Alphecca

Sneak Attack on Gun Rights

Reader David M first brought this to my attention. From the Hawaii Reporter, Alan Korwin writes:

The Brady group and its congressional supporters are proceeding, and making headway, with a below-radar effort to ban operating firearms from the general public, without having to actually disarm America's 80 million gun owners.

The plan is now evolving around an innocent-sounding new legal term. It was tucked deep in a 400,000-word spending bill under president Clinton (law # P.L. 105-277), and it is now spreading throughout federal gun laws. Its latest use, the eighth, is in the frivolous-lawsuit ban just enacted (The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, law # P.L. 109-92; S.397). Described at the end of this report, it accents a liability all Americans -- not just gun owners -- are increasingly under, a tightening legal noose few people realize is around their necks.

The phrase is "secure gun storage or safety device." It includes almost anything that will keep a gun from working. At its simplest, it's gun locks.

This and closely related tactics are sometimes called "decommissioning schemes." Gun-control advocates -- the mainstream ones who seek to disarm the public -- will essentially win their cause if they can require guns to be disabled, disassembled, locked up or turned off by remote control.

This approach is already working in National Parks where possession of a working gun subjects you to immediate federal arrest, confiscation of your property, and endless aggravation. No criminal act of any kind is required, just legal possession of personal property -- any firearm. However, a gun in pieces so it cannot be fired, locked in your car trunk is allowed. Interestingly, no statutory authority for this denial of civil rights can be found. And of course, statutory denial of civil rights would be unconstitutional on its face.

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Under Brady-supported decommissioning schemes, you can keep your guns, but if they're ever workable, or available, you become a criminal and subject to arrest. It's pretty clever actually. And it has been working, even though forced decommissioning is infringement of the right to keep arms and the right to bear arms.

While the Brady Bunch and their ilk are not doing well in many arenas and court venues, none the less they are relentless in completely neutering the Second Amendment.

We must be just as vigilant in rescuing it.