Posted on 04/14/2003 7:45:39 PM PDT by Uncle Bill
Edited on 04/17/2003 6:40:21 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
As I Predicted, George W. Bush
Is Backing Bill Clinton's Gun Ban
TooGood Reports
By Chuck Baldwin
Chuck Baldwin Website
April 15, 2003
In this column dated December 17, 2002, I predicted that President G.W. Bush would support the so-called assault weapons ban first promoted by former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Diane Feinstein back in 1994. Interestingly enough, the gun ban became law on the strength of a tie-breaking vote by then Vice President Al Gore. The ban is scheduled to sunset next year, but Bush is joining Clinton and Gore in supporting an extension.
Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said, "The president supports the current law (the Clinton gun ban), and he supports reauthorization of the current law."
This must come as quite a blow to people such as the leaders of the National Rifle Association who campaigned heavily for Bush touting him as a "pro-gun" candidate. Since his election, the NRA and others have repeatedly reaffirmed their support for Bush, because he is "pro-gun." Well, now the mask is off!
I have tried to warn my readers that Bush is not a true conservative. He is not pro-life; he is not pro-family; he is not pro-Constitution. And now we know he is not pro-gun.
Instead of reversing the miserable policies of Clinton/Gore, Bush is helping to harden the cement around those policies. The gun issue is no exception.
The so-called assault weapons ban was the benchmark piece of legislation reflecting the anti-gun policies of people such as Clinton, Gore, Feinstein, and New York Senator Charles Schumer. It was also the number one target of the NRA. In fact, the NRA all but promised their supporters that a Bush presidency would help reverse this Draconian gun ban. Instead, Bush is pushing Congress to extend the ban.
A bill to reauthorize the gun ban will be introduced by Senator Feinstein in the coming weeks. It must pass both chambers of Congress to reach the President's desk. The best chance of stopping it will be in the House of Representatives. However, in order to defeat this bill, it must resist the power and influence of the White House. This will be no small task.
Not only is Bush betraying the pro-gun voters who helped elect him, he is breathing new life into a nearly dead anti-gun movement. Most political analysts credit Bush's pro-gun image as the chief reason he defeated Al Gore in the 2000 election. They also credit the pro-gun image of the Republican Party for helping them to achieve impressive wins in the 2002 congressional elections.
Now, Bush is giving new credibility to anti-gun zealots such as Schumer and Feinstein and is helping to reinvigorate the anti-gun momentum that had all but been put on ice.
However, the real question will be, "Will pro-gun conservatives continue to support Bush?" Bush is every bit the "Teflon President" that Clinton was. Conservatives seem willing to overlook anything he does, no matter how liberal or unconstitutional it may be. Will they overlook this, also?
If you truly believe in the Second Amendment and are willing to do something about it, I suggest you go to the Gun Owners of America website. They have a quick link set up which allows people an opportunity to conveniently send email to the White House about this issue. Go to the gun ban "alert" button. From there you can voice your disapproval with the President's decision to betray his constituents by supporting this new round of gun control.
Once again, the ball of freedom and constitutional government is in the court of the American people. Will they keep the ball and do something with it, or will they hand it off to the neo-conservatives at the White House? We'll see.
PLEASE Don't Sit out 2004, EVEN IF Bush signs the AW ban extention
Bush Supports New Extension Of Assault-Weapons Ban
Bush Backs Renewing Assault Weapons Ban
"Thats why Im for instant background checks at gun shows. Im for trigger locks."
George W. Bush - Source: St. Louis debate Oct 17,2000.
MORE INJUSTICE ON THE WAY - Bush GUN CONTROL
"Gene Healy, a Cato Institute scholar, recently provided a thorough exploration of the unintended consequences of one law, the new Bush-Ashcroft plan to federalize gun crimes, known as the Project Safe Neighborhoods program. The unintended consequences of this law are frightening."
NOTE: Same Article in Washington Times.
"W. Wimps Out on Guns"
The Bush package includes several pet causes of the gun-control lobby, including $75 million for gun locks; $15.3 million for 113 new federal attorneys to serve as full-time gun prosecutors; and $19.1 million to expand a program by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms aimed at preventing youths from obtaining guns. Although Bush stressed that he simply wants to "enforce existing laws," the fine print of Project Safe echoes the gun-grabbing Left's call to ban the importation of high-capacity ammunition clips."
Project Safe Neighborhoods, A Closer Look
LAURA BUSH:
"During her San Diego speech, for instance, she said nothing about the school shooting that occurred 20 miles away in El Cajon the day before, although in a television interview she condemned it, adding that she thinks more gun control laws are needed.
"I think that's very important," she said when asked by CNN whether stronger gun laws are needed."
Source.
