Minuteman! (courtesy gameswalls.com)

Press release from the National Association for Gun Rights:

Fredericksburg, Va. – With the Republican controlled House of Representatives set to take up an extension of controversial PATRIOT Act provisions as early as today, the National Association for Gun Rights is warning a renewal could present dangers for gun owners.  “House Speaker John Boehner’s decision to ram through a vote on renewing anti-gun and anti-freedom sections of the so-called ‘PATRIOT Act’ is a slap in the face to gun owners and Second Amendment supporters,” said NAGR President Dudley Brown . . .


Since its inception, gun owners have viewed the PATRIOT Act with a growing amount of skepticism. In particular, Section 215 which allows FISA court orders to authorize the seizure of virtually any “business record” it believes would be relevant to an anti-terrorism investigation.

In 2013 it was revealed the National Security Agency was using this section as justification for the bulk collection of Americans’ communications, including telephone metadata.

Last week, a federal appellate court ruled the program unconstitutional, sending lawmakers into a frenzy on how to respond days before Section 215 and other provisions expire on June 1st.

“The ruling affirms common sense,” exclaimed Brown,” but it didn’t go far enough in addressing the specific concerns of gun owners, namely the language in the law that this anti-gun administration could abuse to build a national gun registry.”

As amended in 2005, Section 215 allows for the collection of “library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales records, book customer lists, firearms sales records, tax return records, educational records, or medical records.” See: 50 U.S. Code § 1861 (a) (3).

“If the NSA got away with collecting millions of phone records under Section 215,  there’s absolutely no reason to believe this administration or future ones wouldn’t use the ‘firearms sales record’ language as an excuse to justify a national gun registry,” warned Brown.

“It proves just how far an anti-gun administration  is willing to go to subvert Constitutional rights,” exclaimed Brown, “if House Republicans vote for reauthorization, they’ll be voting to give President Obama, or perhaps even someday Hillary Clinton, a blank check on a national gun registry. That’s unacceptable.”

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44 COMMENTS

  1. Is the Patriot Act even needed? Let the whole damn thing sunset and fade into history.

    • ^^^ THIS.

      But, since when has a government (regardless of who’s in charge) ever relinquished power without armed revolution?

      • The soviet union went out not with a bang but a whimper. Cuba’s commie days are numbered, not much chance there will be a Bay of Pigs part 2 there. It happens, but takes usually economic collapse, so… chances are good.

        • There were a few armed coups during the fall of the USSR. And the government didn’t really relinquish power in Moscow…they just handed it to a different group of autocrats.

    • Is it needed for a free nation? No.

      Is it needed to give a bloated, corrupt government the legal loopholes it needs in order to crush the populace with an iron fist? Yes.

      That’s why it exists.

  2. Since its inception, gun owners have viewed the PATRIOT Act with a growing amount of skepticism.

    I choked on my drink from laughing too hard.

    • Anything sitting around, waiting for an excuse to be trotted out and passed during a wave of hysteria, named Patriot and featuring Homeland Security triggered the stage-5-statist-warning-alarm for me…

      This pile of over-reach has eliminated the entirety of the BoR. All Fedzilla has to do is mumble ‘National Security’ or ‘Terrorist’ and all your rights evaporate with no legal remedy.

      Everyone involved in passing and perpetuating this piece of treason needs to be tried.

  3. “Homeland Security” had a ring of “Papers, please” about it from the beginning.

  5. Since WHEN do we listen to Dudley Brown the Jack van Impe of the 2A movement?

    Ray

  6. Can any group of clueless, stupid, spineless Goddamned piles of garbage be held in less regard….its obvious none of them care about anything we think. I don’t even know what to say.

  7. Time to Stand and Fight.

    Support the organization of your choice, or all 3 like I do – NRA, NAGR, GOA. And be involved in your local and state organizations. Here is VA it the Virginia Citizen’s Defense League, and we have made a real difference in political activism.

    It’s fine to get on these blogs and rant to each other, but you have to take action by writing, calling, signing petitions and supporting lobbying. Some have an ax to grind with the NRA or GOA, but as Benjamin Franklin said, “We must hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.”

