Showing posts with label GOA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GOA. Show all posts

Monday, August 1, 2011

Congress to decide whether Super Congress could impose gun control

Gun owner registration … bans on semi-automatic firearms … adoption of a UN gun control treaty -- all of these issues could very well be decided over the next 24 hours.
 
Both houses of Congress will be voting on a debt ceiling bill that establishes a legislative committee with TREMENDOUS powers. Fox News is calling this committee a SUPER CONGRESS, because its legislative proposals (which could include gun control provisions) CANNOT be filibustered or amended in the Senate or House.
 
To understand what a huge deal this is, consider that House Speaker John Boehner is able to keep a mountain of gun control bills from coming to the floor of the House. That’s the power of the Speaker.
 
And in the Senate, we have been able to kill much of the gun control agenda by filibustering legislation (that is, requiring the Majority Leader to get a supermajority or 60 votes in order to pass gun control).
 
The most recent example of this occurred earlier this year when we defeated a radical, anti-gun judicial nomination (Goodwin Liu) using the filibuster. The filibuster has been our saving grace in the Senate, but that could be tossed within the next 24 hours.
 
Regarding the debt ceiling compromise, here’s what one legislative analyst (inside a Republican office on Capitol Hill) had to say:
 
Right now, we have limited protection from the schemes of the left – even if they have some Republican support, we have a speaker who wouldn’t bring horrible bills to the floor, and we have the Senate filibuster.
 
Both of these are rendered moot by the Super committee. There is NO Senate filibuster on the product they report. The Speaker CANNOT stop a vote in the House….
 
[Hence], 22 liberal Republicans can join the Congressional Democrats and the President in: Closing the gun show “loophole,” banning semi-automatic weapons, creating a national handgun registration, or ordering state gun laws moot.
 
A super highway for gun control legislation? This is incredibly unconstitutional! We don’t elect a Congress, which can then turn around and elect a SUPER committee. We need to make sure this never lands on the President’s desk.
 

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Obama Packing the Courts with Anti-gun Radicals


Obama Packing the Courts with Anti-gun Radicals

The President is ratcheting up his war against gun owners once again, and has nominated another anti-gun zealot for a high post in the U.S. court system.
 
Caitlin Halligan has made a career of attacking gun owners in New York, and now President Obama is giving her a platform to expand her hatred of the Second Amendment to the rest of the nation.
   
We have to stop this Presidential court-packing scheme. But we don’t have much time -- the Senate could be voting on this anti-gun nominee this week!
 

Friday, July 15, 2011

The UN is After Your Guns

                                                Push for Gun Control Treaty Continues

A UN committee wrapped up a week-long series of meetings on a massive treaty that could undermine both U.S. sovereignty and the Second Amendment.  This is the third round of meetings by the so-called “preparatory committee” on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) as the UN gears up for final negotiations in 2012.
The most comprehensive treaty of its kind, the ATT would regulate weapons trade throughout the world on everything from battleships to bullets.
And as information trickles out of Turtle Bay in New York City, it is obvious the UN is getting more clever about taking the focus off of “small arms.”
With an eye cast in the direction of the U.S.—in particular, toward the U.S. Senate which must ratify the treaty—the most recent Draft Paper for the Arms Trade Treaty recognizes in its preamble “the sovereign right of States to determine any regulation of internal transfers of arms and national ownership exclusively within their territory, including through national constitutional protections on private ownership.”
That statement, taken by itself, is troubling.  Americans’ right to keep and bear arms exists whether or not it is “recognized” by some UN committee.  The right enshrined in the Second Amendment predates our own Constitution, and does not need an international stamp of approval.
But the preamble aside, the scope of the treaty is what’s most damaging.  Though negotiations will continue for another year, some provisions are certain to be contained in the final draft.
The ATT will, at the very least, require gun owner registration and microstamping of ammunition.  And it will define manufacturing so broadly that any gun owner who adds so much as a scope or changes a stock on a firearm would be required to obtain a manufacturing license.
It would also likely include a ban on many semi-automatic firearms (i.e., the Clinton gun ban) and demand the mandatory destruction of surplus ammo and confiscated firearms.
Any suggestion that the treaty might not impact all firearms—right down to common hunting rifles—was thrown out the window after seeing the reaction to the Canadian government’s motion that hunting rifles be exempted from the treaty.
The Canadian representative caused a stir among the other delegates this week when he proposed that the treaty include the following language: “Reaffirming that small arms have certain legitimate civilian uses, including sporting, hunting, and collecting purposes.”
While Canadian gun owners were pleased with even the slightest movement by its government to protect gun rights, the proposed language is yet another indication that ALL firearms are “on the table.”
Feeble as it is, Canadian proposal was viewed as a major wrench thrown in the works, and had the anti-gunners crying foul.
Kenneth Epps is a representative with the Canadian anti-gun group known as Project Plowshares.  According to Postmedia News, Epps said Canada’s move is hampering efforts to forge a comprehensive global arms control regime.
Noting that there is little difference between a sniper rifle and a hunting rifle, Epps said, “The problem is that once you introduce exemptions, others will do the same.  It’s the thin edge of the wedge….From a humanitarian perspective, all firearms need to be controlled, and that’s the bottom line.”
Such statements are eagerly welcomed by the Obama administration.  Since it has been largely stymied in pushing gun control in Congress, U.S. negotiators will push the envelope as far as they can.
The U.S. Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security, a key negotiator of the ATT, is anti-gun former Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher of California.  Tauscher said last year that her team at the State Department “will work between now and the UN Conference in 2012 to negotiate a legally binding Arms Trade Treaty.”
In 2009, newly confirmed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reversed the position of the Bush administration (which voted against the treaty in 2008) and stated that “The United States is prepared to work hard for a strong international standard in this area.”
International standards, however, may not be the only, or even the primary, objective.  Former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, observes that, “The hidden agenda of a lot of the people who sought to negotiate a small arms treaty really had less to do with reducing dangers internationally and a lot more to do with creating a framework for gun control statutes at the national level.”
Bolton explains that pressure from the groups agitating for the treaty—groups such as Amnesty International, Oxfam, and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA)—is geared toward constraining the freedoms of countries that recognize gun rights.  “And specifically, and most importantly, [to] constrain the United States,” Bolton said.
Negotiators, from abroad and within the Obama administration, view arms control as  protecting human rights, rather than seeing civilian disarmament for what it is—the favorite tool of despots, dictators and tyrants to maintain power by engaging in mass murder and genocide.
And, perversely, in many instances those resisting an oppressive, genocidal regime would be held in the same light as criminals and terrorists and be legally prohibited under the ATT from purchasing weapons.
U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) makes this point in a letter he drafted to President Obama: “[T]he underlying philosophy of the Arms Trade Treaty is that transfers to and from governments are presumptively legal, while transfers to non-state actors…are, at best, problematic.”
Sen. Moran’s letter, in which he is joined by other pro-gun Senators, warned that any treaty “that seeks in any way to regulate the domestic manufacture, assembly, possession, transfer, or purchase of firearms, ammunition, and related items would be completely unacceptable to us.”
U.S. freedom is clearly in the sights of the ATT.  The time to take action is now, before the treaty moves into final negotiations.
ACTION: Urge your Senators to oppose any UN effort to impose restrictions on the Second Amendment, and to sign on to Sen. Moran’s letter to President Obama in opposition to the ATT.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Your Tax Dollars were Used to Purchase Guns and Run Them into Mexico

