Just a few ‘reasonable restrictions’

During this fall’s election campaign, a few far-seeing observers warned “Watch out, Barack Obama and Harry Reid and Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer will end up trying to grab your guns.”

“Nonsense!” responded the mainstream media. ““Gun control hasn’t even been an issue in this campaign. Besides, the Democrats learned their lessons when they lost the House back in 1994: There’s no appetite for further gun control measures today.”

In any given week, more than 20 children die due to doctors’ errors or the unintended side effects of prescription medications. In any given week, far more than 20 children die in the crashes of flimsy automobiles that we could easily make sturdier and safer if manufacturers weren’t trying to satisfy federally mandated (and blatantly unconstitutional) “fuel efficiency standards.”

For that matter, it’s not unusual for more than 20 black and Hispanic “children” (if we accept the Brady Bunch definition of “children” as anyone under age 20, or sometimes even 25) to be killed in our inner-city drug-turf wars (Thanks, War on Drugs!) or by police catching them in the commission of crimes, on any given weekend.

Degree of public outrage over these daily funerals? Zip.

The gun-grabbers come up with “10 children a day killed by firearms” only by including the huge number of suicides, as well as “children” over 16 being killed by cops, or killing each other in those aforementioned drug turf wars.

Yet all it took was one lunatic killing 20 schoolchildren — with a rifle which is legal in heavily restricted Connecticut and which would comply with the Clinton-era federal “assault weapons ban” even if it that ban were re-instated — and suddenly the nation’s largest gun control organization, the NRA, the nest of compromisers who for years have urged “all existing gun laws should be rigorously enforced,” is again demonized as though horned agents of Beelzebub himself are allowed to stalk the halls of Congress.

“Even if there IS some ‘Constitutional right” to bear arms, it’s subject to reasonable restrictions, as are all rights,” the chorus of jackboot enablers alternately blare or simper.

But that’s wrong. Americans would never — at least I hope they would never — accept restrictions on their other rights similar to those which the federal government tell us are “reasonable” for those wishing to keep and bear a modern military rifle.

Imagine for a moment that you’d like to attend a church or synagogue or other house of worship, or merely to pray in your own home. Imagine that you’d like to publish a book, or simply fire off a letter-to-the-editor.

Imagine now that the federal authorities, who have the power to seize your house or imprison you if you’re caught disobeying their edicts, responded, “Of COURSE you have a right to do those things. No problem. But naturally, they’re subject to some ‘reasonable restrictions.’”

All you have to do, it turns out, is apply for a federal Churchgoing License, a federal Prayer Permit, a federal Publication Permit, or a federal Letter-to-the-Editor License, whichever is appropriate.

The forms are free! Of course, you have to submit to fingerprinting. You have to mail in with your application and your fingerprint card a signed letter from your local sheriff or chief of police, stating he has no objections — a letter your local chief law enforcement agent can issue or withhold, at his whim.

The application fee (actually, it’s a tax — on a constitutionally protected activity — but you submit it in advance) is $200. The waiting period to hear whether you’ve been approved generally runs about six months.

And if your federal license or permit IS granted, you understand you’re accepting the condition that you must inform the federal Bureau of Prayer, Churchgoing, and Publications as to precisely when and where you intend to engage in prayer, churchgoing, or publication, on penalty of imprisonment, as well as authorizing agents of the BPCP to knock on your door at any time, without notice, to inspect your prayer or writing or publication areas and equipment.

What’s that? But how can you object? This is merely a partial list of the “reasonable restrictions” which the federal government has for the past 68 years placed on the acknowledged “uninfringeable Constitutional right” of Americans to own a Browning Automatic Rifle, an AK-47, or M-14 or M-16, military style assault rifles with selector switches which allow them to be shifted from semi-automatic to fully-automatic fire.

Get caught with one of those without a BATF “Class 3 firearms license” (the steps and conditions for acquiring which are summarized above), and you’ll likely be in a federal prison for years.

Mind you, your license or permit to pray, attend church or synagogue, publish a book or write a letter-to-the-editor would be good ONE TIME ONLY, just as each Class 3 federal firearms license is good for possession of only ONE assault weapon or functioning bazooka round or RPG. Want to pray or attend church a second time? Go back to the beginning of the process and start again, the same as if you’re trying to buy a second M-16.

You just said, a few minutes ago, that no one should have any objection to “a few reasonable restrictions” on the exercise of a Constitutional right — that ALL of them are subject to “reasonable restrictions” … didn’t you?

I’m not making up these “reasonable restrictions.” They’re in force, right now, if you want to buy an assault rifle. The object, obviously, is not to maximize collection of the $200 tax, but rather to make the ownership of a modern military assault rifle or machine gun virtually impossible for an American of average means. Add to this the fact that no new assault weapons or machine pistols can be manufactured or imported for civilian use, and the laws of supply and demand can be counted on to guarantee that the price of a 20-pound 1918 Browning Automatic Rifle — which could be new manufactured for less than $2,000, far less if produced in any quantity — now exceeds $10,000.

So I guess we’ll have to add to the “reasonable restrictions” on book publication and churchgoing a federal moratorium on the construction of new churches or synagogues or printing presses, as well as the repair of old ones. (Just by coincidence, this is precisely how our new allies, the Muslim fundamentalist rulers of Egypt, are getting rid of Christian churches, there. Apply for a zoning permit to repair your church roof, get murdered by Muslim rioters.) Over time, you see, this will “simplify enforcement.”

