Justin's Political Corner

The Missouri Senate voted to eliminate all funding for the state’s driver’s license bureau on Monday due to concerns about its keeping records of concealed-carry holders. The Raw Story reports that the chairman of the appropriations committee, Kurt Schaefer (R), admitted that the cut was made to send a message to Governor Jay Nixon (D) and his administration, and said, “They will not be able to issue any drivers’ licenses.”

The state of Missouri is reportedly only state to have its driver’s license bureau also be the agency that issues concealed carry permits. According to The Raw Story article, the state gave that power to the bureau ten years ago for the purpose of allowing law enforcement to be able to identify people who carried concealed weapons. However, Missouri lawmakers have gotten more concerned about the possibility that these records would be shared with the federal government, leading ultimately to confiscations of guns from law-abiding citizens.

Gun-confiscation paranoia has been around for quite awhile in our society. Much of this is due to the widespread slippery slope argument that the NRA makes, and that lawmakers, particularly Republican lawmakers, parrot, when it comes to universal background checks or other records tracking gun ownership and purchase, or any tiny bit of regulation regarding firearms.

Probably one of the most pertinent facts that people who trumpet the slippery slope argument regarding background checks and other recordkeeping ignore is that a national gun registry is illegal. Furthermore, the bi-partisan background check amendment thatfailed in the Senate last week, despite widespread support in the populace, made creating a federal gun registry an actual crime.

It was not, as the NRA and various right-wing news sources reported, a statement regarding how the White House intended to make such policies effective, nor how they were planning on moving towards a federal “gun-grab.”

You can read the memo itself here. [PDF]

The main problem with the slippery slope argument, for any issue, is that it assumes one specified action will follow a previous action, and another specified action will follow after that, and so on. It completely ignores the possibility that there are other actions that could occur, that things could easily stop far short of the fateful endpoint, or that nothing further will occur after the initial action is taken. Firearms regulations don’t necessarily lead to disarmament and tyranny; there are many nations with various types of firearms regulationsthat are far more stringent than ours that are still peaceful and democratic. In other words, it’s an extremely narrow viewpoint to take on an extremely complex issue that requires a much broader view.

h/t: Rika Christensen at AddictingInfo.org

For much of its more than 140-year history, the National Rifle Association promoted gun ownership, shooting, and hunting as good, clean, constitutionally-protected fun. That changed in the past four decades as the NRA transformed into a hardline group closely allied with the gun industry and the conservative establishment whose only solution to gun violence is ever more guns. Watch the shift unfold in this collection of ads promoting the organization from the early 20th century to the present.

1920: “Rifle shooting is a mighty fine sport.” This Remington ad in Boys Life declared that the NRA was “a United States Government organization.” It wasn’t, but that gives you a sense of just how tight the gun group and the government once were—before the NRA entered its current state of perpetual freak-out about the feds coming for Americans’ guns. 

1970: “Hunters Beware!” Sounding more like the contemporary NRA, this ad warned about “powerful forces—possibly well-intentioned but ill-informed—working eagerly yet relentlessly to curb and eventually abolish the hunting rights, privileges and freedoms you enjoy today.” Bonus: A guest appearance by future pro football Hall of Famer Chris Hanburger.

1982: “I’m the NRA” This famous campaign, launched in 1982, was intended to demonstrate the NRA’s broad appeal. Ads included kids (such as eight-year-old BB-gun enthusiast Bryan Hardin), women, African Americans, cops, and clergy. A more recent version of the campaign has featured NRA celebrity board members Tom Selleck and Karl Malone.

Late 1980s: “Why can’t a policeman be there when you need him?” Fears about violent crime fueled these ads promoting concealed-carry laws. The notion that gun laws are ineffective because criminals break them remains a core NRA argument, as does the idea that armed citizens routinelyfend off attackers.

1995: Bill Clinton is “daffy.” With the number of hunters on the decline, you’d think the NRA would embrace high-profile recreational shooters. Yet in this poster sold to its members, the NRA unintentionally distanced itself from its longtime stance that hunting was central to gun rights, declaring that “Mr. Clinton, the Second Amendment is not about duck hunting.”

1997: “Gun rights are lost on our kids.” Heston promised to lead a $100 million, “three-year crusade…to restore the Second Amendment to its rightful place as America’s First Freedom.” For the kids, of course.

2013: “Are the president’s kids more important than yours?” All the anti-government paranoia, fear-mongering, and liberal-baiting of the past few decades culminated in this video, produced in the wake of the Newtown massacre. By opposing putting armed guards in every school in America, Obama proved himself to be “just another elitist hypocrite” whose kids are protected by the Secret Service.

H/T: Mother Jones

It looks like Family Research Council president Tony Perkins is embracing a conspiracy theory first floated by Buster Wilson of the American Family Association about how the Obama administration may begin preventing conservative Christians from purchasing guns.

Yesterday on Washington Watch, Perkins said he opposes a new Senate bill that expands background checks because such a system may prevent anyone identified as an “evangelical, bible-believing fundamentalist” from acquiring a firearm.

H/T: Right Wing Watch

National Rifle Association board member Ted Nugent made several inflammatory remarks about the Obama administration during an interview on NRA News, including doubling down on his previous claim that he will be “dead or in jail” if the president was reelected.

During an April 8 interview on NRA News, Nugent also accused the Obama administration of engaging in “jack-booted thuggery” and complained that not enough was done to stop the reelection of Obama, asking, “When I kick the door down in the enemy’s camp, would you help me shoot somebody?” Nugent clarified that his reference to shooting people was “a metaphor” and that he’s “not recommending shooting anybody.”

Nugent told a gathered crowd at the NRA’s annual meeting in April 2012 that, “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year. Why are you laughing? Do you think that’s funny? That’s not funny at all. I’m serious as a heart attack.” He concluded his remarks with a call for the audience to “ride into that battlefield and chop [Democrats] heads off in November.”

Nugent, who is also a columnist for birther website WND, brought up those past comments after NRA News host Cam Edwards falsely claimed that proposed background check legislation would make it so “any time somebody went to your ranch and you loaned them a gun to do some hunting or to do some plinking that would be a five year felony.” According to Nugent, those who laughed at him for saying that “if this America-hater, if this freedom-hater, if this enemy of America becomes the president again I’ll either be dead or in jail” were ignoring the threat of “draconian felonies”:

EDWARDS: You look at what is going on now with the U.S. Senate. They still don’t have the votes for the so-called universal background check bill and that’s a very good thing because this bill is awful. I mean we might as well call this the Ban Ted Nugent Act of 2013. Do you realize, Ted, that under the language right now, any time somebody went to your ranch and you loaned them a gun to do some hunting or to do some plinking that would be a five year felony?

NUGENT: Sure. Well that’s why. I mean come on. And I know that the moderates, by the way if you are a moderate we’d like to thank you for standing up for nothing. If you’re a moderate I suppose you would have been playing poker while Davy Crockett was on the wall of the Alamo. It’s time to take a side.

That’s why I said almost a year ago, Cam, and people recoiled in horror. And I know it caught a lot of my friends off guard, when I said if this America-hater, if this freedom-hater, if this enemy of America becomes the president again I’ll either be dead or in jail. And remember when I was on the stage with you and some people chuckled?

EDWARDS: Yup.

NUGENT: So we find humor in a disastrous statement from a guy who is on the frontlines, who has been in the frontlines of the war against gun ownership for at least forty-plus years. So it’s funny that I might be dead or in jail. And that is so indicative of how callous and disconnected some are, because you are talking about arbitrary, punitive, capricious draconian felonies. 

Edwards’ characterization of the proposal to expand background checks is incorrect. While the legislation would require a criminal background check on almost all gun sales, there would be exemptions to the requirement, including gifts between family members and firearms loaned for lawful hunting or target shooting purposes.

Furthermore, the legislation would allow an individual to temporarily transfer a firearm to another individual without a check so long as the firearm does not leave the transferor’s “home or curtilage.”

Nugent used the NRA News interview as an opportunity to make more inflammatory statements about the Obama administration.

Warning of government firearm confiscation, Nugent suggested that the federal government was engaged in “jack-booted thuggery,” a term used in the infamous 1995 comparison by NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre between federal law enforcement agents and Nazi stormtroopers:

A lot of people, Cam, I’m afraid, listen to the outrageous examples, the freedom-stomping and jack-booted thuggery. And they wince a bit and they furrow their brow and they shake their heads. But then they still don’t do anything.

Nugent also blamed the reelection of President Obama, who he refers to as the “Chicago gangster, ACORN rip-off scam-artist-in-chief,” on the alleged silence of Obama’s critics. He went on to ask, “When I kick the door down in the enemy’s camp, would you help me shoot somebody?”

H/T: MMFA

PFAW’s recent Right Wing Watch in Focus report on opposition to more effective regulation of guns noted that promoting conspiracy theories is a primary strategy used by extremists to block common sense policies.  New evidence comes in the form of a recent email from Sen. Rand Paul raising money for the National Association for Gun Rights, a group that is so far out there it thinks the National Rifle Association has gone soft.

Rand Paul’s letter uses inflammatory rhetoric to push the conspiracy theory that registration of guns and requiring background checks for gun purposes – which is supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans, including gun owners – is just a prelude to “confiscation” by the “gun-grabbers.”

And make no mistake, the gun-grabbers’ TRUE motives behind gun registration is always the same — outright gun CONFISCATION, and to do that they must first register every gun and gun owner.

Another letter Paul signed for the group argues that President Obama is working to empower United Nations bureaucrats to confiscate Americans’ guns:

I don’t know about you, but watching anti-American globalists plot against our Constitution makes me sick.

