United Liberty

President Obama loves to point to a poll that said 90 percent of all Americans wanted tougher background checks.  After the measure failed in the Senate, Obama wanted that 90 percent to let Congress know how they felt.

Talk about your backfires:

But a new Washington Post/Pew Research Center poll suggests that post-vote attitudes stray from the wide support for the background check measure before the debate, which hovered around 85% in multiple polls.

A plurality of Americans–47%–say they are either “angry” or “disappointed” with the Senate’s action on gun legislation, far different from the amount of people who strongly approved the proposal before the vote. Meanwhile, 39% say they are “relieved” or “happy” about the vote.

I always thought those earlier numbers were soft, and they were.

You see, one of the issues has always been that many polls don’t really capture how committed to something a respondent really is.  Someone may support the idea of tougher background checks, but how important is really is to them.

It hasn’t been a good few weeks for me if I wanted to be proud of my senators.  First, we had Saxby Chambliss use a ridiculous argument against same-sex marriage, and now we have Johnny Isakson’s opposition to a filibuster on gun control legislation.

Isakson’s office is reportedly saying he opposes the legislation, and that may be true, but he sees no problem with it passing.

You see, the United States Senate is in the hands of the Democrats.  They want this to become law.  That means it’s likely to pass the Senate.  Isakson isn’t a complete moron.  He knows this.  He knows that in a vote, the bill passes.

He should also know that he swore and oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States”, and on that he’s falling down on the job.

The problem stems from the misguided idea that universal background checks would do anything to curb violence in this country.

Folks, gang bangers, drug cartels, and other violent groups aren’t exactly deterred by laws. They’re criminals. By definiton, they skirt the law.  A universal background check will put more of a burden on the law abiding citizen who would like to purchase a gun from a buddy.

Isakson should know this.  I suspect he does know this.  However, instead of supporting an effort that is both legal and ethical as a way to block this, he’s arguing that members of his own party should sit down, shut up, and do nothing as they watch this nation go further down the tubes.

You may have heard about the recent slaying of a Texas district attorney and his wife in their home. It follows the brazen daylight killing of a prosecutor in the same county, and it has everyone on edge. This is what local law enforcement is going through:

The judge was on the phone.

“Yep, I said I’ll do anything,” Bruce Wood told the person on the other end, rubbing his forehead. “They asked me to do a eulogy. I don’t know what I’m going to say.”

Elsewhere in the Kaufman County Courthouse, a sheriff’s deputy was handing out bulletproof vests. “I brought the smallest one,” he said to a secretary, who stared at the khaki armor as he explained how to adjust the side straps should the need arise. “These have the neck for a female.”

Outside, two armed guards escorted a white-haired judge from his parked car to the mirrored doors of the yellow brick courthouse in a county where little seemed the same anymore.

“Judge! How are you doing?” shouted a reporter.

“Everybody is making do as best as we can,” he said.

You get it, right? Dianne Feinstein doesn’t like guns.  I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say, “Yes Dianne, we get it.”  Feinstein has a history with guns.  You see, she became mayor of San Francisco when Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were murdered by city supervisor Dan White.  This is a point that Feinstein uses to leverage her position on guns into being somehow more moral than that of gun rights advocates.

Yesterday, Sen. Ted Cruz asked her if she would be as quick to circumvent the First and Fourth Amendments as she is to gut the Second.  Her response [emphasis added]:

“I’m not a sixth grader,” said responded. “Senator, I’ve been on this committee for 20 years. I was a mayor for nine years. I walked in, I saw people shot. I’ve looked at bodies that have been shot with these weapons. I’ve seen the bullets that implode. In Sandy Hook, youngsters were dismembered. Look, there are other weapons.”

“I’ve been up — I’m not a lawyer, but after 20 years I’ve been up close and personal to the Constitution. I have great respect for it. This doesn’t mean that weapons of war and the Heller decision clearly points out three exceptions, two of which are pertinent here.”

Feinstein is saying that she saw Milk and Moscone’s bodies, and that is at least half true.  She is the one who discovered Milk’s body, and she might have seen Moscone’s.  However, she goes on to imply that they were killed with “these weapons”, which is complete bull. Dan White, who murdered Milk and Moscone, used a revolver, the one weapon type that Feinstein is doing nothing about.

There’s a lot of back and forth on the internet right now.  Guns tend to get folks riled up pretty well.  Gun rights advocates are screaming to the top of their lungs about universal gun registration, while gun grabbers are yelling that it’s about keeping guns out of the wrong hands.

Well folks, you may not realize it, but the gun rights advocates are actually right on this one.

Sure, no one who supports universal background checks is saying registration.  In fact, they honestly believe they’re avoiding gun registration.  Unfortunately, there’s a reason why gun rights advocates don’t believe them.

First, one must understand the entire process of purchasing a gun through a licensed dealer.  The background check is only part of the process.  The rest involves paperwork that also registers information about the weapon purchased.  These records aren’t shredded after a certain period of time.  No, the dealer is required to hold onto these records indefinitely.

By forcing all gun sales to go through Federal Firearms License holders, you force all weapons to have paperwork filed on each and every firearm purchase.  That is a form of de facto registration.

