Have The People In Congress Read The Constitution?

On Thursday, Politico posted Huddle, which the site describes as “A play-by-play preview of the day’s congressional news.” Included in Huddle, about half-way down is the following:

FIRST IN HUDDLE: BOOKER INTRODUCES GUN LEGISLATION— Democrats have not leaned into gun control measures in the wake of the racist shooter’s deadly attack in Buffalo over the weekend, but Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is taking on the issue despite long legislative odds. Booker, along with Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), is introducing legislation today that would require people trying to get a firearm to get a license from the Department of Justice before they can buy or receive a gun. The DOJ license would require both a written firearm safety test and hands-on training, a criminal background check and submission of fingerprints and proof of identity. The license would only be available to people over 21 years of age, essentially raising the age of gun ownership to 21. “This is the moment to enact ambitious legislation – as a nation, we must rise to it, or we are fated to witness the deadly scenes of this past weekend and years past over again,” Booker said in a statement. Read the bill text.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a leading advocate for gun safety legislation shares Booker’s sense of urgency and told The New York Times’ Annie Karni that even if legislation cannot clear Congress, Democrats need to talk more about guns, especially with voters. Congress Is Paralyzed on Guns. Here’s Why Chris Murphy Is Still Hopeful.

Below is an excerpt from the bill:

 

The license is good for five years.

The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically states:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

This proposed law violates both of these amendments. Has Cory Booker read the U.S. Constitution that he swore an oath to uphold?

Part Of The Democrat Party Platform

Yesterday The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about Kamala Harris’ views on guns.

The article reports:

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has done something unprecedented with his pick of Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) as his running mate: put a candidate on the presidential ticket who publicly supports gun confiscation.

During her failed primary campaign, Harris was one of only a handful of candidates to explicitly advocate for the confiscation of what she estimated to be tens of millions of legally owned firearms.

“We have to have a buyback program and I support a mandatory gun buyback program,” she said during an October policy forum hosted by the gun-control group March for Our Lives. “It’s got to be smart. We’ve got to do it the right way but there are five million [assault weapons] at least, some estimate as many as 10 million, and we’re going to have to have smart public policy that’s about taking those off the streets but doing it the right way.”

First of all, those who call for the ban on assault weapons never quite define what an assault weapon is. In the past, some Congressmen have added guns to that list simply because they were ‘scary-looking.’ Second of all, there is a reason for the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is there to protect Americans from a tyrannical government. It seems to me that one of the indications of a tyrannical government might be that they want to take your guns away. The Second Amendment is there to secure the rights of the First Amendment.

The article reports:

“During her short-lived presidential campaign, she demanded gun-control legislation within 100 days and threatened executive action if Congress didn’t deliver,” Oliva (Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation) told the Free Beacon. “Senator Harris was clear when she said gun control would be an administration priority. Her platform included entertaining forced confiscation of lawfully owned semiautomatic rifles, redefining ‘sporting purpose’ for lawful firearm possession, criminalizing private firearm transfers and repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. In fact, she supports politicizing the Department of Justice and using the weight of the federal government to harass a constitutionally protected industry in a series of frivolous lawsuits to bankrupt manufacturers.”

Oliva called the pick a danger to gun owners.

“Joe Biden’s selection of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate makes this ticket the most serious threat to American Second Amendment rights ever faced in a presidential election,” he said.

Gun-control groups, on the other hand, cheered Biden’s decision to name Harris his vice-presidential nominee. Giffords, the gun-control group headed by former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, emphasized Harris’s support for expanding background checks to private sales in a celebratory email to its donors and didn’t mention her support for confiscation.

“Joe Biden just announced his pick for Vice President and we are so thrilled to have Senator Kamala Harris join the fight to defeat Trump in November,” the group said in an email to supporters. “Like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris is a gun safety champion with a proven record of fighting the NRA and standing up for common sense. They will work tirelessly together to pass universal background checks and make every community safer from gun violence.”

Gun violence will not stop when you take guns away from law-abiding gun owners; it will only stop when you take guns away from criminals. We already have laws that do that. Those laws don’t work because criminals do not obey laws.Taking guns away from law-abiding gun owners will not cause criminals to give up their guns–it will simply result in more unarmed victims of those criminals (or a tyrannical government that cannot be stopped). Neither is a positive step forward.

The Battle For The Second Amendment

The Washington Examiner posted an article today with the following headline, “Sheriffs may go to jail to protect ‘Second Amendment sanctuaries,’ congressman says.”

Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam recently told WTKR that any law enforcement officer that did not carry out gun control laws enacted by the state would face “consequences,” but he did not give any specifics.

The Second Amendment states:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The article notes:

Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie thinks some local law enforcement leaders will be willing to go to jail rather than comply with state gun control laws they deem unconstitutional.

“Attended my first 2A sanctuary meeting today in Lewis County (where I live). Standing room only. Friends and neighbors spoke passionately and articulately. County officials unanimously passed a resolution,” Massie tweeted on Dec. 30. “This grassroots movement feels even stronger than the Tea Party in 2010.”

“Second Amendment sanctuary” municipalities last year sprouted up in Illinois, a state with some of the strictest gun control laws. They then spread to Colorado, Kentucky, New Mexico, New Jersey, Oregon, Virginia, Washington state, and other states.

Massie cited Weld County, Colorado Sheriff Steve Reams, a critic of the state’s “red flag” law, who has offered to put himself in his own jail rather than enforce the state law.

