Second Amendment

Tonight, Glenn Beck broadcast his television program live from Houston, TX since he is in town for the annual NRA convention where he will be speaking on Saturday.

During his opening monologue, Beck informed his audience that earlier in the day a man had entered Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston with an AR-15 assault rifle and fired off a round before being confronted by security and reportedly taking his own life.

But Beck wasn't buying that storyline because "that doesn't make sense to me." What does make sense to Beck is that this man was probably some unemployed and depressed individual who had been wound-up by some shadowy figure on the "uber left" to go out and "make a statement."

Despite the fact that he literally had no evidence whatsoever, Beck was pretty certain that this was some sort of false flag operation because "the idea that this is a coincidence ...  is too much to believe."

"If I were an honest journalist," Beck said, "I would find out where these guns came from; were they purchased or were they illegal.  Oh, if they're illegal, I could guarantee you this is a set-up. Someone knows history. I do.  At least I know enough history to know about the burning of the Reichstag":

Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America celebrated the defeat of the Manchin-Toomey bill to expand background checks on firearms purchases during an appearance on The Steve Deace Show yesterday. Pratt, who previously attacked gun safety laws as “paganism,” told Deace that prayer stifled the new legislation (before making a Bill Clinton joke).

Pratt: The one thing that the other side will never understand about how a small group like ours was able to do what we did is because we pray. That’s so far outside their box that you could tell them that and they would probably think you were kidding or so what, you know what I mean.

Deace: They would probably think you’re referring to p-r-e-y and wondering why you want to pick on endangered species too, Larry.

Pratt: Either that or we had Bill Clinton loose among us.

He also claimed that Sen. Toomey should be “committed” if he honestly believed that his legislation would not create a national gun registry. “You are functionally so stupid that you can’t operate in the modern world if you believe that,” Pratt said.

Deace: I’ve been around a lot of politicians, particularly because I live in the first in the nation caucus state, so I’ve seen them in their staffs lie with impunity, but Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania’s contention that they were going to do these background checks and collect all the data that they would need for a national gun registry that his bill says they are not allowed to do. So government is going to collect all this data and then restrain itself from actually utilizing it? That one ranks right up there with absolutely some of the dumbest and most incredulous lies I’ve ever heard a politician expect voters to actually buy; I mean that’s just crazy.

Pratt: And if he believes that himself then we really need to get him committed. You are functionally so stupid that you can’t operate in the modern world if you believe that. So I think you’re supposition is closer to what actually was likely going on in his mind. This was just a boldfaced effort to get the gun registry.

Gun Owners of America head Larry Pratt spoke with Stan Solomon about the Boston marathon bombing, and they both agreed that the left is actually pleased with the attack because it might result in increased government control.

After co-host ‘Chief’ Steve Davis said that the left doesn’t want anyone who doesn’t work for the government to have guns and “they don’t care how many of us get killed, blown up, assaulted, murdered or whatever as long as they can control us by taking away our guns,” Solomon maintained that liberals are even okay with other liberals getting murdered: “It’s not just how many conservatives or Republicans [die] because these people that were killed and maimed and devastated and traumatized were overwhelmingly their people, they don’t care, they are like the Chinese who don’t care if they have a million casualties because they got a billion backups.”

Naturally, Pratt agreed and likened liberals to terrorists.

“That’s exactly right,” Pratt said, “this is mission oriented, they don’t care who the victims are, if anything it might be to their liking because maybe they’re thinking that will make the liberals all the more prone to want more control, which plays right into the hands of terrorists and criminals, but then I repeat myself.”

In earlier interviews, Pratt and Solomon warned that President Obama is bent on launching a race war that will target upper-class white heterosexual Christians.

Watch:

Jeffrey Scott Shapiro declared today in the right-wing Washington Times that the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre do not deserve a vote in Congress.

Citing the Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down Washington D.C.’s ban on handguns, Shapiro claimed that the federal government has no authority to make any laws regulating guns.

However, the Manchin-Toomey bill that was just blocked by a GOP-led filibuster wouldn’t ban any guns. It would simply expand background checks for gun purchases. The Heller opinion also makes clear that lawmakers are able to enact certain regulations on firearms.

It seems Shapiro is upset about a bill that would ban all guns that was never proposed in the first place.

But that doesn’t stop him from attacking Obama for having “exploited the Sandy Hook tragedy by riling the emotions of already distressed parents and families, giving them false hope” and engaging in an “abuse of power.”

“The president is determined to launch a police war against American citizens for legally purchasing U.S.-made firearms for self-defense,” Shapiro writes. “Mr. Obama should stop exploiting the families of crime victims just to further his unconstitutional gun-control agenda.”

Even more strikingly, Shaprio says that it would be “just as unconstitutional to ask Congress to ban free speech, establish a national religion or reinstitute segregation.”

I don’t believe the families of the victims from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., deserve a vote.

