Well, that’s that. We’ve got to have a vote. Michelle wants a vote. The queen has spoken.
“These reforms deserve a vote in Congress,” she said, drawing loud applause from hundreds of Chicago’s business executives and civic leaders who were gathered at a luncheon to raise money for a new anti-violence initiative.
Obama spoke emotionally about attending the funeral in February of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old majorette who was shot in a city park not far from the Obamas’ Chicago house and just days after visiting Washington for President Obama’s inauguration ceremonies.
“As I visited with the Pendleton family at Hadiya’s funeral, I couldn’t get over how familiar they felt to me, because what I realized was Hadiya’s family was just like my family,” the first lady said. “Hadiya Pendleton was me, and I was her. But I got to grow up and go to Princeton and Harvard Law School and have a career and a family, and the most blessed life I could ever imagine. And Hadiya — well, we know that story.”
Hadiya Pendleton was “allegedly” killed by a guy on probation for a weapons charge and who could not legally possess a weapon. In Chicago. Home of the formerly strictest gun laws in the country. But at least these remarks came after the big taxpayer funded soul party at the White House.
Obama is politicking on the graves of dead children not really having any idea of what he speaks:
During several speeches, Obama has said 40 percent of all gun purchases were made without a background check.
But that number is nearly two decades old and comes from a poll with a relatively tiny sample size. Gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association, as well as The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker,” are calling out the president’s stat, saying his numbers on background checks need a background check of their own.
During a speech last week, Obama asked, “Why wouldn’t we want to make it more difficult for a dangerous person to get his or her hand on a gun? Why wouldn’t we want to close the loophole that allows as many as 40 percent of all gun purchases to take place without a background check? Why wouldn’t we do that?”
The oft-cited figure, it turns out, was pulled from a 1997 study done by the National Institute of Justice. In the study, researchers estimated about 40 percent of all firearm sales took place through people other than licensed gun dealers. The conclusion was based on data from a 1994 survey of 2,568 households. Of those, only 251 people answered the question about where they got their guns.
PolitiFact tracked down the co-author of the study, Duke University professor Philip Cook, and asked him if he thought the 40 percent estimate is accurate.
“The answer is I have no idea,” Cook reportedly told PolitiFact. “This survey was done almost 20 years ago.”
And here’s a little known nugget:
I just came from Denver, where the issue of gun violence is something that has haunted families for way too long, and it is possible for us to create common-sense gun safety measures that respect the traditions of gun ownership in this country and hunters and sportsmen, but also make sure that we don’t have another 20 children in a classroom gunned down by a semiautomatic weapon — by a fully automatic weapon in that case, sadly.
Episodes like this have cause Jake Tapper to reflect:
“The gun debate is worth having,” Tapper noted, “but it might help the advocates of gun control if, in their advocacy for stricter measures, they seemed more familiar with what exactly they’re trying to ban.”
They don’t know what they’re talking about. What they’re proposing won’t help. It would not prevent another Newtown.
Their new laws won’t do squat but they do foment mistrust:
He conflates a failed background check with stopping a criminal from obtaining a gun. “Over the past 20 years,” Obama says, “background checks have kept more than 2 million dangerous people from buying a gun.” That claim is based on two faulty assumptions: 1) that everyone who fails a background check is dangerous, which plainly is not true, given the ridiculously broad categories of people who are legally barred from buying firearms, and 2) that a criminal intent on obtaining a weapon will give up if he cannot get it over the counter at a gun store, rather than enlisting a straw buyer or turning to the gray or black market.
He falsely equates “assault weapons” with military guns. Obama inaccurately calls one of the guns used in the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, massacre an “assault rifle,” which is a military weapon capable of firing automatically. He calls the guns he wants to ban “weapons of war,” again implying that they fire continuously, when in fact they fire once per trigger pull, like any other semi-automatic firearm.
He says there is no logical connection between “universal background checks” and gun registration. “We’re not proposing a gun registration system,” Obama insists. “We’re proposing background checks for criminals.” But there is no way to enforce a background-check requirement for every gun transfer unless the government knows where the guns are. Federally licensed gun dealers are readily identified and can be required to keep sale records. Individual gun owners who might dare to sell their property without clearance from the government cannot be identified unless the government compiles a list of them. Hence Obama’s assurances amount to saying, “Don’t worry. We will make a big show of passing this new background-check mandate, but we won’t really enforce it.”
He pooh-poohs the idea that there could ever be anything adversarial about the relationship between Americans and their government:
You hear some of these quotes: “I need a gun to protect myself from the government.” “We can’t do background checks because the government is going to come take my guns away.”
Well, the government is us. These officials are elected by you. (Applause.) They are elected by you. I am elected by you. I am constrained, as they are constrained, by a system that our Founders put in place. It’s a government of and by and for the people.
One of the constraints on the federal government is the doctrine of enmuerated powers, which says every act of Congress must be justified by a specific constitutional grant of authority. Where is the clause that empowers Congress to say how many rounds you can put in a magazine or whether your rifle can have a barrel shroud? Furthermore, as Obama surely has heard by now, there is this thing called the Second Amendment, and it is hardly frivolous to argue than an arbitrary and capricious piece of legislation like the “assault weapon” ban Obama supports would violate the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Yet to Obama’s mind, anyone who makes such an argument is one of those “people who take absolute positions” and therefore can be safely ignored. After all, the government is us.
Sen. Mike Lee observes that background checks could lead to a national gun registry in the hands of the loathsome Eric Holder:
“Some of the proposals, like for example- universal background checks- would allow the federal government to surveil law-abiding citizens who exercise their Constitutional rights. One of the provisions we expect to see in the bill based on what we saw in the Judiciary Committee- on which I sit- would allow the Attorney General of the United States (Eric Holder) to promulgate regulations that could lead to a national registry system for guns. Something my constituents in Utah are very concerned about, and understandably so,”
So give them the damn vote. Put democrats on the line. Let them out their necks on the line. 2014 is coming
Voting for the assault weapons ban poses the bigger immediate threat to vulnerable Democrats such as Sens. Mark Begich (Alaska), Tim Johnson (S.D.) and Mark Pryor (Ark.). The NRA would rip any centrist Democrats — or Republicans — who support the assault weapons ban.
“There will be ramifications for elected officials who support gun bans. Our position is unequivocal. We do not support gun bans as a matter of policy or effective way of controlling guns,” said Chris Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action.
Universal background checks won’t do a damn thing. They didn’t stop Jared Loughner, James Holmes or Seung Hui-Cho. They wouldn’t have stopped Adam Lanza.
Clarence Dupnik could have stopped Jared Loughner but he was friends with Loughner’s mom. The State of Virginia could have stopped Hui-Cho but it was too much of a hassle. James Holems’ shrink warned the cops to no avail.
Gang bangers are not going to register their weapons. They are not going to procure their ammunition certificates.
Crazies like Nancy Lanza won’t stop handing lethal weapons to their insane progeny.
So bring on the vote.
And every time there is another gun death, shove it up their asses. And come November 2014, remind voters how surrendering your Constitutional Rights accomplished nothing.
Fifteen people were stabbed at a Texas college the other day. No one demanded that knives be banned.
In 2010 more than 10,000 people lost their lives in alcohol-related driving accidents but no one demands that cars be banned.
It seems that guns are the only inanimate objects which are capable of being dangerous on their own.
Give them their damn vote. How sweet would it be to see Obama having to deal with an entire GOP Congress for the remainder of his regime?
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
