Category: Wisconsin politics

Barack Obama is working hard in his apparent role as the U.S.’ top salesman of guns and ammunition.

Obama’s new gun control measures, announced last week, not surprisingly begin from false premises, as U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R–Iowa) lists:

Myth No. 1: Firearm purchases at gun shows do not require a background check due to the “gun show loophole.”

Facts:

• When the president and others refer to the “gun show loophole,” they imply that there are no background checks being done at gun shows. As a result, much of the public has been misinformed and are led to believe that individuals who purchase firearms at gun shows are not subject to a background check.
• In reality, there is no “gun show loophole.” If an individual wants to purchase a firearm from a licensed firearms retailer, which typically makes up the majority of vendors at gun shows, the individual must fill out the requisite federal firearms paperwork and undergo a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) background check.
• The only firearms that are being purchased at gun shows without a background check are those being bought and sold between individuals, peer-to-peer, as opposed to buying a firearm from a gun dealer. These private sales are not at all different from selling a personal hunting rifle to the owner’s niece or nephew down the road. It is a private sale, and no background paperwork is required. The gun is private property, and the sale is made like a sale of the family’s good silver. The one difference is that the locus of a gun show is being used to make the private sale.
• Under current law, an individual is permitted to occasionally sell part, or all, of his personal firearms collection. These private sellers, however, cannot be “engaged in the business” of selling firearms. “Engaged in the business” means they can’t repeatedly sell firearms with the principal objective of earning funds to support themselves. Some of the individuals who wish to sell a portion, or all, of their personal firearms collection do so at the show and might display their wares on a table. These “private table sales,” however, are private, peer-to-peer sales and, therefore, do not require a background check. The president cannot change criminal statutes governing requirements for which sellers must conduct background checks. His new actions don’t do so and don’t claim to do so.
• In a peer-to-peer, private firearms transaction, it is already illegal to sell a firearm to another individual if the seller “knows or has reasonable cause to believe” that the buyer meets any of the prohibited categories for possession of a firearm (felon, fugitive, illegal alien, etc.).

Myth No. 2: Gun shows lack any law enforcement presence and are a free-for-all for felons and other prohibited individuals to obtain firearms.

Fact:

• Local, state, and federal law enforcement are often present both in uniform and/or covertly in plain clothes to monitor and intervene in suspected unlawful firearms sales such as straw purchasing; purchases made by prohibited individuals, including non-residents; and the attempted sale of any illegal firearms.

Myth No. 3: Individuals who purchase firearms on the Internet are not subject to background checks.

Facts:

• An individual cannot purchase a firearm directly from a firearms retailer over the Internet and have that firearm shipped to him directly. An individual can pay for the firearm over the Internet at websites and online sporting goods retailers. The firearm, however, must be picked up from a federal firearms licensee, such as a gun store. In many cases, this is the brick-and-mortar store associated with the website where the gun purchase was made. Once at the retail store, the Internet purchaser must then fill out the requisite forms, including ATF Form 4473, which initiates the NICS background check process. Thus, an Internet purchase of a firearm from a firearms retailer requires a background check.
• Individuals from the same state are able to advertise and purchase firearms from one another and use the Internet to facilitate the transaction. It is unlawful, under current law, to sell or transfer a firearm to an individual who is out of state. Any Internet sale, even between individuals, that crosses state lines would have to utilize a federal firearms licensee, such as a gun store, and the purchaser would be required to fill out the requisite state and federal paperwork and would undergo a background check.

Myth No. 4: The president’s Jan. 5 executive action on gun control represents landmark change regarding gun control.

Facts:

• With few exceptions, Obama’s executive action on firearms is nothing more than rhetoric regarding the status quo. Many senators have long argued for better and more robust enforcement of existing laws that prohibit criminals from owning guns.
• It is the current law of the land that anyone engaged in the business of selling firearms must have a federal firearms license. The president’s action does not change current law, but merely restates existing court rulings on the meaning of “engaged in the business.”

Myth No. 5: The Obama administration has made firearms enforcement a priority.

