Governor Schwarzenegger signs AB50

NRA Member's Council ^ | 8/14/2005 | nra members' councils

[.38sw]

9/13 7:30 PM: Governor Shwarzenegger signed AB50 into law.

[risk]

Positions of power will always attract tyrants or turn good folk into tyrants of one degree or another: Why the Worst Get on Top, a wood cut by Water Gomez.

We were told that this candidate believed in personal responsibility. We were told that Arnold Schwarzenegger was a student of Milton Friedman and Friedrich A. Hayek. His eyes were cast upward into the ideals of independence and freedom. He "loved this country and this state," and all for which they stood. This is what we hear time and time again from the pretenders. They are the pretend Americans who say they love our ideals, but fear the chaotic depths of true freedom. Lip service. Men like Schwarzenegger would have been happy to live under British servitude, claiming that since King George was so far away, how could he matter to his freedom? Why not pay a few more dollars in Stamp Taxes? Why not let the British march into town and disarm the citizenry?

I've heard rousing convention speeches in my time. Some of them mattered. I suspect that Zell Miller's matters. I had a glimmer of hope that Schwarzenegger was thinking of bills just like this one when he spoke of fearing communism:

SCHWARZENEGGER: I saw their tanks in the streets. I saw Communism with my own eyes. I remember the fear we had when we had to cross into the Soviet sector.

Growing up, we were told, "Don't look the soldiers in the eye. Just look straight ahead." It was a common belief that Soviet soldiers could take a man out of his own car and ship him back to the Soviet Union as slave labor.

Today, the governor proved that he still has no idea what kind of spirit it took to stand up against the soviets in eastern Europe.

Prague, Czechoslovakian Spring 1968

Today, the Governor sided with the same evil forces that occupied the Soviet sector of Austria before he was born. Today, the governor abandoned the principles on which he was elected. Today, the governor proved that his snide remarks about girlie men are all for show. Today, the governor revealed his own silken panties, pink and shimmering in the arc light of a harsh industrial warehouse of statist, authoritarian oppression.

Who are these men we were told had been the inspiration to Arnold Schwarzenegger's ascendancy to success and personal liberty in America, this great land of opportunity and freedom, bought and paid for by the blood of patriots at arms for more than 400 years?

Hayek reminded us to fear the state. He argued, in a modern twist on our founding fathers' vision, that the people should always seek to retain as much power as possible, because government would crush them under its weight if it could. In that spirt, we elect officials whom we hope we can trust to keep the state in check, to limit its power over the citizenry. Friedman taught us, as many already knew, that personal responsibility dictated that individuals be held accountable for their own misdeeds, but that those who had not indicated any proclivity for destructive tendencies should be trusted, especially by government. These are mere words to Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he proved it with one stroke of a pen today.

Louis D. Brandeis

Supreme Court judge Brandeis describes the cliff over when Arnold Schwarzenegger has just taken his governorship in stark terms in explaining why the road to statist hell is paved with good intentions:

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

Today, the Governor made the state a little less worried about its citizens. It put the fat cats, the would-be tyrants, and the graft grabbing, kickback taking, overtaxing, and incrementalist California political machinery just a little closer to complete dominance of its people. Am I talking about the armor piercing capability of custom .50 caliber ammunition, fired at well over the speed of sound out of a highly destructive rifle and how this strikes terror into the hearts of public officials?

Not specifically. I'm talking about a steady march toward serfdom that begins with one step. The governor took that step today. We as California conservatives who support the right to keep and bear arms as a sacred, innate right born into all citizens, and protected by the highest law of the land, the bill of rights, should resist.

Governor Schwarzenegger, you don't deserve the recall you won. You've left a permanent mark on the law books of California rendering thousands of us who would have wanted to own and fire 50 caliber rifles if the opportunity had come our way as potential criminals. You've pandered to the worst of the girly men, Paul Koretz. You've abandoned the spirit of freedom and personal responsibility for which your handlers lauded you. You have proved that you know nothing substantial of what it means to love America. Otherwise you would have understood the scenes in the screenplays in which you made millions of dollars where human beings defended their lives and liberty with firearms. When we hear your posturing on issues of freedom and limits on government, we'll always remember this day. You have been unmasked, and your pinko, communist panties are showing.

The 9th circuit court will uphold this unconstitutional law on the basis of the 5th circuit court's ruling that firearms are not our right to keep and bear as individuals. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the last bastion, the last bulwark of freedom for Californians on the issue of gun control, and he abandoned his post. He walked away from a golden opportunity to put words into action. He walks in lock step with others in history who said that just a little more tyranny would be acceptable if it would get them reelected.

