Serious Anti-Gunners Show What Compromise on Gun Control Would Mean

Serious Anti-Gunners Show What Compromise on Gun Control Would Mean
Serious Anti-Gunners Show What Compromise on Gun Control Would Mean
NRA - Institute for Legislative Action
NRA – Institute for Legislative Action

Fairfax, VA -(AmmoLand.com)- Whether to capitalize on a tragedy for political purposes, or because their urge to “do something” isn’t tempered by a sense of reality, Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) reacted to the deplorable murders at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, last week by saying that they may reintroduce so-called “universal” background check legislation to require background checks on private sales and trades of firearms, including those between many family members and friends.

NRA members and supporters will recall that a previous version of the Manchin-Toomey “universal” background check legislation was soundly defeated in the U.S. Senate in 2013. As we noted at that time, such a system could only be enforced through national gun registration. But don’t just take our word for it, even Obama administration “experts” wrote that the effectiveness of “universal” background checks “depends on . . . requiring gun registration.”

Earlier this week, The Washington Post reported that Manchin wants to focus on preventing the acquisition of guns by people diagnosed with a mental illness. However, the person who admitted to the South Carolina church shooting had no such diagnosis in his background. Like the perpetrators of a large percentage of other multiple victim shootings, he passed a background check to acquire a gun because there was nothing in his record to prohibit him from doing so.

Background checks don’t stop criminals from stealing guns, or buying them on the black market, as noted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in Table 14 of a May 2013 report. And they don’t stop criminals from getting guns through straw purchases—using people who can pass background checks to buy guns for people who cannot pass them—as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives indicated in a separate report.

In addition, there is another reason to oppose expanding the scope, intrusiveness and record-keeping practices of so-called “universal” background check systems. Giving in to what gun control supporters call “common sense” restrictions would simply take us closer to their ultimate goal.

Last year, Hillary Clinton said that people shouldn’t be allowed to even have an opinion in opposition to gun control. And just last week, former president Bill Clinton, who would presumably wield significant influence over public policy if Mrs. Clinton is elected president in 2016, said people shouldn’t be allowed to “walk around” with guns in public. At the same time, the Violence Policy Center encouraged people to believe there’s not much to be gained by carrying guns in public in the first place, falsely claiming that “Guns are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes.”

And then there’s former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination, who’s made it very clear that he supports a ban on the private possession of firearms. O’Malley’s position reflects gun control supporters’ refusal to recognize that people have a fundamental right to possess guns for self-defense; that guns are often used for self-defense; and that criminals would reap an enormous advantage from any gun-ban that is effectively implemented.

As civil rights attorney Don Kates and Professor Gary Mauser have noted, “violent crime would not fall if guns were totally banned to civilians . . . . Individuals who commit violent crimes will either find guns despite severe controls or will find other weapons to use.”

Indeed, the FBI reports that one-third of murders, 59 percent of robberies and 78 percent of aggravated assaults reported to law enforcement agencies are committed without firearms. As an example of the first of those statistics, Charles C.W. Cooke noted for National Review earlier this month that a woman was brutally killed by a knife-wielding attacker recently, unable to defend herself because her pending New Jersey handgun permit application hadn’t been approved.

Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that President Barack Obama, always enamored by gun bans in other parts of the world, cited, as he has previously, Australia’s massive gun ban and confiscation via a mandatory “buy-back” in the 1990s as an example of what he’d like to see happen in America.

Obama also blamed the Senate’s rejection of his 2013 gun control proposals on that perennial anti-gunner bogeyman, “the grip of the NRA on Congress.” What he fails to realize is that the NRA’s strength comes from its millions of members and tens of millions of supporters throughout the country.

As a result, to gun control supporters’ everlasting regret, public opinion places more faith in guns and gun ownership than in gun control.

About the NRA-ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

For more information, please visit: www.nra.org. Be sure to follow the NRA on Facebook at NRA on Facebook and Twitter @NRA.

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Melda Page

NRA members and supporters are perverts. They support the perversion of the second amendment. Thus the new label–hope you like it. I have it on my t-shirt.

Eric

Gun control , holding your junk with both hands showing the wife how big it is.
Firearms control able to hit a man sized target at 450 yards.

diamondearthday57

Hey troll when did Texas try to leave the union? Your the one with the comic book name boy.

nitrofan

When people fought for unions to get better pay and benefits now big money and the government have been slowly taking this away a little at a time. The 401k was a way for business and big money to get out of paying pensions. Now the health insurance. And they want to do the same with social security and medicare. Slowly they are taking everything people fought and died for. Now they want our guns to finish the job. Anybody hear me. The time to make our voice heard is NOW. THEY WANT TO KILL THE CONSTITUTION. I for one… Read more »

Clark Kent

What Tex and the Hippie don’t comprehend is that Texas already attempted to leave the Union. How did that work out for Texas? Hint: not very well. So any claim that Texas will leave the Union is delusional. Back to your comic books, boys…..

james

Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.)

Modern version of DUMB and DUMBER

Lewis Covin

I’m with Tex here viewers. The central fed government keeps ignoring us out here in Hillary’s “Fly Over” USA. They illegally passed Obamacare usurping the Constitution with midnight Christmas Eve illegal procedure in passing the bill A bill denied public access for the purpose of debate or reading by even the elected officials we sent to Congres. Don.t misunderstand I’d love to see everyone having access to good medical care even at the cost of a small percentage of the IRS’s collection plate. But the entire set of indoctrinational lies about “You can keep what you like and your doctors”… Read more »

JOE CHAMBERLAIN

MY WAY OF THINKING IS THIS. I LIVE APPROX. 22 MIN. FROM GETTING HELP FROM THE POLICE. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO IN THE MEAN TIME SERVE SNACKS TO THE BASTARDS THAT ATTACKING ME? WELL I I WILL HOT COMING OUT THE BARREL OF A GUN . WHAT WE HAVE IN SOME OF THESE STATES AND WASHINGTON AMOUNT TO FULL BLOODED AZZHOLES THAT LIKE FILLING THEIR POCKETS AND TO HELL WITH THE PEOPLE THAT SENT THEM THERE .

john Carr

As a true blue Hillbilly I have lived in the great state of West Virginia for the better part of 73 years. Over the years we have had our share of crooked dishonest politicians.We have had a couple Governors and several lesser officials go to prison for various crimes. Senator Joe Manchin might not be a criminal as far as stealing money or taking bribes, but he is stealing the rights of everybody in our state and country by messing with the 2nd amendment. When we sent him to Washington we thought he would do great things for our state,… Read more »

Bandit

If these knuckleheads 7n congresscwant people to give up their guns then they better be rknucklehead up their armed security details as well, that would include the dictator.

hippybiker

Hey Tex. Clark Bar doesn’t understand Texas, or history. Texas was originally a Free Republic and was sucked up by the Union.

Clark Kent

Tex: Calm down. Texas is not ready to leave the Union. Grow up.

TEX

The gun-grabbing morons can say whatever they want,who cares ? What this is going to come down to is individual states forming or creating their own firearms laws. (many already do) ! The federal government and the tyrants won’t dictate to states on this issue,gay marriage,illegal immigration,etc. We don’t have a supreme court,we have a supreme joke ! Americans see through all their bullsh*t ! I don’t guess the liberals realize they are losing this gun control war miserably. The mid-term election results should had been a wake up call that gun control is suicide for politicians. ‘Texas like a… Read more »

JohnC

Tex, go away secede.

Janek

In Pennsylvania there’s no difference between U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D) and U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R). They’re both on a path to more ‘gun control’.