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The sudden death earlier this month of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was an unapologetic supporter of firearms rights, has thrust the 2nd Amendment into the forefront of the burgeoning debate over who might replace him on the Supreme Court. While this is indeed a topic worthy of robust debate, what often is overlooked in such public discussions of the 2nd Amendment, are the many ways this Administration has chipped away at the Amendment outside the scrutiny of the courts.
Since assuming office in 2009, Barack Obama has employed the resources of numerous agencies and departments — most of which have no colorable jurisdiction over firearms – in an often unnoticed drive to weaken the ability of law-abiding citizens to exercise their right to “keep and bear arms,” without openly attacking the 2nd Amendment.
This approach most recently was on display last month, when Obama unveiled a list of “executive actions” to “curb gun violence.” At a carefully-orchestrated CNN “town hall meeting” a few days later, the President hogged the microphone and repeated over and over that he “respects the Second Amendment,” and that his only goal is to take “sensible” and “common sense” steps to keep guns out of the hands of criminals; not to limit the ability of others to obtain and possess firearms. Were it only so.
The reality is, many of the firearms-related measures this President has taken during his seven years in office, bear no relationship whatsoever to “common sense,” or to his avowed goal.
For example, an Administration initiative begun in 2013 employed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – yes, the FDIC – to intimidate banks into severing ties with companies that dealt in firearms, because the FDIC now considered such businesses to be “high risk.” The FDIC’s actions were backed by no less an enforcement arm than the United States Department of Justice. This thinly-veiled effort to enlist an agency with no firearms-related jurisdiction whatsoever into punishing companies dealing lawfully in firearms, is a perfect example of Obama’s modus operandi.
Although congressional oversight of the FDIC’s “Operation Choke Point” forced the Administration to back down somewhat, the message was clear – “if you are an industry regulated by the federal government, we can and will use that regulatory power to limit your ability to engage in lawful firearms transactions.”
An even longer-running component of this strategy involves pushing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to expand its reach far beyond “diseases,” to regulate firearms on the theory that “gun violence” constitutes a “public health issue” (the same basis by which federal agencies have regulated tobacco). The Department of Health and Human Services? The Administration has enlisted them, too, in its gun control crusade. The State Department as well. The list goes on and on.
All of these efforts are in addition to the manner in which Obama regularly has employed the one federal agency with explicit jurisdiction over firearms – the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) – to expand its reach beyond that which Congress or the Constitution intended or contemplated.
Which brings us to the most recent presidential “executive actions” announced last month. Most important was a move to expand the universe of firearms transactions subject to the federal background check. The way Obama is attempting to circumvent federal law – which clearly and explicitly does not require the occasional, non-commercial transfer of a firearm from one person to another to be run through a federal database – reveals the insidious manner in which this Administration operates.
Obama knows he cannot legally alter the definition in federal law of who is a “dealer” in firearms. And he realizes that unless the make-up of the Congress changes drastically, Congress will not pass such legislation. So, what he once again has done is to obfuscate and intimidate. The 15-pages of presidential “guidance” for gun sales, clearly is designed to intimidate anyone — other than someone regularly engaged in the business of buying or selling firearms, and who is therefore a “dealer” under the law — who contemplates selling a firearm (at a gun show or elsewhere) into believing they are. The Administration’s hope is to cause such individuals either not to sell the firearms, or convince them to register with ATF as a dealer even though they are not required to do so currently.
There is much more to this craftily concocted scheme by Obama to make it increasingly difficult to purchase, sell, or even possess a firearm lawfully; we’ve just scratched the surface here. John Yoo and Dean Reuter with the Federalist Society have recently edited and published Liberty’s Nemesis – The Unchecked Expansion of the State; a book that offers a much more comprehensive (and frightening) exposition of the myriad ways in which this Administration is using executive power to limit individual liberty and circumvent to will of the Congress.