Facts:

• The Obama administration has used its limited criminal enforcement resources to focus on clemency for convicted and imprisoned felons, the investigation of police departments, and civil rights cases. The latter two categories represent important work, but the Department of Justice lost track of one of its core missions of enforcing criminal law: prosecuting violent criminals, including gun criminals.
• The Obama administration is only now making firearms enforcement a priority. Clearly, enforcing the gun laws is a new initiative, or one of the president’s actions would not have been informing all of the 93 U.S. attorneys about it.
• Proof of this lack of enforcement is revealed in the decline of weapons-related prosecutions during the Obama administration. As data obtained from the Executive Office of United States Attorneys, through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal, firearms prosecutions are down approximately 25 percent under the Obama administration versus the last year of the Bush administration.

Myth No. 6: Mental health has nothing to do with gun control.

Facts:

• People with certain levels of mental illness are not permitted to own guns. Many of the recent mass killings were committed by mentally ill individuals. One of the keys to preventing further mass shootings and violence committed with firearms is addressing the issue of mental health.
• Background checks to prevent the mentally ill from obtaining guns can work only if states provide mental health records to the NICS system. Too many states have failed to do so. Many of the worst offenders are states with the most stringent gun control laws. For multiple years now, many members of Congress have repeatedly called for and introduced legislation that would provide incentives for states to submit their mental health records for inclusion in the NICS database.

Myth No. 7: Obama’s executive action on gun control will thwart criminals’ ability to obtain firearms.

Facts:

• The president’s executive action regarding firearms is focused primarily on individuals who attempt to purchase firearms through the background check process.
• Criminals, however, obtain firearms in myriad illegal ways, including home invasion robbery; trading narcotics for firearms; burglary of homes, vehicles, and businesses; and straw purchasing.
• My legislation, Senate Amendment 725, was specifically designed to combat the straw purchasing of firearms as well as firearms traffickers who transfer firearms to prohibited individuals and out-of-state residents.

Myth No. 8: There is a general consensus in America that greater gun control is needed to prevent mass shootings in the United States.

Facts:

• Despite the president’s statement to the contrary, polls have shown that the majority of Americans do not believe that stricter gun control would reduce the number of mass shootings in the United States.
• The American public does not believe that making it harder for law-abiding Americans to obtain guns makes America safer. In fact, polls have shown that a majority of Americans thinks the United States would be safer if there were more individuals licensed and trained to carry concealed weapons. A majority opposes re-imposition of the “assault weapons” ban.

Myth No. 9: The terrorist “no-fly” list is a proper mechanism to bar Americans from purchasing firearms. —Obama, Jan. 5

Fact:

• The no-fly list is actually multiple lists, which are generated in secret and controlled by executive branch bureaucrats. The Second Amendment right to bear arms has been determined by the U.S. Supreme Court to be a fundamental right. This puts the right to bear arms in our most closely guarded rights, similar to the rights to free speech and freedom of religion. It is unconstitutional to deprive an American citizen of his Second Amendment right without notice and an opportunity to be heard.

Myth No. 10: Gun retailers need to step up and refuse to sell semi-automatic weapons. —Obama, Jan. 5

Fact:

• There is nothing unlawful about a semi-automatic firearm. A semi-automatic firearm simply means that a round is discharged with each pull of the trigger. These include most shotguns used for waterfowl hunting and rifles commonly used for target shooting.

This doesn’t mean, according to Charles W. Cooke, that Obama misunderstands the Second Amendment:

… Amherst’s Austin Sarat griped heartily about President Obama for what Sarat considers to be Obama’s insufficient hostility toward the prevailing understanding of the Second Amendment. “Despite explicit language of the Amendment,” Sarat contends, the Supreme Court has “found that it protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm unconnected with any service in an organized and sanctioned militia.” Unfortunately, he laments, Obama has “embraced” this interpretation, and, rather than using his pedestal to “educate the public about the other way to read” the right, he has elected to side “with the NRA.” Such, evidently, is the contemporary progressive instinct: “Hardly anyone seems to talk about the [Heller] decision,” Sarat contends. “None of our prominent progressive politicians attack it the way they go after the Court’s infamous campaign finance decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.”

