American politics is a lot like professional wrestling — the dork in the diaper loses again and again to the masked bodybuilder, until finally the tables are turned and the dork wins on a technicality, setting up November\u2019s big grudge match.<\/p>\n
Three months ago the press was full of speculation that what passes for America\u2019s smaller-government party was on the ropes, a bunch of tired old white men who could never win again, since they\u2019re not well liked by a bunch of illegal immigrants who can\u2019t vote. (It\u2019s the mainstream press; it doesn\u2019t have to make any SENSE.)<\/p>\n
Then, in their exuberance, the Democrats figured \u201cWe\u2019re on a roll — it\u2019s time to try more gun control!\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s never pretty.<\/p>\n
Barack Hussein Obama, guarded every minute by more than a dozen professional gunmen, has announced he wants to ban civilian possession of semi-automatic \u201cassault weapons\u201d and future production of full-sized ammunition magazines exceeding 10 rounds. He also wants universal background checks for gun purchases and \u201ctougher federal laws against gun trafficking,\u201d the AP explains.<\/p>\n
Most of this stuff will fail. The problem is that even if 90 percent of the gun-grabbers\u2019 bright ideas fail, the remaining 10 percent that manage to get through will be permanent.<\/p>\n
The real goal this time, it appears, is \u201cuniversal background checks,\u201d which in this electronic age will easily lead to a national registry of every gun in the country by serial number.<\/p>\n
(If you doubt this, ask anyone who says \u201cWe\u2019ll never have a national gun registry\u201d to prove it. All they have to do is enact a law banning serial numbers of firearms.)<\/p>\n
As of early March, Greg Sargent at the Washington Post was reporting under the headline \u201cNearing a Deal on Expanded Background Checks\u201d:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sticking point in Senate negotiations over expanding the background-check system has to do with whether to keep records on gun sales. The bipartisan group of senators negotiating this deal — Tom Coburn, Joe Manchin, Chuck Schumer and Mark Kirk — are 95 percent of the way there. The senators have agreed … on how background checks would be expanded to most private sales.\u201d<\/p>\n
In most cases, the Post reports, private gun sellers and prospective buyers would go to a federally licensed dealer, who would run the check for a fee. A record of the sale — linking the recipient\u2019s name to the serial number of the self-defense implement — would be kept by that dealer.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoburn, I\u2019m told, wants private buyers and sellers in \u2018remote\u2019 or rural areas to be able to get federal dealers to run the background check via an Internet portal, and in these cases he says no record of the sale should be kept,\u201d Sargent of the Post reports. But \u201cThis point, on which negotiations are hung, is not insurmountable.\u201d Even if Sen. Coburn wins some minor exceptions, \u201cthe background-check system would still be dramatically expanded,\u201d the always objective Post reports.<\/p>\n
Yippee!<\/p>\n
\u201cI am also told Manchin is signaling privately that he is okay with expanding the background-check system and letting gun stores keep records of the sales. … Because Manchin is a red-state Democrat with an \u201cA\u201d rating from the NRA, that\u2019s big…<\/p>\n
But \u201cTo repeat an important point: In no way, shape or form would this record-keeping by gun stores create a national gun registry, as some Republicans keep insisting,\u201d the Post itself insists. \u201cThe law explicitly forbids the creation of any such registry. … But irrationality is badly coloring this debate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oh, \u201cirrationality,\u201d I see.<\/p>\n
Every AP report about this stampede toward background checks for private sales — linking the new owner\u2019s name to the serial number before grandpa can leave his hunting rifle to Junior — mentions the \u201cirrational fear\u201d of a national registry, then automatically adding, \u201csomething the Obama administration has not called for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Imagine a German had protested, in the early 1940s, \u201cWait a minute: Herr Hitler wants all Jews required to live in the ghetto; they must wear a yellow star on their clothing, and they can be shot if they\u2019re outside the ghetto after sunset. Don\u2019t you see where this is leading? This is going to make it very easy to load them all on trains and ship them to extermination camps.\u201d To which the state-controlled press would have added what? Why, the fact that \u201cThis is something the Hitler administration has not called for,\u201d of course.<\/p>\n
As though totalitarians never conceal their long-term goals.<\/p>\n
Why, \u201cLast month,\u201d The AP reports, \u201cWhite House spokesman Jay Carney said none of Obama\u2019s proposals would take away a gun from a single law-abiding American.\u201d<\/p>\n
This may be the best, yet. Read it gain. If they ban semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, you refuse to turn yours in, and they come and grab it, they still \u201cwon\u2019t have taken a gun from a single law-abiding American,\u201d will they? Because at that point you\u2019ll no longer be \u201claw-abiding,\u201d will you?<\/p>\n
