And So It Begins

Didn’t take long for Obama to get started on retribution for our opposition. I also hear ATF is very interested, suddenly, in meeting with NSSF. And let’s not forget that Bloomberg handed the Administration a 40 point plan on how to screw us without needing a damned thing from Congress. Elections have consequences. We’re not going to have much choice other than to bend over and take it.

35 thoughts on “And So It Begins”

    1. Yes, but the treaty can do a lot of damage even if we don’t ratify it, when you consider how much of our arms and ammunition we import.

  1. Do you have any more info on the ATF wanting to meet with the NSSF? I’d be very curious to hear more/anything about that.

    1. Larry Keene, General Counsel for NSSF, was on Cam Edward’s show last night. It came up there. It may be on their YouTube channel, NRAVideos. I haven’t checked today.

  2. “We’re not going to have much choice other than to bend over and take it.”
    I sincerely hope that your craven defeatism is
    nothing but extreme sarcasm.

    cavmedic68w.

    1. I wish it was… but what is the response? You have to get Congress to correct the problem. Do we have a veto proof majority? You can try to fix it through budget riders. How in the mood do you think the GOP will be to cater to us after NRA just spent a metric ton of money on this election and didn’t deliver? The only saving grace we have in that regard is that every other rightly group spend just as much, and in a good many cases much more money, and came up equally empty.

      1. I’ve been wondering what the fallout of the failure of the “all in” strategy would be, I guess that answers that question.

  3. Nice Babylon 5 title.

    While there is an administration with no worries of reelection, there are members of his party that have that event in their future. Likewise, if he wants anything from across the aisle in the form of revenue (read: taxes) he’ll need to give something. Since healthcare isn’t likely to be it…

    Of course, there is one silver lining… Lack of imports and continued demand creates market opportunity.

    1. That’s such a commonplace occurrence (her pushing an AW ban) that it hardly qualifies as news. Unless one can make a case it has the slightest chance of passing in the Congress, in either the House or Senate, it’s simply not to be worried about.

      1. Unless, of course, the Administration does it by Executive Order. Not legal, you say?

        Since when did government – and this one, especially – really worry about whether something was legal?

        1. Executive orders don’t have the weight of law; they just do things the President already has the power to do.

          I.e. impose import bans on firearms not “suited for sporting purposes” (which is from the GCA of ’68), as G. H. W. Bush did through executive mechanisms for semi-automatic assault rifles, something we’re still living with.

  4. Well, after what I heard Harry Reid say about how he’s gonna have the Senate Rules changed come January, you can forget any Stoppages of any thing Obama wants. House doesn’t want to go along? Too Bad. Violation of the Constitution occurs? Bill of Impeachment comes out of the House? Reid will just point to the Shredder and say “Drop it off in the In Box.”

    Elections have Consequences.

    1. You’re overstating the problem, he can only further restrict what the Senate minority can do or stop. He can’t get the Senate to pass a bill and then deem the House to have passed it as well. The courts won’t go along with things that raw unless I’m sorely mistaken, and if I’m wrong, well, just what particular thing is it that brings up to this forum???

      He can define how the Senate does its advise and consent duties on Presidential nominations, then again unless I’m mistaken there are still more than enough Republican squishes to make that mostly moot. Remember the Gang of 14? I’m sure some of the people who didn’t vote for McCain in 2008 did.

      You’re right, Obama won’t get convicted if he gets impeached. Then again a Republican Senate refused to even call witnesses when they “tried” Clinton, which was unique in the history of the concept since it started back around 700 AD or so.

      We have sufficient reasons to be concerned, e.g. regulations being written by the EPA to shut down coal and fracking, by others to implement Obamacare and Frank-Dodd (the latter is a real sleeper, but potentially nearly as bad as the others, weasel word since the first two will more directly kill people); we don’t yet need to conjure even more illegality from what it admittedly a criminal regime.

  5. I’m going to be equally worried if we hear that the EPA wants to meet with the NSSF.

    You may recall that the EPA agreed with the NSSF not to put a lot of energy into the range lead issue for a few years, while ranges were given a chance to clean up their acts voluntarily on their own. Not many have put much energy into it, to the best of my knowledge, and a lot really have their asses hanging out and would prefer not to deal with it.

