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Imperial Assault on Natural Rights Day open thread [UPDATED]

The time is coming.  The President, flanked by emotional props, will issue his monarchical decrees.  What are you gonna do about it?

 

****

update: vulgar, crass, maudlin, despicable.  23 executive actions and a push to renew assault weapons ban and a ban on magazines holding over ten rounds.  For the children. Most of whom are slaughtered in gun free zones.  By criminals.

If the GOP can’t stand up to this, they are toast.  Which is irrelevant, frankly, because we will stand up to it ourselves, if needs be.

As I wrote on Twitter, the whole spectacle was a case study in vulgar, maudlin opportunism deployed by a dictatorial-minded demagogue & his coterie of barking seals.  And surely the irony of his having cited gun free zones exploited by criminals as a rationale for taking away protective options of non-criminals, based entirely on cosmetics and some arbitrary decree on magazine capacity, can’t be lost on anyone — even the timid GOPers who will break ranks and rush to show that they, too, are “against gun violence.”

We’re a nation being run those who believe we have infantile minds.

Obama’s assertion — the assertion at the heart of this push to whittle away at a natural right in ways that are completely arbitrary and, frankly, bizarre (which is to be expected when gun laws are passed by those who know nothing ab0ut guns, and yet rely on armed men and women under no such arbitrary restrictions to protect them) — is that we are undergoing an “epidemic” of gun violence.

Well, maybe so.  In places like Chicago, where strict gun control laws are already in place.  But what about in the aggregate?  And why a ban on “assault weapons”?  Are these, when obtained legally, being used disproportionately in the commission of crimes?

A demagogue feels no need to show his work.  Instead, he trots out the grieving parents of dead children and tells us stories of a six-year old girl’s dreams — a girl he never met, a politically expedient plot point, a prop to tug at our heartstrings.

He then turns around and suggests that those who don’t vote on the arbitrary infringement on our 2nd Amendment rights are bought off by the powerful gun lobby — while those who do vote to take away more of our liberties are the high minded idealists looking out for the children.  Whose slaughter they’ve contributed to by declaring to evil men that, in an ostentatious display of self-righteousness, they will surrender them to venues where only criminals so inclined will have weapons.

It is a perversity of the highest order. It is rank hypocrisy dressed up in phony compassion by a political class that each and every day — and with each and every crisis it can gin up — dreams of ways to take away your individual autonomy, bit by bit, law by law, regulation by regulation.

And we sit back and let it happen.

Shame on us.  No more.

 

84 Replies to “Imperial Assault on Natural Rights Day open thread [UPDATED]”

  1. Silver Whistle says:

    His Imperial Magnificence is speaking. Wouldn’t it be great to read a law review article by him on the Second Amendment? Shouldn’t take the smartest guy in the room longer than a couple of rounds of golf or a weekend break in Hawaii to knock one out.

  2. Squid says:

    What are you gonna do about it?

    Pop some popcorn and watch what happens when theory meets practice.

  3. geoffb says:

    In allowing the government to maintain a standing army and police force, we are also agreeing to transfer to the state the duty and immense power of defending us from being attacked in the first place. This is not only a matter of practicality, it’s the only method anyone’s come up with to prevent the Hobbesian war of all against all.

    As the founders knew, however, the power we grant the state to defend us can easily be turned against us. “The means of defence against foreign danger,” Madison wrote, “have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.” Going back even farther, this was why the supporters of republican government stuck the long knives into Julius Caesar. In “crossing the Rubicon,” he violated the law by bringing the Roman army into Italy. This effectively turned the means of protecting the republic into the tool for establishing imperial rule.

    In the Second Amendment, the founding fathers sought to protect us against any Rubicon-crossing by granting Americans the right to bear their own arms and form home militias. We own guns, in other words, to defend ourselves from the possibility of government tyranny. It is part of our foundational contract with the American state. This is why, whenever some anti-gun idiot on television cries out, “Why would a hunter need an automatic rifle?” the correct answer is… well, unprintable. The hunter has a 30-06 in his gun cabinet for hunting. The M-16 he hides in the cellar is for the next American Revolution.

  4. Gulermo says:

    Me?

    Probably flogging my evangelical friends, family and neighbors for not voting for the continued slower, (INEVITABLE!), social decline.