Originally published here via townhall.com
From the Ferguson Police Department’s first public statement about the police-involved shooting of Michael Brown in August 2014, the town of Ferguson, Missouri was doomed. Like Newton’s First Law of Motion, the shooting started a cascading series of events that continues a year and a half later. The rounds of looting, rioting, protesting and media circuses, has morphed into a massive lawsuit filed against the small suburban town by the U.S. Department of Justice.
If one accepts the allegations in Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s lawsuit, Ferguson is nothing but a teeming hotbed of racial hatred and official incompetence; the only solution for which is federal control. In the government’s eyes, the town has no regard whatsoever for the Constitution and laws of this country, and has engaged in widespread and systemic violation of civil rights. Tough stuff, indeed; but the Department’s approach reflects more an example of how to address a manageable problem with a wrecking ball than a tool kit.
Tragic as it was, there was nothing so remarkable or unique about the shooting of Brown that justifies this action by the Justice Department. The aggressive and authoritarian manner in which the Department has hounded the Ferguson Police Department over the past 18-months is far different from the way in which previous presidents and federal prosecutors, including myself, dealt with incidents in which law enforcement officers or departments violated individuals’ civil rights. By vigorously prosecuting such cases individually as warranted, prosecutors and the Department of Justice itself were able to hold the officer or officers accountable; and without attacking entire departments or needlessly imposing federal government control over local government responsibilities.
For U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s Department of Justice, however, control – not justice – is the real goal; and Ferguson has become ground zero for its crusade to scrutinize and punish law enforcement officers and departments for perceived racial injustices. In effect, the Department is seeking to implement its own form of “Common Core” for Law Enforcement, wherein local control is stripped away in favor of federal policing standards that have been packaged into what may be “politically correct” on the surface, but have little actual impact on the troubling issues that linger in the criminal justice system.
To an Administration obsessed with “optics” more than genuine reform, this façade may fulfill its objectives. However, for those who genuinely care about individual liberty and constitutional conduct within the justice system, they actually are poisoning public debate about criminal justice reform and exacerbating the already strained tensions between citizens, police and the federal government.
By showing that it cares about civil liberties by attacking police, the Obama Administration is making it harder to protect civil liberties.
For the first time in decades, for example, we have an opportunity to achieve substantial and lasting criminal justice reform through federal legislation. Reforms that would help restore civil liberties to the criminal prosecution process while providing much-needed relief to an overcrowded and costly prison system, currently are pending in the Congress. These measures enjoy strong bipartisan support, including among policy organizations ranging from the leftist Center for American Progress to conservative FreedomWorks. It is one of those rare scenarios in which Democrats, Republicans and the President are in at least partial agreement on an issue that actually strengthens civil liberties.
Unfortunately, without Administration support and in the absence of public demand for passing these reforms, the pending bills have languished without votes to send them to the President for signature. Ironically, the Justice Department’s highly visible crusade against Ferguson (and other police departments) is much to blame for this failure.
By antagonizing police departments and politicizing police-involved shootings of minorities, the Obama Administration has turned the conversation about “justice reform” into a false dichotomy between support of police on the one hand, or social justice groups like “Black Lives Matter” on the other. In such a polarized environment, real efforts at reform, such as those pending in Congress, are given nary a thought, much less active support from those members of Congress who can help win their passage. Meanwhile, individual Democrats and Republicans who oppose such efforts are undermining the bills before they ever reach the floor.
The clock is ticking on criminal justice reform, and an opportunity such as this for genuine, lasting reform is truly once-in-a-lifetime. If Obama cares to salvage at least a sliver of a notable legacy, he should abandon his shortsighted and misguided drive to place local police departments under Uncle Sam’s thumb, and help shift the public conversation back to substantive reforms that really matter.