In a narrow sense, Sarat is correct. The Left writ large does not go after Heller in the way it goes after other rulings, and neither does President Obama. Nevertheless, Sarat’s diagnosis as to why this is the case falls self-servingly short. In Sarat’s view, politicians who want stricter gun control are cowards who are being held back by the rash tide of public opinion. Were they free to say what they really want to say, Sarat proposes, America’s progressive leaders would be able to come out against the Court with impunity. And then — and only then — would the gun-controllers start to make progress. Suffice it to say that I disagree strongly with this assessment. It

Suffice it to say that I disagree strongly with this assessment. It is without doubt the case that many on the Left are unable to reveal their true preferences for fear of losing their next election. But this does not explain why the self-evidently absurd “individual militia” interpretation has gained so little traction in the Democratic party and beyond. What explains why the “individual militia” argument has been mostly left alone is this: It’s absolute nonsense.

As one might expect, I put little stock in the idea that Barack Obama “believes” in the Second Amendment in any meaningful philosophical way. Nevertheless, the president is by no means a stupid man, and, regardless of his personal ideological preferences, he probably has at least a working grasp of the relevant history in this area. That being so, he has presumably made the same calculation that many other gun-control advocates have made: that it is far more profitable to argue that Heller leaves ample room for his coveted reforms than it is to pretend that Heller was incorrectly decided. Evidently, President Obama and I have dramatically different impressions of what Justice Antonin Scalia meant when he determined that the Second Amendment is not infinite in scope and that some regulations are, in consequence, permissible. But, whatever our differences, we both accept that that argument is a reasonable one to have. The debate that Sarat wants us to have, by contrast, is not reasonable at all, his idea being that we eschew the hard work of discovering the contours and edges of the right-as-written in favor of the pretense that it doesn’t exist at all. Were I a betting man, I’d wager that Obama has refused to follow this course because he rightly believed that he has a much better shot of defining what “shall not be infringed” means than he does at convincing a critical mass of Americans that “right of the people” in fact means “right of the state.”

Which is to say that, both legally and politically, Obama is proceeding far more sensibly than is Sarat, whose stated view of the Second Amendment is utterly farcical. How farcical? Consider: In order to argue with a straight face that the right to keep and bear arms is inextricably linked with “service in an organized and sanctioned militia,” you would have to believe the following unbelievable things: 1) that the Founders’ intent in codifying the Second Amendment was to protect the right of individuals to join an organization over which the federal government has constitutionally granted plenary power; 2) that unlike every other provision in the Bill of Rights — and every other constitutional measure that is wrapped in the “right of the people” formulation — the Second Amendment denotes something other than an individual right that can be asserted against the state; and 3) that every major judicial figure of the era was mistaken as to its meaning — among them, Joseph Story, William Rawle, St. George Tucker, Timothy Farrar, and Tench Coxe, all of whom explained the Second Amendment perfectly clearly — whereas a few judges and politicians in the 20th century have been bang on in their comprehension.

Furthermore, one has to grapple with the theory’s obvious consequences. If it is indeed the case that “a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state” — and if this supposition is binding rather than explanatory — then one has no choice but to conclude that America is both insecure and unfree, and no choice but to wonder aloud whether the government has abdicated its enumerated constitutional responsibilities to the point at which its legitimate authority must not only be called into question but supplanted by volunteers.

CNN held a “town hall meeting” with Obama on guns. The National Rifle Association apparently was invited to participate, but declined. The NRA got some online criticism for that, but Second Amendment fans need not have worried, because the correct side was represented by some interesting people.

The Blaze reports:

A rape survivor and mother of two confronted President Barack Obama during a Thursday town hall, asking the president why his administration favors measures that “make it harder for me to own a gun” and in turn “less safe.”

Kimberly Corban, who survived a 2006 rape while studying at a Colorado college, presented her question to Obama at CNN’s “Guns in America” town hall event.

“As a survivor of rape and now a mother to two small children, you know it seems like being able to purchase a firearm of my choosing and being able to carry that where me and my family are — it seems like my basic responsibility as a parent at this point,” Corban told Obama. “I have been unspeakably victimized once already and I refuse to let that happen again to myself or my kids.”

“So why can’t your administration see that these restrictions that you’re putting to make it harder for me to own a gun or harder for me to take that where I need to be is actually just making my kids and I less safe?” she asked.