    Why, did you have something more specific in mind?

  5. Silver Whistle says:

    He keeps saying “I respect the Second Amendment” and then goes on to talk about hunters. This is what we call a ‘clue’.

  6. sdferr says:

    I listened to Obazma for a few seconds, long enough to hear him (astonishingly!) proclaim he was directing a crack-down on straw purchasers, but of course without mentioning his own adminstration’s program of straw purchasing, nor volunteering to direct the Attorney General to be fully forthcoming regarding that program, otherwise known as Fast and Furious.

  7. Gulermo says:

    After that I think I will take a shot at the Papists. Better to be safe than sorry.

  8. geoffb says:

    He hides behind kids like Al Qaeda does but some kids are more special than others and some are super special.

  9. He keeps saying “I respect the Second Amendment” and then goes on to talk about hunters. This is what we call a ‘clue’.

    A clue or a tell?

  10. geoffb says:

    EOs.

    1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

    2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.

    3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.

    4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

    5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.

    6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

    7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.

    8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).

    9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.

    10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.

    11. Nominate an ATF director.

    12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper
    training for active shooter situations.

    13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.

    14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.

    15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.

    16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.

    17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.

    18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.

    19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.

    20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.

    21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.

    22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.

    23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

  11. happyfeet says:

    all food stamp is doing is making guns more of a cool thing to have

  12. Gulermo says:

    “If the GOP ”

    Compass, flashlight, GPS, printed directions and a thermos of hot, black coffee.
    Their asses.
    Some assembly required.

  13. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Once again, I have to confess to underestimating Jeff’s perspicacity. The secession and civil war talk that gets bandied about from time to time I took as an understandable bit of rhetorical excess. Events however, keep proving him ahead of the curve.

  14. happyfeet says:

    the GOP is still basking in the afterglow of passing porky porky chris christie’s deliciously fiscally irresponsible welfare for jersey trash bill

  15. McGehee says:

    23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

    :facepalm:

  16. eCurmudgeon says:

    A clue or a tell?

    An obvious “tell”.

    “Hunters”, after all, don’t “need” firearms that can accept detachable magazines. Nor do they “need” firearms that have non-detachable magazines that can accept more than, say, three rounds…

  17. Ernst Schreiber says:

    This is why, whenever some anti-gun idiot on television cries out, “Why would a hunter need an automatic rifle?”

    I’ve taken to answering that one “for the same reason the police and the military need them.”

  18. Pablo says:

    If the GOP can’t stand up to this, they are toast. Which is irrelevant, frankly, because we will stand up to it ourselves, if needs be.

    Thing is, I don’t think Congress is going to do much of anything. If Harry Reid has no appetite for gun grabbing, it ain’t gonna happen. So, you’ve seen his grand flourish, his edicts from on high which basically amount to nothing. But not only did he Do Something™, he did 23 things. Because he cares.

  19. DarthLevin says:

    All due respect to President Diktat (which is to say, absolutely none), but I have no intent of obeying any of his imperial decrees.

    Jug-eared fucker thinks he can rule over me and mine? We aren’t anybody’s subjects, regardless of the prevalent “progressive” thinking.

  20. McGehee says:

    Livestock that can defend themselves against predators can also defend themselves against the farmer, and this is unacceptable.

  21. eCurmudgeon says:

    4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

    Define “dangerous”.

  22. sdferr says:

    Define “dangerous”.

    sdferr here pointing to a picture of Barack Obazma.

  23. Silver Whistle says:

    A clue or a tell?

    More of a clue. The ‘tell’ is his lips moving.

  24. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Thing is, I don’t think Congress is going to do much of anything. If Harry Reid has no appetite for gun grabbing, it ain’t gonna happen. So, you’ve seen his grand flourish, his edicts from on high which basically amount to nothing. But not only did he Do Something™, he did 23 things. Because he cares.

    Your lips to God’s ear Pablo. With the additional prayer that Republicans are smart enough to spend the next two years repeating the mantra –Democrats want to take your rights away! and tea party types are wise enough to know which Republicans would be happy to help them do it.

  25. sdferr says:

    “. . . vulgar, crass, maudlin, despicable.

