The White House isn’t wasting any time on the gun control debate. After meeting with gun-rights advocates today, CBS News reports that Joe Biden will present his gun control proposals to President Obama as soon as Tuesday:
After consulting with a series of stakeholders in the ongoing debate over gun control, Vice President Joe Biden will present his recommendations for reducing gun-related violence in America to President Obama on Tuesday, he said today.
The vice president, speaking to reporters before a meeting on gun violence with sportsmen and women, and just minutes before another school shooting was reported, outlined a series of the recommendations he said are emerging in the course of his conversations with various stakeholders in the conversation. Among those possible proposals include universal background checks, restrictions on high-capacity magazines, and increased federal capabilities for effectively researching gun violence. Biden also stressed ongoing discussions about the importance of including the mental health community in the conversation.
Increasing federal capabilities for “researching gun violence” sounds about as effective as Obama’s Atrocities Prevention Board. A task force will be convened, funding will be allocated, reports will be written, and that will probably be the end of it. But it will give the appearance that the government is doing something, and it probably won’t get much opposition from the gun lobby.
A ban on high-capacity magazines will get pushback. The problem here is that the definition of high-capacity can be subjective, and apparently there are easy ways of getting around this type of ban. As for more rigorous background checks, it’s irrelevant to the Sandy Hook shooting, since Adam Lanza stole the weapon from his mother. However, it may have made a difference in the Tucson shooting, since Jared Lee Loughner appeared to show signs of mental illness before the attack. The question is, where do you draw the line? Loughner was behaving erratically at school and work, but he was never declared mentally ill by a court, nor did he undergo a psychiatric exam before the shooting. Gun control advocates may try to push for mental health reviews in the background check, but that sounds like it could raise constitutional issues.
Allahpundit also writes that this would be a tough policy to get past House Republicans:
Background checks, in particular, enjoy massive support, with one recent poll showing 92% in favor of requiring them at gun shows and a CNN poll taken last year finding 94% support for checks on all potential gun buyers. That’d be a very tough vote for congressional Republicans and of course Biden knows it, which is why he’s talking it up today. If you can’t get your policies passed, you might as well use them as a way to make the opposition squirm.
More evidence that the White House primarily views the gun control debate as a way to score political points, and is looking to make things as difficult for Republicans as possible.
Was anyone else amused that one of the suggestions was to get the US Attorneys to prosecute those who make false statements on purchase applications and straw buyers? Let’s tell these people ‘No more gun laws until you enforce the ones you have.”
Why aren't they prosecuting "straw buyers"? n nI don't want to go down the conspiracy route here, but we do know what some have said about Fast & Furious being nothing more than a PR campaign to push for new US gun legislation. And I really would like to see an explanation of what it was — no matter how incompetent or screwed up, but what it really *was* if it wasn't this. I will give the ATF the benefit of the doubt, but I really would like to know WHAT ON EARTH THEY WERE **TRYING** TO DO…. Assuming that it wasn't just what the conspiracy folk allege. n nAnd hence, why aren't they prosecuting the straw buyers? Particularly when the guns they buy show up in crimes where people died. If I buy the beer for some underaged kids who go kill someone (including themselves) in an OUI crash, the government will come after me for that criminally — and does with frequency. Why is giving someone a gun less serious than a case of beer?
"More evidence that the White House primarily views the gun control debate as a way to score political points, and is looking to make things as difficult for Republicans as possible." n nYep, gun control is all about making things difficult for the GOP. No reason for it otherwise. Next, Commentary will be endorsing Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio's armed posse.
Damn right it would raise Constitutional questions, there already is a Federal lawsuit in the State of Mane on the issue of the automatic (no hearing) lifetime ban on gun possession for anyone unlucky enough to ever have been civilly (not criminally) committed to a mental hospital. For any reason, no matter how briefly nor how long ago, including one woman I know of whose blood sugar level got messed up by a pregnancy that she didn't yet know about. n nWhere in the Bill of Rights — or the Constitution itself — does it say that a citizen has rights as long as the government considers the citizen responsible enough to exercise them? Can you imagine a mental health check to exercise free speech rights — what's the difference? n nIf Obama/Biden actually propose something like mandatory mental health checks on gun owners, it won't even make it to the courts. It will provoke a nationwide visceral reaction on the level of Nixon's going into Cambodia in 1970 — and Kent State was osnly a part of that. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a nationa-wide trucker's strike in response to this. n n n
Since we’re playing the “some Bill of Rights amendments are better than others” game let us try this out, it’s guaranteed to make the anti-gun zealots (more) crazy. nProposed: nStep 1= Pick a city with strict gun laws and a high rate of gun violence. How nabout Chicago? nStep 2= Select the section of the city that has the highest numbers of nshootings and/or the section in which the largest # of convicted shooters lived nprior to conviction nStep 3= Do house to house/apartment to apartment searches of every residence in nthat section to seize illegal weapons nStep 4= Warrants? We ain’t got no warrants. We don’t need no stinking warrants! n(We do have these badges, though.) n nTo hell with the 4th amendment if it’s for the good of the community. What’s so unreasonable about that?
