Click here to read the Republican Party Platform, enacted late Monday afternoon. Here’s the Party’s position on gun rights.
The Second Amendment:
Our Right to Keep and Bear Arms
We uphold the right of individuals to keep and bear arms, a natural inalienable right that predates the Constitution and is secured by the Second Amendment. Lawful gun ownership enables Americans to exercise their God-given right of self- defense for the safety of their homes, their loved ones, and their communities.
We salute the Republican Congress for defending the right to keep and bear arms by preventing the President from installing a new liberal majority on the Supreme Court. The confirmation to the Court of additional anti-gun justices would eviscerate the Second Amendment’s fundamental protections. Already, local officials in the nation’s capital and elsewhere are defying the Court’s decisions upholding an individual right to bear arms as affirmed by the Supreme Court in Heller and McDonald.
We support firearm reciprocity legislation to recognize the right of law-abiding Americans to carry firearms to protect themselves and their families in all 50 states. We support constitutional carry statutes and salute the states that have passed them. We oppose ill-conceived laws that would restrict magazine capacity or ban the sale of the most popular and common modern rifle. We also oppose any effort to deprive individuals of their right to keep and bear arms without due process of law.
We condemn frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers and the current Administration’s illegal harassment of firearm dealers. We oppose federal licensing or registration of law-abiding gun owners, registration of ammunition, and restoration of the ill-fated Clinton gun ban. We call for a thorough investigation — by a new Republican administration — of the deadly “Fast and Furious” operation perpetrated by Department of Justice officials who approved and allowed illegal sales of guns to known violent criminals.
Nothing there about rolling back unconstitutional BS that has made it onto the books over the past century…
that will never happen. because if they allow us to do that once, they know we can do it forever. and they are too good a fooling all the useful idiots of this country.
Well I got a call back (a first for me) from my latest request to my congressman to introduce a bill to repeal the NFA. Was told they didn’t think they could pass a full repeal and asked what I thought about a bill to alter it. I told the staff member I don’t vote for the other 434 and they should introduce both and was told they’d speak to the congressman when he gets back.
We’ll see next week if that actually got anywhere.
Full repeal of the NFA isn’t happening.
I’ll be happy with passing the *actual* common-sense ‘Hearing Safety Act’ and removing the ‘Hughes Amendment’ as a good first step…
Okay, I’ll bite. Why not? We got screwed in one fell swoop, why not reverse it as such? I agree that incrementally chipping away at it is a better, and more politically palatable option, but why preclude the possibility of killing the stummheit?
Unless you can figure out a way to get a galvanizing event in favor of repeal that has the power of the Bonus Army riots combined with the St. Valentines Massacre, pass the law with sturdy majorities while the opposition is napping, then immediately ram an utter miscarriage of justice all the way up to and into SCOTUS’ bunghole to justify the new law…it’s gonna be hard to match what all was behind the initial passage of the NFA.
To be frankly honesty, the only reason opposition to it is so tolerated in this day & age is largely because it’s seen as such a far bridge (much like repealing Obamacare, also to be frankly honest) that they can safely oppose it without any fear of success. Because nothing terrifies these guys more than the thought they might be responsible for legalizing cheap machine guns for the masses.
It is somewhat comforting to hear the Republican Party platform is more stridently pro-gun than even the NRA circa-ten-years-ago. Too bad they’re likely about to become irrelevant for the duration of the republic, but maybe there will be a place for these ideas in the aftermath.
Hear! Hear!
That would let us buy MGs again.
$200 to register isn’t a big deal and I think most could afford a MG that costs a couple K.
I’d have to save up being retired, but it would be doable.
I don’t think it would affect the price of the currently transferable MGs much, as most are C&R and rare.
I’ve already given the ATF $400 of my money for 2 suppressors and about to give them another $200 for my SBR build.
Nicely done.
Even walking NFA back is a step in the right direction. We lost rights incrementally; it may well take incrementalism to get them back.
If the frog can be heated up slowly, it can be cooled off slowly as well.
“it may well take incrementalism to get them back.”
This doesn’t happen. The best anyone could hope for would be privileges in return. The public indoctrination system of the children, the colleges and universities, and the mainstream media ensure that the long game is a losing one. It’s past time to give it all you got. Even if the first one fails to pass, push it again and again and again. Liberty is not restored incremental.
No, incrementalism most certainly does work both directions, but I suspect we’ll need a different route back to the top of the slippery slope than the one we slid down on. That’s why I am primarily worried for the future of rifles in this country; handgun carry and handgun law has seen such enormous gains, whereas rifle laws have been basically stagnant or backsliding in every state. Not one state has repealed an assault weapon ban that I’m aware of, nor made long gun carry (open, car, whatever) easier independent of doing so for handguns.