It may sound harsh and uncaring, but even the greatest tragedies are not a valid reason to disregard the Supreme Court and the Constitution of the United States. If they were, our free speech and our rights against unreasonable search and seizure and against self-incrimination would have all been abolished long ago amid every crime wave in American history.

Five years ago, the Supreme Court settled the issue of the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller, making it clear that guns in “common use” were constitutionally protected. Nevertheless, President Obama recently flew several family members of Sandy Hook victims to Washington on Air Force One to pressure congressional legislators to enact new gun laws.

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Congress creates laws, the president enforces laws and the courts are a check and balance to decide if those laws are constitutional. Since, under the Supremacy Clause of Article VI, the Constitution is the “supreme law of the land,” the voice of the Supreme Court is the final word on any legal issue not Congress, and certainly not the president.

It’s a relatively simple principle, but one that Mr. Obama doesn’t seem to understand or care about. He seems to think the tragic shootings of innocent people at Sandy Hook is a justifiable excuse to completely disregard the Supreme Court and the Constitution. In places such as Chicago and Washington, D.C., thousands of innocent people have also been killed during times when comprehensive firearms bans were in effect. Don’t those families deserve a vote as well?

At every possible turn, the president has exploited the Sandy Hook tragedy by riling the emotions of already distressed parents and families, giving them false hope, convincing them they deserve a vote on an issue he knows has already been settled by the Supreme Court, a vote he knows would be unconstitutional and a vote that, short of a constitutional convention to repeal the Second Amendment, would be illegal.

It would be just as unconstitutional to ask Congress to ban free speech, establish a national religion or reinstitute segregation. That’s not leadership, nor is it compassion. It’s deceitful and preys upon broken families, who are lost in grief.

The president knows there is no chance of constitutionally expanding firearms regulations beyond minor changes, such as universal background checks. If the president has any common sense, he also knows that registration laws and universal background checks will accomplish almost nothing, since they will not obstruct criminals from getting illegal guns on the black market, just as they always have.

Everything Mr. Obama is doing to lessen the criminal use of firearms is counterintuitive to what makes sense. Instead of targeting criminals with illegal firearms, the president is trying regulate law-abiding citizens who buy legal firearms. Instead of waging war against Mexican cartels for trafficking millions of illegal guns into America each year, the president is determined to launch a police war against American citizens for legally purchasing U.S.-made firearms for self-defense.

Mr. Obama is wrong to say that if we can save one child’s life, we should do “everything” we can in our power. However, abuse of power is a dangerous thing in a constitutional republic.

Mr. Obama should stop exploiting the families of crime victims just to further his unconstitutional gun-control agenda.

Despite the tragic circumstances of what happened at Sandy Hook, pain, sadness and desperation are never a reason to jeopardize freedom and liberty. The families of Sandy Hook victims deserve sympathy, but they do not deserve a vote from Congress on a matter that has already been decided by the Supreme Court. The Constitution, not compassion, must remain the currency of our country’s lawmaking process.

WorldNetDaily always has a rather interesting way of interpreting President Obama’s speeches. For instance, WND’s “forensic profiler” Andrew Hodges recently revealed that an offhand joke the president made contained secret clues about his plan to impose martial law.

Hodges is back in WND today, telling reporter Bob Unruh that the president’s statement that the government is not planning to seize firearms is actually a “wink-wink” confirmation of a mass confiscation plan.

According to Hodges, if Obama denies that he is going to do something like confiscate guns, that means he is going to do the opposite: “Read his condescending denial as a warning of the possibility one day the government’s coming for our guns.”

“We always contemplate denial as a revelation of the real truth,” Hodges said. “Ask yourself, if he carried out an illegal presidency and participated in election fraud what would he be capable of when it came to gun control?”

Andrew G. Hodges, M.D., who wrote “The Obama Confession: Secret Fear, Secret Fury,” explained in an analysis of the president’s statements for WND that Obama’s words suggest the unconscious message that “one day the government’s coming for our guns.”

Hodges previously said Obama’s statement “I am not a dictator” actually meant, “I am the dictator president,” and concluded Obama unconsciously confessed to stealing the 2012 election.

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Hodges wrote that Obama denies any reason to worry about the government “but we must keep in mind that denial attached to an idea can tell us to keep an eye on that particular idea and consider deception. Denying the very plan he secretly has in mind. For this reason we always contemplate denial as a revelation of the real truth with the cover-up, ‘Let me tell you what I’m not going to do – ‘wink-wink.”

“Obama follows with a second comment of denial and ridicule, ‘(you hear) we can’t do background checks because the government’s going to come take my guns away.’ Again read his condescending denial as a warning of the possibility one day the government’s coming for our guns,” he wrote.

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The proflier [sic] said, “Obama’s repetitive denial tells us what’s on his mind deep down: total gun control. While he could not get away with such a plan now we must ‘know our opponent’ – to whom we must stick closer than a friend. Understand Obama has a deep need stemming from his powerless background to take power away from others.”

