By David Codrea
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- “I just want to quickly say, I respect the Second Amendment,” Hillary Clinton insisted in Sunday’s town hall-style debate after Donald Trump pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices who would support the right to keep and bear arms. “But I believe there should be comprehensive background checks, and we should close the gun show loophole, and close the online loophole.”
That’s a lot of misdirection in one quick aside. We know that background checks — per no less a source than the National Institute of Justice — won’t “work” without registration, and we know that criminals are exempted from that (and the Supreme Court agrees). To require it of them would violate their right against self-incrimination. Leaving known bad actors out by design is hardly “comprehensive.”
We know FFLs at gun shows complete the same paperwork and run transfers through NICS just like they do in gun stores, and we also know that the “online loophole” is an intentional misnomer that might as well be called the “classified ad loophole” – keeping in mind that there are already state and federal laws in place governing such transactions.
What Hillary really wants to do, among a host of other Intolerable Acts, is criminalize all private transfers. She wants to know who’s got what and how many, at least among the “law-abiding.”
But the real whopper was her claim to “respect the Second Amendment.” To paraphrase her husband while he was lying under oath, ‘That depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘respect’ is.”
Because Hillary’s interpretation is a far cry from “shall not be infringed.”
Since the question prompting her assertion involved Supreme Court appointments, it’s telling that Clinton claimed last year, in a small private fundraiser, that SCOTUS got the Second Amendment wrong. That means she disagrees with the Heller decision that it’s an individual right, and with the McDonald decision, that it applies not just to the feds, but to state and subordinate governments.
Clinton also wants to ban semiautomatics, demonizing them as “assault weapons” or the meaningless “military-style weapons,” or “weapons of war that have no place on our streets.” These are arms “in common use” that are suitable for militia purposes — just barely. The full-auto real deal involves a whole ‘nother level of federal oversight, with all the stuff made after ’86 denied to We the People. Making mere semiautos illegal to keep and bear contradicts all claims of “respect” for the Second Amendment.
Per “On the Issues,” Clinton has advocated registering guns. She wants to sue gun manufacturers for criminal abuses of their lawful products. She has further expressed support for a 25% tax on all gun sales and for a$2,500 license fee to be imposed on gun dealers.
Per HillaryClinton.com, she’ll strip the right to keep and bear arms without due process from Americans not even charged, let alone convicted of crimes, because their name appears on secret lists.
And that “comprehensive background check” she led debate-watchers to believe represented the totality of her ‘commonsense gun safety reforms”? Per the latest Wikileaks dump, knowing the representatives of the people will be pressured not to sell out their constituents, she reiterated her intent to impose gun owners controls via executive diktat.
Despite numerous indications of bias in last night’s debate, the moderators did get some things right. Foremost among them was the observation that selecting Supreme Court justices was “Perhaps the most important aspect of this election…”
That’s what will determine what will be upheld and what will be overruled. All other issues and preferences aside, the prospect facing gun owners is that new justices will either be appointed by Donald Trump, who has given us a list signaling his intent, or by Hillary Clinton, who has given us a wishlist signaling hers.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.
In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
The wikileaks stuff on hillary this week has been fascinating. It confirms all of our suspicions about how crooked the media is, for starters. Everyone not paying attention to this should go to twitter.com/wiKileaks or drudgereport.com to stay on top of the news. There is so much dirt coming out that it is hard to keep track of it all!
Read the book ” The Founder’s Second Amendment”, and it will become perfectly clear that our Founder’s did the leg work for us! All we have to do is ” take ACTION”!
I have bought firearms from a gun store, WalMart, at a Gun Show and online. IN EVERY CASE I went through an FFL (the online sales cost me a fee to the FFL) filled out the paperwork and the FFL did an instant background check. WHAT “LOOPHOLES” IS SHE TALKING ABOUT?! Some people sell their own guns on the grounds of a gun show but those are just private transfers which there is NO WAY TO TRACK! Even if she does “criminalize all private transfers” how does she plan to enforce such an edict/statute? If there is no way to… Read more »
If our country had never possessed privately ,
owned guns, we would still be English colonies !
People owning guns keeps the government from,
doing as they please, without any reprisal from
the public . We are not a dictatorship .
Nor will we BECOME a dictatorship… not peacefully, anyway.
I think that if any politician wants to re-write the Constitution that we should start from scratch and maybe we could add something about equal taxation, entitlements to the poor as well as the wealthy. We might as well include something about national health care, social security and let’s not forget about right to life OR freedom of choice. I think that when the Founders of our Nation used less words they said more, all of the legalese just muddies the waters and that is what confuses matters. There really is no doubt what their intentions were ( in my… Read more »
What loophole? Legal gun owners know better and ilegal gun holders don’t care.
Hillary’s ‘Respect’ for the 2nd Amendment depends on how some future Supreme Court judge(s) she appoints interprets it. For example ‘militia’ could be interpreted to be the ‘National Guard’. Your ‘individual right’ could hinge on whether or not you’re a member of the ‘National Guard’. You have to remember these ‘statists’ will find ways to put the 2nd Amendment before a judicial panel until they get the results they want.
I believe that the silent majority itself is not the independent or the undecided, THIS ELECTION HAS BEEN DECIDED. and it will finally show that the law abiding gun owners which Hitlary and the democrats want to suppressed is the real silent majority come this election.
Excellent report. This statement from hillary shows her fear of gun owners, especially in the swing states, and that they are the true majority. Hopefully they show up in november and defeat the would be gun banner.