    (I’m not suggesting I agree with the regulations, but they’re pretty clear, have been standing for decades now, and are not likely to change.)

    1. Arrrgh. Unfortunately, there really are issues here, although probably more with the lead in primers than anything else. E.g. when the Swiss switched to their version of 5.56 NATO they again pioneered by switching to lead free primers; previously in 1911 the were they first to universally adopt non-corrosive primers (our first totally non-corrosive primer weapon system was appropriately the M1 carbine, since it was intended for men who normally wouldn’t be using it).

      Lead is bad stuff if it gets into animal’s systems, including most especially people, something we pay attention to in this former lead mining town. Metallic lead, not so much as I understand it, since it doesn’t readily convert into biologically active forms, unless e.g. it’s eaten by a bird and subject to stomach acid (pH 3 (!) in humans).

      There’s a reason that when you exit the NRA HQ’s very spiffy indoor range two very good hand washing stations stare you right in the face. The fans that pull air out of the firing stations are rather loud as well.

      1. There is at least one case I know of where range lead was found to be polluting the ground water. I personally have no idea of whether the lead levels in groundwater that are defined to be unacceptable are too conservatively low, or not, so I won’t get into that dispute. The point is that by the letter of the law, it has happened. On dry ground it is usually cleaned up fairly readily — I’m told there are companies that will do it for free, in return for the lead — but the wetter the land is, the more expensive the problem becomes.

        To generalize, the EPA has been avoiding the question, unless the question is called by a third party filing suit against a club. If the EPA ever decides to call the question on its own, they know where we all live, so to speak.

      2. The problem is they don’t give a rip about the science. They will target the lead in the slug and I would bet they have no idea there’s ever been lead in primers.

        Their goal is to disarm the people to make it easier to perfect the people.

  6. “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

    Not saying I’m a threeper, still find myself around 6%. But I do think that if things get messy. The 2016 election will be interesting, & the 2020 election won’t even happen. :-(

    But truthfully, most of the time we’ll go like lambs to the slaughter. They point a gun at your kids head, what do you do?

    Drones flying over…how do you compete against that. We are ripe for tyranny. And with todays technology, tracking, etc. Were the Nazis to be equipped likeso, there’d be no Jews today.

    That said….we’ve still got channels, we’ve still got means of affect. The truth of the matter is we need a 3rd party. And we need it depsperately.

    Every vote for Romney was a waste. We should have been voting for Gary Johnson. Not to elect him, but to break the 5%.

    1. Drones flying over…how do you compete against that.

      I call “bullshit” to this as well as the example of the kids (forgive me for starting to use that expletive too much, but “These are the times that try men’s souls”.)

      The answer is you don’t play by the other sides ‘rules’. Just like the Republicans should have never let a MSM member “moderate” any of their debates, which would have avoided the gambit by George Stephanopoulos that started to make “sex” a major part of the 2012 election.

      Fine, the government has drones. Those drones are operated from fixed locations (and if they’ve got mobile ones they’re even more vulnerable). They’re operated by people, who have to go home at night. (With an armed populace, one towards the end game scenario is that the agents of the government have to relocate into guarded camps (which I then note has to receive food), which isn’t any way to win a war.)

      I’m not advocating anything that’s implied by the above, what I’m trying to point out the the truth of the maxim that defeat begins in the mind. And, you, Mr. ‘The N.U.G.U.N. Blog’, have already been defeated, and are contributing nothing to this forum or our cause with comments like the above. You are, at best, an Eeyore.

    2. A third party is a really effective way to make sure that Democrats win by larger margins and have a mandate.

      You want to fix things, you have to influence the popular culture: make movies, make music. Low information voters are the Democratic base, and until you entertain them, you won’t have enough contact with the reptilian brainstem that you need to tickle.

      1. Historically, post-Whigs, hasn’t it been the case that if a third party gets successful enough it, its platform gets adopted by one or both of the major parties?

        I agree with your point about popular culture … but we’ve realized that for a very long time (decades; more than half a century for the schools), and if our side was actually going to do it I think we would have already. Can you point to any glimmers of hope in this area besides the increasing number of home schooled children (and is it increasing now that we’re in the Great Recession?).

        1. I am getting desperate. I’m having my son the graduating filmmaker help me figure out local resources and budget to make a short out of my screenplay The Laws of Men to use to try and scare up some funding for a feature film.