Why limit it to just this? Why not just say that only "responsible citizens" are entitled to the protections of the Fourth & Fifth Amendments? Let's just openly ignore Escabato, Miranda nad the rest of the Warren Court decisions and just eliminate the Exclusionary Rule. n nIf the cop[s say that perp did something, we just send him to GITMO under the auspices of -Obama's new Executive Order. We don't need no expensive trials, let alone cops bothering to follow proper procedure and observe the Bill of Rights because Herr Biden has decreed that "if we can save just one life, it is worth it." n nAsk any police officer in a high crime area — if the officer could legally make 3-5 people just "disappear", would there be a noticeable improvement in the community? Would "at least one life" be saved? So let's just go to a "Judge Dredd" society and have the police just execute the bad people on sight. n nLet's take it further — if we can say that only "responsible" citizens are entitled to enjoy the protections of the Second Amendment, why not extend that to the Eighth and the prohibition on "Cruel & Unusual Punishment? Take the so-called "Batman Shooter" — we know he is guilty, let's just do a modern day version of "Drawing & Quartering" — on the 50-yeard line of the Denver football stadium, broadcast on live TV, with the revenue going to the survivors and their families, of course. n nMost tow trucks have a hydraulic winch with a couple hundred feet of 3/9 steel cable and the ability to pull with a couple tons of force — it is used to pull wrecks (or portions thereof – I have seen some gristly accidents) back onto the road or to flip upside down cars back onto their wheels so that they can be towed away. Let's bring in four tow trucks, wrap the cable from each around one of his arms & legs, and literally rip him apart (which is what drawing & quartering" was, although I believed horses were used back then). n nYes, this would be an incredibly painful and cruel think to do to anyone — and incredibly bloody — and the truly macabre thing is that I have no doubt that the stadium would be packed with paying attendees and that the television version would receive high ratings. Nor am I sure that I still live in a society where the basic sense of decency and decorum would preclude the bloody limbs from then being affixed to the overhead traffic light assemblies at four key intersections in the city and left there for all to see — again the modern day version of the Midevil practices that the 8th Amnd was written to prohibit in this country. n nAnd if we were to do something this gristly & cruel to just a few of those subhuman animals who sexually molest and murder small children — again on live TV in front of a likely packed stadium — it would definitely serve as a deterrent to the rest of those creeps inclined to do such horrendous things to the most innocent amongst us – and seeing the decomposing arm or leg swinging off the overhead traffic light pole every time one drove under it — (unlike Midevil England, we would have to worry about pieces falling onto vehicles & causing accidents,) — but seeing that every day would serve as an incredible incentive to others otherwise inclined to hurt little children that they would much rather keep their pants on and hands to themselves. n nAnd of you who are parents, are you not at this point quietly admitting that — heaven forbid — it was your child (or grandchild) that one of these monsters killed, that at least a little bit of you would not only like to see this happen to the perp who hurt/killed your child, but that you would even volunteer to be one of the four people pulling they hydraulic control to do it? n nContinued as Comment to this:
Continued from above: n nI once insisted that a truly despicable schmuck be treated fairly, not because of who he was, but because of who I am. Our society extends the full protections of citizenship to the weakest and most disliked of our citizens, not because of who they are but because of who WE are. I know a military officer who is still messed up by the concept that when one of his soldiers screwed up and killed a civilian in Iraq, the person's family really didn't mind as long as they were compensated the "value" of the person — that you could give them some US currency and "it was OK." — I still don't think he understands that not all the world has Western liberal (small "l") values. And a lot of Jews who could have fled the Holocaust — including Ann Frank's family — didn't do so soon enough, or flee far enough (memory is that the Frank family fled Germany but couldn't get beyond Belgium) — and I suspect in part because they never conceived that something like the Holocaust would really happen. Never believed that people could do such a thing to them, let alone would. n nAnd back to guns. If he had a gun and knew how to use it, Otto Frank could killed the 2-3 Gestapo (?) as they were breaking into where the Franks were hiding and with the element of surprise on his side, likely could have killed the rest of what was probably no more than a half dozen men, enabling his family to escape what they reasonably considered to be certain death. Otto Frank well may have died in the process — but many will willingly die to protect their families, particularly when the alternative is certain death for all. n nThe Germans had a "machine pistol" at the time — I forget what it was — that would have been the ideal weapon for him. If he was big enough and strong enough to be able to fire it with any degree of accuracy, the then-standard Colt Model 1911 (the so-called "Colt .45" that was issued to every US military officer up to the mid 1980's) would have worked nicely for him. n nAnd I say again — if 10% of the Jews in Europe had been armed — and knew how to use those arms — there wouldn't have been a Holocaust. Condi Rice — a Black woman who grew up in the Jim Crow South — has openly stated that she believes that the fact her father had a shotgun is the reason why certain things didn't happen to her family, racism and racial hatred not withstanding. The American Blacks *WERE* armed — there would have been very serious consequences to them if they ever used those arms — even in legitimate self defense — against a White person, but they did have them and everyone knew it. n nWe will never know if there would have been a second Holocaust — of American Blacks by Americans — but for the fact that the American Blacks *were* armed — or if an armed European Jewish population would have precluded that Holocaust (the ratio was what – four armed Nazis to every *hundred* Jews they murdered) — we will never know. n nBut Condi Rice, who lived the nightmare of "Bombingham" (which is what Birmingham, Alabama was sometimes called — and personally knew the four girls killed at choir practice by one of these bombs) is clear — the sheriff didn't do certain things because her daddy had a shotgun. n nAnd if Otto Frank had a shotgun when the Germans broke through that wall……
Since we're playing the some bill of Rights amendments are better than others game let us try this out, it's guaranteed to make the anti-gun zealots (more) crazy. nProposed: nStep 1= Pick a city with strict gun laws and a high rate of gun violence. How about Chicago? nStep 2= Select the section of the city that has the highest numbers of shootings and/or the section in which the largest # of convicted shooters lived prior to conviction nStep 3= Do house to house/apartment to apartment searches of every residence in that section to seize illegal weapons nStep 4= Warrants? We don't need no stinking warrants! To hell with the 4h amendment It's for the good of the community. nStep 5= Sit back and enjoy the spectacle emanating from the lib universe