Constitutional Law, Courts, Justice, Media, Politics

Second Amendment Boogey Man

Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger

 

When it comes to the Second Amendment and guns, it seems that President Obama can’t make anyone happy.  Ever since Obama announced his candidacy for the Presidency, the NRA has screamed that Obama will be taking away the guns. This scare tactic continued when Obama defeated John McCain for the Presidency.  Just what has Barack Obama done to make the NRA and gun owners frightened for their guns?  The simple answer to this question is nothing. The head of the National Rifle Association, Mr. Wayne LaPierre actually admitted recently that Obama has done nothing to attack gun owner’s rights to bear arms, but claims Obama’s inaction against guns is actually a conspiracy to take away guns!!  ‘ “[The Obama campaign] will say gun owners — they’ll say they left them alone,” LaPierre told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Friday.  “In public, he’ll remind us that he’s put off calls from his party to renew the Clinton [assault weapons] ban, he hasn’t pushed for new gun control laws… The president will offer the Second Amendment lip service and hit the campaign trail saying he’s actually been good for the Second Amendment.”  “But it’s a big fat stinking lie!” the NRA leader exclaimed. “It’s all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and destroy the Second Amendment in our country.” ‘  Raw Story

Now, before anyone thinks I am making this stuff up, the linked site includes a video clip wherein Mr. LaPierre verbalizes this alleged reverse conspiracy.  Mr. LaPierre makes a point of throwing in the necessary names of alleged liberal co-conspirators to rev up his base.  ‘ “Sotomayor, Kagan, Fast & Furious, the United Nations, executive orders. Those are the facts we face today… President Obama and his cohorts, yeah, they’re going to deny their conspiracy to fool gun owners.  Some in the liberal media, they are already probably blogging about it. But we don’t care because the lying, conniving Obama crowd can kiss our Constitution!” ‘

The lying, conniving Obama crowd as Mr. LaPierre labels them has not done anything to harm the Second Amendment rights that the NRA claims to be at risk.  I was interested in the last few words of LaPierre’s quotation above.  The phrase “kiss our Constitution” appears to lay claim that the NRA and its followers own the Constitution and its protections.  I could have sworn that my law school Constitutional professors taught me that the Constitution protects all citizens, but maybe I heard them wrong.  But, I digress.

As the Raw Story article suggests, President Obama has actually taken heat from his own supporters over his alleged conspiracy to not take away the guns.  NPR  Does Mr. LaPierre provide any evidence of this bizarre claim?  None that I could find.  Maybe you will have better luck than me in finding evidence of presidential actions to hide President Obama’s intentions and/or actions of stealing legal guns from their owners.

I have to admit that if you read the comments section of the NPR article that details how the Left is disappointed with Obama’s inaction on gun control, you will read almost nothing except gun owners claiming that Obama’s words of inaction are actually code words that the End is Near and the Sky is Falling for gun owners!  Just what will it take gun owners to ask Mr. LaPierre for evidence of his wild claims?  I, for one would love to hear his answer to that question. I understand that candidate and President Obama may have stayed away from the 2nd Amendment issues for political reasons, but where is the evidence of this alleged conspiracy?  I would think Fox News would be sending Bill O’Reilly’s reporters all over the country to uncover such a heinous conspiracy.

If Mr. Obama has not written any executive orders or supported additional legislative steps to control or take away guns since he has become President, just what is the basis for these wild claims?  I realize that the NRA has a financial interest in getting gun owners scared into buying more guns, but are there other, underlying reasons why the gun owners are frightened so easily, when the facts do not support the NRA’s claims?

Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger

Additional sources:  Gun Owners of America; NRA-ILA; Pajamas Media;

 

 

798 thoughts on “Second Amendment Boogey Man”

  1. Otteray Scribe, You have very kind to me as a newcomer and I haven’t said anything before because the words sound so empty, But I am sincerely sorry for your loss.

  2. Its nice to meet you Mrs Mike’s wife. Most of the people around here are fond of Mike. And you can see what the type of person is that doesn’t like him. Consider the source. Hope to see you around here after the Holidays.

