In a battle, the initial object is to keep the invading enemy from gaining a foothold in the defended territory. If they can't establish a front on the beach, they can't mount an assault against your positions on the cliffs above.
As the admittedly "partisan" Oregon Firearms Federation notes:
The NRA and the Brady Campaign are now issueing [sic] press releases praising the same bill. If this does not give you chills, you are not paying attention.In the interests of fairness, here is NRA's admittedly "partisan" take:
After months of careful negotiation, pro-gun legislation was passed through Congress today. The National Rifle Association (NRA) worked closely with Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) to address his concerns regarding H.R. 2640, the National Instant Check System (NICS) Improvement Act. These changes make a good bill even better. The end product is a win for American gun owners.NRA embracing this erodes the argument that gun control is not an effective means of crime control. It's not, and this won't stop further incidents or further calls for citizen disarmament, but there you have it.
At this point, it's a done deal, so I'm not inclined to focus on a screaming match over who will prove to be right. My thoughts on mental health--that anyone who can't be trusted with a gun can't be trusted without a custodian--have been a matter of record for years now, but it is what it is.
The political reality is this is here and will be with us, and that because the perceived impact on most of us will be minimal, revisiting it will not be a matter of priority.
11 comments:
Well, the VPC hates it and is calling the Brady Bunch sell-outs so it can't be 100% bad.
I'm with David--it's an expansion of an unconstitutional program that's based on the failed concept of a "prohibited persons" list--but it's also a done deal.
It could have been worse, I realize--but as a rallying cry, "could have been worse" leaves me a little cold.
I blogged this too.
I suppose we could always hope that Bush will veto it, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
This is eventually going to come back and bite a lot of people right in the *ss. Just wait for the meaning of "mentally imbalanced" to start sliding down that proverbial slippery slope.
Exactly, AlanDP--it's not exactly like it's a firm fixed line, what with homosexuality being classified a disorder but a few short decades ago--I wonder how that one would go over today? That the mentally ill are more likely to be abused than be abusers, that they as a population are not more violent, and that life events--such as the death of a child--can leave one clinically depressed and if treated, generate a record of mental disorder--are all factors that wait for us on this slippery slope. And if you're kicked out of the system as a prohibited loon, why should you be "allowed" to keep what you already may have?
But this is all alarmist speculation, and those much wiser--or at least better paid--than I am assure us this is a good thing--how did they word it? It made "a good bill even better."
Enough. Our view lost--it was hardly a contest--and now we will live with it.
Hey, at least at some point we may get to say "I told you so."
And before anyone jumps in to correct me and tell me the bill as written won't do these things, we qualified this as the stuff of "slippery slopes" . When a law doesn't address certain particulars that would have forestalled its passage, they're just tacked on later under the hysteria of "loopholes."
I mean really--why wouldn't you want an order issued to "temporarily" take guns away from someone upon the death of a family member who is so broken up they need a psychiatric intervention or mood-altering pharmaceuticals? And why would you want a post traumatic stress disordered vet--trained to kill like a professional--to be set loose armed amidst the cavorting Eloi?
But I indulge in PSH speculation, right? Sorry---something about people in power who want to see ordinary people like me disarmed gets me all paranoid for some reason, wondering why--oops, I didn't just admit that, did I?
And g-man--holding your breath for a Bush veto would qualify you for the list, I'm afraid.
12/20/2007 6:11 PM
The falsley named protections in this bill that so many of our traitorous self-anointed "gun rights" leaders (yes I mean some of those who claim to blog on our side) supported and claim their are provisions in this bill to petition for correction of a wrongful inclusion on the list, or a status review due to changed circumstances, I now warn you, I will embarrass you, shame you and vilify you on your own blogs until you must begin "reasoned discourse" in the Brady manner.
I offer but two examples to these arrogant pups who think they know so damn much. FOPA is one. It had protections, remember? They were never funded.
Two; Does anybody remember all the hoopla and press conferences of a year ago when the border fence was mandated to be built and the funds for it were mandated also? A midnight revision has struck the fence and the funding from the bill just a day or two ago.
Anybody stupid enough to believe the parts the authoritarians, who would steal your rights, likes will not be kept, while the parts that provide those "protections" will be kept is just too damn stupid to be allowed to own arms, or legs, or homes, or families, or themselves. I think if it comes to a time for force, I will count them on the other side and show them the same quarter I would for the declared enemies of my rights.
Of course, David, I expect you know you are numbered among those whom I consider allies in this struggle for restoration of American liberties. Unlike others who only claim so but would wall up their arms rather than stand.
straightarrow,
Again, thank you for speaking justly and to the point while some of us are too weakened, enraged into a stager, and dazed into mental oblivion to be able to put forth a strong, lengthy response to this backstabbing.
Please shoot me an e-mail would you..I would like to have you on my list.
Sincerely, C.H.
chareltonhest -ta- atfabuse.com
I don't think any acts of congress come out exactly like they plan. There are always too many unintended consequences. And the laws never turn out better. They always turn out worse. The US is not some "Minority Report" country where we do pre-crime prevention. Declaring people mentally ill was/is one of communism's greatest weapons against political enemies. Another irony. Communism dies and our US politicians try to revive it. A real thorough congressional laxative, flushing out all the, uhh
statesmen, would do this country a lot of good.
Aside from the now wide open back door to label us all "unfit" my main objection to this whole thing is the specious argument that this would have stopped the VT shootings. Does anyone really believe that failing a background check would have slowed Cho down for a moment? If so then you must also believe that underage drinking and illegal drug use are figments of some fevered imagination as well.
CH, I sent it. Don't know if you got it.
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