“Obama will never to try to take your guns,” they said. “Obama’s not out to make the US a socialist state,” they said. “You’re crazy,” they said.
They called me crazy when I linked Fast and Furious to the UN Arms Trade Treaty. I have been saying for a long time that Fast and Furious was an effort to get the people of the US to accept the need for international gun control. The UN Arms Trade Treaty effectively created an international database of gun owners. Fast and Furious was a scheme to get us to accept the need for international gun control while they slipped the international gun registration requirement by us.
That thankfully failed.
And then, there were a rash of terribly violent incidents that became public spectacles. I am in no way insinuating that our government created those incidents in an effort to get us to buy the need for gun control. However, they are sure seizing on it.
The massacres at Aurora and Newton were committed with semi-automatic rifles of the AR variant. The shooters used standard (30 round) and high capacity (100 round) magazines. Two men in two separate incidents were able to kill 38 and injure 58 more innocent victims. They were able to affect their carnage in very short periods of time.
And then the lawmakers came. They began saying things like
- We have to do something about this senseless gun violence.
- It’s just way too easy for people with mental issues to get their hands on the military style weapons with high capacity clips (Yes I know it’s a magazine, but they said it not me).
- There’s no reason you need automatic military style weapons to hunt or defend your home from a criminal.
And then they introduced legislation. Senator Diane Feinstein promised to reintroduce the 1994 assault weapons ban. But this bill had sharper teeth. Instead of just banning the evil black rifle, her new bill will effectively ban everything but revolvers. It will also require gun owners register their guns and subject them to identification requirements.
Legislation is actively being introduced in individual states as well. A few are considering their own versions of an assault weapons ban. Some states are even considering retroactive bans meaning they will seize the banned firearms.
President Obama put together a task force to address the gun violence issue. He appointed Vice President Joe Biden, the author of the 1994 ban, to head the task force. Biden assembled a team made up of the usual players and set out to establish some “common sense” reform.
This “common sense” is currently in the works. Biden and Obama understand that the usual process of passing laws could take a long time and very possibly derail their efforts. Obamacare took nearly his whole first term and very narrowly passed.
Today, Biden said that the president is considering bypassing congress with an executive order to enact this “common sense” reform. The administration is completely ignoring the fact that the president’s executive order power extends only to the executive branch and that no law shall come from his office. They said they are completely prepared to ignore the constitution in order to violate the constitution.
Let’s consider some facts about gun crime and put this into the perspective it deserves. Firearms of all types were used in 68% of the homicides in the US during 2011. They were used in 21% of aggravated assault and in 41% of robberies. Rifles like the ones affected by the 1994 assault weapons ban accounted for only 2.6% of homicide and even less of the other types of violent crime.
That’s right! These “common sense” reforms everyone’s telling us we need will address less than 3% of all violent crime in the US. In fact, the 1994 assault weapons ban expired because the FBI could find no link between the regulation and crime rates. The reality is that crime has been trending down for the last five years and the ban expired nine years ago.
So then, why are they so focused on semi-automatic rifles? That’s a good question. I’m glad you asked.
Because they are the single most effective tool we have to defend ourselves from a tyrannical government. The can be accurate at long distances. They can hold several rounds and can be reloaded quickly. They are light and easy to maneuver with.
Once they take that tool away, it’s only a matter of time, and a short one at that, before they can and will take them all. Once they have all of our self-defense tools, we are no longer to fend off the most vicious criminal of them all. History tells us that criminal is a tyrannical government.
I hope those folks don’t still think I’m crazy.