Barack Obama

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Obama’s Proposals Attack Crufflers Directly

January 17, 2013 by 2 Comments

The Obama Adminstration’s blueprint for gun control, Now Is The Time, directly targets those of us affectionately known as Crufflers. Crufflers are those of use who hold Curios and Relics Federal Firearms Licenses for the purpose of collecting older firearms. Many who collect these firearms do so out of an interest in military history.

Our ability to collect weapons from overseas that have a military connection such as the M-1 Garands and M-1 carbines in South Korea are directly impacted by Obama’s proposals.

From page 7 of Now Is The Time:

Eliminate restrictions that force the ATF to authorize importation of dangerous
weapons simply because of their age:

ATF is required to authorize the importation of
certain “curio or relic” firearms, and outdated regulations include all firearms manufactured more
than 50 years ago in the definition of “curio or relic.” But today, firearms manufactured more than
50 years ago include large numbers of semiautomatic military-surplus rifles, some of which are
easily convertible into machine guns or otherwise appealing for use in crime. Congress should
get rid of restrictions that prevent ATF from changing this definition, enabling ATF to ensure
that firearms imported as curios or relics are actually of interest as collectibles, rather than letting
these rules be used as a way to acquire fully functional and powerful military weapons.

So if you have a collection of SKS carbines with examples from the Soviet Union, China, Yugoslavia, and other Eastern European countries and need just to get the Albanian variant to complete your collection, Obama says no unless it is in the country already.

Say your tastes are a bit more esoteric and expensive and you want either a FN-49 in 7mm from Venezuela or a AG-42 Ljungmann from Sweden, you can forget it because they both are semi-automatic military-surplus rifles.

I wonder if someone in the Administration can explain just how screwing collectors is going to stop crime in the streets. For some reason, I don’t think so.

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Sen. Richard Burr’s Response To Obama’s Call For Gun Control

January 16, 2013 by 7 Comments

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) is the senior senator from North Carolina and has been on the correct side of gun rights for years. He released the statement below rejecting Obama’s call for gun control. It is short, sweet, to the point, and unequivocal. I’m glad to see at least one senator from the Tar Heel State stands behind the Second Amendment.

I will fight any effort to further infringe on the Second Amendment rights of American citizens, whether it is legislation or executive action by the President. I am open to having a conversation about ways in which our nation can address mental health issues and reduce violence, but I will not stand by while the President and others try to restrict the rights of law-abiding American citizens.

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I Think My Congressman Might Actually Get It

January 16, 2013 by

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC-11) is a freshman Republican from western North Carolina. He replaced Rep. Heath Shuler (D) who retired to become a lobbyist for Duke Energy in Washington. After Obama’s gun control speech this morning, he released the statement below. I just spoke with his office in Washington and I think they get it.


Washington, D.C. – Representative Mark Meadows (NC-11) released the following statement after President Obama announced that he is moving forward with sweeping gun control measures.

“The recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut will never be forgotten. However, it is shameful that rather than having a serious discussion about the root of the violence behind the shooting, President Obama is using this tragedy as a vehicle for his own political agenda. He made his motives clear today when he used innocent children as the backdrop of his press conference.

“I am dedicated to preventing horrific incidents like the Newtown shooting from ever happening again, which is why I am committed to enforcing existing laws, examining issues like mental health and bolstering safety precautions in schools. We need to put politics aside and have meaningful conversations about the tragedy in Connecticut, but the president circumventing Congress and implementing his own rule of law is not the way to proceed. I encourage the president to change his course and sit down at the table with both political parties so we can prevent future tragedies.”

 While the release doesn’t mention the proposed AWB or magazine bans, the impression I got from staff was that he opposed it. I’ll just have to make sure that he gets a weekly call along with a letter for the foreseeable future. I think this is what we need to do with all our representatives in Washington.

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CCRKBA Responds To Obama’s Proposals

January 16, 2013 by



Alan Gottlieb and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms have issued a quick response to the legislative proposals and executive actions coming from the White House on gun control.

OBAMA MISSES TARGET DELIBERATELY


WITH ANTI-GUN AGENDA, SAYS
CCRKBA



BELLEVUE,
WA — President Barack Obama has deliberately missed the target with his
proposed gun control scheme, announced today at the White House,
because it is now clear he wants to blame law-abiding gun owners for the
actions of criminals and madmen, the Citizens Committee for the Right
to Keep and Bear Arms said.

“Suddenly Mr. Obama wants to get more criminal and mental
health records into the NICS background check data base and get a
permanent director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,”
observed CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Where has he been for the last
four years?”

Gottlieb noted that these proposals have been suggested in
the past and supported by the firearms community, but they have
repeatedly fallen on deaf ears. But now, as he exploits the Sandy Hook
school tragedy, these items are high on his anti-gun agenda.

“Perhaps he was too busy during his first term, while his
administration was running thousands of assault rifles, millions of
rounds of ammunition and countless high capacity magazines to violent
criminals and drug cartel thugs through his administration’s Fast &
Furious program,” Gottlieb observed. “Now he wants to take away our
Second Amendment rights when he and his friends have put more assault
weapons in the wrong hands than all of organized crime?

