From Their Cold Dead Hands
By Matthew Vadum
Emboldened by the public’s waning enthusiasm for tougher gun control measures, five Republican senators are now vowing to filibuster any of President Obama’s gun-control measures to block their enactment.
The sweet smell of statist defeat is in the air. Tired of being harangued by an authoritarian president, polls suggest Americans have largely returned to their senses after a fleeting flirtation with gun control proposals.
It’s quite a turnaround from the dark days of December when a madman gunned down innocent schoolchildren in New England. Even some conservative lawmakers cowered as the media relentlessly and viciously attacked law abiding Americans for owning guns.
But many people are incensed at Hollywood left-wingers’ constant condescension on gun issues, which has only grown more intense and obnoxious in recent months. Comedian Jim Carrey, a high-school dropout who opposes vaccinating babies, jumped the shark this week when he released an offensive, unfunny video mocking gun owners as stupid, clumsy hicks. Reaction to the Dumb and Dumber star’s video was swift and largely negative.
This all shows that in modern American politics, gun control legislation continues to be a sure political loser at the national level.
While it’s too early for Second Amendment supporters to start popping champagne corks, it appears that no substantial changes to the nation’s gun laws will be approved by Congress. If anything passes –and that seems increasingly unlikely– it may be symbolic legislation that has no teeth.
After Mitt Romney’s defeat in November, shell-shocked Republican lawmakers are finally beginning to emerge from their collective stupor and fight Barack Obama’s imperial presidency.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) accuses the president of continuing to “use the tragedy at Newtown as a backdrop for pushing legislation that would have done nothing to prevent that horrible crime.”
Restricting Americans’ fundamental constitutional rights ought to require more than a simple majority vote in the Senate, Lee argues.
In that vein, Sens. Lee, Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), notified Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that they will “exercise our procedural right to require a 60-vote threshold in order to bring any of the president’s proposals to the floor.” Lee announced later that Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) also signed on to the filibuster pledge.
The debate “is about more than magazine clips and pistol grips. It is about the purpose of the Second Amendment and why our constitutionally protected right to self-defense is an essential part of self-government,” Lee said.
“Any legislation that would restrict our basic right to self-defense deserves robust and open debate. Requiring a 60-vote threshold helps ensure that we have that debate rather than skipping directly to the back room deals, horse trading, and business-as-usual politics that typifies the way Congress passes legislation today.”
Obama’s ongoing anti-gun jihad has been a veritable comedy of errors as leading Democrats, administration officials, and their lackeys in the media revealed their embarrassing ignorance of firearms basics.
World-class bumbler Vice President Joe Biden offered dangerous advice on home defense to his constituents last month.
Biden said women fearful of home invasions should get a “double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun” and fire “two blasts” outside to deter would-be home intruders. Perhaps inspired by gangster movies, Biden also told gun owners to “just fire the shotgun through the door.”
First Lady Michelle Obama said on ABC News that Chicago teenager Hadiya Pendleton was gunned down January 29 by “automatic weapons.” The problem is that there are relatively few automatic weapons, which fire continuously while the trigger is pulled, in circulation among the public in America.
They’ve been all but banned in the U.S. since 1934 and their use in crime is extremely rare. Getting federal permission to own one is very difficult and the weapons are tightly regulated. (Handguns, on the other hand, are plentiful, but for the most part they are not targeted in current proposals.)
Unfortunately, Americans never got to hear Mrs. Obama’s mega-gaffe. ABC News colluded with the Obama White House and edited out her ignorant claim. The network said the remarks were removed out of time concerns.
New York City’s know-it-all do-gooder of a mayor, Michael Bloomberg, shelled out $12 million for gun control ads that encourage Americans to handle firearms irresponsibly.
His pressure group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, created two televisions ads showing a man dressed as a hunter holding a shotgun. With a child swinging on a tire in the background, the man says, “I support comprehensive background checks so criminals and the dangerously mentally ill can’t buy guns.”
In one ad titled “Responsibility,” the actor violates all three gun safety rules preached by the National Rifle Association.
Although there is a child nearby, the muzzle of the man’s pump-action shotgun is not pointed at the ground or in the air. While the man’s shotgun is improperly positioned, he keeps his finger on the trigger, as if prepared to fire. The NRA also recommends that weapons be kept unloaded until ready for immediate use, but in the ad the action, or bolt, of the shotgun shown is closed, making it impossible to see whether the firearm contains ammunition.
“A man who grew up hunting would know that by holding a shotgun straight horizontal, with the action closed and his finger on the trigger, he is committing all three cardinal sins of gun safety,” notes Emily Miller of the Washington Times.
After a loud start in December, the Left’s most recent war on gun ownership rights now appears to be on life-support.
A week ago Obama was forced to withdraw the nomination of Second Amendment enemy Caitlin J. Halligan to the critical District of Columbia Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. Halligan was successfully filibustered twice by Republican senators largely because of her vehement opposition to gun ownership rights.
The Halligan implosion comes as a new poll indicates public support for stricter gun control laws, which climbed to 57 percent after the attack in Newtown, has since plummeted to just 47 percent.
The CBS News poll was released a week after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would remove language banning so-called assault weapons from pending gun control legislation. Even if anti-gun legislation clears the Senate, it is unlikely to survive the House of Representatives.
The lead proponent of the wholly arbitrary assault weapons ban, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), could offer the provision as an amendment to the legislation but at this point the prohibition seems almost certainly doomed. Feinstein authored the previous assault weapons ban, which was in effect from 1994 to 2004. It had no observable effect on crime rates.
Despite all this bad news, President Obama is still clinging to the hope that he can bring in sweeping new firearms restrictions through the sheer force of his personality.
Yesterday Obama desperately tried to keep alive the anti-gun hysteria that briefly swept parts of the nation after 20 first-graders were killed in the Newtown, Conn. massacre in December.
“We need everybody to remember how we felt 100 days ago and make sure what we said wasn’t just a bunch of platitudes, that we meant it,” Obama said at a White House event on a national day of action by elitists who wish to disarm their fellow citizens.
“We’ve cried enough,” he said petulantly, in the presidential equivalent of a temper tantrum, as he exhorted Americans to apply pressure to their elected representatives.
Obama’s post-Newtown proposals would expand intrusive, privacy-violating background checks that make it difficult for people in danger to purchase the guns they need to protect themselves and their families. Critics say –with justification– that the expanded background checks amount to a de facto national gun registry.
Of course Obama continues lying, claiming he supports the Second Amendment.
“What we’re proposing is not radical. It’s not taking away anyone’s gun rights,” Obama said trying to bully legislators. He said they may be getting “squishy because time has passed and maybe it’s not on the news every day.”
Even a master manipulator of the mob has his limitations.
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