As far as people lining up and purchasing more guns, I think that we’ve seen for some time now that those who oppose any common-sense gun control or gun safety measures have a pretty effective way of ginning up fear on the part of gun owners that somehow the federal government is about to take all your guns away. And there’s probably an economic element to that.  It’s obviously is good for business.

So, according to O, 2nd Amendment supporters and evil capitalists are ginning up gun owners’ fears.  Why, because they dare mention what left wingers are saying about the issue? And this from the insulting premise that gun rights advocates oppose “any” kind of gun safety measures, as if to say none exist already. To counter this manipulative craft, I thought I’d lay out some real reasons that gun owners might be worried, and should be.  For brevity, I’ll stick mostly with what has “ginned” people up since the Dec 14^th 2012 Newtown CT killings, and before Obama made this asinine and malicious statement.

Firstly, this President has shown his disrespect for the U.S. Constitution, and everybody knows it, even his supporters, who applaud him for it, particularly when that disrespect serves them.  So if Obama and friends don’t like the Constitution generally, why would anyone expect that they’d respect its 2nd Amendment protections, specifically?

Then there is the “never let a crisis go to waste” mentality, famously spewed by his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel a few years back.  True to form, just five days after Newtown, Obama used the deaths of those children to have his way with Republican “folks” on the fiscal cliff debate, saying “After what we’ve gone through over the past several months, a devastating hurricane and now one of the worse tragedies in our memory, the country deserves the folks to be willing to compromise for the greater good.”  The point: If he is willing to dance on graves of little kids over something entirely unrelated, what else might he be capable of using it for, especially if he can fake a relation?

Oh, and I’ll add, the President did virtually nothing on gun issues in his first term (a good thing), presumably for gun-grabbing’s unpopularity, and he wanted a second term, which now he has, which means now in his mind he has been mandated king and supreme ruler of America, which means he can now openly not care about popularity, and which, altogether, means he is more dangerous to the Constitution and our general liberties than before.

And, if I may further digress, consider as another possible reason for increased gun sales: the general fear of impending economic collapse in America, and the aftermath that it would bring; a fear exacerbated by the fact that the same Democrat politicians in the White House and Senate that have been destroying our economy, that have racked up Six Thousand Billion Dollars in NEW national debt, that have devalued our money, etc., these same people are still in power after the November 2012 elections.

So who’s to say what percentage of recent increases in the gun market applies to people suspicious of an ever increasingly power-hungry government, anyway?  Could be, that many just saw the news of the shootings and said “The country’s gone insane. I’m gettin’ a gun.”

Back to fear ginning… That IS what I was talking about, is it not?  To the extent that folks are buying more firearms out of fear of inevitable government confiscation of the same, the following rhetoric and real intentions, vomited from the bellies of anti-gun, exploitative, opportunistic reactionaries, is the real source of unease.

~~~

Sun, 12.16.12: Obama vowed to use “whatever power this office holds” to prevent “more tragedies like this.”
~ See above on O’s view of Presidential power.

Tue, 12.18.12: White House says President will “actively support” reinstatement of federal assault weapons ban, will support upcoming Feinstein (Sen. D-CA) legislation, close the “gun show loophole” on background checks, and stop sale on high-capacity ammo clips. W.H. said Obama pleased that pro-gun Democrats are with him.
~ “Assault weapons” only look scary, fire one bullet per squeeze, and are less destructive than other weapons that don’t get banned because they don’t look so scary, FYI.  Basically, every weapon is an assault weapon, when wielded by a person committing assault, even if they are using the weapon as a club, which also means an assault weapon doesn’t have to be a gun. It’s a manipulative terminology, nothing more.

Thu, 12.20.12, Reuters: Unburdened by re-election worries and empowered by law to act without Congress, U.S. President Barack Obama could take action to improve background checks on gun buyers, ban certain gun imports and bolster oversight of dealers. […]  The administration also has leeway to act in how it defines certain categories of people prohibited from buying a gun.  Federal law bars anyone “who has been adjudicated as a mental defective,” but it does not specify whether that means only a court can disqualify someone, said Michael Volkov, a former Republican Justice Department official now at the law firm LeClairRyan.
~ The Congress makes law, and NOTHING “empowers” the president to make law without Congress. This is ridiculous. Read the Constitution.  Also, insinuating that the President and his boys have the power to “categorize” us for the sake of prohibition, is as sick as the insinuation.

Thu, 12.20.12: Andrew Cuomo (D-Gov.-NY) [assault weapon] “Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option…”
~ Confiscation. um… confiscation… thoughts from the Governor of NY. Think about that.

Sat, 12.22.12: “The Journal News”, an upstate NY paper, published on their website an interactive map indicating the names and addresses of all pistol permit holders in two NY counties, including the classification of the permit, i.e. unrestricted, premises, target, hunting, etc.
~ This an open assault on law-abiding gun owners, meant solely to demonize them, and out them as if they were sexual predators. One direct consequence of this maliciousness is the invitation to gun thieves to burglarize the homes. The other consequence is the possible identification of those who are not armed, another invitation to criminals.

Thu, 12.27.12, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) posts summary of legislation to be introduced in 2013:
* Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of: 120 specifically-named firearms; Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one or more military characteristics; and Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds.
* Strengthens the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state bans by: Moving from a 2-characteristic test to a 1-characteristic test; Eliminating the easy-to-remove bayonet mounts and flash suppressors from the characteristics test; and Banning firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons” to address attempts to “work around” prior bans.
* Bans large-capacity ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than 10 rounds. *Grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment; Requires that grandfathered weapons be registered under the National Firearms Act, to include: Background check of owner and any transferee; Type and serial number of the firearm; Positive identification, including photograph and fingerprint; Certification from local law enforcement of identity and that possession would not violate State or local law; and
* Dedicated funding for ATF to implement registration.
~ Looks like a whole lot of banning, and a whole lot of confiscation, unless you want to be booked and catalogued like a common criminal in order to keep “certain” arms that you already own, and a whole lot of criminalizing innocent law-abiding citizens for not wanting to be booked… Have you started shopping yet? And on that last bullet point, one has to ask HOW MUCH funding, and more importantly, one has to ask what place it is in the first place, for the federal government to legislate alcohol, tobacco, or firearms inside the country at all. Again, read the Constitution.

Sat, 01.05.13, Mark Green on Hannity’s show: “230 years, there was never an individual right to own a handgun. Scalia found it a few years ago”
~ There’s a novel idea! If you can’t take people’s liberty outright, pretend that that liberty never existed to start with.

~~~

Just remembered this is a blog post, and not a book…

These are only a small sampling, of course, of where it is those of the liberal anti-gun persuasion in media and in power, who are in fact the REAL cause of angst among gun owners, NOT gun rights advocates. Obama is flat out lying, making a straw man of law-abiding Americans who respect liberty, so that he can beat them with a stick.

Every progression in aggression against gun owners and their rights creates an equal progression in distrust of the government insisting on this aggression, and it naturally follows that the people WILL increase their measure of defense against a government that assaults them, and WILL assault them.

~tdv

Hat tip to Jeff Goldstein, and his site protein wisdom, whose archives over that past month served as a guide to put together much of these examples. Jeff’s analysis on this issue (and myriad other issues) has been reliably informed and informative, truthful, justifiably blunt, and to say well-written would be an insult. And the commenters over there as well, comprise a plethora of intelligence and smartness, and a prime example of true liberty loving Americans. Just my unaffiliated opinion. You should check it out.