Posted on 04/05/2013 7:34:27 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Rarely has the political class whipped itself into a lather that has abated so quickly. After the Newtown, Conn., massacre, so many invested so much hope in President Barack Obama’s pledge to “use whatever power this office holds” to pass new gun-control laws.
The president has certainly done his part. He has held rallies. He has used children as props. He has held events with parents of the little victims of Newtown. He has shamed the nation for its alleged forgetfulness over the terrible events of that day.
Yet the needle of public opinion is moving the wrong way. CBS News found that support for stricter gun laws dropped from 57 percent to 47 percent, and CNN from 52 percent to 43 percent. The headline on a CNN story on the latest polling was titled “Polls Suggest Congress Might Have Waited Too Long on Gun Control.” It has waited all of four months.
But the assault-weapons ban has been deep-sixed by Democrats in the Senate. Same with any limit on the size of magazines. The argument now is all about increasing the reach of background checks, although any bill that can pass Congress will be much less extensive than the president or his supporters would like.
The gun-control debate has shown the president again to be hopelessly detached as a legislative mechanic and ineffectual as a shaper of public opinion. Before writing rhetorical checks that his own party’s majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, couldn’t cash, the president might have at least consulted with the wily old son of a gun about what was plausible and adjusted accordingly.
It is true that 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks. Who can be against background checks? Heck, even the National Rifle Association wants states to keep more complete records of who is prohibited from purchasing guns.
But it gets complicated quickly when you try to control almost every transfer of a gun. Senator Chuck Schumer’s current version of the bill would forbid a “temporary transfer” to a friend for target shooting if the range is not “owned or occupied by a duly incorporated organization organized for conservation purposes or to foster proficiency in firearms.” Got it?
Surely, we can figure out a way to do more at gun shows. But despite the obsession with them, gun shows are beside the point. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, “in 1997, among state inmates possessing a gun, fewer than 2 percent bought their firearm at a flea market or gun show, about 12 percent from a retail store or pawnshop, and 80 percent from family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source.”
Gun control always founders on the paradox that it is possible to write new laws for the law-abiding but difficult or impossible to reach criminals who don’t care about laws. Michigan has required a permit to purchase a handgun since 1927. The rule has evidently made no impression on those bent on doing harm to others in Detroit or Flint.
The gun-control debate has subtly shifted away from Newtown even though the president keeps bringing his case back to that atrocity. Nothing that happened in Newtown had anything to do with background checks. No background-check law will ever prevent someone like the mother of Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza from buying guns unless the parents of children with autism-like symptoms are to be banned from owning firearms.
The president’s push for new gun laws looks, at this juncture, like a complete fizzle. He has failed to sway red-state Democrats and failed to maintain the heightened public support for new gun-control laws. The most concrete effect of his advocacy has been, if the anecdotal evidence is to be believed, to stoke increased gun purchases on fear that the government wants to ban guns. He set out to lead a great crusade for gun control and ended up the best friend the gun industry ever had.
— Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review.
We have to be careful not to fall asleep at the switch. Nothing is over till it is over. Until they vote the bills down, they are not dead. They could easily sit on crap for brains Harry’s desk and await the next “trajedy” only to be pulled out and demigogged again and rail roaded through. I don’t want my future tied to the SC on this issue, I want it done and over. Hopefully we can unseat some of the scum in 2014 and not have to worry about this again till after 2016.
It is a flagrant violation of the 2nd Amendment but they don't care.
Obama still remains committed to ending our Second Amendment rights by whatever means necessary. He will pull out all the stops to ram the UN arms treaty through the Senate, his EPA will declare lead bullets and ammunition to be environmental hazards, under Obamacare doctors will be forced to quiz patients about gun ownership and that data will be correlated with any diagnosis or prescribed medications that would indicate the gun owner is “unstable”, guns will be routinely confiscated if a warrant is issued for so much as parking tickets and school kids will be coerced into snitching on the family members gun ownership. Government goon squads will be routinely raiding homes to confiscate guns on any pretext..remember that famous picture of a government SWAT team seizing little Elian Gonzales...coming soon to knock on your door.
B.S. Everytime there is one of these gun control “arguments” we lose. This is how freedoms are lost, incrementally. This latest may cost us all rights to private transfer of ownership. The excuse will be the need for background checks. The so-called “gunshow loophole” is your right to sell what’s yours.
Newtown should be about drugs and mental illness along with the idiocy of schools as “zones of defenselessness.” There should be open mockery of idiots so simple-minded as to think that we can make people good by taking guns away.
Our side needs to recognize that we need to be a nation of people worthy of our own defense. If passive acceptance of drugs and violence makes armed Americans a danger to themselves then we will lose the right to be armed.
We're getting two
http://www.industryweek.com/energy-management/first-new-domestic-refinery-35-years-being-built-north-dakota
I get the impression those who run such companies are too risk adverse.
An Undocumented Gun Owner.
Political class whipped itself into a lather.Well next year is an election year,expected.
They are not done yet.
They are still hoping for a gun ban.
it’s his only economic stimulus plan that has worked. too bad it’s all on fear.
No such thing as enough ammo for now...
:-)
The very wording is a contradiction.
"Universal background checks" are NOT background checks.
What the neo-communists want with "Universal background checks" is a cross-linked database that includes medical records, prescription drug records, Military service records, credit scores, grade school and college records, school "resource officers" records, civil judgments, employee drug testing, etc, etc.
Essentially, any scrap of data that can be tied to you. At that point the benevolent shepherds in our "most transparent" administration will set the sell / no sell bar as they see fit.
That is not "do you have a felony conviction" check.
And the 90% figure?
They are referring to the Quinnipiac University poll from Feb, 2013.
It is a twisting of what was actually asked.
Yeah, I know, SHOCKING, right?
February 7, 2013 - Americans Back Women In Combat 3-1, But Less For Draft, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Support For Universal Gun Background Checks Is 92%
Demographics...
http://www.quinn ipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us02072013_demos.doc
The questions...
Word format
http://www.quinnipiac. edu/images/polling/us/us02072013.doc
PDF format
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us02072013.pdf
What is glaringly obvious by its absence is the exact description of what comprises a universal background check because it never did ask that question.
It also does not differentiate between a private sale and a FFL sale when referring to "gun buyers."
Here is the actual question...
38. Do you support or oppose requiring background checks for all gun buyers?
So of course the question is vague in that it only says "background checks."
NOT universal background checks.
But when it comes out of the neo-communists' mouth it has transformed into...
SUPPORT FOR UNIVERSAL GUN BACKGROUND CHECKS IS 92%
Umm, no, that is NOT the question that was asked.
Quinnipiac University Polling Institute... you lie.
One more thing...
Quinnipiac University
275 Mount Carmel Avenue
Hamden, Connecticut 06518
The numbers might be about right but it is the wording of the conclusion that was processed through the commie brain filter.
.
Thanks for the “background check” on the background check poll.
I also wonder about ammunition purchases using a debit or credit card. Should we be going to the ATM and paying cash for ammo?
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