EMERSON & THE SECOND AMENDMENT
A Gutless Supreme Court Decision - Gun Control
Republican Leadership Help Push Gun Control
Bush's Assault On Second Amendment
NEA Resource Text Guide In Regards To The Extreme Right - Where Do Your Kids Go To School?
"The radical right says it is pro-life but it bitterly opposes gun control legislation"
or
Thanks for that Patriot Act George
Can you say blind faith?
Bush: A Democrat in Republican clothing
George W. - Master of Disguise
Rush Limbaugh: Bush is advancing the Democrats most liberal agenda
GOP Leaders Spurn Right in Key Races
Ted, we agree then,
ban assault weapons
From another thread:
The United States "in the near future" will seek a UN resolution ending the UN-administered "oil-for-food" program and enable Iraq to sell freely on world markets, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
"The president is pleased that a well-known terrorist is going to be brought to justice," McClellan told reporters travelling aboard the presidential Air Force One airplane.
Would he be traveling on Air Force One if he didn't know what he was talking about?
Barf is right! See, Bush has friends. Here's one of VPC's logos.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Public Health and Safety Act of 1993 on behalf of myself and nine of my colleagues: Mel Reynolds, Bill Clay, Jerry Nadler, Eleanor Holmes Norton, John Lewis, Nydia Velazquez, Ron Dellums, Carrie Meek, and Alcee Hastings. This legislation, first introduced in the Senate by Senator John Chafee, would prohibit the transfer or possession of handguns and handgun ammunition, except in limited circumstances. It would go a long way toward protecting our citizens from violent crime.
The need for a ban on handguns cannot be overstated. Unlike rifles and shotguns, handguns are easily concealable. Consequently, they are the weapons of choice in most murders, accounting for the deaths of 25,000 Americans in 1991.
A 6-month grace period would be established during which time handguns could be turned in to any law enforcement agency with impunity and for reimbursement at the greater of $25 or the fair market value of the handgun . After the grace period's expiration, handguns could be turned in voluntarily with impunity from criminal prosecution, but a civil fine of $500 would be imposed.
Exemptions from the handgun ban would be permitted for Federal, State, or local government agencies, including military and law enforcement; collectors of antique firearms; federally licensed handgun sporting clubs; federally licensed professional security guard services; and federally licensed dealers, importers, or manufacturers.
The Public Health and Safety Act of 1993 represents a moderate, middle-of-the-road approach to handgun control which deserves the support of all members of Congress who want to stop gun murders now.
--- Introduction of the Public Health and Safety Act of 1993 -- Hon. Major R. Owens ( Rep. NY, Extension of Remarks - September 23, 1993. Source: The Congressional Record, 103rd Congress, 1993-1994
Mr. President, what is going on in this country? Does going to school mean exposure to handguns and to death? As you know, my position is we should ban all handguns, get rid of them, no manufacture, no sale, no importation, no transportation, no possession of a handgun . There are 66 million handguns in the United States of America today, with 2 million being added every year.
--- Senator John H. Chafee, Rhode Island (June 11, 1992, The Congressional Record, 102nd Congress, 1991-1992
Mr. speaker, we must take swift and strong action if we are to rescue the next generation from the rising of tide armed violence. That is why today I am introducing the Handgun Control Act of 1992. This legislation would outlaw the possession, importation, transfer or manufacture of a handgun except for use by public agencies, individuals who can demonstrate to their local police chief that they need a gun because of threat to their life or the life of a family member, licensed guard services, licensed pistol clubs which keep the weapons securely on premises, licensed manufacturers and licensed gun dealers.
--- Rep. Stephen J. Solarz, New York (August 12, 1992, The Congressional Record, 102nd Congress, 1991-1992, Daily Edition E2492-2493.)
Twenty years ago, I asked Richard Nixon what he thought of gun control. His on-the-record reply: 'Guns are an abomination.' Free from fear of gun owners' retaliation at the polls, he favored making handguns illegal and requiring licenses for hunting rifles.
--- William Safire (originally from a New York Times column), Los Angeles Daily News, June 15, 1999, P. 15.
The only way to discourage the gun culture is to remove the guns from the hands and shoulders of people who are not in the law enforcement business.
--- New York Times, September 24, 1975
There is no reason for anyone in this country, for anyone except a police officer or a military person, to buy, to own, to have, to use, a handgun. The only way to control handgun use in this country is to prohibit the guns. And the only way to do that is to change the Constitution.
--- Michael Gartner, former NBC News President, USA Today, January 16, 1992
The goal is an ultimate ban on all guns, but we also have to take step at a time and go for limited access first.
--- Joyner Sims, Florida State Health Dept., Deputy Commissioner, Chicago Tribune, November 7, 1993
Gun violence won't be cured by one set of laws. It will require years of partial measures that will gradually tighten the requirements for gun ownership, and incrementally change expectations about the firepower that should be available to ordinary citizens.
