Fundamental differences between guns, cars Paul Donahue’s May 2 letter, “We regulate cars for safety, why not guns?”, illustrates with precision the fundamental and unbridgeable chasm between gun owners and gun banners. That difference is evident when he compares drinking and driving with modern sporting firearms’ capacity for cartridges (not bullets) in the magazines (not clips). In this analogy, he equates bad, even illegal, personal behavior (drunken driving) with possession of an inanimate object. This is simply another iteration of the “guns are bad” mantra repeated by progressives. Progressives always seek something to blame for bad or irresponsible personal behavior. Mr. Donahue then dissimulates, as most gun banners do. He says, “no one is suggesting we confiscate guns to reduce gun violence.” That statement in demonstrably false. Vice President Joseph Biden, however, did say that the gun regulations he advocated would not substantially reduce gun violence. Mr. Donahue compares losing the privilege of driving (as a result of trial and conviction for the offense) to gun crimes. This is incorrect. He proposes to infringe upon the rights of all citizens in a futile attempt to prevent the misbehavior of a few. In a more [accurate] analogy, a ban on firearms and magazines would be comparable to banning automobiles, or perhaps cellphones, because some people are violating laws and regulations. The speed limit in New York is 65 mph; why not prohibit the sale of motor vehicles that can exceed this speed? Why not require all registered vehicles to be modified with governors to limit speeds above 65? Surely this would reduce fatalities on our highways and save gasoline. Mr. Donahue notes that cars are registered, and asks why not fi rearms? First, as he notes, driving an automobile is a privilege; while owning a firearm is a right protected by the Constitution. Second, motor vehicle registrations, cars, trucks, boats, trailers, ATVs, etc., are a tax; inspections are about safety, registrations are about revenue. Third, one can own an automobile without registering the vehicle. This might compare to hunting. I could, until recently, own a gun with a large magazine capacity. I could not hunt water fowl, however, with a firearm that has the capacity for more than three cartridges. Those cartridges could not contain lead shot. The state and federal government place restrictions on the privilege of hunting, not the right to own guns. Firearms today, used as directed are safer than motor vehicles. Recalls of fi rearms happen much more infrequently than automobiles. Most “accidents” (I do not believe being hit by a drunk, or a driver on a cellphone, is an accident) are not caused by automobiles’ design flaws. Similarly, incidents in which people are harmed by firearms are almost always deliberately willful or, at best negligent, acts. The heinous act in Connecticut had absolutely nothing to do with firearm safety. Although the terrorists in Boston had fi rearms — illegal, unregistered [ones] — they used materials available to each and all of us to construct their infernal devices of mass destruction. ART HENNINGSON Rotterdam
On my knees??? Bow down??? Because you despise your govt, your view of everyone else is distorted. I'm free. I'm happy. I'm generally satisfied with my life, and I respect the rights of others. .
You respect your version of rights on others and most of your post prove it, you believe in mob rule, I believe in personal rule.
If you could just look at the world without that 'anti govt' chip on your shoulder, you might see it's a pretty good time to be an American.
That's your opinion, you might like the regulations, taxes, and stealing from others but America today is a joke of its former self, you should join a couple world forums and see what others now see America as, lets just say the words "police state" and "land of the free lmao" appears quite often. Don't even get them started on our foreign policies.
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
If you want HYPE, follow the NRA. If you want FACTS, follow the science:
“It’s natural to want to do everything you can to keep you family safe, especially if you live in a dangerous neighborhood. In a thunderstorm, it is also natural to take cover under the nearest tree, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.”
Quoted Text
“That work has been out and available for over 15 years, and multiple studies have shown homes where guns are kept are actually more likely to be the scene of a homicide or a suicide than homes in exactly the same neighborhoods without guns.”
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Marijuana laws new tool to ban gun ownership Feds promise crackdown on any 'prohibited possessor' in states where pot is 'legal' Published: 04/27/2013 at 4:49 PM
The Obama administration has a zero tolerance policy on enforcing federal drug laws, White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske recently told the National Press Club. So why should gun-owners be paying attention?
The website for the Office of National Drug Policy includes this warning: “Marijuana and other illicit drugs are addictive and unsafe especially for use by young people. … Marijuana contains chemicals that can change how the brain works. And the science, though still evolving in terms of long-term consequences of marijuana use, is clear: marijuana use is associated with addiction, respiratory and mental illness, poor motor performance, and cognitive impairment, among other negative effects.”