It’s almost like a different sort of Fuddism that favors self-defense over civil-defense and sport shooting, that ends with us having constitutional or Shall Issue handgun carry nationwide, along with an assault weapons ban forbidding production of new semi-automatic rifles and all magnified sights stronger than 3X and all magazines larger than ten rounds. Sounds silly & contradictory, but so was the near-entire ban on handgun carry in favor of “hunting rifles” in a country that has the second amendment on the books, as was the case for the majority of last century.
The reason that liberty cannot be restored incrementally is because governments usually span generations. The state of liberty is always fighting against entropy. Momentum always favors statism. That’s why we fought a revolution and a civil war. Overall, you can only achieve privileges incrementally. You might gain on a liberty here and there but the net balance is always a loss. It has been this way since the beginning of our republic.
We’ll never get a full repeal and I don’t think we need a FULL repeal, just a partial repeal for suppressors, short barrel rifles/shotguns, and the anything with a bore over half an inch is a destructive device.
I don’t mind machine guns requiring a tax stamp, but I would like to see the FOPA baloney repealed. If you want to put a full auto sear in your gun and will pay the $200 tax, then you should be able to.
The rest of the NFA is common sense.
No. The NFA is complete and utter unconstitutional BS. Automatic weapons should be, and *need to be*, as legal and readily available as their semi-auto counterparts. Why is it ‘common sense’ to effectively ban them for the poor? Why should my rights be limited by my income? And how are they ‘rights’ if I have to pay a levy and beg for permission for them?
If someone is murdered and the weapon used is semi-automatic in function, how are they less-dead than if an automatic weapon was used? Or an explosive? The use of these items in crime is not rare because of the law, but because of the nature of the items themselves. Explosives are a one-shot deal, and automatics can consume much expensive ammunition whilst being hard to control for criminal activity.
And what parts of the NFA make so much sense to you? Because simple tools and a little maching/chemical knowledge render them largely ineffective to any one who so desires to circumvent them. All they are good for is harassing and threatening law-abiding citizens.
We may fight to get everything removed incrementally, but we should *NEVER* tolerate their existence. I don’t care if you never want to own an automatic, you still need to fight to have the right to own them, because the anti’s will *NEVER* stop until everything they disapprove of is gone.
Not with the “Party Establishment” or the cuckholded fools who think you can “compromise” with the left, or who desire “respectability” from people who want to disarm and harm them…
Vote out morons like Ryan, McCain, Graham, and replace them with hard right/Alt Right persons.
What have “real Conservatives”really “conserved”?
Not freedom of association
Not privacy rights
Not American industry
Not American Workers
Not America`s Middle and Working class
Not The protection of 9th and 10th Amendments
Not against the abuse of activist judges and courts
Not America`s Founding Stock from being eroded by endless waves of immigration that threats to dis and replace the rightful inheritors of the Amiercan nation, culture, bounty, and future.
And they have sure as hell not conserved or protected the 2nd Amendment.
50 years of “debating” the left by their rules and narratives, of “compromising” and surrounding to the enemies of Liberty in some pathetic attempted to be liked by the enemies of all that we are, and all we will ever be is a proven failure and a failure we can no long endure.
That’s why we need Trump to feed the “establishment” into a wood chipper.
That’s a great visual…
Yeah, the last scene in ‘Fargo’ was good… 🙂
Dood was already dead when he went into the chipper in Fargo. In a just world the civil rights deniers would go in toes first. While still alive.
I am afraid Trump does not respect the Constitution any more than Hilary.
Well said, Henry, and ditto the above comments about Trump.
Add to the list you mentioned the establishment’s complicit participation in the travesty that is our current fiat monetary system. Tacit support of the Federal Reserve and decoupling the currency from gold, etc.
You mentioned the 10th. As example: the opportunity they had to walk back ACA and failed to do so. The did not Conserve the spirit of “Constitutionally limited government”.
There is so much they could have done. All they have done is help the Dems walk the nation toward destruction.
It’s not perfect, but a damn sight better than the Democrat platform on guns, which is probably some version of “go f@ck yourself.”
I’m an Independent Constitutional Conservative (in CA that’s “Other.), who will be pulling the Trump / Pence lever in 2016.
100%.
Some will complain (and have) about NFA.
But, the GOP has been so much better than the Dems on 2A.
Let’s see what the complainers say when the Dem platform comes out.