          Why are conservatives so terrified of making entertaining films that educate? Are they afraid that they might be commercial successes? Films that even slightly hint at what might be considered conservative themes (such as The Lord of the Rings) are wild successes.

        2. I think one of the values of third parties is when they are the first to recognize and talk about issues the mainstream won’t deal with.

          Of all the things I’ve done, one of then few things I’m proud of, and that accomplished more than self-education is, that I went forth in public, in writing and on radio and TV and was among the first to advocate drug legalization, which is now achieving some level of popular vindication. I did it at the worst time — 1986, when Reagan and congress were pushing hysteria to create Drug War II, and I got death threats for doing it. But if it was right, someone had to say it first.

          At the time I was doing it on behalf of the Libertarian Party, and though I believe(d) in it, I can’t imagine having gotten much of a platform for saying it, any other way. I later gave up on the LP, but I have to say they were major contributors to progress on the drug issue, even if it never did much for the party, politically speaking.

        1. I think it’s “better dead than slaves.” A variation of the line “better dead than red.”.

          Your link to the story of Verginia shows that the idea is very old. History also shows that there’s not really a lot of debate: most accept slavery — enough so that the practice is still with us.

          It wouldn’t take many Keyser Soze’s to put the damper on most of the problems “we” face. It would just take a hell of a lot more of them than are likely to show up.

  7. “We’re not going to have much choice other than to bend over and take it.”
    So the 2nd Amendment is obsolete and just dead language that should be ignored? It sure as hell was never about hunting.
    If the government is able to disarm the American people simply by passing a law or signing a treaty, then the 2nd Amendment was never worth anything anyway.

    1. Obama doesn’t have Congress. It’s not going to come to disarmament, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to suggest we start a revolution because the Stinger Pen Gun got reclassified as an AOW.

  8. 2016 is important, but don’t forget 2014 is a shot at retaining a bunch of pro-gun and/or solid “no” votes for a potential Obama SCOTUS opening, and replacing a bunch of anti-gun and definite “yes” votes in the Senate.

    We need to identify which are which and put them on notice that their fate will ride in large part on what they let Obama accomplish. If we pull it off it will serve “pour encourager les autres.”

    We need to identify which on “our side” are vulnerable to being primaried and make sure the nutjobs don’t get someone nominally “pro-us” but unelectable into the race.

    Lamar Alexander, Tennessee
    Max Baucus, Montana
    Mark Begich, Alaska
    Saxby Chambliss, Georgia
    Thad Cochran, Mississippi
    Susan Collins, Maine
    Chris Coons, Delaware
    John Cornyn, Texas
    Dick Durbin, Illinois
    Mike Enzi, Wyoming
    Al Franken, Minnesota
    Lindsey Graham, South Carolina
    Kay Hagan, North Carolina
    Tom Harkin, Iowa
    James Inhofe, Oklahoma
    Mike Johanns, Nebraska
    Tim Johnson, South Dakota
    John Kerry, Massachusetts
    Mary Landrieu, Louisiana
    Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey
    Carl Levin, Michigan
    Mitch McConnell, Kentucky
    Jeff Merkley, Oregon
    Mark Pryor, Arkansas
    Jack Reed, Rhode Island
    Jim Risch, Idaho
    Pat Roberts, Kansas
    Jay Rockefeller, West Virginia
    Jeff Sessions, Alabama
    Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire
    Mark Udall, Colorado
    Tom Udall, New Mexico
    Mark Warner, Virginia

    1. I am not sure I see a lot of “our” guys vulnerable to being primaried. Collins perhaps and McConnell and Graham. Who would be R Senate leader if McConnell were gone. Might be worth the tradeoff just on effectiveness issues. Hard to feature any D winning SC. Some pickup possibilities unfortunately are pro-gun Ds like Baucus and Begich. Hagen, Johnson and especially Franken seem like good places to concentrate. Franken only won by fraud the last time.

  9. “We need to identify which on “our side” are vulnerable to being primaried and make sure the nutjobs don’t get someone nominally “pro-us” but unelectable into the race.”

    I don’t think I have ever heard sweeter words of recognition of political reality; in particular, qualifying “pro-gun” with “nominally” (which the majority are) and “unelectable.”

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