Obama replied, “Kimberly, first of all, your story is horrific. The strength you’ve shown in telling your story and being here tonight is remarkable and so I am really proud of you for that.”

The president then said that “there is nothing that we have proposed that would make it harder for you to purchase a firearm.”

“Now you may be referring to issues like concealed carry, but those are state-by-state decisions. And we are not making any proposals with respect to what states are doing … so there really is nothing that we are proposing that makes it harder for you to purchase a firearm if you need one,” he said.

Obama also contended that having a gun might not increase an individual’s safety.

“There are always questions as to whether or not having a firearm in the home protects you from that kind of violence,” the president said. “And I’m not sure we can resolve that — people argue it both sides. What is true is that you have to be pretty well-trained in order to fire a weapon against someone who is assaulting you and catches you by surprise. What is also true is always that possibility that firearm in the home leads to a tragic accident.”

Earlier at the town hall, Obama conceded that he has never owned a firearm.

That last sentence is certainly revealing, isn’t it?

Also appearing, according to The Blaze:

An Arizona sheriff running for Congress challenged President Barack Obama during a town hall on guns Thursday, asking the president to identify exactly what shooting his recent executive actions would have prevented.

“Mr. President, you’ve said you have been frustrated by Congress. As a sheriff, I often times get frustrated. But I don’t make the laws. And I’ve sworn an oath to enforce the law, to uphold the Constitution — same oath you’ve taken,” Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu said. ”The talk, why we’re here, is all these mass shootings. And yet you’ve said in your executive actions, it wouldn’t have solved even one of these or even the terrorist attack.”

“No, I didn’t say that,” Obama interjected.

“Well, looking at the information, what would it have solved?” Babeu asked.

Babeu continued, “The executive actions that you mentioned earlier … they are not written about in the Constitution. I want to know and I think all of us really want to get to the solution: What would you have done to prevent these mass shootings and the terrorist attack? And how do we get those with mental illness and criminals — that’s the real problem here — to follow the laws?”

Obama responded saying that he thinks “it’s really important for us not to suggest that if we can’t solve every crime we shouldn’t try to solve any crimes.”

“The problem when we talk about that guns kill people, people kill people. Or it’s primarily a mental health problem. Or it’s a criminal and evil problem. And that’s what we have to get at. All of us are interested in fighting crime. … That’s a huge priority to us,” the president told Babeu.

“The challenge we have is that in many instances you don’t know ahead of time who is going to be the criminal. It’s not as if criminals walk around with a label that says, ‘I’m a criminal,’” Obama added. “And by the way, the young man who killed those kids in Newtown — he didn’t have a criminal record. … But he was able to have access to an arsenal that allowed him in very short order to kill a classroom of small children.”

The president concluded, “And so the question then becomes, are there ways for us, since we can’t identify that person all the time, are there ways for us to make it less lethal when something like that happens?”

So because of a few evil people, all of us who are neither evil nor lawbreakers have to suffer by having our own constitutional rights violated to prevent, well, nothing that is preventable. That’s Obama’s logic here.

Also appearing, according to Fox News:

Taya Kyle, the widow of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle, asked President Barack Obama his first question on live national television Thursday night during the President’s “Gun’s in America” town hall on CNN.

Chris Kyle’s wife told President Obama that gun control won’t make us safer – as she penned earlier Thursday in an op-ed.

Mrs. Kyle focused on Obama’s theme of hope.

“I think that your message of hope is something I agree with. I think it’s great. And I think that by creating new laws you do give people hope,” Kyle told Obama.

“The thing is that the laws we create don’t stop these horrific things from happening, right? And that’s a very tough pill to swallow,” Kyle added.

“I want the hope that I have the right to protect myself,” Kyle said in response to the rise in gun sales under Obama.

Mrs. Kyle further cast doubt on Obama’s notion that background checks would prevent mass murders.

“I know background checks wouldn’t stop me from getting a gun, but I also know that it wouldn’t stop any of the people in this room from killing…it’s a false sense of hope,” she said.

“Why not celebrate that we’re good people and that 99.9% of us are not going to kill anyone?” Kyle concluded.