If they’re silent, then they may as well be Dem gun banners. Functionally, they are little different.
Vanilla.
Vanilla tastes better than dog $hit. Or so I’d imagine.
Yes, absolutely wonderful compared to the Democratic Party platform. Actually, even without comparisons to the Dem platform, the GOP platform affirms the right principles.
So not fighting to repeal current infringements on our Liberty is a “principal”
The “principle” (not the guy who runs the school) is stated right up front.
Your complaint (and it’s a valid one) is with the things missing from the list of actions they will take to uphold the principle. Just to be clear.
I likey what I am reading here, it is a great start to restoring our rights. IF President Trumpets is elected, I would hope those of us living in the anti logic states can get a little Federal pressure to change up the laws already enacted or soon to be enacted? hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink?
Hearing protection act? National Reciprocity?
“We support firearm reciprocity legislation to recognize the right of law-abiding Americans to carry firearms to protect themselves and their families in all 50 states.”
Reciprocity is covered. Hearing Protection Act is something that is slowly gaining momentum but I don’t expect to see it for a while yet.
Put it and repeal to the Hughes Amendment in the ass end of a spending bill. fight to win not fight “fair”.
I give you points for complaining about the Hughes Amendment specifically, not the entire FOPA of 1986.
But really, that’s much less of an infringement than having to go through background checks, being unable to mail order guns, and all the stupid dumbfuck state laws against types of guns and sizes of magazines, to say nothing of ammo restrictions. Those affect everyone and every gun (other than revolvers and muzzleloaders), whereas the Hughes Amendment only affected the comparatively small number of people willing to put up with NFA/ATF bullshit. Now…if you’d talked about the NFA itself…you’d be talking.
Mr. Bowman gets it. Start small, but fight to win, dammit.
He’s right to start small…but it’s the wrong first fight to pick.
For one thing… it’s MASHEEEN GUNZ!! and therefore scary to the general public. For another…it would affect almost no one whereas other positive reforms would liberate millions.
It’s not the hill I want to die on, should we fail.
All three branches of our federal government have forsaken their countrymen for far too long. It will ALL hinge on the courts. Our only hope lies with an honest and literal reading of our Constitution. All of it, not just 2A. And that is in the hands of the upcoming SCOTUS appointees.
SCOTUS nominees = more important than you can imagine
This is why I’m going to have to vote for Trump, even though he’s a loathsome toad. And for Republican senators, even though I’m no fan of Republican politics.
A Republican president and/or Senate are more likely to appoint Supreme Court judges who respect individual rights and the Constitution, and that tips the balance.
Exactly. We are playing for all the marbles. If Hillary wins, We The People are doomed. And sorry to be the messenger on reality, but if you do not vote for Trump, it is a vote for Hillary.
Exactly! The idiots that say they’ll vote libertarian to show the democraps and Republicans are going to put Killery in office.
This current Republican platform on firearms sounds pretty good to me.
Unfortunately, Republicans currently in office often/largely fail to uphold their own platform.
Oh, I didn’t think about repealing the 1986, 1968, and 1934 laws as others pointed out … the Republican platform on firearms needs improvement.
Sure it sounds good, unfortunately the guy that just won the nomination isn’t a Republican.
Most likely true Chrispy.
Also true: the Republican nominee, Trump, is NOT our worst nightmare Hillary Clinton. I will take The Donald over Hillary every . single . time.
Amen!
One thing Bush did that I like is his was the first Presidency in modern times to have a Justice Department that explicitly recognized the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right.
Didn’t stop him from banning imports of machine gun barrels. That is right, BARRELS!!
Another reason to vote R. Perfect? No but compared to crooked Hillary and Co. it’s damn near miraculous… add Mike Pence and MAYBE we can hang on to our rights a mite longer(without a freakin’ civil war). As the snooze media dwells on Trump’s old ladies’ “speech”…
Where do I get that image on a tee shirt?
No kidding. I’ll take 3. Two for me, one for the wife. Hurry up and TAKE MY MONEY!
my wife got me a shirt with that exact image on it on father’s day. amazon I think
Here’s your economic opportunity to steal this image! Or a similar one…sorry I don’t advertise with T-shirts.
Where’s the equal time for the Democrat Party platform on guns?
Democrat party platform:
We’ll take your guns.
Thanks for asking.
Democrats
Patience, Danny.
The Communist party has not yet officially adopted their platform. Their convention is next month. We’ll have a chance to wade through tat sewage soon enough.
