Guest Post by Ron Paul
The House of Representatives recently passed legislation that would expand the national background check system to require almost everyone selling firearms, including private collectors who supplement their incomes by selling firearms at gun shows, to perform background checks on the potential buyers. The bill has a section purporting to bar creation of a national firearms registry. However, the expanded background check system will require the government to compile lists of those buying and selling guns. In other words, it creates a de facto national gun registry.
Similar to the experience with other types of prohibition, making it more difficult to legally buy a gun will enhance the firearms black market. Criminals, terrorist, and even deranged mass shooters will thus have no problem obtaining firearms.
It is no coincidence that the majority of mass shootings take place in “gun-free zones,” where shooters know their targets will be unarmed. This shows that any law making it more difficult for Americans to own and carry firearms makes us less safe. If Congress really wanted to reduce the incidence of gun violence, it would repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act. This law leaves children easy prey for mass shooters by mandating that public schools be “gun-free zones.”
A nationwide system of gun registration could be a step toward national gun confiscation. However, antigun bureaucrats need not go that far to use the expanded background check system to abuse the rights of gun owners. Gun owners could find themselves subject to surveillance and even harassment, such as more intensive screening by the Transportation Security Administration, because they own “too many” firearms.
Republican control of the White House and the Senate does not mean our gun rights are safe. Republicans have a long history of supporting gun control. After the 1999 Columbine shooting, many Republicans, including many who campaigned as being pro-Second Amendment, eagerly cooperated with then-President Bill Clinton on gun control. Some supposedly pro-gun Republicans also tried to pass “compromise” gun control legislation after the Sandy Hook shooting.
Neoconservative Senator Marco Rubio has introduced legislation that uses tax dollars to bribe states to adopt red flag laws. Red flag laws allow government to violate an individual’s Second Amendment rights based on nothing more than a report that the individual could become violent. Red flag laws can allow an individual’s guns to be taken away without due process simply because an estranged spouse, angry neighbor, or disgruntled coworker tells police the individual threatened him or otherwise made him feel unsafe.
President Trump has joined Rubio in wanting the government to, in Trump’s words, “take the guns first, go through due process second.” During his confirmation hearing, President Trump’s new Attorney General William Barr expressed support for red flag laws. California Senator and leading gun control advocate Dianne Feinstein has expressed interest in working with Barr to deprive gun owners of due process. It would not be surprising to see left-wing authoritarians like Feinstein work with right-wing authoritarians like Barr and Rubio on “compromise” legislation containing both a national red flag law and expanded background checks.
My years in Congress taught me that few politicians can be counted on to protect our liberties. Most politicians must be pressured to stand up for freedom by informed and involved pro-liberty citizens That is why those of us who understand the benefits of liberty must remain vigilant against any attempt to erode respect for our rights, especially the right to defend ourselves against private crime and public tyranny.
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Trump has no more respect for the Constitution than the rest of the DC Cabal, and Rubio should be exiled to Israel.
This is a clear case of “preaching to the choir…”
Too bad they fucked Ron Paul out of the GOP nomination in 2012. Would have been interesting anyway.
Bipartisan = Double Penetration (no images for obvious reasons)….and I didn’t want to try finding one of a donkey and an elephant screwing a human.
Good Line! That would make a great bumper sticker!
Bend Ovah middle class:
?c=2
The writing is on the wall, NY already passed a red flag law, without voter consent, as usual. They will just keep on passing these tiny provisions until there are so many rules on the books, that no one will be able to buy a gun (without a court order).
They will by default, create a black market, so then they can naturally create a war on the subject matter. Sound familiar?
talk to me in 10 years (oops, I meant 12 years).
Along with your purchase of an AR 10 or 15 be sure to buy enough ammo to last a lifetime.
It’s not a gun problem, it’s a people problem. Guns are inanimate objects. Corrupt government criminals who want more power don’t like citizens with guns.
Whomever down voted, you might as well leave this site.
Somehow I told you so just doesn’t seem to be sufficient !
One side (Democrat’s) are out front and in your face regarding erosion of the Bill of Rights . Then there is the (Republicans) our hero’s who always claim to support the constitution and the bill of rights just enough to get elected and then enough of them swing left just enough to give law enforcement more power and us less free !
Patriot Act where a TSA slob who would have trouble super sizing a fast food meal as authority enough to screw with who ever they want and find humor in their power .
Firearms are not the only way to kill a tyrant.
Old Lindsey Graham seems to be back to his old self here:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/03/09/lindsey-graham-democrats-gop-can-come-together-for-gun-confiscation-law/