And get this new "emergency rule" killed.
At a large gun shop, this rule would pretty much mean that ATF would be camping out at the store. It is not "two `assault rifles' in five days to one person", it is "two such guns in five days" to anyone. Which, at a good-sized gun shop, is every frakking business week. (I've been in a large gun shop where I've seen sales of two such gun to two different people going on at the same time.)
The Washington Post article, of course, is filled with lies. "Semiautomatic" rifles are not the "preferred weapons" of the Mexican cartels' gunmen. True assault rifles, the fully-automatic kind, are. The kind that they buy from gun runners, from corrupt members of the Mexican Army, or the kind they get from the Mexican police.
But hey, the WaPo is on a crusade about guns, they always have been. Expecting a fair article about firearms from the WaPo is like expecting no "war on Christmas" stories from Fox News.
Beyond that, I am perpetually astonished about the stance that liberals take on guns. Most liberals believe, as do most libertarians, that the government, from the local level up to the federal level, is in service to the corporations and the powerful. This last election showed that, with massive flooding of corporate campaign cash from both American and foreign companies, which were used to flood the airwaves in support of candidates who would do the bidding of the rich, the banksters and the corporations.
A lot of liberals, as well as libertarians, believe that the judiciary serves the interests of the powerful, not the people.
A lot of liberals, as well as libertarians, believe that the police often serve the interests of the rich and the powerful. Liberals and allied organizations have decried the tactics of the police, where they have acted like occupiers. Liberals, libertarians and yes, even some conservatives, are alarmed at the wholesale trampling of the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments to the Constitution by law enforcement, as aided and abetted by "conservative" judges and several administrations.
But unlike libertarians, most liberals, while decrying authoritarian state power, would willingly deny themselves the one last tool available to resist totalitarianism or, for that matter, an attack by anyone seeking to do them harm. Especially as a Jew, I just find that unfathomable.
Second, I find it inexplicable that, given the third-rail nature of gun control, that the Obama Administration has even thought about doing this. But there seem to be no shortage of chowderheads over in the West Wing. Pro-2nd Amendment people have good memories; if the Obamazoids think that this will be forgotten in 22 months, they are stupidly, sorely and sadly mistaken. The pro-gun lobby groups will dine out on this, for fundraising purposes, for many, many months.
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5 comments:
EBM, I think the problem is that most liberals are, well, nice people. They know that in a gun-battle between themselves and a vicious sociopath criminal, they would lose -- because they would hesitate before pulling the trigger, while the sociopath criminal would not. That is because liberals have a fundamental respect for human life and a fundamental dislike for doing harm to others that's hard to overcome even in the service of self defense, while sociopaths have no such qualms to overcome.
There is also the slight problem that no fundamentally tyrannical government has ever, in the course of modern history, been overcome by armed revolt from within, even when the population *was* well armed. Saddam Hussein's Iraq is a perfect example (google "Iraq gun culture" for an eye opener -- you're not considered to be a man in Iraq unless you have *at least* a fully automatic AK-47, preferably more), all those guns, yet it took outside force to topple Saddam. The problem is that yes, Americans are heavily armed, as were Iraqis... but as Gov. Earl K. Long of Louisiana pointed out in 1959 when state legislators were urging him to defy a Federal desegregation order, "we're talking about the U.S. government here, they got the goddamned ATOMIC BOMB!" I.e., the State has significant weaponry such as tanks, bombers, poison gas, artillery, etc., that it can take out any organized resistance, and unorganized resistance has not been capable of being sustained without outside support (see: Ukrainian Partisan Army after WW2, which was utterly destroyed by Stalin).
In other words, a) liberals by and large think they would be the killed, not the killer, if they ever got into a gun battle with vicious criminals, and b) they don't in general think guns are useful for taking on a tyrannical government. Thus c) guns would not be useful for them.
Of course, going from (c) (the notion that guns in private ownership aren't useful for the stated purposes of defense) to the notion that guns should be banned is a jump in logic that makes no sense, since vicious criminals will have guns whether they're banned or not. But logic isn't exactly a subject that Americans excel at, by and large... thus why some Americans *still* continue to insist that Saddam (a Stalinist atheist who killed Muslim religious leaders) and Osama bin Laden (a rabid Muslim religious leader) were in cahoots, even though the most basic logic says that's utter nonsense...
- Badtux the Well-armed Penguin
Aw come on, you guys. A significant number of us registered Democrats are ex-military, possess firearms, and know how to use them -- at least up here in Maine. We just don't make a big stink about it.
PePere, the text of the rule, unlike the "news" article in the WaPo, applies nationwide.
Hmmm -- yes, the proposed rule is crazy, requiring FFL Licensees "to report [sales} of two or more rifles within any five consecutive business days with the following characteristics: (a) semi automatic; (b) a caliber greater than .22; and (c) the ability to accept a detachable magazine." That is really nuts.
However I still think you are roughing up liberals unnecessarily. Every liberal I know (up here in Maine, at least) owns firearms and can use them.
PePere, I live closer to the NYC area, so I can find no shortage of liberals who advocate banning all firearms (except for cops, criminals and the military).
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