‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the Times, not a Second Amendment supporter was stirring, not even a mouse . . . The Gray Lady’s pre-Xmas ed At Last, a Border Crackdown had me thinking that the paper was trumpeting some new administrative initiative to seal America’s porous southern border. Nope. The paper urged the Obama-crats at the Office of Management and Budget to hurry-up and rubber stamp the new initiative from the the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (and Really Big Fires) which would enable the ATF to register long gun owners who purchase two rifles within five days. Strangely, the words “emergency” and “temporary” and “public consultation” were missing from the polemic. Instead, they wanted to put even more power under the ATF’s Christmas tree . . .
Mayors Against Illegal Guns, led by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston, urged the Obama administration to create such an initiative more than a year ago. Until now, the White House has ducked the issue, presumably to help the prospects of those Democrats with top ratings from the National Rifle Association. But this has not helped to stop the traffic.
The N.R.A. is predictably opposed to the initiative. The administration must hold its ground and, beginning in January, press the next Congress to remove statutory limitations hampering the A.T.F.’s ability to shut down irresponsible dealers near the border and elsewhere.
I’m glad that the National Rifle Association’s opposition to gun registration—clearly and specifically illegal under the Gun Control Act of 1968—is so predictable. I’m not so glad that the Times has so much faith in a government’s ability to wield power responsibly. Especially the ATF, whose Project Gunrunner efforts to “crack down” on gun smuggling on the Mexican border were eviscerated and excoriated by the Inspector General.
The Times and its camp followers still don’t get it: the public wants limitations on government power. That’s what the Tea Party movement is all about. Meanwhile, calling for the ATF to shut down “irresponsible” gun dealers without defining the term, or proving that they need new powers to do so, is irresponsible. And calling this initiative a “crackdown” is somewhere between funny and seditious.
The Times does seem to be unable to comprehend the obvious. Several years ago my school administrators were concerned about the Bloods/Crips gang problems and their use of bandanas for identification. The Bloods carried red bandanas hanging out of their low riding jeans and the Crips use blue ones. The administrative solution to this problem was to ban bandanas on school grounds. Of course, the obvious happened and the gangbangers just switched to baseball hats. The admin finally got the message and their solution was to ban baseball hats. Of course the kids just changes to colored shirts and so on.
The ATF effort to register multiple long rifle purchases seems to be following this same failed logic. While this same game plan has been in place for some time now for handguns, no crimes have been solved using this strategy. That doesn’t seem to matter. And of course, the new strategy calls for reporting multiple sales over any five day period so if the buyer waits six days, then what? I know, the ATF will change the rules to make it a six day period but then the buyer will just wait seven days. You can see where this is going.
No matter your position on gun rights/ gun control, why would you support a failed strategy by expanding it? Comprehend the obvious.
Well I finally realized that ATF stands for “ALL THE FOOLS”. I guess that sadly tells the whole story. We’re SCREWED.
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