Posted on 09/05/2007 3:59:47 PM PDT by processing please hold
Patrick Henry had it right. Forget the past, and you're destined to make the same mistakes in the future.
Gun control has been an absolute failure. Whether it's a total gun ban or mere background checks, gun control has FAILED to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
But gun control fanatics still want to redouble their efforts, even when their endeavors have not worked. Congress is full of fanatics who want to expand the failed Brady Law to such an extent that millions of law-abiding citizens will no longer be able to own or buy guns.
For months, GOA has been warning gun owners about the McCarthy-Leahy bill -- named after Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). These anti-gun legislators have teamed up to introduce a bill that will expand the 1993 Brady Law and disarm hundreds of thousands of combat veterans -- and other Americans. (While McCarthy and Leahy are this year's primary sponsors, the notorious Senator Chuck Schumer of New York was a sponsor of this legislation in years past.)
Proponents of the bill tell us that it will bring relief for many gun owners. But to swallow this, one must first ignore the fact that gun owners would NOT NEED RELIEF in the first place if some gun owners (and gun groups) had not thrown their support behind the Brady bill that passed in 1993 and were not pushing the Veterans Disarmament Bill now.
Law-abiding Americans need relief because we were sold a bill of goods in 1993. The Brady Law has allowed government bureaucrats to screen law-abiding citizens before they exercise their constitutionally protected rights -- and that has opened the door to all kinds of abuses.
The McCarthy-Leahy bill will open the door to many more abuses. After all, do we really think that notorious anti-gunners like McCarthy and Leahy had the best interests of gun owners in mind when they introduced this Veterans Disarmament Bill? The question answers itself.
TRADE-OFF TO HURT GUN OWNERS
Proponents want us to think this measure will benefit many gun owners. But what sort of trade off is it to create potentially millions of new prohibited persons -- under this legislation -- and then tell them that they need to spend thousands of dollars to regain the rights THAT WERE NOT THREATENED before this bill was passed?
Do you see the irony? Gun control gets passed. The laws don't stop criminals from getting guns, but they invariably affect law-abiding folks. So instead of repealing the dumb laws, the fanatics argue that we need even more gun control (like the Veterans Disarmament Bill) to fix the problem!!!
So more people lose their rights, even while they're promised a very limited recourse for restoring those rights -- rights which they never would lose, save for the McCarthy-Leahy bill.
The legislation threatens to disqualify millions of new gun owners who are not a threat to society. If this bill is signed into law:
* As many as a quarter to a third of returning Iraq veterans could be prohibited from owning firearms -- based solely on a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder;
* Your ailing grandfather could have his entire gun collection seized, based only on a diagnosis of Alzheimer's (and there goes the family inheritance);
* Your kid could be permanently banned from owning a gun, based on a diagnosis under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Patrick Henry said he knew of "no way of judging of the future but by the past." The past has taught us that gun control fanatics and bureaucrats are continually looking for loopholes in the law to deny guns to as many people as possible.
GUN CONTROL'S ABOMINABLE RECORD
A government report in 1996 found that the Brady Law had prevented a significant number of Americans from buying guns because of outstanding traffic tickets and errors. The General Accounting Office said that more than 50% of denials under the Brady Law were for administrative snafus, traffic violations, or reasons other than felony convictions.
Press reports over the years have also shown gun owners inconvenienced by NICS computer system crashes -- especially when those crashes happen on the weekends (affecting gun shows).
Right now, gun owners in Pennsylvania are justifiably up in arms because the police scheduled a routine maintenance (and shut-down) of their state computer system on the opening days of hunting season this year. The shut-down, by the way, has taken three days -- which is illegal.
And then there's the BATFE’s dastardly conduct in the state of Wyoming. The anti-gun agency took the state to court after legislators figured out a way to restore people's ability to buy firearms -- people who had been disarmed by the Lautenberg gun ban of 1996.
Gun Owners Foundation has been involved in this Wyoming case, and has seen up close how the BATFE has TOTALLY DISREGARDED a Supreme Court opinion which allows this state to do what they did. In Caron v. United States (1998), the U.S. Supreme Court said that any conviction which has been set aside or expunged at the state level "shall not be considered a conviction," under federal law, for the purposes of owning or buying guns. But the BATFE has ignored this Court ruling, and is bent on preventing states like Wyoming from restoring people's gun rights.
Not surprisingly, the BATFE has issued new 4473s which ASSUME the McCarthy-Leahy bill has already passed. The bill has not even been enacted into law yet, and the BATFE is already using the provisions of that bill to keep more people from buying guns.
The new language on the 4473 form asks:
Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective (which includes a determination by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority that you are a danger to yourself or to others or are incompetent to manage your own affairs)....
Notice the words "determination" and "other lawful authority." Relying on a DETERMINATION is broader than just relying on a court "ruling," and the words OTHER LAWFUL AUTHORITY are not limited to judges. In other words, the definition above would allow a VA psychologist or a school shrink to take away your gun rights.
