CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Trump takes a shot at Obama's so-called executive action on guns

Donald Trump took a shot at Obama for his renewed effort to suppress our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. During an interview with John Dickerson to be broadcast on tomorrow's edition of  "Face the Nation," Trump said, "I don't like anything having to do with changing our Second Amendment. We have plenty of rules and regulations."

President Obama meets with Attorney General Loretta Lynch next week to talk about conjuring up even more gun control using his often-abused executive authority.

According to CBS, Trump pushed back against Obama's proposed expansion of background checks for firearms sales involving unlicensed firearm sellers, saying that there are numerous other routes the administration could take to prevent mass shootings:

"There's plenty of things that they can do right now that are already there. They don't do them."

Trump went on to talk about how better mental heath programs would help.

Its time former President Clinton to again remind Democrats what happened the last time the Democrats acted against gun rights and passed the so-called assault weapon ban:

"Clinton said that passing the 1994 federal assault weapons ban 'devastated' more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers in the 1994 midterms — and cost then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-Wash.) his job and his seat in Congress."

As NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre recently said, under existing federal gun laws, every felon with a gun, Drug dealer with a gun and criminal gangbanger with a gun could be taken off the streets tomorrow and locked up for five years or more. So why aren't they? If you want to stop violent crime, take violent criminals off the street. Prosecute them under existing gun laws. Don't keep trying to further suppress Constitutional rights.  

California's strict gun laws failed to stop the San Bernardino attack

 

Just days after a terror attack in his state, California's out-of-touch Gov. Brown a.k.a. Gov. Moonbeam, flew to Paris for the climate talks, and then proceeded to attack neighboring states Arizona and Nevada from his elite perch in Paris. Apparently Brown felt a need to blame the San Bernardino terror attacks on neighboring states' gun laws so that California's strict gun controls wouldn't be seen to be as ineffective as they are in preventing such attacks:

 

"Gov. Jerry Brown said Saturday that 'wide open' gun laws in Nevada and Arizona are a 'gigantic back door through which any terrorist can walk,' while he was noncommittal on efforts to strengthen gun control measures in California.

 

Brown, arriving in France for climate talks after the mass shooting in San Bernardino last week, called the shooting a terrorist attack."

 

Arizona Gov. Ducey fired back at Gov. Moonbeam:

"All of Arizona mourns for the victims in California. To politicize a tragedy of this magnitude and use it as an opportunity to attack our state is out of bounds. Not only will we be ignoring Gov. Brown's advice, but I call on him to retract his incredibly thoughtless and ill-advised comments."

The Associated Press reports that California's gun controls did nothing to stop the San Bernardino attack:

"The deadly shooting in San Bernardino happened in a state with some of the nation's toughest gun laws: California bars assault weapons, blocks the sale of large-capacity magazines and requires universal background checks for all gun purchases.

Authorities say they believe attackers Syed Rizwan Farook and wife Tashfeen Malik had legally obtained two handguns and that two rifles were also legally purchased in California. Federal officials say the attackers had large-capacity magazines that violate California law in their SUV.

Since the attack Wednesday at a social service center in Southern California, the state's strict laws and the apparent legal purchase of the weapons have set off a debate over the effectiveness of gun measures and whether getting tougher would help prevent more violence."

What might help is if law enforcement agencies would enforce the plethora of existing gun control laws. This argument was set forth very clearly in the following video by NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre:

 

 

Under the existing federal gun laws, every felon with a gun, Drug dealer with a gun and criminal gangbanger with a gun could be taken off the streets tomorrow and locked up for five years or more. So why aren't they?

 

If you want to stop violent crime, take violent criminals off the street. Prosecute them under existing gun laws.

 

Cross posted from RedState.

 

Connecticut further suppresses Constitutional right to bear arms

Early this morning, in the dead of night – 2:26 a.m., Connecticut's House of Representatives voted to pass a repressive 139 page gun control bill. The vote was 105 to 44, with two absent. Of the 98 Democrats present, 13, and 31 of the 51 Republicans present voted no. The state Senate approved it Wednesday evening, by a 26-10 vote. Two of 22 Democrats and eight of  the 14 Republicans voted no.

Connecticut's new restrictions on citizens Constitutional right to bear arms is said to be a response to the horrific murders of 20 children and six adults in Newtown's Sandy Hook  elementary school last December. Sadly, nothing in the 139 page bill would have done anything to prevent the killings. Nor does it do anything to prevent another such incident.

The legislation will only further suppress the Constitutional right of law-abiding Connecticut citizens to bear arms thereby making them additional victims of a young madman. As reported by J.D. Tuccille, according to a summary prepared by Connecticut's Bipartisan Task Force on Gun Violence Prevention and Children's Safety, the bill, the so-called "Act Concerning Gun Violence Prevention and Children's Safety," includes the following provisions:

