They're steaming ahead on all fronts

Drunk with power after saddling the American peasant with trillions more dollars in debt, including arrogantly demanding another $634 billion dollars (on top of all of the other recent mass spending sprees we taxpayers are now on the hook for) to begin setting up a nationalized health care system (Much, much more on this subject in a later post), the Obama administration, through U.S. Attorney General Eric "Neutral, Leaning Towards Favorable" Holder, is floating the trial balloon of stating their intention to reinstate the failed "assault" weapons ban that (thankfully) expired in 2004.

Holder's main reason for forcing law-abiding Americans to give up their constitutionally-protected rights? That Mexico has a corrupt and incompetent government:

"I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum." Holder said at a news conference"

You're not the Attorney General of Mexico, sir. You're the the AG of the United States, and it's the height of stupidity to ask the people your purport to serve to give up their natural-born, constitutionally-protected rights because the Third-World country next door to us can't get its act together.

"'As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make'" (Emphasis mine)

Umm, excuse me. I seem to recall The Messiah assuring us during his run for office that he had absolutely no intention of robbing us of our Second Amendment rights. How quickly the worm turns once he's elected, eh? Here's some of the other "just a few" changes Obama's minion Holder wishes to quickly impose, while simultaneously making all of the other changes they're planning to make to our country:

"'I think closing the gun show loophole, the banning of cop-killer bullets and I also think that making the assault weapons ban permanent'"

Let's look at these issues one at a time, shall we?

1. There is no gun show loophole. This issue was specifically addressed and not included in the Brady Bill, so as to allow law-abiding citizens to sell their firearms to other law-abiding citizens without going through a licensed dealer, which costs anywhere from $25 to $50 or more per transaction. Imagine having to go to a car dealer and pay an extra fee every time you wished to sell a motor vehicle you wanted to be rid of, instead of putting an ad in the paper or on eBay? This is nothing more than an expensive, onerous bureaucratic inconvenience that will prove utterly useless, because criminals aren't law-abiding, strangely enough. They will still obtain firearms, whether by stealing them or by purchasing them from shady individuals on the street.

Additionally, all Federally licensed gun dealers who sell firearms at gun shows are already required to run Brady checks on anyone they sell to, so any new requirement would only serve to duplicate what's already being done.

2. There is no such thing as "cop-killer" bullets. This term is generally used by rabidly anti-gun organizations to refer to ammunition that can defeat the bullet-proof vests worn by police officers, and/or standard hollow-point rounds that expand on contact, causing significant injuries to people hit by them in non-vest-protected areas (which is exactly what they're designed to do).

The problem? Most calibers of ammunition, especially those large enough for legal hunting, are capable of doing exactly that. The government would have to ban just about all types of ammunition currently available for sale today in order to ensure that nothing powerful enough to penetrate body armor would be available. Of course, lawbreakers would only buy their ammo on the black market or from overseas sources, just like they currently do for their drugs and firearms, so this wouldn't slow them down one bit, but would only serve to prevent law-abiding citizens from hunting successfully and adequately protecting themselves and their loved ones from these same criminals.

The hollow-point rounds? The exact same ammunition is issued to most police departments in the U.S., for the simple reason that they work very well at the task they're asked to perform. The rounds transfer most of their energy into the person they contact, greatly increasing the chance that a criminal struck by such a round will immediately stop their attack on an victim, which is advantageous to both cops and legally carrying citizens. There is also much less risk with this type of round of overpenetration and the possible injuring of innocent people that sometimes occurs when using military-style full-metal-jacket rounds, making hollow-points much more exact, and therefore safer, when used in public by law enforcement and legally firearm-carrying citizens.

Again, criminals don't much care for safety, so this requirement would also be lost on them. They'll simply use whatever they can get their hands on, and if innocent bystanders are harmed, well, tough for them.

3. The "assault" weapons ban didn't work at all when it was in effect. The crime rate wasn't affected one bit by the ban during the time it was in effect, because criminals simply ignored it, just as they do all the laws that get in their way. In addition, since most of the features causing certain firearms to be put on the banned list were merely cosmetic, not functional, in nature (The dreaded "evil black rifle" label, despite the fact that they were semi-automatice firearms that were not military-style fully automatic "machine guns"), firearm manufacturers simply made a few changes in their designs in order to legally comply, and production simply continued.

Any new ban would undoubtedly be quite different this time around and affect many more styles and types of firearms, since most guns used for hunting, sport and defense function identically to the guns that were banned previously, and they would certainly be affected by any new restrictions put into place to prevent any further "workarounds" by gun makers. This would mean that shooters would be unfairly restricted to firearms unsuited to their needs and preferences.

Naturally, these won't be the only changes Obama will make (despite the protestations of "just a few changes"), if we're stupid enough to let him. Here's one more item that's come across the newswire today From the Virginia State Shooting Association, and courtesy of Kimberman at the Twin Cities Carry Forum, who has proven for years to be utterly reliable in his information-gathering on this subject:

"It looks like those who said the Obama Administration would strike while the iron is hot may have been correct, and the Administration may be doing it in a way that does not require them to even get a vote in Congress. In this morning's edition of the Shooting Wire, Jim Shepherd writes that Canadian officials have it on "good authority" our State Department may be on the verge of cutting off all imports of certain calibers of ammunition.

Ammo listed for this rumored ban include the .50BMG, 7.62x39mm Soviet, 7.62x51mm NATO, .308 Winchester, 5.56 NATO and .223 Remington. Additionally, we're hearing that an expansion of this proposed ban might be broadened to include the 6.8mm SPC, 9mm Parabellum, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP- among others.

In other words, State Department officials may be floating a trial balloon to see if there are howls of protest, or whimpers of compliance. Canadian elected officials who have directed this information to me say the move seems to be motivated by "emboldened" anti-gun officials who think they have a kindred spirit in President Obama.

Shepherd continues that there may also be a plan to ban exports on certain firearms to Canada from the US, resulting in the State Department hammering gun manufacturers, distributors and exporters in the United States while simultaneously making firearms -and ammunition - ownership and acquisition more difficult for Canadians. Many in the pro-rights community have said since the election that Obama could circumvent Congress by using regulations in his various cabinet departments to attack gun owners. It appears that it may have already begun."

In other words, pretty much all calibers of pistol and rifle ammunition commonly used by law-abiding American citizens for personal protection, hunting and sport shooting would be unable to be imported, causing massive shortages and price increases, which would in effect deny those citizens their natural right to self-defense; a defacto "gun ban without actually banning the guns", if you will, because a firearm without ammunition is merely a hunk of metal, plastic and/or wood.

Law enforcement agencies would of course be exempt from this ban, it's imagined, further (wrongly, in our opinion) separating the "special people" from everyone else, since cops would enjoy unrestricted access to valuable defensive tools that would be denied to the common peasant.

Folks, this has got to be the line in the sand that far-left liberals in government dare not cross. I urgently implore everyone to call their elected representatives, as well as the White House, and let them know in no uncertain terms what a rotten idea this is, and that anyone who attempts to put these restrictions into place will enjoy a long and happy retirement from public service, which is exactly what happened in 1994, after the first ban was put into place.

More on this subject later, once I research Mr. Holder's proposals further.