--- New York Times, December 21, 1993
We are inclined to think that every firearm in the hands of anyone who is not a law enforcement officer constitutes an incitement to violence. Let's come to our senses before the whole country starts shooting itself up on all its Main Streets in a delirious kind of High Noon.
--- Washington Post, August 19, 1965
By a curiosity of evolution, every human skull harbors a prehistoric vestige: a reptilian brain. This atavism, like a hand grenade cushioned in the more civilized surrounding cortex, is the dark hive where many of mankind's primitive impulses originate. To go partners with that throwback, Americans have carried out of their own history another curiosity that evolution forgot to discard as the country changed from a sparsely populated, underpoliced agrarian society to a modern industrial civilization. That vestige is the gun -- most notoriously the handgun, an anachronistic tool still much in use.
--- Time, April 13, 1981
We are beyond the stage of restrictive licensing and uniform laws. We are at the point in time and terror when nothing short of a strong uniform policy of domestic disarmament will alleviate the danger which is crystal clear and perilously present. Let us take the guns away from the people. Exemptions should be limited to the military, the police and those licensed for good and sufficient reasons.
--- Patrick V. Murphy, New York City Police Commissioner, December 7, 1970
As you probably know by now, Time's editors, in the April 13 issue, took a strong position in support of an outright ban on handguns for private use.
--- Time Magazine, Letter to NRA, April 24, 1981
If it was up to me, no one but law enforcement officers would own hand guns...
--- Chicago Mayor Richard Daley Federal Gun Legislation Press Conference in Washington, D.C., November 13, 1998. (Cited 3/05/2000)
The League, therefore, supports a ban on the further manufacture, sale, transportation and importation for private ownership of handguns and their parts.
--- League of Women Voters of Illinois Gun Control Position-in-Brief (cited 3/05/2000). [The League of Illinois subsequently truncated their statement on the Web to the first paragraph of the just cited Web page: "The League supports legislative controls to stop the proliferation of private ownership of handguns and their irresponsible use. The League advocates restricting access to semi-automatic assault type weapons." (League of Women Voters of Illinois: 2001-2003 Positions in Brief (PDF) (cited 9/10/2002)]
No presidential candidate has yet come out for the most effective proposal to check the terror of gunfire: a ban on the general sale, manufacture and ownership of handguns as well as assault-style weapons.
--- Guns Along the Campaign Trail, Washington Post, Monday, July 19, 1999, Page A18.
Straight from the Mouth of a U.S. Government Attorney
The U.S. government argues in federal court (U.S. v. Emerson information page) that there is absolutely no right of an individual to own firearms!
Judge Garwood: "You are saying that the Second Amendment is consistent with a position that you can take guns away from the public? You can restrict ownership of rifles, pistols and shotguns from all people? Is that the position of the United States?"Meteja (attorney for the government): "Yes"
Garwood: "Is it the position of the United States that persons who are not in the National Guard are afforded no protections under the Second Amendment?"
Meteja: "Exactly."
Meteja then said that even membership in the National Guard isn't enough to protect the private ownership of a firearm. It wouldn't protect the guns owned at the home of someone in the National Guard.
Garwood: "Membership in the National Guard isn't enough? What else is needed?"
Meteja: "The weapon in question must be used IN the National Guard."
(Excerpt of oral arguments in U.S. v. Emerson, 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, June 13, 2000)
Recognized Public Health Professionals and Sociologists
The United States should follow the example of every other industrialized country by placing substantial restrictions on the manufacture, sale, and possession of handguns. Semiautomatic weapons that have the capacity to fire dozens of bullets in a manner of seconds should be banned for sale to private citizens. Permits for the possession of handguns for sporting purposes should require that the guns be kept at a licensed firing range. Other than that, laws should limit handgun possession to police officers and licensed private security guards.
--- Webster, Daniel W., C. Patrick Chaulk, Stephen P. Teret, and Garen J. Wintemute, "Reducing Firearm Injuries," Issues in Science and Technology, Spring 1991, p.78.
"The last doubt as to the real intentions of at least certain influential members of the Commission, with regard to privately-owned firearms, was dispelled by our Research Director of the 'task force on gun control,' Mr. Zimring. While we were discussing the polls which ask people about their weapons, and the 'downard bias' so invariably encountered, we asked Mr. Zimring why people were so suspicious.More Quotes"He replied quite promptly, and with a frankness he will no doubt be made to regret: 'It's because we're coming to get their guns.'"
--- Huck, Susan L. M., "The Gun Grab: Watching The New Violence Commission," American Opinion, October 1968, p. 24.More Zimring:
[T]he choice in handgun control is between two unpalatable alternatives. Gun Control in the twenty-first century will either be an expensive, unpopular, and untested attempt at bringing the U.S. handgun policy to the standard of the rest of the developed world, or it will consist of minor adjustments to current regulations that will all but guarantee persisting high rates of death. It is likely that this hard choice will amount to the definitive referendum on lethal violence in the United States.