  4. We Sir…..

    Other than College Football and the American League Baseball………is tShere really any other sport….. but you did say the chubs….right?

    Now the Lord Stanley would rather see the chalice exactly where….

  5. AY,
    Wait a minute now. The Sox won the Series in 2005 and didn’t they win the division last year?, the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup two years ago, the Bulls made it to the Conference finals and the Bears were one game away from the Super Bowl last year. We do OK, but the Cubs just will never learn.

  7. Well raff….the way I see it….Chicago does not have many options in regards to professional sports…I can understand your frustrations…..

  8. I thought that this was a site for adults. How many people on here are under 18 or have ceased medications against doctors advice?

  11. @ anon now that is cute. Thanks for the comic relief. It was needed today. Nice humor site.

    Someone is always wrong on the Internet.

  12. Well Raff…..

    You know not everyone can be a tigers fan but you can be a Chicago Calubs fan….My favorite one is the hybrid…Ch-ubby… Then you have the other one…..

    Elaine….

    Now that link was funny….

  13. Blouise, thank you for your kind words. She now rests with the Flowers o’ the Forest.

    This was one of her favorite songs. Every time she saw Alex Beaton she would ask him to sing it for her. And he would.

  14. I was shocked that this thread got waylaid by some illogical discussions about the Detroit Lions and the Yankees! All I can say is Da Bears will recover their senses and finish ahead of the Lions and the Yankees do suck. The Tigers are for real, this year, but the Sox will reign now that Ozzie is gone.

  15. Otteray Scribe,

    “Last week, we buried my wife with her MacBeth tartan scarf.”

    A noble clan … It is a generally held opinion by Scotch historians that if MacBeth had not been killed by the future King Malcolm III, Scotland would probably have remained a separate nation until this day and might have conquered England.

    “When death’s dark stream I ferry o’er,
    A time that surely shall come;
    In Heaven itself, I’ll ask no more,
    Than just a Highland welcome.” (Burns)

    Peace to you, Otteray, and May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.

  16. Mike’s (spow):

    Well, for one, there is: http://xkcd.com/386/

    And two, though you’re 100,000% correct, well there is http://xkcd.com/386/

    But regarding the last posts, it’s because Bron asked a question, could you both be right, so I thought I would give him a few short links so he could decide for himself.

    I admit it took me way to long to realize that Gene was just trolling.

  17. Anon…

    I have nothing against you personally, but…

    … Why don’t you give it a rest. Stop getting yourself worked up over this, since it’s not beneficial for your health. Besides, it’s getting old.

    There is such a thing as overkill.

  18. Blouise, I am an officer in one of the oldest Highland Clans. My (now) teenage granddaughter could recite a number of Robert Burns poems in a thick Scottish burr when she was five. She could hear a Burns poem once or twice and remember it–she is a sponge. Last week, we buried my wife with her MacBeth tartan scarf.

    http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1018396/43361686

  19. Here is an article on Classless Inter-Domain Routing, which describes the format of the IP addresses and how a collection of computers with related IP addresses form a network.

    http://compnetworking.about.com/od/workingwithipaddresses/a/cidr_notation.htm

    Here is an article on routing tables, which describes how a router takes an IP packet and determines where to send it next.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routing_table

    Notice on in neither of these articles does domain name service play any role, or appear, except as an aside.

    The IP layer does not need DNS. AT ALL.

    It existed just fine for more than a decade without DNS ever existing.

    Bron, Mike, I have given you plenty of links to the wiki and elsewhere.

    Has Gene (or Kevin) given you anything external remotely resembling support for their claims and positions?

  20. Bron,

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP/IP_model

    Here is an article describing the TCP/IP model of networking. It is revealing that the phrase “Domain Name System” does not appear within the article. Neither does the word “domain”.

    “DNS” appears twice. Once as a link in a sidebar in a collection of internet protocols. Once as a throwaway example of what one might do using UDP, not using TCP.

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