And you can keep your own doctor and your health insurance plan if you like them, and your premiums will only go down!<\/p>\n
On the bright side, Mr. Sargent of the Post may have figured they were \u201c95 percent there\u201d before the National Rifle Association came up with a most interesting internal Justice Department memo, composed by one Greg Ridgeway, Ph.D. statistician, on Jan. 4, his first day as acting director of the National Institute of Justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NRA has posted the memo on one of its web sites and cites it in advertising aimed at whipping up opposition to Obama\u2019s efforts to contain gun violence,\u201d The Associated Press reported on Feb. 23.<\/p>\n
Darn it!<\/p>\n
On Feb. 23 The Associated Press reported \u201cThe National Rifle Association is using a Justice Department memo it obtained to argue in ads that the Obama administration believes its gun control plans won\u2019t work unless the government seizes firearms and requires national gun registration — ideas the White House has not proposed and does not support.\u201d<\/p>\n
The document is titled \u201cSummary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies.\u201d In the memo, Ridgeway — no one at Justice actually denies he wrote the thing, though he\u2019s not talking — admits \u201cOn average there are about 11,000 firearm homicides every year,\u201d yet \u201cFatalities from mass shootings (those with 4 or more victims in a particular place and time) account on average for 35 fatalities per year. Policies that address the larger firearm homicide issue will have a far greater impact even if they do not address the particular issues of mass shootings. …\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, none of these \u201cresponses to the little kids killed at that school in Newtown, Conn.\u201d would actually stop such an event. But so what? Here\u2019s a chance to advance our pre-existing goals.<\/p>\n
Mr. Ridgeway then further acknowledges \u201cGun buybacks are ineffective as generally implemented,\u201d because they\u2019re too small and \u201cThe guns turned in are at low risk of ever being used in a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 1997 Australia gun buyback was an exception, he says, because \u201c1. It was large, buying back 20 percent of the firearm stock. 2. It targeted semi-automatic weapons, (and) 3. It coupled the buyback with a ban on certain weapons and a nationwide registration and licensing program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is strong evidence that it reduced mass killings,\u201d Ridgeway asserts, though he admits it \u201cappears to have had no effect on gun homicide … (or) on crime otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, home invasions against disarmed citizens skyrocketed.<\/p>\n
The 1994 ban on large capacity magazines here in America \u201chad limited effectiveness,\u201d Ridgeway admits, because 1) Large capacity clips are a durable good 2) There were an estimated 25 million guns with large capacity magazines in 1995, and 3) The 1994 law exempted magazines manufactured before 1994, allowing ongoing importation.<\/p>\n
The solution? \u201cIn order to have an impact, large capacity magazine regulation needs to sharply curtail their availability to include restrictions on importation, manufacture, sale, and possession,\u201d Ridgeway recommends.<\/p>\n
Universal background checks? \u201cEffectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration. …\u201d<\/p>\n
A ban on semi-automatic so-called \u201cassault weapons\u201d?<\/p>\n
\u201cAssault weapons are not a major contributor to gun crime,\u201d Ridgeway inconveniently admits. However, If the goal is to limit access to these semi-automatic carbines, it will be necessary to \u201cBan the manufacture, sale, transfer, or possession of assault weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Associated Press report concludes that, although \u201cThe nine-page document says the success of universal background checks would depend in part on \u2018requiring gun registration,\u2019 and says gun buybacks would not be effective \u2018unless massive and coupled with a ban,\u2019 … The administration has not proposed gun registration, buybacks or banning all firearms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Are you starting to recognize a recurring theme, here? Critics find a smoking gun — a top government strategist admitting universal background checks (the main current goal of the hoplophobes) won\u2019t help much without national gun registration — and the lapdog press, reacting as reliably as a patient kicking when the doctor hits his knee with a hammer, blurts out \u201cThe administration has not proposed gun registration, buybacks or banning all firearms.\u201d<\/p>\n
All perfectly true. Though surely they could have added the word \u201cyet\u201d … don\u2019t you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
American politics is a lot like professional wrestling — the dork in the diaper loses again and again to the masked bodybuilder, until finally the tables are turned and the dork wins on a technicality, setting up November\u2019s big grudge match. Three months ago the press was full of speculation that what passes for America\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2nd-amendment"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pWqFl-qT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1668,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667\/revisions\/1668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}