This is what McCarthy and Leahy are trying to accomplish, but the BATFE has now been emboldened to go ahead and do it anyway. This means that military vets could potentially commit a felony by buying a gun WITHOUT disclosing that they have Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome because a "lawful authority" has decreed that they are a potential danger to themselves or others.
No wonder the Military Order of the Purple Heart is opposed to the McCarthy-Leahy bill. On June 18 of this year, the group stated, "For the first time the legislation, if enacted, would statutorily impose a lifetime gun ban on battle-scarred veterans."
MORE RESTRICTIONS, NOT RELIEF
Supporters, like the NRA, say that they were able to win compromises from the Dark Side -- compromises that will benefit gun owners. Does the bill really make it easier to get your gun rights restored -- even after spending lots of time and money in court? Well, that's VERY debatable, and GOA has grappled this question in a very lengthy piece entitled, Point-by-Point Response to Proponents of HR 2640.
In brief, the McClure-Volkmer of 1986 created a path for restoring the Second Amendment rights of prohibited persons. But given that Chuck Schumer has successfully pushed appropriations language which has defunded this procedure since the 1990s (without significant opposition), it is certainly not too difficult for some anti-gun congressman like Schumer to bar the funding of any new procedure for relief that follows from the McCarthy-Leahy bill.
Incidentally, even before Schumer blocked the procedure, the ability to get "relief from disabilities" under section 925(c) was always an expensive long shot. Presumably, the new procedures in the Veterans Disarmament Act will be the same.
Isn't that always the record from Washington? You compromise with the devil and then get lots of bad, but very little good. Look at the immigration debate. Compromises over the last two decades have provided amnesty for illegal aliens, while promising border security. The country got lots of the former, but very little of the latter.
If the Veterans Disarmament Bill passes, don't hold your breath waiting for the promised relief.
ACTION: Please use the letter below to contact your Senator. You can use the pre-written message below and send it as an e-mail by visiting the GOA Legislative Action Center (where phone and fax numbers are also available).
I have heard, maybe an Urban Legend, that the VA will notify the BATF if a veteran says he is depressed. At first I blew it off as B/S, but when my VA doc asked me if I was "depressed", alarm bells went off.
similar body
What is a similar body when it comes to courts?
Don't tell that to some on here, they don't believe it.
When our membership dues comes up, I think we'll let it slide.
All this GOA hyperbole is going to end up hurting our gun rights more than it helps.
Supercat asks an easy question:
Which group was more accurately descriptive of the 1996 Lautenberg Abomination before or after its passage? GOA or NRA?
tcostell, unable to answer:
Look,... in terms of what they've actually accomplished the GOA can't hold a candle to the NRA. And in this specific case they are way over the top in terms of their exaggeration of what the bill actually does and doesn't do, and that allows our enemies to depict us as a bunch of lying idiots.
Can you post the exaggerations that make the GOA a bunch of lying idiots? -- I'd bet not.
We're on the same side here, but I honestly don't think they are helping.
People like you on 'our side' explains a lot about why we have lost many of our gun rights since 1968.
I agree.
Little comfort to those that are 'wrongly listed'. This is backasswards. The overreach is what should require someone to seek restoration.
I would agree that there is probably no way any even remotely reasonable interpretation of the bill would be as bad as what the GOA is describing, but I have observed over the years that it is very unwise to expect the government to interpret laws in even remotely reasonable fashion.
If the provisions for putting people on the "prohibited" list are pushed as hard as possible so as to add as many people as possible, while the government does all it can to ignore the provisions for appealing such placement, would you still think it a good law? Particularly if the government didn't feel limited by what the statute actually said?
I don't care what the bill actually says. What matters is what the government is going to pretend that it says. And experience tells me that while the GOA's predictions on such things may sometimes seem pretty far 'out there', the government's actions are often even more so.
CCW laws, Castle Doctine, Manufacturer’s Protection Act, the 2000 elections, the Katrina lawsuits.
What was the GOA doing while the NRA was getting things done?
Don’t let the door......
The GOA: It can’t do anything and it still blames the NRA.
Pathetic.
Is it purely coincidence that the Lautenberg Abomination was passed a few weeks before an election, but shortly after the NRA's message that if a politician was sufficiently anti-gun people should support the opponent whether or not he was much better?
We have over 20,000 gun laws on the books in this country today, and not a single one will prevent the next crime of murder, robbery or rape.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1763392/posts?page=55#55
Link please because it’s late and I have no idea what you just wrote.
I will ask this in the meantime. If the GOA is so good, why couldn’t they stop this Lautenberg Abomination? For that matter, why can’t they do anything?
If the NRA is so good, why can’t they use their influence to get Congress to repeal some of the bad laws on the books. Why haven’t they pushed Congress to go after the BATFE who are absolutely out of freaking control? (see US v. Kwan or US v. Wrenn, or US v. Glover...)