Why, then, hasn’t the Obama administration launched legal action against Colorado and Washington, where voters last fall voted to “legalize” marijuana under their state laws – even though federal law doesn’t allow that?
After all, the White House has been more than emphatic that state laws exempting people from the federal Obamacare law are invalid, and when Arizona took it upon itself to adopt a state law to enforce federal immigration restrictions, Washington went after those renegades immediately in the courts.
Is there something about the idea of legalizing marijuana that Washington LIKES?
That seemingly strange idea may have been borne out just days ago when the Congressional Research Service released its report on the “State Legalization of Recreational Marijuana: Selected Legal Issues.”
As attorneys Todd Garvey and Brian Yeh wrote in the report, Washington has flexibility regarding drug prosecution, stating, “The extent to which federal authorities will actually seek to prosecute individuals who are engaged in marijuana-related activities in Colorado and Washington remains uncertain. President Obama himself has suggested the prosecuting simple possession is not a priority, while the Department of Justice has said only that ‘growing, selling or possession any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law.’”
What is more certain, they wrote, is that federal firearms regulators will be aggressive about banning anyone who uses marijuana from buying – or possessing – a weapon.
“With the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes in Colorado and Washington, it seems likely the ATF will … consider a recreational user of marijuana to be a prohibited possessor of firearms regardless of whether the use is lawful under state provisions,” they wrote.
The attorneys said the ATF specifically has stated, “any person who uses or is addicted to marijuana, regardless of whether his or her state has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes, is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, and is prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition.”
They further wrote, “These individuals are to answer ‘yes’ when asked on the firearms transfer form if they are unlawful users of a controlled substance.”
Answering falsely, of course, is also a felony.
According to the Denver Post, the CRS report was touted by U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., an advocate of legalized marijuana, for saying that while “the federal government may use its power of the purse to encourage states to adopt certain criminal laws … it … is limited in its ability to directly influence state policy by the Tenth Amendment.”
Polis told the Post, “I’ve long believed that Colorado, Washington and other states that have decriminalized or legalized marijuana for personal or medical use have acted within the legal bounds of the law.”
But Obama attacked a state decision to enforce federal immigration standards, so why, as the Post reports, are “Colorado, Washington and 17 other jurisdictions … still holding out for any word from the Department of Justice on whether marijuana possession and distribution – which is illegal under federal law – will be enforced, despite the legalization within local borders.”
Dave Workman, senior editor at TheGunMag.com, a spokesman with the Second Amendment Foundation and a former member of the NRA board of directors wrote about the possible solution last fall as the votes in Washington and Colorado were approaching.
“A source with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington, D.C. … confirmed what had been explained in a Sept. 21, 2011, letter from Arthur Herbert, assistant director for enforcement programs and services to firearms retailers…
“Washington state gun owners need to know they cannot get stoned and head for the gun range or hunting camp,” he wrote.
A letter from Herbert, at the time, blew out of the water the option for the libertarian concept of unrestricted guns and unrestricted marijuana.
“There are no exceptions in federal law for marijuana purportedly used for medicinal purposes, even if such is sanctioned by state law,” he wrote. Even selling a gun to someone can catch an owner outside the law.
“An inference of current use may be drawn from evidence of a recent use or possession of a controlled substance or a pattern of use or possession that reasonably covers the present time,” Herbert wrote.
Workman told WND his assumption is that the Obama administration is hesitant to step on the toes of marijuana users who may support the left-leaning administration.
At the same time, with Obama’s agenda for gun rules, regulations, restrictions and requirements looming large, anything that has the potential to trip up a gun owner couldn’t be all bad.
Impacts from strategies such as this are not unknown. There are millions of Americans whose ability to obtain a firearm could be challenged under the position that they are taking a variety of mood-altering psychiatric drugs carrying the FDA’s “suicidality” warning label. An increasingly high percentage of Americans are taking these meds, which have demonstrated an alarmingly high correlation with school shooters.
And the government has been using its interaction with veterans to designate many of them – by the tens of thousands – incapable of handling their own financial affairs and therefore banned from having guns.
A lawsuit was just filed by the United States Justice Foundation against the Veterans Administration for snatching veterans’ gun rights without “due process” or any “factual or legal basis.”
WND has published multiple reports about how returning veterans were being deprived of their Second Amendment rights without a court-based adjudication competency process, based on arbitrary VA agency decisions.
The problem arises when the agency wants to appoint a fiduciary – someone to advise a disabled veteran or one receiving certain government benefits – to help with the management of those benefits.
The government then routinely notifies the FBI’s NICS system, a federally maintained list of those whose competency has been challenged, and that means they no longer can purchase a gun – or even keep the one they may have.
Michael Connelly, executive director of the USJF, told WND the initial lawsuit is to compel the VA to respond to two requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
“The information requested included Veterans Benefits Administration rules, regulations and criteria for making ‘determinations of incompetency due to a physical or mental condition of a benefit recipient,’” the legal team explained.
“The USJF has received numerous complaints from military veterans around the country who are being declared incompetent to handle their own financial affairs and then told that they can no longer purchase or own firearms or ammunition,” said Connelly. “This determination is being made without due process protections for the veterans and the basis for the incompetency ruling is often arbitrary and without a factual or legal basis.”
CRS attorneys, however, note that there doesn’t have to be a huge case for an American to pay huge consequences.
“Given the Obama administration’s informal statements and current approach to medical marijuana, it would appear unlikely that the DOJ is going to expend significant resources to investigate and prosecute individuals who merely possess and use less than one ounce of marijuana, in private, pursuant to Washington or Colorado Law,” they wrote.
“However, even if the probability of becoming the subject of a federal criminal prosecution for a violation … appears remote, there does exist a number of other consequences under federal law that are triggered by the mere use of marijuana, even absent an arrest or conviction.
Gun control advocates now admit: IRS intimidation scandal proves Second Amendment needed to stop government tyranny
Sunday, May 19, 2013 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)
[Share this Article] (NaturalNews) In the face of the outrageous IRS intimidation scandal now sweeping across America, gun control advocates are changing their tune. All of a sudden, the idea that the federal government could engage in tyranny against the People of America is no longer a "conspiracy theory." It's historical fact right in your face thanks to all the recent scandals now bursting onto the scene: IRS intimidation, secret targeting of non-profit groups for possible "thought crimes," the Department of Justice seizing AP phone records and so on.
Just which liberals are changing their minds on all this? Piers Morgan, for starters. The man who once called Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America a "very stupid man" on live national television is suddenly reversing course. Here's what Morgan now says in the wake of the IRS intimidation scandal:
"I've had some of the pro-gun lobbyists on here saying to me, well the reason we need to be armed is because of tyranny from our own government, and I've always laughed at them. I've always said don't be so ridiculous. Your government won't turn itself on you. But actually when you look at this [IRS scandal]... actually this is vaguely tyrannical behavior by the American government. I think what the IRS did is bordering on tyrannical behavior, I think what the Department of Justice has done to the Associated Press is bordering on tyrannical behavior."
Here's the video: (until YouTube bans it)
InfoWars.com, by the way, is now publicly challenging Piers Morgan to admit the U.S. government has become "fully tyrannical," not just "bordering on tyrannical." It begs the question: If using the IRS as a political weapon to intimidate people over thought crimes, books, Facebook posts and prayers isn't full-on tyranny, what exactly will it take for Morgan to admit a full tyranny is now upon us? The government knocking on his door?
Joe Scarborough also admits gun owners were right all along
Going even further than Piers Morgan, "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough also admits gun owners were right all along, saying:
"I have been saying for months now... that I believe in background checks. After Newton, after Chicago, we need background checks. And my argument has been, don't worry, background checks aren't going to lead to a national registry. The government's never going to create a national registry, right? ... I don't have to even complete my sentence, do I? My argument is less persuasive today because of these scandals. Because people say hey, if they do that with the IRS, asking people what books you read, then how can I trust them with information about my Second Amendment rights? This is DEVASTATING! This IRS scandal is devastating all across the board..."
Well yeah, Joe. This is what we've been warning you about all along, you see?
See the video here:
The core philosophy of liberals has just been shattered... government is not trustworthy and compassionate To be a progressive / liberal person, you have to hold to the belief (i.e. have "faith") that governments can never go rogue. Governments can never become tyrannies. Governments are always and forever trustworthy and compassionate.
Every progressive government policy logically follows from those core beliefs: government should regulate what people eat, control how businesses run themselves, monopolize national health care, grant amnesty to undocumented illegal immigrants, take all the guns away from the citizens and concentrate power into its own hands. This is all justified because you can trust the government, right? ... RIGHT?
Enter exhibit A: The IRS intimidation scandal. The targeting of political enemies. Thought crimes. The IRS demands to know all your Facebook posts, the titles of the books you've recently read and even the contents of your PRAYER! The IRS then uses this information to selectively delay only the applications of non-profits that teach the Constitution, or patriotism, or are opposed to Obama. Can you say criminal corruption and total abuse of power? This is anti-American and traitorous!
Enter exhibit B: The Department of Justice, run by the nation's top criminal Eric Holder, runs a vicious surveillance and secret police campaign against none other than the Associated Press. When the outrageous behavior of the DoJ comes to light, Eric Holder claims, "I know nothing! Nothing!" (Same story for Obama... they knew nothing!)
Exhibit C: The Benghazi narrative pushed by the White House is now obviously a total lie, and this lie strongly influenced the presidential debates and 2012 election. The Benghazi attack was actually a terrorist attack -- and the White House knew it! But they covered it up, lied to the public, and even stood down U.S. forces to make sure the ambassador was killed so that he couldn't spill the beans on the U.S. weapons transfers being made to terror groups in Syria.
What do exhibits A, B and C prove? That you can't trust the government!
The illusion of trustworthy government has been destroyed
Now the illusion of trustworthy government has been completely shattered. If the IRS would selectively intimidate and threaten Constitutional groups it didn't like, what else is the government capable of?
All of a sudden those of us who warned everybody about gun confiscation, FEMA camps and false flags don't seem so outlandish anymore. Now almost everyone realizes the government is capable of ANYTHING. Especially the Obama administration, which respects no laws and no limits to its power. (Drone strikes, secret kill lists, the continued running of secret military prisons, bypassing Congress with executive orders, and so on.) Now the Second Amendment makes total sense. Why do we even have a Second Amendment? The honest, blatant answer is so that as a last-ditch firewall against a tyrannical takeover, the American people can march on Washington with rifles in hand and shoot all the criminals dead. That is the essence of the Second Amendment -- a last-ditch failsafe for liberty. The only real way to keep government in line, after all, is to make sure those who hold office know that if they become outright traitors to America and refuse to abide by the limits of government described in the Constitution, they might be shot dead by citizens who take their country back by force. (I'm not calling for such an action, by the way. I'm only explaining the historical context of the Second Amendment and what it really means.)
When citizens are well armed and have the power to do such a thing, that power should never actually be needed because the government fears the people and thus stays within the limits of power. But when the people are disarmed, the government fears nothing and so expands out of control, functioning as a rogue, tyrannical cabal of mobsters and criminals. Read your history books if you don't believe me. This is the repeated story of government's rise and fall throughout history.
Ultimately, this is why the Obama administration wants to take your guns away: Not to make the children safer but to make the citizens defenseless against government tyranny. And yes, that tyranny exists right now. The debate is over. The gun grabbers lost and the Second Amendment won.
Now, the Obama administration is permanently discredited, and the strength of the Second Amendment movement is stronger than ever. Just as it should be.
So I want to thank Piers Morgan, Joe Scarborough and all the other gun control advocates who are now rethinking the logic of their positions and concluding the government can't be trusted after all. And if the government can't be trusted, then it only follows that the citizens are the final defense against government tyranny. Furthermore, that role of citizen defense is only viable if the citizens are well-armed with rifles and hi-capacity magazines.
The more the government knows there are millions of law-abiding citizens who are armed and trained in rifle skills, the less that government is likely to overstep its limited powers and try to concentrate power in its own hands.
The gubbermint can take everything you have and when they do it, play a patriotic soundtrack about how "un-American" you are. People will watch quietly and in terro, praying it does not happen to them.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
For 300 years The Church suppressed Science. Much like present day religion suppressing Choice.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
For 300 years The Church suppressed Science. Much like present day religion suppressing Choice.
Religion suppresses nothing today, not in America anyway, can't say the same about the government who suppresses choices in all parts of life
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
For 300 years The Church suppressed Science. Much like present day religion suppressing Choice.
the government suppresses knowledge and truth all in the name of fear and control.....it's just done with different words and in a new century to a new generation....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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