An earlier alert from the National Association for Gun Rights was labeled: “Obama declares war.”

Why is Rand Paul raising money for these guys?

h/t: RWW

Right-wing blogs took President Obama’s comments about gun violence prevention out of context to claim that he complained about being constrained by the Constitution. The full text of his comments, however, shows that he was praising the genius of the document rather than lamenting that the Second Amendment prevents him from confiscating guns.

On April 3, President Obama gave a speech in Colorado to raise support for strengthening gun laws following the passage of new gun violence prevention measures in the state. During his speech, Obama attempted to put gun owners’ possible concerns over these measures to rest:

One last thing I’m going to mention is that during this conversation — I hope you don’t mind me quoting you, Joe. Joe Garcia, I thought, also made an important point, and that is that the opponents of some of these common-sense laws have ginned up fears among responsible gun owners that have nothing to do with what’s being proposed and nothing to do with the facts, but feeds into this suspicion about government. 

You hear some of these quotes: “I need a gun to protect myself from the government.”  “We can’t do background checks because the government is going to come take my guns away.” 

Well, the government is us. These officials are elected by you. (Applause.) They are elected by you. I am elected by you. I am constrained, as they are constrained, by a system that our Founders put in place. It’s a government of and by and for the people.

And so, surely, we can have a debate that’s not based on the notion somehow that your elected representatives are trying to do something to you other than potentially prevent another group of families from grieving the way the families of Aurora or Newtown or Columbine have grieved. We’ve got to get past some of the rhetoric that gets perpetuated that breaks down trust and is so over the top that it just shuts down all discussion.  And it’s important for all of us when we hear that kind of talk to say, hold on a second. If there are any folks who are out there right now who are gun owners, and you’ve been hearing that somehow somebody is taking away your guns, get the facts. We’re not proposing a gun registration system, we’re proposing background checks for criminals.  (Applause.)

Don’t just listen to what some advocates or folks who have an interest in this thing are saying. Look at the actual legislation. That’s what happened here in Colorado.  And hopefully, if we know the facts and we’re listening to each other, then we can actually move forward. 

But the full transcript of Obama’s speech shows that he never expressed a desire to confiscate Americans’ firearms or lamented that the Second Amendment prevents him from doing so. In fact, he was approvingly citing the Constitution’s protection of individual rights while telling people to be informed about the new gun legislation instead of succumbing to gun proponents’ claims that guns will be taken away, and he reminded voters that they could hold the government accountable at the ballot box if they felt their rights were threatened.

h/t: MMFA

WorldNetDaily’s Robert Ringer today maintains that President Obama’s gun control legislation is actually meant to confiscate all guns in order to blunt the rise of the Tea Party. Ringer claims that there are “many more rednecks” joining the Tea Party, and they will be the last line of defense against Obama’s plan to “grab people’s guns.”

If Obama succeeds, Ringer warns, “gulags, gas chambers and firing squads are easily put into place,” and the president will ultimately be able to accomplish his life mission: “the complete destruction of Western civilization.”

There is but one way to combat the emotional sewage of the left: Confront it – head-on – loud, clear and unequivocally. Timidity does not work. The left thrives on the timidity, cowardice and the lack of principle of statist conservatives.

What is annoying about all this is that millions of us knew the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Obama before he ever took office. We knew he would never make the original of his birth certificate available to any independent authority. We knew he would use the Cloward-Piven strategy to collapse the economy and make virtually everyone dependent on the state. And we knew he would try to ban all guns in order to make citizens defenseless. 

Which is why guns are now at the top of his agenda. He senses that the tea party is threatening to make a comeback, this time with many more rednecks in the mix. Rednecks are a government’s worst nightmare because they 1) own lots of guns, and 2) often live in hard to reach places – e.g., the Ozarks, the Appalachians and the Smokys. And they don’t much care for people who wear government badges.

Whenever government tries to exert absolute control over the citizenry, the use of force is a must. You cannot stop people from doing things they want to do, or make them do things they don’t want to do, without applying brute force. And that’s a dangerous tactic when there are several hundred million guns stashed away in private hands.

It would take an inestimable number of Waco-style attacks to root out every redneck in the U.S. That’s why Hitler, Stalin and every other brutal dictator has been smart enough to grab people’s guns early on. After that, gulags, gas chambers and firing squads are easily put into place.

Do I seriously believe that gulag prison camps are possible in the U.S.? Yes.

Do I seriously believe that gas chambers and mass executions are possible in the U.S.? Yes.

In fact, any kind of atrocities are possible, but only if government first accomplishes its No. 1 objective: confiscating your guns. Remember, when people fear the government, they get tyranny. But when the government fears the people, they get freedom. And government will continue to fear the people so long as the people have guns. In that vein, may God bless rednecks everywhere. 

h/t: Brian Tashman at RWW