• A "dangerous weapon offender" registry: Anybody convicted of any of more than 40 enumerated weapons offenses (mostly gun offenses) or another felony involving the use or threatened use of a deadly weapon will have to register with the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. The list will be available only to law enforcement, and registrants will remain on it for five years, not life, but they must update their addresses with state authorities, just like sex offenders.
• Universal background checks: "Immediately upon passage, no pistol, revolver, rifle or shotgun can be sold to any Connecticut resident until the buyer undergoes and passes a national criminal background check -- whether such sale is private, at a gun show, or through a dealer"
• Expanded "assault weapons" ban: Bans more than 100 specific weapons in addition to those already illegal in the state, as well as any weapon that has just one of an expanded list of "military-style features." Currently owned weapons are grandfathered, though under tight restrictions.
• Ban on "large capacity magazines": New state limit of ten rounds. Grandfathers existing magazines subject to registration, though such magazines can never be loaded with more than ten rounds outside the owner's home or a shooting range. Acquiring a new large capacity magazine after the ban, or failing to register an existing one, becomes a class D felony.
• Eligibility certificates to purchase rifles, shotguns or ammunition: Certificate applicants must "undergo a firearms safety training course, be fingerprinted, and undergo a national criminal background and involuntary commitment /voluntary admission check."
• Enhanced firearms storage requirements: Owners must securely store firearms if "any resident of the premises where the firearm is stored is ineligible to possess a firearm" or "poses a risk of imminent personal injury to himself or herself or to other individuals."
• Restrictions on firearms possession by those with mental illness: Expands restrictions on those who have been involuntarily committed from 12 to 60 months and imposes a six-month ban on firearms possession on those who voluntarily admit themselves to a psychiatric facility.

That's right, Connecticut's new gun control bill requires that large capacity magazines be registered with the state.

Connecticut lawmakers were obviously afraid of the reaction of gun rights supporters. Not only did they pass the bill in the middle of the night, they avoided the usual public hearings and committee referrals by considering the bill under an "emergency certification." As  J.D. Tuccille also points out, that means noone got to "raise objections, such as pointing out that that the new law would not have done anything to prevent the Sandy Hook massacre:

The guns Adam Lanza used were registered to his mother. She qualified to own firearms under the old rules and there's no reason to believe the new restrictions would have barred her ownership of guns in any way. She still would have passed the checks and earned her certificates. At 20, Lanza would be too young to purchase rifles under the new law, but, again, he used his mother's guns. Some reports speculate that Adam Lanza feared that his mother might have him committed, or move him out of state to attend a special school, but nothing of the sort had yet happened, so he wouldn't have fallen under the law's mental health restrictions.

Perhaps some of the magazines he used would have fallen under the new law, but even if these proposals had moved forward a year ago, those magazines would have been grandfathered. So would the weapons used, even if they didn't make the cut under the new law.

The gun rights advocates, who greatly outnumbered gun control supporters in demonstrations held at the Capitol Wednesday, wasted their time. The lawmakers weren't about to listen to their objections. The only thing they accomplished was highlighting the state officials' fear of the dissenters when Gov. Malloy's scheduled appearance at an autism awareness event was canceled.

The only thing that would have changed things at Sandy Hook would have been an armed person at the school. The feel good legislation passed by the Connecticut legislature would have not prevented the Sandy Hook killings and does nothing to prevent another such massacre. The new law only makes us all less free.

Obama losing his gun control campaign

Only 39 percent back Obama's repressive gun control agenda

New polling from Washington Post-ABC News and Pew find that President Obama's campaign to repress the Second Amendment right "keep and bear arms" is faltering.

On January 22, 2013, Pew released polling results that found the public followed news about Obama's gun control proposals closely and the reaction is mixed. Only 39 percent think Obama's proposals are about right, while 31 percent think the proposals go too far. Or, as Politico put it, "39 percent back Obama gun plan."

Of course there is the usual partisan divide. A 57 percent majority of Republicans say the proposals go too far, and 25 percent say they are about right. A 55 percent majority of Democrats (55%) say the proposals s are about right, and 10 percent  say they go too far. Independents are more evenly divided -- 36 percent say the proposals are about right, while 33 percent say they go too far.

There is also a gender divide with Men more likely than women to say Obama’s gun control proposals go too far -- 36 percent vs. 26 percent.

It is important to note that despite the "modest" up tick after Newtown, support for gun control remains lower than before Obama took office. In April 2008, 58 percent said it was more important to control gun ownership, while 37 percent  prioritized protecting gun rights. In a poll released January 14, 2013 Pew found that 51 percent say it is more important to control gun ownership, while 45 percent  say it is more important to protect gun rights.

The new Washington Post-ABC News poll, released today, finds that support for Obama's gun control  package is lower than it was for some of the same steps polled in an ABC/Post poll earlier this month, before Obama's repressive gun control package was announced.

In an article on the new ABC News/Washington Post poll, the Washington Post reports that most congressional Republicans and some Democrats oppose restrictive new gun control measures, such as an assault-weapons ban. The Post also notes that recent polls have shown broadly positive sentiment for the NRA, and that a modest plurality thinks the NRA is too influential:

"A plurality of all Americans, 38 percent, think the organization has 'too much influence' over the country’s gun-control laws. Twenty-four percent see the NRA as having 'too little' sway, while 30 percent say it has the right amount."

In the accompanying video, Duke University Professor Michael Munger explains why the NRA is so influential.

Even the New York Times reports on how Democrats are now worried that Obama's gun control campaign is going "imperil" the rest of the Democrats' agenda. And former President Clinton recently reminded Democrats what happened the last time the Democrats acted against gun rights and passed the so-called assault weapon ban:

"Clinton said that passing the 1994 federal assault weapons ban 'devastated' more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers in the 1994 midterms — and cost then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-Wash.) his job and his seat in Congress."

With six Democrats up for election in two years in states where Obama received less than 42 percent of the vote, some Democrats might have to choose between their own constituents and Obama’s misguided gun control agenda.