  8. The name “Patriot Act” reminds me of Dylan Thomas’ “The Silver Plated Turd.”

    Our founding fathers recognized the inevitable conflict over power; the people vs the goobermint. That’s why their brilliant writings made it clear that power belongs to the people. Those who represent “us” will do anything to get the power away from the people and use it for their own purposes. Congressmen get North of a quarter million dollars per year, but want to cut Social Security which averages $12,000 per year. Nuff said?

  9. “It proves just how far an anti-gun administration is willing to go to subvert Constitutional rights,” exclaimed Brown,….”

    WRONG ! it proves how far the anti-gun elite will go. this administration did not dream-up the patriot act, did not create and forward legislation to congress, did not implement by executive order….it was all done by elected legislators who do not (and likely genetically cannot) represent their constituents, but think of themselves as a politburo ruling a nation.

    • When trying to agitate a crowd, it’s easier to focus on a well known individual than a nameless, faceless body. That’s why the Declaration of Independence lists grievances against the king, even though parliament implemented them all.

      • understand your remark. such arrangement of “characters” makes sense in a number of contexts, but when fighting for gun rights, we need to focus on the perpetrators, not devolve to rhetorical form. and, king geo 3 was a despot who ruled by fiat when he wanted. he spoke german, not english, and came from a long line of autocrats. in reality, parliament were largely in disagreement with george’s policies, and it was parliament which ended the quelling of the revolution, due to high costs of same driven by edicts of the king.

        anyway, the point is that dudley should know better….the threat is not the community organizer alone. pointing there is a diversion of energy.

  10. The Feds were given an inch under Bush the progressive and they took a mile. We sat back and allowed this monster to be created and now we will not be able to get rid of it.

  11. I predict a lot of “boat accidents” if there is a Federal gun registry under the Patriot Act.

  12. Sometimes one must beware of the messenger no matter how desirable the message. Dudley Brown, runs NAGR and also Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO). RMGO almost single handedly converted Colorado from a mostly Republican controlled state to a mostly Democratic controlled state. How? By being no compromise and demanding ideological conformity from Republican legislators. When they did not conform or agree with him, he got them booted in the primaries by viscously attacking them and backing his candidates. And the Democratic candidate won easily. So when the gun votes happened after Aurora, it passed. Unlike after Columbine, lots of talk, but no really big changes.

    NAGR is well known for soliciting money nationwide. But it ends up getting antigun candidates elected to office.

    Yep, NAGR is soliciting for money again. Sends out the mailers. And will mostly get the antigun candidate elected. Again.

    Of course, it is never his fault. And by the way, he needs more money to support gun rights.

    And I do have a thing about ideological purity.

  13. Do we have to go over this AGAIN!

    Its not “democrats” that want gun control, Its ALL government that wants it.

    Democrats are just the ones that want it…more.

  14. “It proves just how far an anti-gun administration is willing to go to subvert Constitutional rights…”

    Or, a supposedly pro-gun administration, like the G.W. Bush’s. You remember them, they’re the guys who actually gave us the Patriot Act.

    It’s not about right vs. left. It’s the elite ruling class vs. everybody else, and everybody else seems to be losing.

  15. What does NAGR do again? The Calguns Foundation and CAL-FFL are suing the NSA. Dudley puts out great PR, though.

  18. The Patriot act should be canned altogether.
    Its done very little publically to show any positive results worth its intrusive use on the American public.
    Its become an over bloated excuse to deny the rights of many citizens with no accountability what so ever.
    Let it and its 1000s of government misuses and employees die an unnatural death.

  19. Hey no worries, I’m sure the republicans will have the freedom minded people back on this….LOL.

  20. Everyone is right here. The Patriot Act IS a travesty AND Dudley Brown is a worthless human being who has done us more harm than good.

  21. Just to be clear, the federal appellate court did not rule the program ‘unconstitutional’. It ruled the program ‘unlawful’, meaning that it was not authorized under the current law. That leaves open the possibility that the law could be amended to allow the program to continue.

