U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Massachusetts lawmakers Senator Edward J. Markey, Congressman Joe Kennedy III (MA-04), and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) have introduced the Making America Safe and Secure (MASS) Act, legislation that would incentivize states to adopt gun-licensing standards similar to those proven effective in Massachusetts,” a Monday Markey press release announces. “The MASS Act would authorize the Department of Justice to make funding available to states that implement and maintain comprehensive licensing standards for gun owners and dealers.”
That arrogant totalitarian wannabes presume to license rights is exactly the mindset of those who assert that government gives rights, including some who ought to know better, like the current occupant of the White House. This is more than mere quibbling over words – it poses a fundamental worldview that is irreconcilable with the conviction “that all Men are … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
“Massachusetts has comprehensive gun licensing laws, and not coincidentally, one of the lowest gun death rates in the nation,” Team Markey claims. “Among the most effective of Massachusetts’s laws are the firearms licensing requirements under which local chiefs of police, or an authorized designee of the department, must determine whether to approve the issuance of a firearms license … Police chiefs also have tools to revoke or suspend a license if they find that someone should not be allowed to continue to hold a license.”
The “correlation implies causation” logical fallacy is strong in the gun-grabbers, and they’re counting on anyone ignorant enough to give them power falling for their misdirection. It’s got them where they are so far, so why not?
To conclude Massachusetts gun laws have “proven effective” and that they’re the main factors behind the claimed 40 percent reduction in so-called “gun deaths” since 1994 is an exercise in misdirection. As usual, it depends on where you look. If it’s Boston, last October they were reporting a “20 percent increase in fatal shootings…”
The thought that those doing the murdering give a damn about “firearm licensing requirements” or are going to submit themselves to being interviewed by police chiefs for fitness is absurd on its face. As is the presumption that the licensing is what keeps the “law-abiding” peaceable.
You can prove it to yourself without resorting to weasel-worded press releases and their “lies, damned lies and statistics.” Just consider homicides committed with firearms within what is arguably the most heavily armed civilian population on the planet, the 5+ million members of the NRA. Somehow, they manage to get through life without slaughtering people just fine, and they don’t need licenses to do it.
Does anyone doubt their “murder rate” is lower than “effective” Massachusetts’? How about “gun-free” Japan’s?
The thing is, Democrats aren’t the only ones trying to get the feds to fund state infringements: Lindsey Graham and the Red Flag Republicans want to do exactly that with their “extreme risk” confiscation scheme.
“Graham is hoping to get bipartisan support for the bill, which he said will provide grants to states that implement ‘red flag laws,’” BuzzFeed reported in April. Talk about losing control of a process by farming it out and creating incentives to “innovate” edicts that push infringements to the max.
As an added “bonus,” it gives Graham and his cronies plausible deniability – after all, they just funded bills they’re promising will provide “due process.” If some activist federal judge says what gets passed in California, or New Jersey, or Hawaii, New York or Massachusetts is close enough, hey, gun owners had their day in court. Right?
And the other thing is, the feds aren’t really funding anything. We are. They’ll be taking money coerced from those of us in the productive sector and feeding it to those doing the disarming. If you’re a gun owner who disagrees and objects, too bad.
It’s reminiscent of a “bullet fee,” a charge levied on the families of executed prisoners by regimes in China and Iran. In this case, you get to “pay your fair share” for the evisceration of the right to keep and bear arms.
Hey, if the government can license rights, why shouldn’t it also be able to make gun owners help finance citizen disarmament? Especially when such tactics are “proven effective”…?
Read Markey’s proposed Intolerable Act here. While it’s unlikely to be enacted now, after the 2020 election we may be looking at a whole new set of immediate threats and a whole new set of limitations on “legal” means of redress.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
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