    To which I’d add, incapable of other than specious argument, to the point one wonders how so moronic a man could possibly rise so high.

  26. eCurmudgeon says:

    9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.

    Is this a push to require “ballistic fingerprinting” of all guns sold or transfered?

  27. Silver Whistle says:

    Because, sdferr, the country deserves him.

  28. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Voluntary questionaire which you are required to answer or pay the non-compliance tax fine of 1 TRILLION dollars.

    1) Have you ever voted Republican?
    2) Have you ever attended a Tea-Party Rally?
    3) Do you watch Fox News?
    4) Do you listen to talk radio?
    5) Do you own a copy of that little book?
    6) Even if you don’t own a copy, did you know what “that little book” referred to?

    There’s your definition eCurmudgeon. Coming to a doctor’s office near you.

  29. eCurmudgeon says:

    23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

    And why those people who express a desire to own a firearm are exhibiting pre-cursor symptoms of Gun Violence…

  30. Pablo says:

    Reid on an AW ban.

    “Let’s be realistic,” Reid said. “In the Senate, we’re going to do what we think can get through the House and I’m not going to go through a bunch of these gyrations just to say we’ve done something. If we’re really legislators, the purpose of it is to pass legislation.”

    Asked by an interviewer on PBS’ Nevada Week in Review if the much-discussed assault-weapons ban would meet such a test, Reid suggested it wouldn’t.

    “Is it something that can pass the Senate? Maybe. Is it something that can pass the House? I doubt it,” Reid said in the interview, which aired over the weekend and was later posted online.

  31. sdferr says:

    Indeed Silver Whistle, can’t gainsay that insight, save possibly to alter the query to “How came the country to sink so low?”

  32. eCurmudgeon says:

    And finally:

    7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.

    “Remember, if there’s a loaded gun in the room, make sure you’re the one holding it.”

  33. JHoward says:

    Somebody tell me what any of this happy shit would have done to prevent Sandy Hook.

    Prevention being Minority Report Barry’s job and all.

    As prescribed by the Constitution he swore to uphold.

    Meanwhile I know of one thing that would have prevented Sandy Hook.

    12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper
    training for active shooter situations.

    I am law enforcement, asshole, and I am a first responder and under that Constitution, I am a school official.

  34. Ernst Schreiber says:

    be realistic,” Reid said. “In the Senate, we’re going to do what we think can get through the House and I’m not going to go through a bunch of these gyrations just to say we’ve done something. If we’re really legislators, the purpose of it is to pass legislation.”

    Like, maybe a budget?

  35. JHoward says:

    Oh, and think Teen Screen.

    I told us all government schools were the first step.

  36. geoffb says:

    I believe that whatever else they may propose they are going to make their main focus in the end on the mental health idea which can then be re-worked into a de facto ban using Obamacare when it takes effect in 2014. The end game will be something like what I said here.

    Remember the Sec. of HHS is all powerful in the realm of healthcare come Jan. 2014. Her every word will be law with just a “stroke of the pen.”

  37. Pablo says:

    Like, maybe a budget?

    Heh. Er…Shut Up!

  38. Silver Whistle says:

    Indeed Silver Whistle, can’t gainsay that insight, save possibly to alter the query to “How came the country to sink so low?

    To take the other-end-of-the telescope, 30,000 ft view? I guess when we stopped seeing the difference between the Republic and the country. It's easy to concentrate on the survival of the latter, to the complete neglect of the former. Complacency, lack of vigilance, the natural corrupting tyranny of power, and the special corrupting tyranny of leftism I guess make up the specifics as to how we came so low as to deserve him.

    This bozo isn't special; he's just the last shithead in a long line of shitheads.

  39. Silver Whistle says:

    There should be a close italics tag in there somewheres.

  40. Jrez says:

    …national dialogue(tm)

    OK, I’ll go first: GET THE FUCK OFF MY LAWN!!!

  41. Silver Whistle says:

    Thanks.

  42. sdferr says:

    Thomas Jefferson, as I have been pointing out lately, was fond — once he had retired from politics and was engaged in establishing his University — to repeat his belief that the future would reveal men wiser than his own generation of men, because Science (and technology) would make them so. He was in error, as were all those of that generation of Enlightenment thinkers who believed morality and wisdom would improve with the improvement of understanding of the physical sciences. And so, following them, here we are, lacking wisdom across the board.