Well, the other shoe has dropped.  We’ve known for several months that the Obama Administration was turning a blind eye to -- and even encouraged -- suspected gun smugglers who were purchasing firearms from gun stores in the southwest.
 
However, now we know the rest of the story:  Your tax money was used to buy many of those guns that were later sent to Mexico.
 
But why?  That’s the recurring question.  Why would the Obama Administration -- that is filled with anti-gun cronies -- knowingly approve the sales of firearms to bad guys?  Why would they knowingly put thousands of guns “into the wrong hands,” when they’ve spent years advocating gun control laws to supposedly get guns “out of the wrong hands.”
 

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Push to Expose ATF's Gunrunner Cover-up Continues

Leaders from Gun Owners of America attended a congressional hearing yesterday where Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) laid the groundwork for what could, ultimately, send several federal agents to jail.
 
Rep. Issa, who has been investigating the scandal known as Project Gunrunner, questioned a panel of witnesses with experience in investigating corruption in the Executive Branch.
 
The question of the day was: Does the Justice Department have to respond to subpoenas relating to Project Gunrunner -- a scandal which involves corruption in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)?
 
So far, the Department of Justice has sat on many crucial documents that have been subpoenaed by Congressman Issa.
 
But, to a man, each one of the witnesses on this star-studded panel -- many of them former Democrat operatives -- all told Rep. Issa that (short of some unforeseen circumstance) the Obama Administration SHOULD COMPLY with the subpoenas and give Congress the documents it is requesting (but which are currently being withheld).
 
Last week, GOA once again called upon the Congress to cut funding for a program that allows the Obama Administration to put guns into the hands of suspected gun smugglers, and then to turn around and blame law-abiding gun owners for the problem!
 
Battle heating up over anti-gun ObamaCare
 
In other efforts to cut anti-gun spending, the battle to repeal ObamaCare is still being waged. But recent news over budget battles in Congress are somewhat distressing.
 
If Congressional Quarterly is correct, gun owners are going to be disappointed with a deal that is being hammered out right now on Capitol Hill. In exchange for raising the debt ceiling, said CQ last week, politicians are promising that many spending cuts will not occur until "the next decade or longer."
 
This is a real problem. As pointed out by RedState.org last week, it will be 'difficult, if not impossible, for Congress to enforce these promised cuts on a future Congress.'
 
That means we would get increased spending (for things like anti-gun ObamaCare) with a promise of cuts in the future that will almost certainly never occur.
 
We need to let our Congressmen know that a vote to raise the debt ceiling WITHOUT voting to cut ObamaCare NOW is an anti-gun vote. Don't let them sell you on the phony promise that they will get spending cuts 20 years down the road. Those cuts will never materialize!
 
According to RedState last week: "Members of the Tea Party and the conservative movement need to be prepared for some serious disappointment if news reports are correct."
 
Why? Because in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, politicians are promising future cuts to spending which will occur so far in the future that "many of these politicians cutting the deal will be long gone from Washington, DC."
 
That's why we need to demand spending cuts right now. And cutting anti-gun ObamaCare and Project Gunrunner would be two good places to start.