It seems this is one news story we can count on visiting and revisiting for the remainder of Obama’s months in office, whether that be a full term, two terms, or a partial term, one truncated by his unlikely disqualification from holding the presidency.
Obama’s latest ploy seems to be centered around an international treaty whereby he would circumvent the Constitution, a document for which he has repeatedly shown contempt and disregard, as well as Congress and the will of the American voting constituency. The treaty seeks to regulate international gun trade, something which was vehemently opposed by the Bush administration. Undoubtedly, such international law would trickle down to American gun shops and sporting goods stores, even reaching into the cookie jar in which I keep my last line of defense against a world which often gives criminals more rights than it does victims.
One way or another, Barack Obama appears bent on undermining US sovereignty and gutting key parts of the Bill of Rights. No friend to legal gun owners, he has stacked his administration with anti-gun zealots. Now, thanks to a vote to adopt a resolution in which the so-called Arms Trade Treaty would become international law, he appears to have the blessing of the UN.
Woven by the Founding Fathers into the document we know as the Constitution is a special set of individual rights, the Bill of Rights. After the much-maligned and misinterpreted first right, the right to speak freely, comes the right to protect oneself by keeping and bearing arms. The drafters of this highly esteemed Document felt so strongly about self preservation that they placed this right second. Commonly referred to as the Second Amendment, this right plainly states that it shall not be infringed. This is something Karl Marx's ardent followers here in the United States have choked on for years, attempting to redefine it in such a way that the intent of the right somehow does not apply to the individual.
I guess it all comes down to what the meaning of the word is, is.
Attorney General Eric Holder, another appointee of Mr. Obama, has come out in favor of banning certain (left-speak for all) automatic weapons, with the side-benefit of assisting Mexico in its fight against violent drug cartels. “Automatic weapons” is a term that has been defined as any pistol which holds a magazine, all the way up to the fully automatic machine gun rifles used by the US military and by many law enforcement agencies. While I share a concern for the plight of Mexican citizens living under the whims of a corrupt government, I cannot be expected to compromise my safety by surrendering my right of self-defense. Any halfwit — the current administration is full of them — must agree that Mexico has other neighbors than the United States, and that drug cartels can use their influence to acquire weapons of any origin — Chinese, Russian, Iranian, Cuban, Columbian — and so I bristle at the notion that this problem has somehow become my responsibility to solve.
Back in 2008, while Mr. Obama was still just a Senator, I read a dire warning in a hunting magazine which claimed that if elected, this man would hike the price of ammo by greatly increasing federal taxes on it. While I cannot speak of direct knowledge of new taxes on ammunition, I can say that the price of most commonly used rounds has doubled, and that the shelves of most stores I have checked have been stripped nearly clean. As any gun enthusiast will attest, ammunition is very hard to get.
Barack, an inch at a time, you appear to be getting your wish.
How well does an orderly, free society function with legally obtained firearms? To see a good example of this, look no further than Ventura County, California. During the 1990s, many states and counties began issuing permits for law-abiding citizens, i.e. non-felons, to carry concealed pistols on their persons. I vividly recall the mainstream media having a field day with this, direly warning of shootouts and bloodbaths. But none came. To the horror of the left-leaning media, violent crimes dropped in counties in which these permits were issued. Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, a pair of adjoining cities in Ventura County, were ranked the two safest cities in the US with populations of 100,000 or more.
The findings in Ventura County run counter to the battle cry of the left. “Guns kill people,” “Firearms have no place in a civilized society,” and “Keep our children safe.” The drum beat continues in spite of the facts. Millions of legal gun owners have never killed anyone, accidentally or otherwise, thanks to responsible gun handling and education, not more laws in an already overwhelmed, litigious society.
Scanning the ashes of the twentieth century, we see that such notorious proponents of gun control as Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, and others, used their measure for the same purposes any sane American citizen dreads. How many tens of millions of innocent civilians were disarmed, surely under the guise of the same benevolent rationale we hear today, only to fall victim to the government which had vowed to protect them?
Shifting my focus to Obama’s desire to employ the National Guard as workers at internment camps, a shudder of ominous origin courses through me. The same man who understands so little about foreign policy that he bows to foreign dignitaries is now demonstrating a lack of knowledge of American history. Nearly seventy years ago, Japanese Admiral Yamamota spoke these words:
“You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.”Yamamota had not known of ICBMs, and he died two years before the horrors of the atomic age were revealed to humankind. In his day, battles were lengthy and arduous, land was taken inch by inch, drop by bloody drop. Living as we do under the nuclear shadow, we exist from one moment to the next; borders, even whole continents, can be gone in a blinding flash. However, given the nature of the 21st century enemy, e.g. Al-Qaida, and that the battlefield could conceivably be in American streets, I take solace in Yamamota’s words. I derive comfort knowing that I and my neighbors and those who live in the hills around me are armed.
The day UN-backed thugs come to my home with the intent of taking away my gun, I might be forced to let them have it.
