Selling Out on Guns | FrontPage Magazine
By Matthew Vadum On April 11, 2013
Two senators have brokered a Faustian bargain on gun purchaser background checks that they hope will allow the Democrats’ anti-gun legislation to pass the Senate.
Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey, both of whom have “A” ratings with the National Rifle Association, have assigned the creepy Orwellian name, the “Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act,” to their legislation.
The measure, which the sponsors plan to offer as an amendment today to the main anti-gun bill pending in the Senate (Senate bill S.649), would expand background checks for gun purchasers, which critics say would clear the way for a national gun registry in the future. Honest commentators admit collecting more information from more and more gun buyers will have no effect on crime because criminals won’t bother submitting to such checks. Even worse, the data that would constitute a de facto gun registry could be used to confiscate firearms from law-abiding citizens.
Toomey acknowledged he faces resistance in his own party. For this reason he asked that a key Democratic co-sponsor of the amendment, leftist Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, skip a Capitol Hill press conference yesterday.
Although it has been said that the most dangerous place in Washington is between Schumer and a television camera, the New Yorker agreed to stay away, the New York Times reported.
Toomey rationalized his support by stating: “I’ve got to tell you, candidly, I don’t consider criminal background checks gun control.” He failed to detail some of the scarier, authoritarian provisions of the main anti-gun bill pending in the Senate that he now implicitly supports.
Gun law expert Dave Kopel warns the legislation “would turn almost every gun owner into a felon.” For example, it would regulate innocent activities such as letting your spouse borrow your weapon for a few days. It would also forbid you from sharing a gun at a shooting range on public lands or on your own property.
“This is not ‘gun control’ in the constitutionally legitimate sense: reasonable laws that protect public safety without interfering with the responsible ownership and use of firearms,” Kopel says.
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Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey, both of whom have “A” ratings with the National Rifle Association, have assigned the creepy Orwellian name, the “Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act,” to their legislation.
The measure, which the sponsors plan to offer as an amendment today to the main anti-gun bill pending in the Senate (Senate bill S.649), would expand background checks for gun purchasers, which critics say would clear the way for a national gun registry in the future. Honest commentators admit collecting more information from more and more gun buyers will have no effect on crime because criminals won’t bother submitting to such checks. Even worse, the data that would constitute a de facto gun registry could be used to confiscate firearms from law-abiding citizens.
Toomey acknowledged he faces resistance in his own party. For this reason he asked that a key Democratic co-sponsor of the amendment, leftist Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, skip a Capitol Hill press conference yesterday.
Although it has been said that the most dangerous place in Washington is between Schumer and a television camera, the New Yorker agreed to stay away, the New York Times reported.
Toomey rationalized his support by stating: “I’ve got to tell you, candidly, I don’t consider criminal background checks gun control.” He failed to detail some of the scarier, authoritarian provisions of the main anti-gun bill pending in the Senate that he now implicitly supports.
Gun law expert Dave Kopel warns the legislation “would turn almost every gun owner into a felon.” For example, it would regulate innocent activities such as letting your spouse borrow your weapon for a few days. It would also forbid you from sharing a gun at a shooting range on public lands or on your own property.
“This is not ‘gun control’ in the constitutionally legitimate sense: reasonable laws that protect public safety without interfering with the responsible ownership and use of firearms,” Kopel says.
-go to link-
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