Now, this isn’t some gun armeggedon or anything.  Most guns would still transfer just as they always have (Obama’s figure that as many as 40 percent of all sales don’t go through the background check is complete bull), but some will now have to go through a third party.  So what’s the big deal?

“Congress should be cutting spending, reducing the regulatory burdens that are crushing the economy — freedom works, and it is time we put it back to work.” — Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA)

Just a couple of days after President Barack Obama laid out his agenda for the next year in his State of the Union address, I sat down with Rep. Tom McClintock, a Republican who represents California’s Fourth Congressional District, to get his thoughts on the proposals being pushed by the White House, the Senate’s refusal to pass a budget, ObamaCare, and a few other issues.

On the State of the Union, Rep. McClintock, who has been among the staunchest defenders of economic freedom and the Constitution in Congress, was dismissive of President Obama’s agenda. “[W]e heard this song before,” he noted. “I think that his words have to be measured against the last four years of his deeds.”

He rhetorically asked, “What have been his policies? Higher taxes, much higher spending, out of control deficits, crushing business regulations. And what have those policies produced? Family take home pay has declined over these past four years, the unemployment rate is higher than when we started — it would be much higher except for the millions of Americans who have given up even looking for work.”

“What did he propose? More of the same,” Rep. McClintock stated. “Taking bad policy and doubling down on it doesn’t make it good policy.”

The Daily Caller just published a new editorial of mine, in which I critique Tennessee Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey’s proposal to protect gun rights by trampling property rights, and in which I offer the TN General Assembly a few alternative paths forward. Here’s an excerpt:

As Justice Antonin Scalia articulated in the majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, we find the Second Amendment’s roots in the English Declaration of Rights of 1689, which asserted what Scalia called an “ancient right” of people to not be disarmed by the Crown. The Founders also recognized this right, and were wary of a government — any government — that would disarm its citizens. Ownership and possession of firearms, they believed, separated citizens from subjects.

Ramsey’s supporters are rightly bothered by the current regime, under which a gun owner can receive a jail sentence if found in possession of a firearm where a “NO GUNS ALLOWED” sign is posted, even on private property. To that extent, threats of criminal charges and imprisonment have a chilling effect on the exercise of ancient rights. Nobody should doubt the deterrent effect of firearm possession on violent crime, and gun owners are right to want to carry in today’s society.

But the current law was borne out of a conflict of rights: the right of a citizen to keep and bear arms, and the right of a property owner to determine the conditions under which someone may enter his/her property. We should view the issue as one of voluntary bargaining between private actors in the market; this is not a cut-and-dry Second Amendment issue.

The gun control debate has brought out the crazy. This issue always brings out the passionate opinions from both sides. For those who oppose the Second Amendment and wanted to extensive gun control measures enacted by Congress or in various state legislature, they’re forgetting one basic thing — criminals don’t obey laws. That’s why they’re criminals.

The Second Amendment provides a means for Americans to protect their life, liberty, and property from those who would do them harm — and they do so millions of times each year. But don’t tell that to State Rep. Joe Salazar, a Colorado Democrat. He doesn’t think women need guns for self-defense. In his opinion, they would be better off calling the police or using a rape whistle to alert of an attack.

“It’s why we have call boxes, it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles,” State Rep. Salazar said on the floor of the House. “Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at. And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop…pop a round at somebody.”

Here’s the video:

We all knew it was coming.  Well, it’s here.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) continues her jihad against so-called “assault weapons” by introducing the bill she warned the world was coming earlier today.

The bill, as ugly as we expected, seeks to ban scores of firearms including all types of AK and AR pattern rifles.  A number of shotguns and pistols are also including in that list.  Of course, Feinstein and her fellow gun jihadists believe they’re fighting the good fight:

During the press event at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, the Democrats described these firearms as “dangerous military-style assault weapons.” The bill would also ban high-capacity ammunition feeding devices that can hold more than 10 rounds.

Feinstein said the country’s “weak” gun laws allow massacres like the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occur.

“Getting this bill signed into law will be an uphill battle, and I recognize that — but it’s a battle worth having,” Feinstein said in literature handed to reporters at the Thursday event.

Feinstein is right that it’ll be an uphill battle for the bill.  However, Feinstein has to know just how little of a chance this bill has.

The bill will also essentially turn all currently possessed firearms into Class III weapons.  That is the same classification of guns as fully automatic machine guns.  Now, this will mean that those AK and AR pattern rifles are about to soar in value should a bill like this actually pass.

Like a true leftist ideological warrior, this past Wednesday, Obama prepared for a speech on new gun control measures by surrounding himself with children who’d written him about gun-related violent crime. Like a soldier behind a wall of sandbags, the children were used as an emotional prop to protect Obama from the projectiles of logic and reason bombarding his weak position on the Second Amendment. The children were there to deflect the blows of contrarian facts which undermine his argument. They gave him the ability to make the argument, as the left is so masterful at, that opposition to his agenda was proof that his opponents don’t care about protecting children.

Hypocritically, just an hour after Obama surrounded himself with children to announce nearly two dozen Executive Orders meant to infringe on the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves, White House spokesman Jay Carney was whining to the press about an NRA ad which referenced the fact that Obama protects his own daughters by surrounding them by men carrying guns (as he should). Said Carney, “Children should not be used as pawns in a political fight.” If the irony was any thicker, you could pour it over pancakes.