Here is equal time for Democratic Party Platform Draft, that will be considered and probably ratified next week, starting on page 25:
“With 33,000 Americans dying every year, Democrats believe that we must finally take sensible action to address gun violence. While gun ownership is part of the fabric of many communities, too many families in America have suffered from gun violence. We can respect the rights of responsible gun owners while keeping our communities safe.
We will expand background checks and close dangerous loopholes in our current laws, hold irresponsible dealers and manufacturers accountable, keep weapons of war—such as assault weapons—off our streets, and ensure guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists, domestic abusers, other violent criminals, and those with severe mental health issues.”
Now I know neither party’s platform commits them to action, but compare the two stands on guns. Based on the differences, who would you predict would be better or worse for the RTKABA? We may not get everything we want from Trump, but we will definitely get a lot we don’t want from Clinton.
Yes ! Nothing more than “Demo-Erratics ” Double-Speak! Giving the US Constitutional-Bill of Rights and the US citizenry /Voters lots of lipservice! The DemoCRAPS platform draft is hysterical !
Something that wasn’t really televised here in the USA..Was when Obama visited Canadian parliament last month. Where the Lord’s all “shouted ” To Prez.O “4-more years!!!? And he gave an international speech regarding the reluctance of some people and the USA to ” Embrace Globalization “! And he basically discusted one of the most feared visions to standing ovations in CA. Parliament. “One-World Global Governance / EU-NWO / Globalism !!!” The real reason for all this BS…! Communism reborn! These Tassel-loafer tyrants think their going to bring about some kind of Star Trek Next: Generation styled utopian society !!! I believe Christian ideology has a different name for it…This news blurb was carried by Reuters on Samsung Flip book magazine on Android…
Once upon a time, in that galaxy far, far away, I was a delegate to a state convention. The state convention was run using the same protocols of the national party; same agenda/schedule and organization configuration. As a member of the platform committee, I was thrilled to be part of shaping the state party, and maybe the national party.
Disappointment.
The “platform” is not binding on the delegates, nor on the state party. The national platform is not binding on the delegates, nor on the national party. Especially not binding on candidates, their programs and policies, or their voting.
Conventions are pep rallies. They are designed to “fire-up” the base, prepare for the actual election campaign. Members of the platform committee, and most other committees, are people being rewarded for being good soldiers for the party. A “feel good” moment to keep the faithful chugging along, carrying the water.
No political candidate, or election winner is ever held accountable for advancing the party platform.
“And that’s the way it is. July 19th, 2016”.
Did you go to any more conventions? Were they different? Maybe the one you talk about was just a bad time.
No. Kinda got real cynical after that one experience.
It’s Trump’s platform; the establishment didn’t want to support it but Trump and his peeps rammed it through.
As for those of you who can’t support the platform because it doesn’t go far enough, I understand and respect your zeal. My advice — don’t let the great be the enemy of the very good. If you do, you’ll certainly end up with neither.
I really see nothing wrong with what I read (other than some things that were missing). That’s a good thing; it doesn’t positively advocate anything that is bad. It proposes some good positive steps (rather than just holding the line). Would I like to see a lot more happen? Sure. But it’s incrementalism in the correct direction.
Now those who think that “incrementalism” is a swear word will object, but I invite them to stop for just an instant and consider whether they’d consider “incrementalism” a swear word if it weren’t always working in the direction the enemy likes to take. Reverse the direction…and it’s a good thing.
The grabbers are in it for the long haul; we need to do the same, instead of throwing a tantrum because someone isn’t advocating immediately making it legal to buy a machine gun with two hundred-round mags out of a vending machine while visiting New Jersey or Kalifornia, and carrying three guns, two of them openly, to boot.
someone isn’t advocating making it legal to buy a machine gun with two hundred-round mags out of a vending machine
Ah be still my heart. Press M 2 for a Browning 50 cal, Press M P 5 for a German subgun, press F A L for for a Belgian Assault Rifle. oh the possibilities.
But how many quarters would that take? They would weigh almost as much as the gun!
Twenty pounds of quarters for a BAR? Sign me up, take my money….twice.
I will support the gop one more time. If they shaft me on this I will never again support them.
I understand and appreciate that sentiment. But in the real world of politics, we are always going to get shafted some way or another. However, with the right people in power, we may gain in some areas also. We can only hope the balance is to the positive side.
The two questions that remain are:
1. Who is going to shaft us less? That answer is obvious.
2. What are you going to do if the GOP does something you don’t like? Vote for the Dems who would do worse, or just not vote for a viable GOP candidate and let the Dems win?
Under a socialist one party system you can kiss your rights goodbye. That would be hillary as president and the socialists taking congress. No checks and balances would apply.
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