  23. Here is a good resource for what the anti-gunners believe as to laws and reasons for gun registration.
    http://smartgunlaws.org/registration-of-firearms-policy-summary/

    To quote: “In fact, federal law prohibits the use of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to create any system of registration of firearms or firearm owners.”
    see: 18 U.S.C. § 926(a); 28 C.F.R. § 25.9(b)(3).

    The problem I have with the concept of gun registration, is the assumption that the Fed.Gov wont illegally cross the NICS database with state handgun registry databases, or other sources of information, like the informal databases created by anti-gunners- based on social media and other sources, of gun ownership, in order to create a national database of who owns what guns. I mean, we can trust the Federal Government, right (Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRSgate…)

    We already know that NSA and the LEAs involved at joint fusion centers have accessed and shared information illegally, from federally acquired sources- like ACA and VA medical records, CCWs, and other state data, along with illegally acquired across the board telephone and internet activity monitoring.

    I certainly do not trust the current crew in place in Democrat administrations, given the already documented abuses of Executive Authority, by Obama and his prettiest State AG, Kamala Harris.

    On the issue of gun background checks and gun registration schemes, and why so many gun owners are against it on principle, and for historical concerns, here is a good site for basic info- its a bit dated but it shows how long this debate has been underway, with a great deal of historical documentation.

    http://www.guncite.com/index.html

  24. Sigh.

    OK, the “Patriot Act” was passed in a hurry, with an explicit sunset clause. The argument at the time was to pass a broad authorization, right away, to get cracking on a newly revealed problem. Yet, to allow debate, calibration, and trade-offs between the claimed benefits of whatever, and the claimed detriments of whatever.

    Meanwhile, the thing has been re-authorized without debate multiple times. This time around, we’re kind of having some of that debate, for a change.

    So, the argument is, we want to know every single thing about everybody (because anybody *might* be a terrorist we don’t know about), including, and especially the location or ownership of anything they might use to do terrorism: diesel fuel, fertilizer, flight simulators, pressure cookers, and, of course guns. (The current administration has to be frustrated with the trade-off they had to make between declaring the Fort Hood attack terrorism (not), and not having this as an example of “terrorism” to use to push gun laws. One policy agenda in tension with another.)

    Know everything at what cost? Know everything with one cost being that information *will* be used – I would say “abused” – for unauthorized purposes.

    Driving this is pervasively treating the entire civilian population in the US as the residents of an occupied, hostile country.

    Maybe we should stop doing that, and see what laws it leads to.

    I wonder what would happen should the government, mostly Federal, sought to *enlist* their fellow citizens in the problems at hand, vs. seeing citizens as the problem. Sigh.

  25. For those who think this is brand new territory I hate to bust your bubble but we have been here before. United States vs U.S. Dist Court for Eastern Dist. Michigan ( Keith ) 407 U.S. 297, 320 ( 1972 ) . Which led to , based on the findings of the Church Committee ; Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ( FISA ) of 1978 Pub . L No. 95-511 , 92 Stat . 1783 ( 1978 ) So don’t be fooled into thinking that the Govt. started on this quest due to 911 or Obama . The Government has been trying to get into your business for a very long time . Its only due to 911 that they have been able to come at us with both barrels by pushing through the so called Patriot act by keeping everyone occupied with “Terrorism” . 911 was an act of Domestic Terrorism in order to get the ball rolling for their NWO yes I said it NWO . The problem they have with us , American Citizens is the 2nd Amendment , they have to decimate that all powerful Constitutional Right in order to achieve their goals if not they know they will have a never ending asymmetric war on their hands and they don’t want to turn the good o’l USA into a shooting gallery. So its this slow methodical pressure they keep putting on us until one day we wake up in the morning and we find ourselves as helpless as a Jew in Nazi Germany. NEVER let your guard down because the Ctr. on Foreign Relations , the Trilateral Grp. and the Builderburgers with all those Bloomburg type are not. And do not forget that one of the best tools in their dirty bag of tricks is to keep us fighting among ourselves ie; Dem vs Rep North vs South Black vs White Cops vs Citizens etc etc . Be prepared for when the SHTF because it will as soon as this system of Fiat currency comes to a halt .

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