“These firearms have been used not only to kill a Border
Patrol agent, but also hundreds of people including women and children,”
he added. “This policy has resulted in more deaths and carnage than all
the mass shootings in the United States in last ten years.

“The measures being proposed by the president will not
prevent a repeat of the Sandy Hook tragedy, and he knows it,” Gottlieb
continued. “The initials ‘B. O.’ stand for more than Barack Obama. They
stand for the bad odor of his blame game.”

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Executive Actions Obama Plans To Take

January 16, 2013 by 6 Comments

FoxNews has published a list of the executive actions that President Obama plans to take regarding gun control. This list is as released from the White House to the media. It is not yet published on the White House’s website.

Looking over it quickly, No. 14 on the list – directing the CDC to investigate the causes of “gun violence” (sic) – has been prohibited by Congress in their appropriations bills if I remember correctly. No. 18 on the list – hiring more school resource officers – is interesting given Obama’s criticism of the NRA’s proposal for more armed guards. With regard to health care privacy, Obama is opening a big can of worms that will have many unintended consequences. People will be less likely to seek help for mental health issues such as depression. Moreover, I see many strained physician-patient relationships over guns. If my own internist were to ask, I’d tell her to mind her own business unless she were trained in gun safety. 

The list includes:


1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.

3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.

4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.

6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.

8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).

9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.

10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.

11. Nominate an ATF director.

12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.

13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.

14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.

15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.

16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.

17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.

18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.

19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.

20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.

21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.

22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.

23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

UPDATE: Sebastian at Shall Not Be Infringed examines this list and gives his response to some of these proposals. I would tend to agree this is not as bad as we foresaw but a lot will depend upon how it is implemented. Never forget that implementation is policy.

UPDATE II: Daddy Bear gives his response to the list including a good fisking of many of them.

UPDATE III: Here is a PDF from the White House that gives the entire list plus the legislative proposals as well as their rationale for it.

UPDATE IV: The Everlasting Phelps translates the list of Obama’s executive actions into plain English and SayUncle gives his take on the list.

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Rush To Judgment

January 16, 2013 by

A rush to judgment with ill-conceived and hasty “solutions” seems to be a common response to any crisis. It is what Lenore Skenazy called yesterday Post-Traumatic Stupidity Syndrome.

President Obama will unveil his proposals for gun control (which he calls gun safety) while surrounded by a gaggle of little kids today. In that light, I think it is instructive to think about some other rushes to judgment coming out of Washington.

TSA.

Patriot Act.

TARP Program.

Stimulus Act.

Need I say more?

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OK, This Is Officially Disgusting

January 15, 2013 by 3 Comments



When Obama unveils his gun control package tomorrow, he will be surrounded by children.

From the C-Span transcript of Press Secretary Jay Carney’s press briefing:

I CAN TELL YOU THAT TOMORROW THE PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT WILL HOLD AN EVENT TO UNVEIL A PANEL TO PRODUCE GUN VIOLENCE AND PREVENT FUTURE TRAGEDIES LIKE THE ONE HERE IN NEWTOWN, CONNECTICUT.

THEY WILL BE JOINED BY CHILDREN AROUND THE COUNTRY EXPRESSING THEIR CONCERNS ABOUT GUN VIOLENCE AND SCHOOL SAFETY, ALONG WITH THEIR PARENTS.

C-Span has a typo when they say the “panel to produce gun violence” which I find rather ironic given the efficacy of all of the proposals we’ll hear tomorrow in stopping further mass shootings. In other words, none.

As to parading little kids in front of the television camera, it is appalling and disgusting and the sort of propaganda usually only seen in totalitarian countries.

Kurt has more on this propaganda display.

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Dave Kopel On The Second Amendment In 2013

January 14, 2013 by 1 Comment

Attorney and law professor Dave Kopel was interviewed about the Second Amendment for the Cato Institute Daily Podcast last week. Much of what he says about the presidential power to use executive orders is increasingly relevant given President Obama’s press conference today. In the press conference Obama didn’t rule out the use of executive orders for gun control.

As Kopel points out, Obama would have broad powers to impact imports under the Gun Control Act of 1968 but less power domestically. Kopel does touch upon the reclassification of existing rifles to put them under the purview of the National Firearms Act by the use of executive order.

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Obama On Guns At Press Conference

January 14, 2013 by 3 Comments

President Obama had his last press conference of his first administration this morning. Among the questions asked was one by ABC News’ Jonathan Karl. Karl specifically asked Obama “what are you willing to do, or able to do, using the powers of your presidency to act without Congress?”

Obama responded with mention of improvements in data collection and tracking. He then said the administration would be pushing legislation that was “common-sense” dealing with regulation and “gun safety”. He consistently tried to use the words “common-sense”, “sensible”, and “responsible” throughout his answers. He also accused his opponents of trying to fan the fears about gun control.

One thing I think we will be seeing from both the administration and the gun prohibitionist groups is an effort to equate gun control with gun safety. Obviously they are not one and the same but you would never know that from listening to Obama. Moreover, and you won’t hear it from them, but that group “fanning the fears” does more for gun safety through the Eddie Eagle program and other training programs than any of them will ever do.

The video from the press conference is below: