NRA Lets Us Know Why They Fight For Guns

NRA chief: Why we fight for gun rights

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By David Keene, Special to CNN

updated 7:45 AM EST, Fri February 1, 2013

NRA president on assault weapon ban

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• David Keene: The NRA evolved to become a defender of the Second Amendment
• Keene: Obama administration tried to demonize NRA and cow gun owners
• He says instead, gun owners are energized to rally for their constitutionally protected rights
• Keene: Law-abiding Americans are entitled to own firearms and protect their families

Editor's note: David Keene is president of the National Rifle Association of America. Join Anderson Cooper, Sanjay Gupta, Jeffrey Toobin and Jack Gray at noon in a live Google Hangout atAC360.com. Send questions and thoughts via #gundebate360 on Twitter and Google+.

(CNN) -- After President Lyndon Johnson signed the Gun Control Act of 1968, many anti-gun politicians looked forward to the day when they could completely ban the sale and ownership of firearms and perhaps even confiscate those already in private hands.

After the draconian legislation imposed restrictions on "dealing" firearms that resulted in the prosecution of countless innocent gun collectors, and recordkeeping on ammunition sales so useless that federal law enforcement agencies supported their repeal, Sen. Ted Kennedy wrote to the NRA to demand our support for a national gun licensing and registration system. A few years later, a Nixon administration advisory commission proposed that all side arms be outlawed and confiscated in about a decade.

That didn't happen. Those hostile to firearms ownership and the Second Amendment thought they were on the verge of victory, but had in fact managed to wake up millions of Americans who hadn't previously believed that government would ever threaten their guns or their way of life. They were joined by others who were not necessarily gun owners but believed the Second Amendment and the rights it guaranteed a free people worth preserving.

Opinion: Americans, even NRA members, want gun reforms

The NRA was founded in 1871, but until the passage of the 1968 legislation had never been much involved in politics and didn't even have a lobbying office. That changed as the men and women the organization represented demanded that the NRA step up to defend their rights in the frenzy of the late 1960s.

David Keene

Within a few years, many of those who had so fervently believed that the public would welcome their sponsorship of "gun control" were defeated and before long Republicans and Democrats in Congress joined forces to pass the "Firearms Owners Protection Act" of 1986 that rolled back many of the restrictions adopted in 1968.

Since that time, the NRA has continued to devote more than 85% of its resources to its traditional mission of providing civilian firearms training, teaching firearms safety and working to introduce new generations of Americans to the shooting sports, but has taken on the added role of protector of the right of law-abiding Americans to own and enjoy firearms.

That role has become especially important as some, unfortunately, have sought to exploit December's incomprehensible murders in Newtown, Connecticut, to impose further restrictions on honest people.

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The organization's political strength rests on the bipartisan and diverse make-up of its membership and of the millions of nonmember firearms owners who look to the NRA for leadership and their willingness to step up to the plate and the ballot box when their rights are threatened.

Opinion: Gun makers, help keep weapons out of criminals' hands

It is that second attribute of Second Amendment supporters that has surprised the president and his allies. The Obama administration has attempted to demonize the NRA and cow gun owners into accepting restrictions that they know won't make anyone safer but which will interfere with a citizen's ability to acquire, keep and rely on firearms to protect their families or participate in the shooting sports.

Among those proposals are "universal" background checks that will never be "universal" because criminals won't submit to them, and magazine bans that will put the law-abiding at a disadvantage against multiple attackers. The president also backs a new ban on "assault weapons," even though Christopher Koper, the researcher who studied the last ban for the Justice Department concluded that it caused "no discernible reduction in the lethality or injuriousness of gun violence" and did not contribute to the general drop in crime in the 1990s.

But gun owners have been energized rather than cowed. They are presenting a truly united front as they rally to fight for their constitutionally guaranteed rights.

NRA president: Focus on mentally ill

NRA president: Ad not about Obama's kids

NRA pres.: Up to schools to protect kids

Opinion: A father's murder, a plea on gun control

Anyone who doubts this need only look at what happened in the literally bankrupt city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, last week. The organizers of the largest outdoor show in the country, the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show, announced that they would not allow the display or presence of the firearms the president likes to demonize as assault weapons. Within days, more than 300 vendors withdrew in protest as the NRA and others urged Second Amendment supporters to boycott the event.

Soon after, show organizers announced it was beingpostponed indefinitely. This was the largest outdoor show in the country. It draws a huge crowd every year and according to local estimates, about $80 million won't be arriving in the pockets and coffers of the pro-Bloomberg, anti-gun mayor of Harrisburg now.

As the battle over restricting Second Amendment rights continues, other elected officials under pressure from the Obama administration to ignore the feelings and deep beliefs of some of their constituents will learn a similar lesson.

Hundreds of self-proclaimed gun advocates didn't believe Obama was anti-gun based on his first term and wrote the NRA saying we were using scare tactics to have our way: Now they know.

Opinion: Gun extremists' alternate reality

Second Amendment supporters are in no mood to give those who would deny them their rights a pass and will vote in the next election in the same united way they responded to the insult leveled at them by the organizers of the Harrisburg show.u

Gangs and Guns

Gangs and guns in America's inner cities

We travel to Baltimore to meet those trying to stop gun crime and others who say owning a gun is a matter of survival. Inside Story Americas Last Modified: 02 Feb 2013 09:35 inShare Email Print Share Feedback

Guns, Culture and Crime in the US - in a special three-part series, Inside Story Americas takes the debate on gun control to the American people. Are they as divided as their politicians? The Newtown shooting in December, which left 20 school children and six teachers dead, has dragged the issue of gun control back into the national agenda. "If you had to break it down [why inner cities youths get guns], a quarter of it is for drugs, a quarter for gangs … fifty percent in general would be for survival, because you know there are a lot of wolves in your city and you refuse to be that one sheep that just gets taken for everything. So, you know in your heart you’re a good guy, and you don’t intend on hurting anybody, but the next man may hurt you - you're gonna get a gun. " - Sean Hawkins, a former Baltimore gang member For the first time in years, US politicians are discussing serious gun control measures. But millions of people in the country's inner cities live with the threat of gun violence on a daily basis. In Baltimore, one of the most dangerous cities in the US, the police have reframed their 'war on drugs' as a 'war on guns'. Maryland has some of the toughest gun laws in the US, and Baltimore's are even stricter, but the city continues to struggle with rampant gun violence as thousands of people gain access to firearms. The city had 217 murders in 2012, with 181 involving handguns. It also has the third highest gun homicide rate in the US at 29.7 gun murders per 100,000 people. In the third episode of our special series on guns in the US, Inside Story Americas travels to Baltimore to meet those trying to stop gun crime and others who say owning a gun is sometimes a matter of survival. "The problem is right now the people who have guns in the inner city, in Baltimore, are most often drug dealers or gang members and the gun is the tool of their trade. And that is why we have almost 300 murders a year in Baltimore. If you took guns out of those people's hands, the murder rate would go down substantially and the gun violence would be reduced to almost nothing." Doug Gansler, Maryland Attorney General

Government Abuse of Citizens

The following article and the other pieces that the author mentions are  examples of our out-of-control government. There always will be agents of the government who will assume  more power than they actually are entitled to have. However whether it is the Department of Natural Resources, the Environmental Protection Agency, the IRS or your local police, there  has to be oversight that protects citizens from their government. If any of you has ever undergone and IRS audit, you will know about which we speak. You are presumed guilty and must prove your innocence.

Once the government gets so big that it can convict citizens of crimes and then prevent those citizens their day in court where the agency must prove the crime (and not the other way around), then our system has become too large and burdensome to be effective. 

It is time for the citizens to take back the government from the bureaucrats. We need to decrease the size of government by two-thirds making it responsive to the needs of the people.

We also need to review all government laws and regulations and keep only those that are needed. There still are laws on the books that require someone to walk in front of your "motor-car" so as not to frighten horses! Obviously this is one that needs revision.

As we wrote earlier today, the unbelievable confusing regulation that the IRS has written regarding ObamaCrapCare must be one of those laws that are dumped into the shredder.  How is the average citizen supposed to understand the law if it is written in legalistic hieroglyphs?

Let's get things back to where the average citizen can understand the law without the need to hire an attorney. Unless we do, the expectation that "ignorance of the law is not an excuse" should be out the window. Of course, Nancy Pilosi, the former Speaker of the House is famously reported to have said "we need to pass the law so that we can find out what is in it" should prove the point. So much for the average citizen knowing what the law is when the legislators don't.  

Conservative Tom

GREAT MOMENTS IN STATE GOVT: BUREAUCRATS THREATEN FAMILY FOR RESCUING BAMBI

Feb. 1, 2013 1:54am

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• DANIEL J. MITCHELL
• Cato Institute
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• 

Daniel J. Mitchell is a top expert on tax reform and supply-side tax policy at the Cato Institute. Mitchell is a strong advocate of a flat tax and  […]

dmitchell@cato.org

Author's Website

As a public finance economist, I normally focus on big-picture arguments against excessive government.

If the public sector is too large, for instance, that undermines economic growth by diverting resources from the productive sector of the economy.

The damage is then compounded by a needlessly destructive and punitive tax system.

But I’ve also discovered that it helps to personalize the analysis by pointing out examples of ridiculous and wasteful behavior by government.

That’s one of the reasons I share horror stories as part of the U.S. vs U.K. government stupidity contest - such as the world’s most pointless sign linked nearby.

Some actions by government, however, belong in a different category. I’m not sure what word I would choose to describe them – perhaps venal, evil, despicable, reprehensible, or disgusting would be good options.

Am I being overly dramatic? Perhaps, but is there any other reaction when the government persecutes a family with possible jail time for rescuing Bambi?

Here are some absurd and disturbing details from the Indianapolis Star.

When Connersville police officer Jeff Counceller first encountered the baby deer, she was curled up in the corner of a front porch.It was clear the fawn was injured. Counceller could see the wounds… If left to its own, the animal would surely die… So the Councellers took in the deer, which they named Dani, cleaned and dressed its wounds and nursed it back to health, all with the intention of turning it out into the wild once it was big enough and strong enough to have a chance on its own. …she was unable to stand, and her maggot-infested wound was ugly. The Councellers contacted DNR at the time but were told to return the deer to the wild and let nature take its course. “It would have been a death sentence,” Jeff said.

So the family did what any decent people would do. They nursed the deer back to health. But decency and government often are in conflict.

Trouble is, what the Councellers did is against the law. Now, more than two years after rescuing the deer, more than six months after conservation officers began an investigation, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources wants them prosecuted. …DNR officials began an investigation that entailed half a dozen visits to their home and numerous calls to local authorities. In July, the agency issued an eight-page report and asked for a special prosecutor from another county to handle the case. Why the charges are being sought now — six months later — isn’t clear.

I think the answer is obvious. The bureaucrats from the Department of Natural Resources are sulking because their imperious demands weren’t obeyed.

So they’re lashing out at an innocent family, as indicated by the following excerpts.

…when the DNR came calling, the Councellers say they were almost ready to release Dani back into the woods. They were just waiting for the summer drought to pass and the nearby corn crops to mature enough to offer cover and food for Dani. They say they weren’t aware it was illegal to keep the deer.

That’s when the bureaucratic nightmare began.

When the DNR began its investigation, the Councellers say the conservation officer suggested they obtain a rescue permit. But that was denied. Soon, the DNR said the deer must be euthanized, that it was a safety threat to humans.

Fortunately, an unknown good Samaritan intervened and freed Dani before the government could kill the helpless animal.

But on the day of Dani’s scheduled execution, the deer turned up missing, its enclosure left open. The Councellers say they didn’t arrange the escape or know how the deer was freed but acknowledge that they didn’t probe too deeply to find out.

But no good deed goes unpunished when spiteful bureaucrats are involved.

…there was nothing but silence from the DNR until the Councellers received notice of the charges earlier this month. They plan to fight the case, even though jail is unlikely and the lawyer costs — which could reach $5,000 — are significantly higher than a likely fine. It’s a matter of principle, they say. They don’t want to plead guilty for trying to help an animal and when they had no criminal intent.

Not surprisingly, the rest of the community is on the side of the deer (and the persecuted family). Indeed, there’s even a Facebook page for folks who want to register their displeasure with this example of government thuggery.

“People are outraged at the DNR and that the government has nothing better to do than harass these people,” said John Waudby, an Indianapolis man who created the Facebook page after hearing about the story. “Anybody in their right mind would have done the same thing.”

All things considered, this story from Indiana shouldn’t be part of the government stupidity and incompetence contest. Given the venality of the bureaucrats, it belongs with this list of horrifying examples of government thuggery.

