COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, April 20, 2009

The Left wants to seize gun rights because you did not vote for Obama


Dionne seems to argue that polls trump the Constitution. He further argues that since Obama did not get the majority of votes from gun-owning households and that, by implication, gives him the right to take away constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Had McCain won the election and since blacks voted 93% for Obama, would it have been OK to ignore their rights?

It sure doesn't seem to take much to qualify to write a column for the Washington Post. Read this:

..."Obama, at least, should understand this: He was not elected by the gun lobby. It worked hard to rally gun owners against him -- and failed to stop him.

According to a 2008 exit poll, Obama received support from just 37 percent among voters in households where guns are present -- barely more than John Kerry's 36 percent in 2004. But among the substantial majority of households that don't have guns, Obama got 65 percent, up eight points from Kerry. Will Obama stand up for the people who actually voted for him
?"

______________________________________

Who Will Face Down the Gun Lobby?
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Monday, April 20, 2009

Try to imagine that hundreds or thousands of guns, including assault weapons, were pouring across the Mexican border into Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California, arming criminal gangs who were killing American law enforcement officials and other U.S. citizens.

Then imagine the Mexican president saying, "Well, we would really like to do something about this, but our political system makes helping you very difficult." Wouldn't Mexico's usual critics attack that country's political system for corruption and ineptitude and ask: "Why can't they stop this lawlessness?"

That, in reverse, is the position President Obama was in last week when he visited Mexico. The Mexican gangs are able to use guns purchased in the United States because of our insanely permissive gun regulations, and Obama had to make this unbelievably clotted, apologetic statement at a news conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderón:

"I continue to believe that we can respect and honor the Second Amendment rights in our Constitution, the rights of sportsmen and hunters and homeowners who want to keep their families safe, to lawfully bear arms, while dealing with assault weapons that, as we know, here in Mexico, are helping to fuel extraordinary violence. Violence in our own country as well. Now, having said that, I think none of us are under the illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy."

In other words: Our president can deal with all manner of big problems, but the American gun lobby is just too strong to let him push a rational and limited gun regulation through Congress.

It's particularly infuriating that Obama offered this statement of powerlessness just a few days before today's 10th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado -- and just after a spree of mass homicides across the United States took the lives of least 57 people.

No other democratic country in the world has the foolish, ineffectual gun regulations that we do. And, unfortunately, what Obama said is probably true.

Earlier this year, when Attorney General Eric Holder called for a renewal of the ban on assault weapons -- he was only repeating a commitment Obama made during the presidential campaign -- the response from a group of 65 pro-gun House Democrats was: No way.

Their letter to Holder was absurd. "The gun-control community has intentionally misled many Americans into believing that these weapons are fully automatic machine guns. They are not. These firearms fire one shot for every pull of the trigger." Doesn't that make you feel better?

Those Democrats should sit down with Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. "Time and time again, our police are finding themselves outgunned," Rendell said in Harrisburg last week. "They are finding themselves with less firepower than the criminals they are trying to bring to justice."

The Democratic governor told his own state's legislators that if they didn't support such a ban, "then don't come to those memorial services" for the victims of gun violence. "It's wrong," he said. "It's hypocritical."

And why can't we at least close the gun show loophole? Licensed dealers have to do background checks on people who buy guns. The rules don't apply at gun shows, which, as the Violence Policy Center put it, have become "Tupperware Parties for Criminals."

But too many members of Congress are "petrified" of the gun lobby, says Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), a crusader for sane gun legislation ever since her husband was killed and her son paralyzed by a gunman on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993.

Family members of the victims of gun violence, she says, are mystified by Congress's inability to pass even the most limited regulations. "Why can't you just get this done?" she is asked. "What is it you don't understand?"

Obama, at least, should understand this: He was not elected by the gun lobby. It worked hard to rally gun owners against him -- and failed to stop him.

According to a 2008 exit poll, Obama received support from just 37 percent among voters in households where guns are present -- barely more than John Kerry's 36 percent in 2004. But among the substantial majority of households that don't have guns, Obama got 65 percent, up eight points from Kerry. Will Obama stand up for the people who actually voted for him?

Yes, I understand about swing voters, swing states, the priority of the economy and all that. But given Congress's default to the apologists for loose gun laws, it will take a president to make something happen.