[Joe Brower]

This thread has just added to the FreeRepublic "bang list" (firearms interest list) by adding the keyword "banglist".

Any time a firearms-related thread is created on FreeRepublic, please be sure to add the "banglist" keyword to it so that interested FReepers don't miss it.

Let Freedom Ring,

[risk]

A so-called anti-communist ping to my #181. Can you spot the communist in this picture?

[Redbob]

Any justification from the "Ahnuld" supporters out there?

Still think Schwartz was a better idea than McClintock?
It's OK to do ANYthing to get a "Republican" elected, even if know he's in the Kennedys' pockets, eh?

[Redbob]

"This bill is one small piece of the gun-control issue,..."

And that is how freedoms are lost: one small piece at a time.

Yours is truly the silliest comment on this thread.

[Carry_Okie]

He is a fiscal conservative (by California standards) but he is a social liberal.

BS. Spending is increasing faster than it did under Davis and with less excuse. He also got rid of the constitutional prohibition on borrowing to cover continuing operations.

Fiscal conservative indeed.

[rabidralph]

Sorry to hear that. Move to northern Virginia, there are tons of jobs available in this area. Plus, you can walk around with a firearm openly strapped to your person.

[.38sw]

If you continue to read through the thread, you will note many Arnold apologists who are pointing out that this is but one issue among many, not to panic, and that Arnold is surely better than Bustamante, whom we surely would have had for governor, had anyone dared to vote for McClintock. How odd. I voted for McClintock, and Cruz isn't governor.

[.38sw]

Ah.

Any justification from the "Ahnuld" supporters out there?

You've found some of those supporters, I see.

[.38sw]

Do the owners get to "register" them like the they did for the Kali. AW ban?

Yes, there will be a "registration" period. No, they will not be able to be sold in California, or inherited. Still, I'm thinking about buying one before the first of the year. A receiver, anyway. Stick it in the safe for future reference.

[.38sw]

I was hoping to hear how this caliber is useful or that this is a slippery slope or something.

I see this as another slice of the salami, using the salami theory of gun control. Since they can't ban them all, all at once (California tried to ban handguns in the 80's, and were soundly defeated in that effort), the legislature has been slicing away at the salami ever since. One slice at a time, they are taking away our firearms rights. I personally don't own a .50 BMG rifle, and had never thought to own one. But, the question here is, what caliber will they ban next? And the next one after that ? And the next one after that?

As to useful? Right now, most uses are for long-range target shooting, that I'm aware of. But of course, the 2nd amendment is about the citizenry defending their freedom against a tyrannical government. Should it ever come down to that, a 50 BMG could be a useful tool. Now, please, no one take this as a call to start Revolution II. Just pointing out the actual meaning of the 2nd amendment, and it ain't about duck hunting. Yaelle, I am not aiming this diatribe at you - it's a general statement.

This is just another little bit of "common sense gun control". After all, who needs such a big gun?

[Chemist_Geek]

Vermont

If you're talking about concealed carry, then what about all the local bans? Vermont doesn't have a state preemption, so any little burg can write themselves a gun ban ordinance and there's nothing to stop them.

[cdbull23]

have you ever lived in california?


i think it's going a bit overboard to compare it to the USSR...unlike what some think, not ALL of california is this super liberal sinkhole.

[Artemis Webb]

"He also got rid of the constitutional prohibition on borrowing to cover continuing operations."

I'm not from California so this has me confused. How does a Governor get rid of a constitutional prohibition? I'm not picking a fight or saying he didn't do what you say. I simply don't understand how this could be done.

[StoneColdGOP]

MCCLINTOCK WOULD HAVE BEEN WORSE! BE GRATEFUL YOU DIDN'T VOTE FOR HIM! </ sarcasm>

[Atlas Sneezed]

People who don't own firearms but claim to be patriots are suspect as shirkers in the ongoing effort to secure our freedom against tyranny.

People who rationalize and minimize the rollback of the means to secure freedom are especially suspect.

[activationproducts]

You are aware of the bill of rights aren't you? It's part of that thing called the Constitution and details the rights of individuals. The second amendment is not about hunting and never has been. Get a clue!

[StoneColdGOP]

How odd. I voted for McClintock, and Cruz isn't governor.

WHA?? Me too. Amazing!

[activationproducts]

You might want to educate yourself a bit before buying the receiver. The BATFE sees the receiver as being the gun. Once the law is in effect you will be in violation buy possessing the receiver (aka gun).

[CJHughes]

BATFE has zero authority to enforce California law.