    Schade.

  43. Silver Whistle says:

    Schade, bestimmt. But inevitable, all the same.

  44. Ernst Schreiber says:

    That’s because the enlightenment delegitimized half of human experience as so much superstitious nonsense.

    Sad indeed.

  45. SBP says:

    “Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.”

    You mean like the NRA has been doing for close to 150 years, ranging from their Eddie Eagle program for little kids (“Stop! Don’t Touch! Tell an adult!”) all the way up through their gun safety courses designed for older people?

    Do tell.

  46. sdferr says:

    And in the effort to delegitimize these human pursuits, ceased to teach them step by step: Can’t be infected by what is never encountered.

  47. “He keeps saying “I respect the Second Amendment” and then goes on to talk about hunters. This is what we call a ‘clue’.

    A clue or a tell?”

    I’d call it O! spoor.

  48. geoffb says:

    White House list of their plans.

  49. ironpacker says:

    “What are you gonna do about it?”

    I am trying to determine where my “line in the sand” lies. I’m not sure what results congress will deliver. Seeing as how I’m over 60 and out of shape, I have no illusions of being much more than a speed bump to tyrrany, but I will resist to best of my ability.

  50. SBP says:

    “11. Nominate an ATF director.”

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t Obumble failed to do this throughout his entire first term?

  51. Squid says:

    I am law enforcement, asshole, and I am a first responder and under that Constitution, I am a school official.

    I like this! Thanks for the reminder.

  52. Slartibartfast says:

    The latest on this:

    The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says “State” instead of “Country” (the Framers knew the difference – see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia’s vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too.

    Somehow that’s magically going to result in the 2nd being voided without a repeals process, maybe.

  53. Squid says:

    There’s so much self-contradiction in that piece that I hardly know where to start. I guess it’s true what they say: if you can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, baffle ’em with bullshit.

  54. Slartibartfast says:

    I liked the name of the author, and felt compelled to Google it.

  55. Blake says:

    ironpacker, look up “Samuel Whittemore.”

    The guy took out three redcoats, got shot and bayoneted several times. At age 80. Lived to be 93.

  56. Silver Whistle says:

    Tim’s line in the sand.

  57. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Am I the only the one who thinks its ironic that progressives and liberals are flogging the Slavery! scapegoat in order to circumscribe a fundamental civil right?

    Gun ownership is the new black.

  58. ironpacker says:

    Blake, that is a truly inspiring story.

  59. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Are Guns the Problem?

    Of course not! Guns are the solution to people problems. What people and what problems is up to the problem people themselves.

  60. William says:

    Says it all, Squid.

  61. geoffb says:

    Gun violence.

    The word “violence” is used to conflate, make a moral equivalence between the act of self-defense and the attack which precedes and is the cause of the self-defense.

    It’s all just VIOLENCE!!!

  62. sdferr says:

    “If there is even one life that can be saved, then we’ve got an obligation to try it,” says the insincere Commander-in-Chief who orders men into battle in an absurd (and pretend) strategy to pacify Afghanistan even while proclaiming his predetermined decision to withdraw from Afghanistan whether his moronic ‘strategy’ has been successful or not.

  63. Squid says:

    How many lives will be “saved” when Teh Won figures out that door-to-door searches are too dangerous (and likely to make His Brownshirts balk), and decides that drone-launched rockets are a far better way to make sure the bitter clingers are disarmed?

  64. leigh says:

    That is an excellent article geoff. Thanks for sharing.

  65. palaeomerus says:

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/16/Leftist-Idle-No-More-Supporter-Busted-for-Molotov-Threat-at-Wisc-Capitol

    Apparently Scott Walker has a new friend. Obama doesn’t seem worried though. If liitle Julia is okay with Scott Walker being burned to death by some activist who is easy to disavow then so is Obama.

  66. happyfeet says:

    and he shall be Kvon and he shall be a good man, kinda

  67. Squid says:

    Oh, great. Now we’ll have Slow Joe and Teh Won telling about the need for “sensible hard-liquor safety standards” or some such rot.

    Or was he using gasoline for his Molotovs? ‘Cuz in that case, Barry-O already has it covered.

