Aside from the fact that Presidents do not have Constitutional authority to do all the things…
By: Crusty Old Nco
Tags: Kirsten Gillibrand, Gun Control, Corruption, Gun Violence Prevention, Political Lies

Aside from the fact that Presidents do not have Constitutional authority to do all the things Kirsten Gillibrand promises she will do — it’s Congress that creates and passes legislation, Ms Gillibrand, you should know this by now. This is about as strawman a plea to emotion that one is likely to see this year. I’m sure Ms. Gillibrand’s opponents will try to up the ante with even more Draconian promises of more and harsher gun laws.

But the sophomoric sophistry of fear mongering about the NRA takes the cake when it comes to infantile positions. Whatever you think about the NRA defending the Second Amendment — or whether you think the Second Amendment is just the one Bill of Rights Amendment that should be destroyed — the idea that the money of the NRA controls the agenda is ridiculous.

For anyone who is adult enough to go to the Open Secrets website to examine political spending, it becomes evident that the NRA’s attempts to defend the Second Amendment are completely overshadowed by the spending of the big boys: Michael Bloomberg’s donations and funding of anti-gun organizations dwarf the spending of the NRA. And then aside from wealthy gun prohibitionists like Bloomberg, there are the gun prohibition groups like the Brady Campaign, Violence Policy Center, etc. Their spending also dwarfs the annual spending of the NRA to defend the Second Amendment.

So despite the reality that the NRA is easily outspent 100–1 by individuals and groups who want guns outlawed, Ms. Gillibrand needs a strawman to beat up to draw attention to herself in her desperation to be competitive in the primary. And so, she wants to tell you that, somehow or other after these other organizations have thrown a hundred times as much money at politicians and their campaigns, it’s the NRA and it’s paltry money that wins their votes.

Yeah, that sure makes a lot of sense.

Meanwhile, Ms. Gillibrand says nothing about ever enforcing the existing gun control laws we have; like the law that says felons found in possession of firearms are guilty of another felony with a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison, to be served in a federal penitentiary. Given that over 80% of murders with firearms are committed by people who already have felony records, you would think Ms Gillibrand would be promising to ensure her Attorney General would mandate that charge be laid in every instance that qualifies for it. As her state, New York, is one with the worst record of refusing to lay this charge, one would think her concern with gun violence would have her both harassing her state to ensure they lay that charge, while promising that she would ensure it was laid everywhere in the country.

But she doesn’t, of course. Just as she makes no mention of the comparative number of defensive uses of firearms in this country every year. Just as she makes no mention of the fact most of those firearms deaths she talks about are suicides, not criminal deaths. And certainly, she doesn’t discuss that states bordering Canada with few gun laws other than current federal laws, where a state resident can walk down main street with a legally owned belt fed machine gun and a pistol on each hip without even a license, have murder rates pretty much identical to the Canadian provinces they border. States like ID, MT, VT, NH — while states with Draconian gun laws like NJ, DEL, MD, etc are slaughterhouses with murder rates two or more times greater.

The insult Ms. Gillibrand gives us isn’t that she lies to us; it’s that she thinks we’re so gullible and stupid that we won’t notice it.