Gun Control IS on Obama's Mind

For those of you that thought, and voted, under the premise that Obama was not going to enact gun control think again. In case you missed it about six months ago the Attorney General Eric Holder said,

"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons,"

Now let me stop him right there and help educate those of you who don’t know about the Clinton “Assault Weapons Ban” of 1994.

The “Assault Weapons Ban” didn’t really ban any “assault weapons”.

An assault weapon is by definition a firearm that can be switched from semi-auto to either full-auto or three round burst by either movement of a switch or lever. The military has assault rifles like the M16 that by flipping a switch the soldier can go from firing one round per pull of the trigger to three rounds each time there is a pull of the trigger.

You can own assault weapons in the US only if you have a Class III Federal Fire Arms License (FFL). This basically makes you a firearms dealer, which requires $200 up front and extensive background check and loss of your civil liberties, because the ATF can check your house or store anytime they want to make sure that you’re following the federal law. These laws pertain how store your firearms, conduct your record keeping, etc. It is a big deal to get this license because in involves multiple fees and continuous back ground checks.

Under the 1994 “Assault Weapons Ban” this was and still is the case. What was banned were guns that had “evil features”, and I put that in quotes because that is the exact language used in the law. A rifle or shotgun could not have more than two of the following:

- Folding Stock

- Pistol Grip

- Bayonet lug

- Flash Suppressor or Treaded Barrel (to mount a silencer on)

- Grenade Launcher

- *Also banned were magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds

There were some additional laws that pertained to pistols but to make my point this: No actual guns were banned per-say just the just features on the guns.

The law rewrote the definition of what the law considered an “assault weapon”. If you have a shot gun that you used to turkey hunt that had a more pistol style grip and any kind of folding or telescoping stock you were breaking the law. Granted, guns that were this way before the law was enacted where grand-fathered in, but what if you put the new aftermarket stock on your shotgun before or after the law took effect? There is no way to know. How do prove that to law enforcement officer that if came that way. What if you deer hunting rifle is say an old M1 Garand (an old WW II style rifle). It has the flash suppressor and the bayonet lug, again grandfathered in but how to prove it.

This makes my second point: No one ever died from a drive-by bayoneting. How many grenade launchers have been used in muggings? When did a thug, who is going to hold up the corner convenience store say, “my magazine only holds ten bullets and not twelve, I guess I will stay home today and watch TV”? Not to mention that someone that is going to commit a crime isn’t going to count the number of “evil features” on his gun before he is going commit armed robbery or murder. Last time I checked these were already illegal.

This law was, and might be again, a reason for the government to harass gun owners in this country. To take regular law abiding citizens who want to practice their Second Amendment right and make them a felon for it. That’s right, modifying that ten round magazine by taking out the spacer to hold twelve or fifteen and you’re a felon. And felons lose their second amendment rights for the rest of their life.

The face the Obama administration is putting on this is that it’s because of the drug war that is going on in Mexico. “If only we can stop the flow of guns from the US being sold to the drug cartels.” Seriously, if you go the link where ABC covered this back in February (here) one of the videos shows a man shooting a M60 machine gun, and is titled “U.S. Guns Arming Mexican Drug Gangs; Second Amendment to Blame?” Let me type that again, a man shooting a MACHINE GUN. Again unless you have the Class III FFL, pay a bunch of money and fees, submit to background check and let the government search your house without warrant, you cannot even possess one of these. These weapons being used by the drug cartels are obviously bought on the black market and are illegal under current law to begin with.

Instead of bringing back this legislation the Obama Administration, Congress and individual states need to enact are laws that slam criminals when a gun is involved. If you hold up a gas station with a gun the penalty should be twice or three times what a normal robbery would be. If you murder someone with any type of firearm the sentence isn’t 20 years, but 40 years. These laws combined with a public awareness program to inform people that these are the consequences of using a gun in a crime would protect law abiding gun owners and put scum where they belong, behind bars for a very long time. Not only would this approach be effective, but it would be guarantee have support of gun-rights activists, the NRA and the Republican party.

To Not Help Our Allies is to Help Our Enemies

Little reported in the main-stream media was a recent decision by the Obama administration to not sell new weapons to Georgia, a small country that resides on the southern Russian border and was in a war with Russia August of last year. If you don't remember the war broke out over the breakaway region of South Ossetia and devastated the small US ally, who at the time, even had troops committed to US mission in Iraq.

The Georgian military was practically run over by the Russian war machine that invaded it, leaving Georgia with practically no military equipment what-so-ever. Early this year the Greogian government, in an attempt to rebuild some of it's military, put in a request to purchase weapons from the US. A request that was recently denied:

Posted by www.janes.com (a international defense information company) July 31st:

"US says no to Georgian arms request
The United States will not provide Georgia with the weapons it has requested and which it says would deter Russia from starting another war, a Pentagon official has said. In advance of US Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Tbilisi in mid-July, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili publicly called on Washington to provide it with "defensive" weapons, in particular anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems."

Mind you that while Russia outnumber Georgia greatly in the number of troops, Georgia at the beginning of the war had a total of four combat aircraft and only a hand full of armored vehicles. While troops can set up defensive positions to slow or stop invading infantry, it's nearly impossible for them to stop waves of aircraft and tanks without proper weaponry.

While I'm sure that many will say that it's good that we don't do anything to antagonize the Russian bear we are about to be taught another lesson in how showing weakness just emboldens those who are just clearly not on our side. Despite the Obama administraion's request to "hit the reset button" on US - Russian relations, Russia has made it's own point clear.

From www.bbc.com August 12th:

"Russians to boost Abkhazia bases
Russia is to spend almost $500m (£300m) next year reinforcing its military bases in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia, the prime minister says. Vladimir Putin's announcement came as he visited the region for talks. He said Russia was committed to defending and financing the small strip of land in Georgia's north-west corner. Georgia reacted angrily to the visit, calling it "yet another provocation" and an attempt to "escalate tensions in the Caucasus region".

The UK also condemned Mr Putin's announcement, saying it ran contrary to wider international efforts to support a negotiated solution in the region. Moscow officially recognised the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia following the war a year ago between Russia and Georgia. The only other country recognising the regions' independence is Nicaragua; both areas are still widely considered to be part of Georgia."

Does it take an pie chart to explain this? Less then two weeks after the US denies the Georgians weapons to rebuild some resemblance of a military, a cash strapped Russia dedicates 1/2 a billion dollars to building permanent bases in one of the one of the two break away regions.

Considering that Georgia was willing to back us in an internationally unpopular confrontation in Iraq and dedicate troops our cause you think that the least we could show to them is some help after getting stomped on by a neighbor that is so much larger that it would be the equivalent of the whole of America declaring war on South Carolina. Sorry, South Carolina.

This is a prime example of leaving allies out to dry, and should be brought back up as a point that if sometime in the near future Israel takes it upon itself to try to rid Iran of nuclear weapons and technology through the use of military force. After this falter I don't think I would wait around the US help either, since in that war there wouldn't be an Israel to not sell new weapons to.

A New Blog

In today's world of fast paced internet and new cycles it's hard to get good analysis of today's current events. This blog will be dedicated to that analysis through open minded opinion.