“His county government has already voted to fund his legal fees should he end up in a protracted legal battle that might go all the way” to the Supreme Court, Massie told the Washington Examiner.

“And so that’s one of the things that when you boil it all down and say, ‘What does the sanctuary county movement mean?’” Massie said. “So, what it could mean is that county governments decide to use taxpayer dollars, with the blessing of the taxpayers in those counties, to support the sheriffs in their court battles.”

Red flag laws are unconstitutional–they violate the principle of innocent until proven guilty, and they take property from citizens without the necessary legal procedures. Those laws seem like a good idea on the surface until you realize that people could use those laws to take guns away from people they simply don’t like. Unfortunately, red flag laws in action could very easily mirror what happened during the Salem Witch Trials where a person was accused of being a witch because someone wanted their farm. This is a glaring example of what happens when the legal rights of the accused are not respected.

Making Our Schools Safer

The IJR posted an article yesterday about a panel on school safety. The panel was held during Turning Point USA’s High School Leadership Summit and moderated by Townhall’s Guy Benson. The panel included family members of school shooting victims.

The article reports:

While many family members of victims usually speak out in support of enacting more gun control laws, that wasn’t the case with Hunter Pollack and J.T. Lewis.

Pollack, whose sister, Meadow, died in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, said he was proud to help pass Florida Senate Bill 7026, which allows programs to be created for retired law enforcement and veterans to go through an extensive training course before being sent to protect public schools in the event of an active shooter.

“When Columbine happened, gun control was the talk, and it was a big distraction,” Pollack said. “Then Red Lake happened. [They said] we needed gun control, big distraction. Then Sandy Hook happened. They fought for gun control, [gun control] was another distraction.

“Now, it’s Stoneman Douglas, it stops with us,” he continued. “Our schools need to be safe. We need metal detectors, we need single-point entry, we need armed guards, and we need more resources for mental health.” 

Lewis, who lost his brother in the Sandy Hook shooting, echoed Pollack’s view of gun control not being the answer to school shootings.

Gun control has never been successful–criminals find ways to get guns–but in the age of 3-D printers, gun control is pretty much impossible. The Second Amendment protects the rights of Americans to bear arms, but even if that right were somehow taken away, the advent of the 3-D printer would make any laws prohibiting guns unenforceable.

The article further reports:

Matt Whitlock, who also serves as Hatch’s [Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)] communications director, told the audience the importance of getting involved at the local level since it is local leaders who are in charge of keeping kids safe, using the recently passed STOP School Violence Act as an example.

“The STOP School Violence Act is an excellent example of what good, substantial activism can lead to,” Whitlock told IJR. “First, because it was the powerful voices of young people that helped pass the bill into law, and second, because young people now have an opportunity to work with their local leaders to ensure STOP resources are used in their own schools.

“The STOP School Violence Act is about empowering local leaders to tailor school safety programs to fit their specific needs, and it’s about empowering local communities to hold those local leaders accountable for using these tools to keep them safe,” he added.

Amy Swearer, a legal policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, pointed to how schools are the safest they’ve been in 30 years despite the massive coverage of school shootings when they occur. She cautioned, however, that simply citing the numbers is not always the best approach when talking to victims.

There is a solution to school shootings. The STOP School Violence Act is one part of that solution.

The Sad Part Of This Is That It Is True

Violence is a problem in America (just as it is in most countries). Gun violence is often the problem cited because it is the most obvious. Some of the people who want to fight gun violence seem to have lost the concept of common sense.

This is a chart from a website called Gun Facts:

CRIME AND GUNS - Property Crimes and Handgun Supply

There is a lot of good information on the site. Here are a few of the facts cited:

Fact: 60% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. 40% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed. 7

Fact: Felons report that they avoid entering houses where people are at home because they fear being shot. 8

Fact: 59% of the burglaries in Britain, which has tough gun control laws, are “hot burglaries” 9 which are burglaries committed while the home is occupied by the owner/renter. By contrast, the U.S., with more lenient gun control laws, has a “hot burglary” rate of only 13%. 10

Fact: Washington DC has essentially banned gun ownership since 1976 11 and has a murder rate of 56.9 per 100,000. Across the river in Arlington, Virginia, gun ownership is less restricted. There, the murder rate is just 1.6 per 100,000, less than three percent of the Washington, DC rate. 12

Please visit the site to check the sources on the footnotes.

All this brings me to a story from CBS Boston posted on Thursday. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Police Commissioner William Evans have formulated a plan to reduce gun violence in Boston. The first step of the plan involves sending a letter to all gun owners.

The article reports:

The letter will give gun owners information about reporting a private gun sale, loss or theft. It also advertises a free gun lock, a program that offers a $200 gift card if a firearm owner turns in their weapon and advice on gun storage.

“As a legal gun owner, it is important that you also do your part to ensure that guns are stored safely, and kept out of the hands of children and criminals,” the letter states.

Deadly shootings have dropped 30 percent compared to this time last year, but the city has seen more non-fatal shootings, police say.

“We must think creatively in order to reduce the amount of illegal guns and violence on our streets,” Walsh said.

The city will also reach out to gun vendors about preventing illegal firearm sales.

I fully support safety courses for people who own guns, but the people who legally own guns are not the problem. Statistics show that crime goes down when more people legally own guns. Boston’s problem won’t be solved by buying back guns–it might be solved by allowing more of its upstanding citizens to own guns and ending the hassle Massachusetts puts you through to get a gun permit. Sometimes you just wonder who comes up with these ideas.