establish the Green religion by force of law, and since it’s been widely misused as an excuse to massively infringe private property rights and attempt to drive rural ranchers, loggers, miners and others off the land, the Endangered Species Act and all accompanying Legislation associated with that Act are hereby renounced and repealed.

Get a few dozen such useful proposed laws into the hopper. Make the other side play defense, wondering which one of these things is going to get attached at the last minute, when they’ve left early for the holidays, as a rider to some harmless-looking bill declaring June 17 to be “National Strawberry Shortcake Day.”

We’ve played defense long enough. It’s time to start the ball moving back the other way.

Vin Suprynowicz was for 20 years an award-winning columnist and editorial writer for the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal. He is the author of the essay collection “Send in the Waco Killers” and two new novels about the War on Drugs, “The Testament of James” and “The Miskatonic Manuscript.” He blogs at www.vinsuprynowicz.com .