The NRA has actively stopped Congressional investigations into the abuses of the BATFE (see nfaoa.org for further information or do a search for the Congressional Research Service work on the BATFE from 2005 and 2006.)
Why has the NRA stopped or attempted to stop any pro-gun legislation or legal cases from suceeding?
The NRA is soft on the gun issue and they have sold us out. The NRA is a professional lobbying group concerned with lining their pockets more than making headway on gun rights (see the comments by the former Texas Ranger that is on the NRA board of directors. Sorry, I disremember his name but the audio of his comments are on the web.)
If you support the NRA and support the 2nd Amendment, you better start asking some hard questions of the NRA leadership.
Mike
Let’s look at our British cousins for the very reasons that the assault on individual ownership of firearms is as wrong as it gets. I don’t know when they did it but, for the sake of argument, let’s say that 10 years ago, the British government banned private ownership of guns. Since that time, the number of gun crimes in Britain has skyrocketed because criminals (AKA “outlaws”) DON’T obey the law (Give me a “Duh!!”). To add insult to injury, the British government also thought it would be a smart move to bring charges against those who try to defend themselves, their families or their property from thieves!!! IOW, this is the ultimate weeny capitulation to the law breakers.
The result is that the law breakers are winning and the law abiding people are losing . . . . . . . . in SPADES!!!!! Britain, this year, has reported the largest exodus of citizens at any time in recent history. Between Islamofascists and law breakers, the average Brit has no chance of winning this ideological battle.
So, they’re headed elsewhere.
The left in the US know that as soon as they win the battle over private gun ownership, we lose the balance of power and they can do what they want to force their view of government control/ownership of everything upon us. As long as there is a balance of power between the weapons the government owns and the weapons the citizens owns, the left still has to accommodate the demands of the people. If we ever lose this battle with the left, America is lost forever, and we will be joining those ex-pat Brits looking for someplace else to live where sanity is not the exception to the rule.
Try this:
"These anti-gun legislators have teamed up to introduce a bill that will expand the 1993 Brady Law and disarm hundreds of thousands of combat veterans -- and other Americans."
The fact is, that the Brady law isn't expanded at all. This law will do 2 things. It will require that all records any State has, that concern fed, or state disqualifiers, must be forwarded for inclusion into the database. It would simply change voluntary forwarding, to must forward.
The second thing this law would do, is to require a remedy to remove entries in the database that are no longer relevant, or accurate. That does not exist now, and is a good thing.
As to disarming vets, that's bogus. It was tried and didn't fly. It crashed and burned. See tcostell's #18. The "other Americans" that GOA mentions will be disarmed are those mental cases that are not now in the database. Yes, they are Americans, but they have been adjuducated a danger to themselves, and/or others, by reason of mental defect. Mental defect such as paranoid schiz, or some other debilitating psychosis. That could include advanced alzheimers, where the patient doesn't recognize their own spouse pf 40 years and mistakes them for home invaders.
Had this law been in effect and VA was required to submit records, instead of asked to do so voluntarily, Cho, the paranoid schizophrenic, would have never been able to buy guns and ammo. That would have been a good thing.
Lautenberg is irrelevant here. It is a separate law.
Let's look at this BS gem from GOA.
"Relying on a DETERMINATION is broader than just relying on a court "ruling," and the words OTHER LAWFUL AUTHORITY are not limited to judges. In other words, the definition above would allow a VA psychologist or a school shrink to take away your gun rights."
This is pure BS. IOWs it's a flat out lie. Lawful authority refers to a court, or the equivalent of a court, not anyone else, or any other collection of persons. That's, because no other person, or bodies has any such authority to make a legal determination regarding any citizen's fitness, that includes shrinks and wannabees.
Here's another one:
"Does the bill really make it easier to get your gun rights restored -- even after spending lots of time and money in court? Well, that's VERY debatable..."
Plain BS. The bill makes no claims regarding ease, it simply requires that a remedy be made available. The way it is now, that is not the case and some are SOL, because of that.
"In brief, the McClure-Volkmer of 1986 created a path for restoring the Second Amendment rights of prohibited persons. But given that Chuck Schumer has successfully pushed appropriations language which has defunded this procedure since the 1990s (without significant opposition), it is certainly not too difficult for some anti-gun congressman like Schumer to bar the funding of any new procedure for relief that follows from the McCarthy-Leahy bill."
Ridiculous. The remedy provided for in McClure-Volkmer was not required, and it refered to felony convictions, where attainder applied. The establishment of remedy in this case is a requirement that must be established and perpetually open and effective for the stated purpose.
The NRA only has four million members out of eighty million gun owners. They don’t manufacture votes in the Senate or the Congress. The liberal AARP has something like triple those numbers.
The liberal anti-gun politicians blame the NRA for the lack of gun control. They don’t know the other gun groups even exist.
If the NRA had forty million members, gun control wouldn’t exist. It’s people like you sitting on the sidelines that are the problem.
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