Restrictions on the semi-automatic weapons which merely LOOK LIKE true assault weapons are somewhat less onerous — though the reason we’re discussing this today is that the urban gun-grabbers who want America to resemble Nazi Germany, where only “law enforcement officers” had firearms, now seek to ban those semi-automatic hunting rifles, entirely.

(Australia did just that back in 1997, seizing and melting down thousands of finely engineered firearms. The real-life Crocodile Dundee — Rodney William Ansell — was killed by cops when he resisted turning his in. Those who cheer this outcome neglect to add that in Victoria state, the year after civilians had been deprived of these tools of self-defense, firearms homicides tripled. Within two years, Australian armed robberies rose by 73 percent, kidnappings by 38 percent.)

The firearms called “assault rifles” by the likes of Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are really merely semiautomatic rifles, using the gas blowback reloading system perfected by John Garand in 1936. To buy one, you have to fill out a federal “yellow sheet” including name, address, date and place of birth, etc. (don’t try this if you’re more than one state border away from home; that’s not allowed.) Choose a handgun, and you’ll have to go through a background check and lots of other rigmarole, often including a “waiting period.”

Maybe these “lesser” restrictions would be all right with you when it comes to praying or writing a letter-to-the-editor? You can pass a background check, surely, You can wait a few days — right? It’s all for your protection. You already agreed that “all rights are subject to a few reasonable restrictions,” didn’t you?

It doesn’t concern you that the Jews and homosexuals and other targets of the Nazis had no firearms with which to fight back when the Gestapo came knocking on the door, nor that today’s would-be gun-grabbers snarl that “Your crummy hunting rifles won’t do you much good in fighting tyranny, here, anyway — you’d need nuclear weapons and tanks and jet aircraft to resist us, and you don’t have any of those, do you? Ha ha ha!”

None of this makes you nervous. Right?

7 Comments to “Just a few ‘reasonable restrictions’”

  1. Sean Says:

    The sad truth is they don’t need to take away any guns to control the population. They control most of the media, and keep most of the populace nice and docile with 150 TV channels, 10,000 smartphone apps, and “controversies” about which starlet is dating which basketball player.

    Most of the population, when it comes right down to it, is far too comfortable to put much thought into resisting the erosion of their rights.

    As kids we’re taught to respect (and obey) authority. As service level employees (the first job many of us had) we’re taught in the case of an armed robbery to comply with the criminal’s instructions in hopes they will leave without bloodshed. As adults, we’re taught that a vote for a third party is “throwing your vote away.”

    The bankers, politicians, and corporate overlords who are the true power in this country have done their job well. We’re smart enough to work the machines, but dumb enough not to notice that the game is rigged. We may put up a stink at the airport, but at the end of the day we want to fly and so we comply with the TSA searches. We line the pockets of gun makers when they tell us “Look out! Here they come for your guns!”

    The government is never going to knock down your door to get your guns. They don’t have to. They already own us.

  2. MamaLiberty Says:

    Sean, you might be truly surprised at how many of us the “government” does NOT own… and why would they even bother with any of this if they were so sure of it all?

  3. J.K. Bleimaier Says:

    Gross tragedies such as the Newtown, Connecticut rampage are an unfortunate consequence of our Jeffersonian freedom to bear arms, just as the publication of hate literature and pornography are the unfortunate consequences of our Jeffersonian freedom of speech. With tears in my eyes, I am willing to pay this bitter price because I am convinced that a society in which only the police have guns will inevitably become a police state. The wide spread anti-gun rhetoric neglects to address this critical conscientious objection to gun control.

  4. Chuck Says:

    There never will be a “society in which only the the police have guns,” because criminals will always have access to guns as well. Mexico is the closest example where the citizens have been disarmed, but the police and the drug cartels have all the weapons they need. In many cases, the criminals got their weapons through military deserters and corrupt bureaucrats (and in a few cases from the Obama administration!). The agitprop press never bothers to consider or report that — to them, it’s just the guns that are the problem.

    In the sixties, American radical leftist elements raided National Guard armories to gird themselves for the “coming revolution” against the Nixon administration. Today, the Obama DoD is shoveling military grade weaponry and technology out the door to the paramilitary constabularies so fast not all of it can be accounted for. Where do we suppose at least some of it is ending up? Not in the hands of law-abiding citizens!

    The “progressives” actively press for the day when citizens are disarmed to the point where they must comply or starve with any and all centralized government whim. What they fail consider is that when an armed citizenry is no longer capable of counterbalancing the standing army, as envisioned in the 2nd Amendment, they themselves may be ousted by a military coup and subsequent dictatorship!

  5. Matthias Says:

    I for one am sure glad Vin is still writing, I went to the LVRJ and it stopped over a year ago it seems or something. Vin has always been right, well as near as a guy can be.

  6. TheTruthGuy Says:

    Gun Grabbers are Reselling your Guns!! Read this:

    Tell me how this Gun Ban is going to work again? Read this below…
    January 16, 2013 Maryland Gazette – (Maryland) Prince George’s police officer found guilty of gun theft, misconduct. A circuit court found a Prince George’s County police officer guilty of illegally selling and distributing 29 guns he confiscated while on a specialized task force between 2008-2009. Out of the 29 stolen guns, only 12 were recovered.

    And how does banning Assault Rifles, or Extended Magazines, going to reduce crime? That’s why its called a Gun Grab!!

  7. Historian Says:

    JKB: Newtown is the result of victim disarmament just as the Holocaust was. The only difference is the size of the area so afflicted.