This feature appears in the August ’16 issue of NRA America’s 1st Freedom, one of the official journals of the National Rifle Association.
Our Executive Vice President, Wayne LaPierre, long ago distilled the very essence of gun control: “Making the innocent pay the price for the guilty when the guilty pay no price at all.”
Two recent events on the gun-ban scene illustrate Wayne’s analysis to a T.
The first is Democratic presidential wannabe Hillary Clinton’s absurd claim that guns from Vermont are fueling the daily carnage in New York City, thus illustrating the urgent demand for Hillary’s personal push for new national gun control laws aimed at liquidating the right to keep and bear arms.
The second example involves the fallen, former CBS media star Katie Couric’s obscene gun-ban infomercial on Yahoo, “Under the Gun,” where her producers—claiming how easy it is to cross state lines and acquire guns—arguably violated multiple felony provisions of federal law. The redoubtable Charles C.W. Cooke of National Review described it as “The delicious irony
of gun control advocates breaking laws in order to prove they don’t exist.”
All of this ties into the biggest lie in the arsenal of lies of the gun-ban movement—the lie of omission in which politicians, propagandists and the media intentionally ignore the fact that virtually every aspect of “gun violence” is already illegal under existing federal law. New York City—Hillary’s venue for her silly claim—is close to the very bottom of any list of federal prosecutions for armed violent criminals.
So let’s start with Hillary. Her claim about Vermonters’ freedom fueling deadly violence in New York City (where the Second Amendment doesn’t even qualify for life support) was a phony issue manufactured to make her Democratic presidential primary opponent, the scrappy far-left senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, look weak on gun control. (The NRA rates him a D, compared to Hillary’s richly deserved F.)
In a truly bizarre moment, she attacked Sanders and Vermont: “Most of the guns that are used in crimes and violence and killings in New York come from out of state. And the state that has the highest per-capita number of those guns that end up committing crimes in New York come from Vermont.”
She continued, “That’s right. So this is not, ‘Oh, you know, I live in a rural state; we don’t have any of these problems.’
“This is—you know what—it’s easy to cross borders. Criminals, domestic abusers, traffickers, people who are dangerously mentally ill, they cross borders, too. And sometimes they do it to get the guns they use.”
As we all know, criminals, domestic abusers, traffickers, the dangerously mentally ill, are all prohibited persons under existing federal law and mere possession of a firearm—simply touching one—is a felony.
New York City—Hillary’s venue for her silly claim—is close to the very
bottom of any list of federal prosecutions for armed violent criminals. And, as almost any law-abiding gun owner knows, trafficking in firearms involves multiple felonies under current federal law.
But you will never hear Hillary—or anybody in the gun-ban crowd—ever admit the law exists. There is nothing criminals do with guns that isn’t already illegal. The only thing left is to make what peaceable people do illegal. And that’s her endgame.
And that gets us to Couric’s fraudulent infomercial—which first came to media attention because the director/producer, Stephanie Soechtig, edited footage of Couric asking some very smart, well-informed Second Amendment advocates from the Virginia Citizen’s Defense League, “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?” As any law-abiding gun owner knows, she is describing felony violations of federal law.
What followed, in the interview, was four minutes of very thoughtful answers, thankfully recorded by Couric’s victims. However, what appeared on the final cut was nine seconds of close-ups of the pro-Second Amendment advocates saying nothing, looking completely dumbfounded. They were made to look stupid as a result of editing.
But the worst was yet to be disclosed.
In an interview puffing the Couric propaganda infomercial on an online video, Soechtig bragged, “We sent a producer out and he was from Colorado. He went to Arizona, and he was able to buy a Bushmaster and then three other pistols without a background check in a matter of four hours. And that’s perfectly legal. He wasn’t doing some sort of underground market. … And he just met someone in the parking lot of Wendy’s and bought a Bushmaster. Legally. Like, this is legal.”
Like, no, it isn’t!
As any law-abiding gun owner knows, she is describing felony violations of federal law. Perhaps this meets the test for conspiracy laws to kick in. It is shameful.
Once again, these people break the law to claim there is no law. Maybe not for them.
Don’t hold your breath that any prosecution will ever take place. It would spoil the ultimate lie of the gun-banners that there are no laws.
