According to the “just enforce current laws” argument, we should, for instance, tolerate the “gun show loophole” in federal law that allows criminals to buy guns from private sellers at gun shows without background checks, because we can always hire more federal agents to track down the criminals after they get the guns. Doesn’t it make more sense to require background checks to block gun sales to criminals in the first place?
Dennis Henigan
August 5, 2010
Obama Gun Policy: Fear and Fallacy
[Mr. Henigan,
Perhaps you missed that day in law school when they talked about “prior restraint”.
To answer your question, Dennis, only if you are of the opinion it also makes sense to block book sales to political and religious extremists, and cosmetics and revealing clothes sales to women with a known history of prostitution. Would you support a sister organization that advocates for the registration and licensing of lipstick? Should we give book and cosmetics sales enforcement to the ATF as well?
We could work on completing the entire alphabet for them. Alcohol, Books, Cosmetics, Drugs, Explosives, and Firearms (ABCDEF) is a pretty good start, don’t you think?
The entire premise of your organization, to prevent “gun violence”, is incompatible with a free society. It’s time for your organization to be shut down and for you, your co-workers, and your supporters to admit your crimes, and apologize for the decades of bigotry that have cost the lives of thousands of people.–Joe]
Over and over these lying bigots tell us that they are not targeting law abiding gun owners. They tell us that enforcing the laws as written is a cowardly, do-nothing approach. They will freely admit that the current laws are not enforced, yet they clamor for more laws, laws that will also go unenforced.
Guess who is affected by unenforced laws? Those that are prone to obeying the law just because it is, in fact, the law-that’s who.
When carping about new laws that they know will not routinely be enforced, they are deliberately targeting the law abiding and they know it.
I almost, but not quite, disagree with your suggestion that the Brady Campaign should be shut down. Before we advocate that position, we should look into the possibility of getting a “controlling share” of the organization first, by a sufficient number of gun rights activists.
I haven’t yet done the adequate research, but my preliminary research indicates that this is likely not possible. Thus, you might by correct that the Brady Campaign should be shut down…although, how to do that, without a controlling share of the organization (as far as I could see, it only has a handful of truly active members) is difficult for me to see.
That’s a pretty nearsighted argument from Mr. H. He’s restricting the discussion to preventative measures. Besides the fact that decades of that hasn’t worked, he’s not taking into account that a potential criminal may already have a weapon. How does a “background check” help with that? (Assuming the check is based on accurate data–which is not the case.)
What’s the difference here:
* Someone buys a weapon stolen from a government agency on the black market, and murders someone with it
* Someone uses his government-issued weapon to murder someone
* Someone legitimately buys a weapon from a dealer, and murders someone with it
Answer: Only the third item is advantageous to your political enemies.
Otherwise they’re all murders, and equally terrible.
Alpheus, I like the way you think. But perhaps, once said controlling interest has been obtained, it might be possible to turn the worm in the other direction, and re-charter it as a pro-gun-rights organization, couched in terms of the prevention of gun violence. Certainly the facts are on our side–and surely creative, persuasive graphs could be made and emblazoned with their name. If done subtly enough, this could be used to pressure otherwise anti-gun congressmen to legislate in a more constitutionally correct manner.
Legislating background checks for all gun transactions would be the same as blocking book sales and cosmetics? Did you really say that, Joe? And did all your fan boys agree? Of course you did and of course they did.
“to prevent “gun violence”, is incompatible with a free society”
Are you evolving, Joe, or have you always been this wacky?
I will ask this again, since you have repeatedly refused to answer it in the past:
What is the difference between discriminating against one naturally-granted, Constitutionally-protected right, and discriminating against another? How are they different? Why are they different?
Every time you doggedly refuse to answer those simple questions, yet insist on making the above-blockquoted idiotic comments and questions, your credibility degrades further and further.