Posted on 03/02/2015 9:12:16 AM PST by John Semmens
President Obama has ordered the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) to write a regulation banning 5.56mm ammo. This is the type of bullet used in the AR-15 style semi-automatic—the top-selling rifle in the country.
BATFE Director B. Todd Jones characterized the proposed new rule as “pure genius on the part of the President. The Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms. It doesn’t say anything about ammunition. By going after the bullets we skirt all the arguments the NRA uses to block government’s efforts to disarm the public.”
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) called Jones’ reasoning “lame. It makes no sense to separate the weapon from the ammunition. For the Amendment to effectively protect the citizens’ right to self defense it must protect both the firearm and the bullets.”
Jones attempted to rebut Goodlatte’s argument by asserting that “the need for self defense in our modern society is taken care of by the police. Since the police will be exempt from the ban their ability to defend the general population will be unimpeded by the new regulation.”
“The AR-15 is a particularly inappropriate weapon for ordinary citizens to own,” Jones maintained. “It is the type of firearm that is more properly within the sphere of the military. If such weapons are in the hands of the general public it conveys a notion of possible opposition to the government in a quasi-military way. It could give people the idea that using these weapons to oppose their government is a possibility. The President was emphatic about derailing such an idea by any means possible. That’s what we intend to do.”
if you missed any of this week's other semi-news/semi-satire posts you can find them at...
http://theconservativecitizen.com/2015/03/01/semi-newssemi-satire-8/
Obama would do it if he thought he had half a chance in the SC of it being upheld.
Brilliant John. It perfectly encapsulates what passes for “thinking” within the Øbongo regime.
God help us.
I hope Colt and Ruger are working on developing hand ray guns so there is no ammo to buy, just AAA cells.
Would Obama let it stop him?
The gold standard for satire is A Modest Proposal, notable that it is presented as though sensible despite being a totally outrageous notion (to wit: legalize selling children as food), something which all readers would see as absurd, eliciting reactions of either "OMG is he serious?!?" or "HA HA that's so stupid it's funny!", both (hopefully) coming around to "ah, he's trying to make a serious point by being absurd."
The problem I keep having with this "semi-news/semi-satire" stuff (and which is prompting this rant) is it portrays what darned near half the population actually wants, and would do next week if the other half wouldn't go literally ballistic over. "Oh, just ban ammo 'cuz it's not banning guns" - I have heard this as a serious intention for decades; likewise most of what's posted as "satire" on FR.
If it's so out there that even they wouldn't "go there", then it's satire. If it's what they have actually said numerous times, it isn't.
It's semi-satire :)
So? Still works nicely for them. Ban ammo via "executive memo" telling the BATFE to just not process any ammo-business legal paperwork (he11, they stall on NFA forms for half a year anyway for no good reason) and thus drive all manufacturers/importers/retailers out of the business, and fight every lawsuit every inch of the way with the full weight & wealth of the federal gov't, driving it to the Supreme Court but taking years to do so, get the expected 5-4 contentious split concluding it violates Heller after all, then (after untying the Gordian Knot of how to affect "executive memos") having it legal but (a la DC's FFLs) nigh unto nobody can make & move it to any meaningful degree. Just as all that starts to emerge after 5-10 years, slam the transportation industry with regulations making it impossible to ship any - if you want ammo, you'll have to go get it from the 1-2 factories yourself in person. As that starts to make progress, slap ammo with a microstamping requirement whereby the end buyer must sign, by hand, in person, on separate forms, at the factory, for every single round.
Think that's not going to happen? BATFE is (AFAIK) under-funding & stalling the NFA & other paperwork processing. Squint at NFA's "destructive devices", requiring a $200 transfer tax on every round fitting a vague description; slip in a "strike words ______ in 922(somewhere)" in an urgent must-pass bill, and suddenly every .22LR & up & down round is a "destructive device" and must be disposed of yesterday or be registered by separate Form 4 filing, no amnesty, charges filed & prosecuted until BATFE gets thru a literal billion paper applications. Other creative "solutions" exist, just a matter of finding one that doesn't quite push a relevant part of the population over the line; if some do, well, examples are made of. Oh, and remember that NFA law was initiated to classify handguns the same as machineguns.
There's a reason 1984 and Brazil are based on bureaucracies.
And there's a reason I rant about "satire" which depicts what the opposition actually wants to do.
It’s not even satire. They’ve said it, and meant it, and tried to do it.
“satire” = “semi-”.
Just as banning guns won’t stop the 3-D printing revolution and the industrial genius of ordinary Americans from taking up the slack, banning ammo won’t stop the gun owners of America from loading their own. Like all prohibition, this “rule” is bound to fail.
“If it’s so out there that even they wouldn’t “go there”, then it’s satire. If it’s what they have actually said numerous times, it isn’t”
Hence the term “semi”-news/”semi”-satire.
Look for the Semmens label. It’s his style and a lot of us like it. If you don’t like it, don’t click it. Or maybe you do like it and this is your way to tell him?
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