• A story of vicious IRS persecution.
• A women jailed overnight because she let her kids play outside.
• Cops legally stole $17,000 from a man who committed no crime.
• Threatening to send a woman to jail because someone whistled at a whale.
• Two stories of innocent people who were victimized by the idiotic Drug War.
• A video about how the EPA tried – and fortunately failed – to destroy a family.
• A story about the Justice Department’s discriminatory attack on a hapless homeowner.
• The government treating child molesters more leniently than people who accidentally omit irrelevant info from forms.

In a just world, a court will immediately dismiss the charges against the Counceller family.

I would urge that the family then be awarded damages, but that’s not the right response. The bureaucrats would merely shrug and let taxpayers pick up the cost.

The only good outcome is to unceremoniously fire every bureaucrat who played a role in this outrageous episode.

Like most bureaucrats, I suspect the paper pushers at the Indiana Department of Natural Resources are overpaid. So losing their pampered positions would be genuine punishment and it would send a message to the rest of the crew not to harass innocent and good people.

Obama--A Muslim Sympathizer

We agree with Mark Levin--we have a Muslim lover in the White House! The cut which is included in the posting is well worth listening to. We wonder why our Senators are such weasels. Oh, we forgot, they have been  bought and paid for by the Arab Lobby.

The purposeful and planned isolation of Israel continues.

Conservative Tom

Levin: Muslim Brotherhood Infiltration? ‘It’s Obama Himself’

02 Feb 2013

Hagel, military weapons, Muslim brotherhood, Obama

by wnd.com

inShare1

If lawmakers are serious about investigating whether or not Washington has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood, they need look no further than Barack Obama himself, charged talk-show host Mark Levin.

Levin noted the scorn congressional colleagues directed at Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and three other House members who asked for an examination of evidence that the parent organization of jihadist groups such as al-Qaida and Hama were wielding influence on U.S. policy from within.

The lawmakers were “treated like pariahs,” Levin recalled.

The talk host contended Obama’s nomination of former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel as defense secretary is evidence that Obama himself embodies the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“You want to look into Obama’s soul?” Levin asked, then look at Hagel.

Listen to Audio:

Read more from this story HERE.

Read more: http://joemiller.us/2013/02/levin-muslim-brotherhood-infiltration-its-obama-himself/#ixzz2Jl8jPYjg

The Little Red Hen Story Revised

We do not know who wrote this, but it is pretty much on point!

Conservative Tom 

The modern version of "The Little Red Hen"

"Who will help me plant my wheat?" asked the little red hen..

"Not I," said the cow.

"Not I," said the duck.

"Not I," said the pig.

"Not I," said the goose.

"Then I will do it by myself." She planted her crop and the wheat grew and ripened.

"Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.

"Not I," said the duck.

"Out of my classification," said the pig.

"I'd lose my seniority," said the cow.

"I'd lose my unemployment compensation," said the goose.

"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen, and so she did.

"Who will help me bake the bread?" asked the little red hen.

"That would be overtime for me," said the cow..

"I'd lose my welfare benefits," said the duck.

"I'm a dropout and never learned how," said the pig.

"If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination," said the goose.

"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen.

She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted, and in fact demanded, a share, but the little red hen said, "No, I shall eat all five loaves."

"Excess profits!" cried the cow (Nancy Pelosi)

"Capitalist leech!" screamed the duck (Barbara Boxer)

"I demand equal rights!" yelled the goose (Jesse Jackson)

The pig just grunted in disdain (Harry Reid)

And they all painted 'Unfair!' picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities.

When the farmer (Obama) came, he said to the little red hen, "You must not be so greedy."

"But I earned the bread," said the little red hen.

"Exactly," said Barack the farmer. "That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle."

And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, "I am grateful, for now I truly understand."

But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her. She never again baked bread because she joined the 'party' and got her bread free. 

And all the Democrats smiled. 'Fairness' had been established. Individual initiative had died but nobody noticed; perhaps no one cared so long as there was free bread that 'the rich' were paying for.

And the next week, there was no bread, or anything else to eat. So they all starved equally.

And perhaps… this is the end.

EPILOGUE

Bill Clinton is getting $12 million for his memoirs.

Hillary got $8 million for hers.

That's $20 million for the memories of two people, who, for eight years repeatedly testified, under oath, that they couldn't remember anything.

DO WE LIVE IN A GREAT BARNYARD OR WHAT?

*****
“The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”
- Alexis de Tocqueville