Stop Offering Gun Grabbers Concessions
BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 10 months ago
I guess it’s no surprise to see NRO offering a sop, as if that will satisfy those who’ve made it clear they want it all. National Review founder William F. Buckley didn’t really get the “shall not be infringed” thing either, on either prior restraints or on militia-suitable arms. And sorry, but David French’s is not a “conservative” voice I want representing gun owner interests if the extent of his judgment is to throw the circling pack of Democrat jackals a scrap of flesh. Nor is Ben Shapiro’s.
I don’t want any of those people representing me either on any subject. I’ve learned immediately to dismiss anything David French says or writes. I don’t even open the article. Hey, speaking of compromise, I was at Sebastian’s place the other day and saw this.
So what do you do? Call on ATF to undertake rule making, where you can control the process under a friendly administration, and make sure whatever comes out is narrowly worded. Also, since it’s regulation, rather than law, it’s much easier to change.
So that was the choice: a bump stock ban that swept in a lot other ordinary and legal activity, and a bump stock ban that was just a bump stock ban, and was regulation rather than law. There are no other options. Don’t like that? Then you’re left replacing many of the squishy Republicans. But you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone running for office in this country willing to stand up and shout, “Yay for machine guns,” let alone win on it. And if you challenge all the squishy Republicans and lose? You’re done. Finished. Bump stocks ain’t a hill I’m dying on, and trust me, it is a hill you’ll die on.
It was initially difficult to tell whether Sebastian was being cynical and sarcastic with the first paragraph or serious. Upon second (and third) reading, I think he’s actually being serious. He believes we can “control the process” as long as we tell the ATF we want them to infringe our rights. Also, we can get it changed later.
Right. Myth-making and fairy tales.
On February 25, 2018 at 10:31 pm, Fred said:
Well, we’re going to have to shut down blogs if we want to keep our first amendment…but just blogs out of PA to start with. You know, we have to compromise something to keep our free speech.
He’s NRA, the worlds largest non-state gun control entity. The NRA is all about following the gubmint rules.
Since we have to give up bump stocks this time what’s he giving up next time? Please do tell us, what freedoms are on your menu of ‘must compromise’? Fudd.
I tried to warn him that reciprocity is FEDERAL GUN CONTROL of the wearing of arms across state lines for the purposes of self defense. He’s good with federal gun control. He replied as much. I don’t read him anymore.
On February 26, 2018 at 1:38 am, Pat Hines said:
The “we have to give up something” was the cry of the NRA in 1933. They saved handguns back then from being on the NFA 1934, they said.
Bumpstocks ARE a hill I’m willing to die on. Giving them up is throwing red meat to a pack of howling jackals, who will become hungry again in just a few hours.
No more gun confiscation laws, period.
On February 26, 2018 at 5:39 am, DAN III said:
Instead of the weasel words from the NRA it is time to “Just say NO !” to firearm infringements.
Simple. Effective.
On February 26, 2018 at 11:54 am, Fred said:
Let’s see if I have this right. If wrong please be specific.
1. Government wants to take your guns
2. The “left”/government/stooges decry the NRA
3. The “right” and it’s stooges run into the arms of the NRA
4. The gov writes new gun laws (let’s pretend, we know they are on a shelf ready to go)
5. The NRA endorses the new gun law
6. The NRA promises to stop the bad “left”/government if you just give it more money
7. They all laugh and laugh as the law is passed
8. people who don’t want mass murder by government are screwed, again.
9. Rinse, repeat, always, since 1934.
On February 26, 2018 at 4:14 pm, Longbow said:
No more compromise! Not one more inch! Ever!
Time to take it back. All of it. NFA included.
On February 26, 2018 at 10:04 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
The gun-banners aren’t too well-educated and haven’t thought things through. They really haven’t. They have not studied the history of the Prohibition Era enough in depth to realize that the federal government can’t really outlaw anything – all the government can do is force buyers and sellers of goods/services out of the above-board, legal market and into the underground economy and black market. That’s it.
It’s basic economics. As long as a market for a particular good or service exists, and producers/sellers of that particular good or service exist, they will find a way to do business – whether the government likes it or not. Not only the prohibition of alcohol, either, but the so-called “war on drugs” proves this fact.
All the Eighteenth Amendment really did was to turn tens of millions of otherwise law-abiding Americans into instant felons overnight by making illegal what had previously been legal – the production, sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages.
At the stroke of a pen, millions of gainfully-employed people were rendered unemployed, and businesses large and small immediately felt the ripple effects of the new laws. Not only the tavern down the street, but the liquor distributor across town and the bottling plant the next state over and the largest firms involved in the business of slaking their customer’s thirst.
Alcohol prohibition also – nearly single-handedly – created and enabled the explosive growth of the mafia – the outfit, the mob, La Cosa Nostra, whatever you wish to term them. The biggest syndicates moved huge amounts of liquor, beer and spirits smuggled into the U.S. from outside; reaping giant profits in the process.
It took the FBI (back when that agency still had a shred or two of honor to its name) decades to finally beat back and take down the mob, so powerful had they gotten in the 1920s and 1930s.
Alcohol prohibition and the war on drugs will fade into insignificance in comparison to the massive underground economy sure to be created in the wake of any national ban on the ownership of firearms. Such a ban would surely create the largest and most-profitable black market in history.
And bear in mind that such a vast underworld enterprise will likely not restrict itself to the sales of deer rifles and five-shot revolvers; it will deal in the latest military-grade hardware – including fully-automatic weapons. After all, if the mere fact of owning a firearm is already a crime, there is no additional harm done going “all in” and getting the mil-spec hardware.
Very quickly, this country will move from resembling the U.S.A. we have known and loved to something like Mogadishu, Somalia, where even a poor man can afford to buy an AK47 and an RPG down at the local market and arms bazaar.
The other reason arms prohibition cannot work and will not work is that the technology for making firearms – including crude automatic weapons – is not a new field but a settled, mature one. Beretta of Italy has been making firearms for more than five-hundred years. That knowledge and expertise long-ago trickled out of the arms manufacturers and into the general society. Even a sparsely-equipped small machine shop or metal fabrication operation can, in fairly short order, be reconfigured to turn out firearms. Manufacturing ammunition isn’t quite as straight forward, but it too can be done in small workshops, garages, basements and other places.
Even if all of these various sources can be shut off by regulators from the government, they will still have to contend with smugglers and others bringing in weapons and ammunition from the outside.
The gun-banners, even if they win a significant victory and actually get what they say they want – a nationwide ban on private ownership of firearms – are apt to find that they have jumped out of the frying pan, parenthetically-speaking, and into the fire.
Sometimes, history shows us that it is just best to leave well-enough alone. Unless the gun-banners are literally prepared to shut down the entire economy in service of their quest, they will find it utterly impossible to put that particular toothpaste back into the tube. Guns and ammo are here to stay – and there isn’t much the gun-haters can do about it.