Hodges also points out how Obama’s statements suggest he considers himself “the government.”

“Obama dramatically assures us in another full-fledged denial of exactly why citizens have no cause for worry about extreme gun control – because ‘the government’s us.’ Stop here. What comes to mind? Think back quickly to his recent sequester press conference on March 1 when he presented such images as ‘dictator…president,’ ‘apocalypse,’ ‘Jedi ‘mind-meld’ trick,” and having ‘the Secret Service block the door’ to Republicans. One image after another of government control,” Hodges wrote. “Now read the message ‘the government’s us’ as the ‘government is me, Barack Obama.’

“Such declarations are utterly frightening when paired with his previous spontaneous image in the sequester speech of ‘horns on his head.’”

And Obama’s references to officials who are elected suggests “a denial of his belief in the Constitution, a central reason our forefathers put the Second Amendment in the foundation document,” Hodges said.

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“Ask yourself if he carried out an illegal presidency and participated in election fraud what would he be capable of when it came to gun control?” Hodges wrote.

It looks like Family Research Council president Tony Perkins is embracing a conspiracy theory first floated by Buster Wilson of the American Family Association about how the Obama administration may begin preventing conservative Christians from purchasing guns.

Yesterday on Washington Watch, Perkins said he opposes a new Senate bill that expands background checks because such a system may prevent anyone identified as an “evangelical, bible-believing fundamentalist” from acquiring a firearm.

I’m very concerned about this measure; I am concerned about where it may go once it gets to the Senate floor and what might happen in the House. This idea of background checks is very concerning given the fact that the United States military has been increasingly showing hostility toward evangelicals and Catholics as being somehow threats to national security and people that need to be watched. Well, what does that have to do with gun control? Well, what happens if all the sudden you are identified as an evangelical, bible-believing fundamentalist and the government decides you’ve got to be put on a watch list? Part of the provisions of this background check is kind of a system where if a caution comes up when they put your name in, you don’t get a chance to buy a gun.

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins yesterday hosted Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) who immediately started spreading conspiracy theories about the United Nations.

Fleming insisted that the recently approved global UN Arms Trade Treaty, which will restrict the sale of arms to countries and groups that commit war crimes and other atrocities and has been the subject of several discredited right-wing attacks, is an attempt by the left to weaken and ultimately “repeal” the Second Amendment.

The Republican congressman concluded by speculating that the UN may make it illegal for parents to spank their children.

Fleming: In the case of the UN small arms treaty what that means is that if we enter into a treaty with one or more nations that in some way controls firearms, protective arms, handguns, something like that, if it’s ratified by the Senate then that has the same effect as an amendment to the Constitution. So that would be a way that liberals could literally change the Second Amendment. I think as you well know, although it’s not going to have a full effect as part of the ‘votorama’ the other day the Senate had in their vote for their budget, a vote on an up-or-down on the acceptance of, or voting against in effect in their opinion, at least a resolution if you will, on the the acceptance of such a treaty, and Sen. Mary Landrieu from Louisiana actually voted that we should move forward on such a small arms treaty. This is a dangerous thing when it comes to the Second Amendment. People need to understand that there is an end-run around the Second Amendment that is available to the Senate and I do think President Obama and others do support this.

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Perkins: We’re talking here for just a moment about the UN’s Small Arms Treaty and as he pointed out, an end-run around Congress on the Second Amendment through the Congress. This is a very real possibility in my opinion congressman because it looks like the efforts to get legislation through Congress, especially through the House, that would severely restrict gun ownership and attack the Second Amendment is unlikely to happen, so what’s the next best thing for the Obama administration? Pursuing a treaty like this.

Fleming: Well if for instance through the UN and with an agreement with other countries, we all come together and we say, you know what we as a group of countries, both inside and outside of our borders, are going to control the handling the use and access to handguns, for instance, then if we sign onto that treaty and it’s ratified by the Senate—the House doesn’t even have to vote on it—it’s ratified by the Senate and signed onto by the President, it is firm law. A simple passage of a law or a repeal of law by Congress itself can’t undo that is my understanding. So we wouldn’t have to have a repeal of the Second Amendment, we could just simply alter it or put into effect what is essentially a repeal of it. That is not the only thing. There’s another issue just to show you how broad scope this is on how we deal with our children and what control we have of our children as parents and how we may define child abuse and the responsibility of the state. That could potentially be up for a ratification of a treaty with other nations. So that if you for instance spanked your child, you could be in violation of a UN treaty and a law created as such.

The NRA's Wayne LaPierre spoke at CPAC today, where he was introduced by a video full of clips of people in the media calling him a radical lunatic before launching into a speech where he repeatedly called everyone else crazy for thinking that his positions and views are crazy.

And he proved how reasonable he is by saying that any effort to create a database of gun owners would either be hacked by the Chinese government, handed over to Mexican government, or used by the American government to confiscate them: