Congress' plan would let AG 'ban guns at will'

[Guest guest]

Time to stock up on your guns and ammo folks. Obama has

always been an anti-gunner, and now look who he's got for his Attorney

General.

Yours in Knowledge, Health and Freedom,

Doc

 

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view & pageId=85507

 

 

 

Congress'

plan would let AG 'ban guns at will'

 

2nd

Amendment critics are 'ready to run wild'

 

Posted: January 06, 2009

10:05 pm Eastern

 

 

By Bob

Unruh

 

 

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

 

 

 

 

A perfect storm is developing for Second Amendment opponents that

could allow President-elect Barack Obama's choice for attorney general

– Eric Holder – to "ban guns at will" despite the 2008 affirmation from

the U.S. Supreme Court that U.S. citizens have a right to bear arms.

 

The situation was described with alarm by Alan Korwin, author of Gun Laws of America, in a recent

commentary.

 

He cited Holder's known support for gun bans – the former

Clinton administration official endorsed the District of Columbia's

complete ban on functional guns in residents' homes before it was

overturned by the Supreme Court.

 

And Korwin pointed to overwhelming Democratic majorities in

Congress as well as Obama's known support for gun restrictions and his

presence in the Oval Office.

 

(Story continues below)

 

 

Thirdly, Korwin, one of many Second Amendment advocates raising

concerns, cited a proposal already submitted to Congress at a time when

its backers could not reasonably expect it to succeed.

 

The submission is H.R. 1022 by New York Democrat Carolyn

McCarthy and 67 co-sponsors. It was introduced in February 2007 and the

next month referred to the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and

Homeland Security, where it has stayed.

 

But that could change in the 111th Congress, sworn in today.

And Korwin said the plan would allow the U.S. Attorney General –

possibly Holder – to add to the list of guns banned to the public any

"semiautomatic rifle or shotgun originally designed for military or law

enforcement use, or a firearm based on the design of such a firearm,

that is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, as determined

by the Attorney General."

 

"Note that … Holder … wrote a brief in the (District of

Columbia) Heller case supporting the position that you have no right to

have a working firearm in your own home," Korwin said.

 

In making this determination, the bill says, "there shall be a

rebuttable presumption that a firearm procured for use by the United

States military or any federal law enforcement agency is not

particularly suitable for sporting purposes, and a firearm shall not be

determined to be particularly suitable for sporting purposes solely

because the firearm is suitable for use in a sporting event."

 

"In plain English," Korwin said, "This means that any firearm

ever obtained by federal officers or the military is not suitable for

the public. That presumption can be challenged only by suing the

federal government over each firearm it decides to ban, in a court it

runs with a judge it pays. This virtually dismisses the principles of

the Second Amendment.

 

"The last part is particularly clever, stating that a firearm

doesn't have a sporting purpose just because it can be used for

sporting purpose – is that devious or what? And of course, 'sporting

purpose' is a rights infringement with no constitutional or historical

support whatsoever, invented by domestic enemies of the right to keep

and bear arms to further their cause of disarming the innocent," he

said.

 

Korwin told WND a new proposal to replace H.R. 1022 is not expected

to be less draconian.

 

"Remember – these bans were proposed when the congressional

anti-rights crowd had no chance of success. Now they are ready to run

wild, or according to Sarah (Brady) herself, 'I have never been so

confident,'" Korwin wrote, referring to the champion of the Brady

Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993, which requires background

checks on purchasers of handguns.

 

Korwin said the Democrats listed in H.R. 1022 a framework for

guns to be banned that includes originals, copies or duplicates of a

wide-ranging list of shotguns, pistols and rifles.

 

One of the red flags for semiautomatic rifles would be

"anything" that can serve as a grip, and as set up now, the Democrat

members of the Judiciary Committee "are all sworn enemies to the Second

Amendment and are unlikely to be swayed at all by any firearms related

arguments," he said.

 

The Republicans all "need to be pressed hard to do everything they

can to block the appointment."

 

Further, with the expectation that Obama will appoint at least

one or two Supreme Court justices, further damage could be just a vote

or two away, he said.

 

"If he can get a 5-4 or 6-3 majority who dislike gun rights,

you could find that your [second Amendment] rights aren't what they've

been for 200 years," Korwin said.

 

John Snyder assembled a list of prominent critics of the Holder

nomination.for the

Firearms Coalition.

"A former Ohio secretary of state, (Ken) Blackwell notes that,

'despite Obama's new lip service to the Second Amendment, Holder signed

onto a brief earlier this year (2008) reaffirming his long-held

position that the Second Amendment confers no rights whatsoever to

private citizens, and that the Supreme Court should have upheld D.C.'s

absolute ban on handguns, even in homes."

 

Snyder also cited comments from Brian Darling, director of U.S.

Senate Relations at the Heritage Foundation, that Holder's position

"strongly suggests that Holder is hostile to private gun ownership and

will work to restrict gun rights."

 

Shotgun News columnist Jeff Knox wrote,

"The gun rights community should make every effort to see to it that

Holder's nomination is withdrawn or rejected."

According to Second Amendment

Foundation

founder Alan Gottlieb, Holder has supported handgun licensing and

mandatory trigger locks. He also lobbied for limits on gun shows.

 

"This is not the record of a man who will come to office as the

nation's top law enforcement officer with the rights and concerns of

gun owners in mind," Gottlieb wrote.

 

"America's 85 million gun owners have ample reason to be

pessimistic about how their civil rights will fare under the Obama

administration," Gottlieb said. "Mr. Obama will have a Congress with an

anti-gun Democrat majority leadership to push his gun control agenda.

Gun owners have not forgotten Mr. Obama's acknowledged opposition to

concealed carry rights, nor his support for a ban on handgun ownership

when he was running for the Illinois state senate."

 

The issue of gun rights is more important than many believe, wrote

Joseph Farah, WND's founder and editor, in a recent

column.

He cited a study from the University of Maryland and University of

Michigan that uncovered a beneficial link between gun shows and crime.

 

"We find a sharp decline in the number of gun homicides in the

weeks immediately following a gun show," the study concluded.

Furthermore, in Texas they found "gun shows reduce the number of gun

homicides by 16 in the average year."

"Holder’s

appointment to be AG must be approved by the Senate," wrote David

Codrea in the Examiner.

"While it is highly unlikely that opponents could muster the 51 votes

needed to reject Holder's appointment, a single senator can place a

'hold' on the confirmation and effectively lock up the system just as

Democrats did with a number of President Bush's judicial appointments

and the appointment of John Bolton to be Ambassador to the U.N."

 

The

Supreme Court decided

in the D.C. vs. Heller case that the Second Amendment provides an

individual right to own firearms, not just the right for states to form

armed militias.

The Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of

handguns held and used for self-defense in the home," Justice Antonin

Scalia said in the majority opinion.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing in dissent, said the majority

"would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a

choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to

regulate civilian uses of weapons."

Scalia said the

ruling

should not "cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession

of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the

carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government

buildings."

Scalia was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel

Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. Joining Stevens in dissent

were Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter.

The amendment, ratified in 1791, says: "A well regulated militia,

being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the

people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."