  68. sdferr says:

    But we may guess he won’t be said to look like Obazma’s son Kvon.

  69. leigh says:

    His cousin maybe on the Dunham side.

  70. Merovign says:

    Obviously, if gun-free zones are dangerous, we need to make everywhere a gun-free zone, because equality!!!

    Also, we should ban seatbelts because some people still don;t use them, that’s not equal.

    Non-slip bathtub mats? Oh, you just wait. EQUALITY!

  71. happyfeet says:

    confiscating non-slip bathtub mats is the next best thing to death panels i think

  72. newrouter says:

    Non-slip bathtub mats

    do they work on a slipperyslope?

  73. geoffb says:

    From the WH pdf.

    Require criminal background checks for all gun sales: Right now, federally licensed firearms dealers are required to run background checks on those buying guns, but studies estimate that nearly 40 percent of all gun sales are made by private sellers who are exempt from this requirement. A national survey of inmates found that only 12 percent of those who used a gun in a crime acquired it from a retail store or pawn shop, where a background check should have been run.

    A nice little piece of misdirection there. So 88% of criminals got their guns without buying them through a dealer and going through the “Insta-check.” leaving the implication that if only we expanded the “Insta-check” system to all private sales then we could catch those transactions and stop them cold. That’s bull. They know it is too.

    What this does is make any sale harder to do, provides a way to get gun dealers aboard the gun control wagon since they would reap fees for each “private” sale, and takes away more of anyone’s sense that they actually own that gun that they paid for. It is also setting the stage for a national registry and tracking of gun owners.

    I know that the federal government is supposed to dump those records after the transaction is approved. I also know where you can get a hell of a deal on a bridge in NYC. All the info on every sale done since the system came online would fit on a thumb-drive. I can’t believe that this bunch wouldn’t have all of it stored somewhere to use when they can get the law changed.

  74. sdferr says:

    40 percent of all gun sales

    John Lott dissected that little piece of mendacity on Levin’s show tonight. The figure includes inherited weapons, gifts of weapons and on and on. So not representative of ‘sales’ at all. Just another typical Obazma lie.

  75. geoffb says:

    True or not? Who knows?

    As the industry poises for the Obama administration, word spread through SHOT Show that undercover agents supposedly from a variety of different agencies, from ATF to OSI, were wandering around the show floor, passing out business cards that bore an official-looking seal and the words “Suspicious Activity Reporting: 702-690-9142”

    Curious, one industry insider called the number. After several rings, a recorded message thanked him for reporting the suspicious activity, and asked for a callback number. Instead, he hung up. Only a few minutes later, their cellphone rang and a caller identified himself as an FBI agent following up on the “suspicious activity report”.

    When questioned about the supposed federal agents wandering the floor, the caller said that despite the fact that OSI was a military agency, breaches of security when it came to the “kinds of equipment displayed at SHOT Show” gave them full domestic arrest powers.

    Many attendees at the SHOW have received these cards, raising questions of the legitimacy of the supposed agents and the possibility that SHOT was under far closer federal scrutiny than normal.

  76. Bob Belvedere says:

    14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.

    See you in the asylum – save me a seat at the weekly movie in the Day Room.

  77. leigh says:

    I’ll bet it’s boring, Bob. They’ll show nothing but Disney movies.

  78. Blake says:

    I caught some of Obama’s speech on the Levin show. Obama really has the whole Ruler/subject, Elitist/peon thing down, doesn’t he?

    Obama really think Americans work for him, rather than the other way around.

  79. newrouter says:

    40 percent of all gun sales are made by private sellers who are exempt from this requirement.

    peeps die and give them to heirs. eff mr. dicktator

  80. Slartibartfast says:

    A national survey of inmates found that only 12 percent of those who used a gun in a crime acquired it from a retail store or pawn shop, where a background check should have been run.

    Of the remainder, how many were stolen or otherwise obtained illegally?

    Inconvenient questions for $500, Alex.

  81. Bob Belvedere says:

    We can pass notes, leigh.

  82. Squid says:

    Nothing inconvenient about it, Slart. We’ll just mandate that thieves must visit an FFL any time they steal a firearm.

    Problem solved!

  83. […] And a little child shall lead them update! Jeff G: […]

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