Originally published here via townhall.com
While delivering remarks in New Hampshire this week critical of Ted Cruz’s thoughtful position on the use of waterboarding, one of Donald Trump’s supporters yelled out to him that this made Cruz a word not fit for pages of this site. Not wanting such a crude, but biting, criticism of his opponent to be left hanging in the air, Trump did what we all could have guessed he would do — stop his speech, chuckle, and then repeat it into the microphone to make sure every person and media representative present heard.
It was classic Trump.
To say that Trump’s entry into the 2016 presidential race has “changed the face”of the nomination process would be a gross understatement, with“gross”being the operative word. While outsider voices, such as Rand Paul’s, intelligently articulated topics often ignored among today’s Republicans, Trump has done nothing to elevate the level of discourse in this year’s nomination fight. Instead, Trump’s use of vulgar language, crass insults, personal attacks, and snide comments has turned what should have been an ongoing conversation about how to restore conservative values to American public policy, into little more than a chest-thumping circus about “who is the greatest.”
The effect on voters is perceptible as well. When Trump repeated the profane insult about Cruz, gleefully shouted by one of his female supporters, the room exploded in applause and cheers; as if by debasing himself, Trump proved once again he was a “commoner”just like the rest of them, and not part of the uptight “Establishment” ruling class his billions indicate. This type of reaction to Trump’s shameful (and shameless) conduct speaks not only to the coarsening of American culture generally (seen now in the use of profanity on network television, gratuitous gross language in movies, use of the “f”-word among young people including teenage girls, etc.), but perhaps even more disturbingly, to a trend begun under Bill Clinton — that of lowering the standards for, and expectations about, the office of the President of the United States.
It is the vulgarization of American politics.
The GOP’s open embrace of Trump, much like the Left’s continued infatuation with Bill Clinton, is clear evidence that many, if not perhaps most, Americans no longer hold the Office of President as above the lowest common denominator. These men do not represent the very best of American ideals, but closer to the very worst; that it is okay to engage in perverted sex acts in the Oval Office, it’s okay to lie, it’s okay to insult people individually and as a group, it’s okay to brag about buying-off politicians for personal gain, it’s okay to use vulgar language in public because — to these people and to their enablers among the voting population and the media — such conduct sells and, after all, simply reflects the “people’s culture.”
Vulgarity and baseness has become the New Normal.
In our desire to shed any semblance of Establishment elitism from the ranks of the GOP, we have forgotten that it is okay to look up to our leaders, rather than to our sides, or worse, beneath us. We should be inspired by leaders who we regard as the elite among us –those who reflect the very best of our nation in intelligence, bravery, decency, leadership, and strength.
Today, we have begun to measure our future leaders not by traditional standards, such as conservative voting records, a genuine knowledge and respect for the Constitution, and skills to diplomatically bring all parties to the table to find solutions to America’s problems; but, instead, simply by whom we could share a beer and a dirty joke with. Yet, how would this standard apply to America’s greatest historical leaders? Imagine the rebuke by George Washington were one of his officers or cabinet officials to utter a vulgar joke over dinner with the nation’s Commander in Chief. Ronald Reagan refused to take off his suit jacket in the Oval Office as a sign of genuine respect for the Office he held. We know what Bill Clinton did in that same office; imagine the baseness with which “President” Trump would treat it.
Being against the Establishment means opposing political leaders who are motivated only by furthering their personal interests, and not those of their constituents. It does not mean opposing any one and anything that appears to be “above”the common man. America does not need a peasant as king to become great again, but rather a leader who understands the traditions and philosophic underpinnings of our great nation, and who has the courage to restore them in public policy. Instead of looking to who can lower themselves the most to the “people’s level,”we should look for those who can elevate the people the highest. But, to do that, they must first hold themselves to that level of excellence.
Otherwise, as political satirist H.L. Mencken once noted, “the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” Unfortunately, we seem to be well on our way to that “great and glorious day” foreseen by one of the 20th Century’s great political sages.
Originally published here via townhall.com
©2022 Liberty Guard, Inc. All rights reserved.
Designed and Developed by Media Bridge LLC