18 comments:

  1. That dummy can't even spell Congress'

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like a Lady that's got that Lady
    Smith down around her ankles.

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sparks flew over how to improve public safety just 16 days after a heavily armed man gunned down three police officers during a domestic dispute in Stanton Heights.

    It was one of the few times during the hourlong debate on WTAE-TV that candidates Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, 29, City Councilman Patrick Dowd, 41, and Carmen Robinson, 40, vehemently disagreed over a controversial issue instead of attacking Ravenstahl's 2 1/2-year record in office.

    ...

    Ravenstahl said he is eliminating pay-to-play practices. He signed an executive order prohibiting no-bid contracts that took effect April 15 and convened a committee that will examine how the city awards contracts.
    Public Safety/Finances

    ReplyDelete
  5. By the way Ladies, you can get a Lady Smith in all but name for a couple hundred less. Same frame, barrel, the works, minus the fancy handle and the name.

    Lady Smith

    ReplyDelete
  6. Bob,
    Do you happen to have that link to the fly shooter handy?

    Mother's Day approaches and I need to get one ordered.

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  7. A Tamil Tiger spokesman has accused the Sri Lankan government of shelling civilians and wreaking carnage during its military offensive in the north.

    ...

    The rebel spokesman, who gave his name as Thileepan, spoke to the BBC by telephone with the sound of explosions in the background.

    ...

    The Sri Lankan military has denied shelling civilians inside the rebel-held area.
    Accused of Carnage

    ReplyDelete
  8. Linear, the string that comes with it is too short. Put a longer string on for those pesky ones just out of range.

    Or, actually, you don't have to use a string at all, but then you got to go pick the warhead up.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm sure mom will appreciate havin' more range with the longer string.

    ReplyDelete
  10. If Mexico had very tough anti-gun laws, they wouldn't have a problem with illegal guns, right?
    *******************************
    Seems to be that a little more border security would do more to stop illegal movements.
    *********************************
    I dread the thought of the bad situation in Mexico impacting our First Amendment rights. I fear that the leftist gun grabbers will find a way to use the violence there to get their way here.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I've read, can't recall where, that there are fewer American guns getting into Mexico than is bandied about in the press reports. Our guns are easily identified by the serial numbers, while others are not so easily identified, and ours seem to get counted, the others not, giving an unbalanced percentage.

    Also foreign made guns are often cheaper and are chosen for that reason.

    Can't recall where I read this though.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I see an increasing polarization that could be unhealthy:

    WASHINGTON (CNN) – Senior White House adviser David Axelrod on Sunday suggested the "Tea Party" movement is an "unhealthy" reaction to the tough economic climate facing the country.

    Axelrod was asked on CBS's "Face the Nation" about the "spreading and very public disaffection" with the president's fiscal policies seen at the "Tea Party" rallies around the country last week.

    "I think any time you have severe economic conditions there is always an element of disaffection that can mutate into something that's unhealthy," Axelrod said.

    Axelrod appeared to backtrack when pressed on whether the movement is unhealthy.

    "Well, this is a country where we value our liberties and our ability to express ourselves, and so far these are expressions," he said.

    "The thing that bewilders me is that this president just cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people," Axelrod argued. "I think the tea bags should be directed elsewhere because he certainly understands the burden that people face."

    Democratic strategist James Carville disagreed with Axelrod on CNN's "State of the Union" when John King asked him if it's unhealthy for "an American to go out and hold a sign and say 'I think my taxes are too high.'"

    ReplyDelete
  13. Finding a way to keep herself in the public eye, Janeane Garofalo declares that tea party goers are all rascists.This may be one of the first attempts to stifle the right by using PC hate charges.

    ReplyDelete
  14. you anticipated my next post on PC gone wild.

    ReplyDelete
  15. The gun grabbers will start to erode the rights the amendment gives. And it does seem there needs to be--doesn't there--a line somewhere. What are arms? A Bill Gates migh be able to buy a battleship. Coming down a bit, there is a guy that has a MIG fighter plane parked at out local airport. Flys, too. Trying to sell it I think. What about a bazooka or a rocket launcher? What about one of these 50 caliber rifles I've seen around? The amendment does talk about a militia. What would you be defending yourself against, with a 50 caliber? The government? That seems to have been in some peoples mind back in the beginning of the country.

    The courts are going to have many chances to try and rule on these issues, already have I quess.

    ReplyDelete