The Redhunter

The sad part about all this is how utterly predictable the reaction of the anti-gunners has been. It's been their M.O. for a long time to use these tragedies to push their agenda, ad in this one they've stuck to their tried-and-true script.

We didn't even have time to properly mourn the dead, nor pray for their souls and for their loved ones still on earth before the anti-gunners were out in full force shouting for new legislation. We were still trying to investigate the facts and learn what exactly had happened. Media reports being what they are, a lot of the early stories didn't have it all quite right and we had to wait for additional reporting. We may still not have everything quite right.

Richard Fernandez has it about right when he says that for the left, it's all about exploiting a crisis to advance an agenda they've just been holding in the closet.

President Pac-Man
Belmont Club
December 20, 2012

When Rahm Emmanuel remarked that 'one should never let a serious crisis go to waste' he meant never lose an opportunity to grab power. When people are grieving, poor or afraid, offer to save them. That's the best way to get power. One such moment occurred during the financial crisis of 2008. Another such moment, Dana Milbank argues, is occurring now.

It was a most audacious application of the Emanuel rule.

"Never allow a crisis to go to waste," Rahm Emanuel said when he was tapped to be President Obama's chief of staff.

Standing in the White House briefing room Wednesday afternoon, Obama observed that recommendation in unorthodox fashion, invoking the grade-school massacre in Newtown, Conn., to advance his agenda not just on gun control but on taxes, the debt limit, energy and immigration reform.

"Goodness," Obama said. "If there's one thing we should have after this week, it should be a sense of perspective about what's important."

The President has become like Pac-man endlessly gobbling up dots which only earn him the chance to do it again. "When all pac-dots are eaten, Pac-Man is taken to the next stage" -- and more dots. But what if the concentration of power only made things worse? Wouldn't that create even further opportunities to demand even more power from a desperate society?

Are Americans so desperate that they'll give in to the gun-grabbers/banners on so-called "assault weapons?" It's possible.

Democrats should think twice though before passing any legislation. Bill Clinton said that the 1994 "assault weapon" ban cost them many congressional seats in 1994 (this first ban expired in 2004 with the Democrats not trying to revive it). From the Wikipedia entry on the subject:

Although initially heralded as a victory for Clinton and Democrats in congress, (the assault-weapons bill) proved costly. The bill energized the NRA and Republican base, and contributed to the Republican takeover of both houses in the 1994 mid-term elections. Many Democrats who had supported Clinton's gun control measures were ousted, including Speaker Tom Foley. Clinton acknowledged that he had hurt Democrats with his victories.

And from Bill Clinton's autobiography My Life:

"On November 8, we got the living daylights beat out of us, losing eight Senate races and fifty-four House seats, the largest defeat for our party since 1946. . . . The NRA had a great night. They beat both Speaker Tom Foley and Jack Brooks, two of the ablest members of Congress, who had warned me this would happen. Foley was the first Speaker to be defeated in more than a century. Jack Brooks had supported the NRA for years and had led the fight against the assault weapons ban in the House, but as chairman of the Judiciary Committee he had voted for the overall crime bill even after the ban was put into it. The NRA was an unforgiving master: one strike and you're out. The gun lobby claimed to have defeated nineteen of the twenty-four members on its hit list. They did at least that much damage . . ." (Pages 629-630)

"After the election I had to face the fact that . . . supporters of responsible gun legislation . . . simply could not protect their friends in Congress from the NRA. The gun lobby outspent, outorganized, outfought, and outdemagogued them." (Page 630)

"I had grown up in the hunting culture in which its influence was greatest and had seen the devastating impact the NRA had had on the '94 congressional elections." (Page 898)

Given this history, I have to think that once the emotions of the moment wear off I have to thing that in the light of cold reason many Democrats will have second thoughts about passing another "assault weapon" ban.

Despite the attempt to portray the NRA as some mystical entity, it's just a group of ordinary people who have banded together to protect what we view as our Second Amendment rights (yes I am a member, but you figured that out already). We pay our dues and send our contributions, and every year we vote for 1/3 of the board of directors. It's a large civil rights organization. It's me, it's the guy and gal down the street, it's the people you see every day in your community across the nation.

The left has insisted time and again that Obama is really pro-gun, this despite a clear record to the contrary:

• I believe in 2nd Amendment, but not war weapons on streets. (Oct 2012)
• Fast-and-Furious: no prosecutions for Mexican gun/drug snafu. (Jun 2012)
• Midwestern "bitter clingers" frustrated over broken promises. (Aug 2009)
• Opposed bill okaying illegal gun use in home invasions. (Aug 2008)
• Ok for states & cities to determine local gun laws. (Apr 2008)
• FactCheck: Yes, Obama endorsed Illinois handgun ban. (Apr 2008)
• April 2008: "Bittergate" labeled Obama elitist. (Apr 2008)
• Respect 2nd Amendment, but local gun bans ok. (Feb 2008)
• Provide some common-sense enforcement on gun licensing. (Jan 2008)
• 2000: cosponsored bill to limit purchases to 1 gun per month. (Oct 2007)
• Concealed carry OK for retired police officers. (Aug 2007)
• Stop unscrupulous gun dealers dumping guns in cities. (Jul 2007)
• Keep guns out of inner cities--but also problem of morality. (Oct 2006)
• Bush erred in failing to renew assault weapons ban. (Oct 2004)
• Ban semi-automatics, and more possession restrictions. (Jul 1998)
• Voted NO on prohibiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers. (Jul 2005)

In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting the president has put his idiot-savant vice president in charge of a "gun violence task force." My guess is that Obama is looking to satisfy his rabid anti-gun base while providing political cover for himself if it looks like another 1994-style defeat is in the offing. In short, he's hedging his bets. He'd love to see an "assault weapons" ban, heck, he'd love to confiscate as many guns as he could, but he's politically astute enough to know the risks.

Whatever. It is unconscionable that the law abiding should be made to pay for the sins of the lawless. Their are millions, certainly hundreds of thousands, of these so-called "assault weapons" in circulation, and normal every day Americans should not be made to pay because one nut goes on a rampage. That's just not how civil liberties work.

Not that my own Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) understands. A guy who was supposedly pro-gun, he now says that the Sandy Hook shooting was a "game changer" and now supports anti-gun legislation. It's truly scary when our liberties are thrown away so quickly. Or perhaps he's just looking to placate his base since he's up for reelection in 2014.

Gun owners are told ad nauseum that the gun control crowd doesn't want to actually seize any guns that are already owned by law-abiding citizens, they just want oh-so-reasonable restrictions on sales of new ones. So all of you gun owners are just a bunch of paranoid freaks.

Tell that to New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who, in an interview Thursday on Albany radio station WGDJ, said that he was going to work with state legislators to hopefully submit an "assault weapons" bill and that "Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option. Permitting could be an option -- keep your gun but permit it."

Let's be honest; if they get away with this, they'll go for more and more guns. We all know the left wants to totally outlaw the private ownership of guns in this country, and they're just using the Sandy Hook shooting as an excuse to get started again. Give then an inch and they'll take a mile, just you wait.

Part of me says "bring it on," when the Democrats want another ban. I don't think that the country has changed so much that we won't be able to use it against them again just as we did in 1994. But the majority part of me says such legislation is horrible and should be fought with all our hearts and souls. Besides, I don't want to have to buy another AR-15 before any new ban goes into effect.