--- Zimring, Franklin E., and Gordon Hawkings, Crime is Not the Problem: Lethal Violence in America, Oxford University Press, 1997, p.201.
The following quotes are excerpted from, "Under Fire: The New Consensus on the Second Amendment", by Randy E. Barnett and Don B. Kates (Originally published as 45 Emory L.J. 1139-1259, 1996).
Recommending that federal law limit ordinary citizens to "ownership [only] of sporting and hunting weapons,"
--- Taming the Gun Monster: How Far to Go, L.A. Times, Oct. 22 (editorial)
Under our plan individuals could own sporting weapons only if they had submitted to a background check and passed a firearms safety course. Other special, closely monitored exceptions could be made, such as for serious collectors.
--- Taming the Monster: The Guns Among Us, L.A. Times, Dec. 10, 1993 (editorial).
My own view on gun control is simple. I hate guns and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered, and all other guns, would be banned.
--- Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health
Mutual protection should be the aim of citizens, not individual self-protection. Until we are willing to outlaw, the very existence or manufacture of civilian handguns we have no right to call ourselves citizens or consider our behavior even minimally civil.
--- Garry Wills [historian/writer], John Lennon's war, Chi. Sun-times, Dec. 12, 1980.
Wills has also written "Every civilized society must disarm its citizens against each other. Those who do not trust their own people become predators upon their own people. The sick thing is that haters of fellow Americans often think of themselves as patriots."...
--- Or Worldwide Gun Control?,Phila. Inquirer, May 17, 1981.
The only reason for guns in civilian hands is for sporting purposes.
--- Sarah Brady, Jackson, Keeping the Battle Alive, Tampa Trib., Oct. 21, 1993 (interview with Sarah Brady).
Denouncing defensive gun ownership as "anarchy, not order under law--a jungle where each relies on himself for survival," and an insult to government, for "[a] state in which a citizen needs a gun to protect himself from crime has failed to perform its first purpose.A Web page by Prof. Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School, features more quotes from gun control proponents grouped by politicians, media figures & institutions, and advocacy groups.
--- Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General, Crime in America 107 (1970)
| Nobody Wants To Take Your Guns| |
"... the strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance."
Thomas Paine
"Investigate the NRA with renewed vigor. Print names of those who take NRA funds. Support all causes the NRA opposes. ...The work a day guy doesn't envision total confiscation, but many with the real power to sway public opinion and effect change in America do."
T. Winship - Editor of the Boston Globe wrote this in Editor and Publisher Magazine, April 24, 1993
"I don't believe anybody has a right to own any kind of a firearm. I believe in order to obtain a permit to own a firearm, that person should undergo an exhaustive criminal background check. In addition, an applicant should give up his right to privacy and submit his medical records for review to see if the person has ever had a problem with alcohol, drugs or mental illness . . . The Constitution doesn't count!"
John Silber, former chancellor of Boston University and candidate for Governor of Massachusetts. Speech before the Quequechan Club of Fall River, MA. August 16, 1990.
"You need the will to disarm the civilian population. If we can do it in Somalia, we can do it here."
Mary McGrory, Arizona Daily Star, 3/11/93 p. A16.
"We cant be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately own handguns and rifles...that we are unable to think about reality."
Bill Clinton - USA Today, 11 March 93, pg. 2A.
"I dont think the American people are there right now. But with more than 200 million guns in circulation, weve got so much more to do on this issue before we even reach that. I dont think thats an option now. But there are certain kinds of guns that can be banned and a lot of other reasonable regulations that can be imposed."
Bill Clinton - When asked of the possibility of a federal law banning handguns, interview in Rolling Stone magazine, 9 Dec 93, pg. 45.
"The second article of amendment (Second Amendment) to the Constitution of the United States is repealed."
Major Owens - U.S. Congressman - U.S. House Joint Resolution 438 introduced 11 March 1992 by Congressman Owens, D-NY.
The only purpose of gun registration is gun confiscation
But... we COULDN'T do it in Somalia. If we tried it here, then perhaps that bastard Professor de Genovoa really will get the "thousand Mogadishus" he wanted to see -- but in America, not Iraq.
Not to mention the fact that a substantial percentage of our troops would undoubtedly defect to the pro-gun side. After all, how many liberals are there in an all-volunteer military?
Random thought: Did Clinton send troops to disarm the Somalis, as a test case to see if he could pull it off here? Gotta wonder.
Ok, I will. Voting for the lesser of two evils is still getting evil. With the current situation, the next armed revolution is just around the corner, and if the so-called conservatives are just taking us there a bit slower, I say 'Let's just get it over with and move on.'
Those who would continue to vote for their 'lesser of two evils' candidate are the definition of insanity, ie, doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.
How many times do you have to hit your head against the wall?
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