Executive orders, the cure all solution when there is no mandate from the people, legislative body or even logic. Most commonly referenced as actions by the President of the United States, executive orders are not dribbling down to the State level.
Following the Governor of Oregon into the realm of non-mandated and abusive anti-gun regulations is this week’s Massachusetts Attorney General’s reinterpretation of the state’s “assault weapons” laws. She felt the sale of “copycat” rifles, semi-automatic rifles that strictly complied with the law, violated the spirit of the state’s 1998 “assault weapon” ban. Massachusetts’ newly defined test is if a firearm’s operating system is essentially the same as that of a banned weapon, or if the gun has components that are interchangeable with those of a banned weapon, it’s a “copy” or “duplicate,” and it is therefore illegal.
The Attorney General’s decision certainly isn’t backed up by facts from her own state, which shows only a tiny fraction of deaths from any kind of rifles in the past seven years. In reality it’s just about banning more legally owned firearms.
When the anti-gun elite started going after the so-called “weapons of war”, they focused on the features claiming they made the firearms “more lethal”. Cosmetic qualities like pistol grips, adjustable stocks, barrel shrouds and flash suppressors, all of which have nothing to do with making a firearm more or less treacherous. When the firearms industry responded by producing firearms without these “evil features”, the anti-gun crowd had to adjust. In Massachusetts’s case, it’s now the mechanical features that operate the firearms that are considered “more lethal”.
Of course this will never end. One of the bills that did not pass this year’s California legislature was to reclassify all semi-automatic, magazine fed firearms as “assault weapons”. Most certainly it and others like it around the country will return next year as the next incremental step in disarming the population.
So where does voter apathy play into this? Sadly, it’s very simple. Since the firearm community is so badly fractured, there is little chance of any of these abusive decisions being reversed. Non-black rifle owners don’t see a threat to their firearms so they haven’t fully engaged. Many who just own deer hunting rifles or duck hunting shotguns are sitting on the sidelines. The same holds true for cowboy action shooters, curio & relic collectors and muzzleloaders. But the truth is, the threat to all of us is real. The political references to Australian-style confiscations, which targeted semi-automatic as well as pump rifles, shotguns and of course handguns, is preview of what is to come for the United States.
There’s one more element of these anti-gun laws and orders to consider. As select anti-gun states around the country are coming up with new and unusual ways of stripping firearms away from law-abiding citizens, other states are strengthening their Second Amendment protections. As laws are challenged around the country and conflicts arise in the judicial Circuits, the inevitable appeals will reach the United States Supreme Court. With the passing of Constitutional Jurist Antonin Scalia, the best any appeal can currently hope for is a four-to-four tie, upholding the lower court ruling brought before it. With the audacity and blatant rights infringements being offered up around the country, you can be sure they are betting on a split court and an anti-Second Amendment majority coming in January 2017.
We also have to consider that the nature of the Court’s rulings can be so limiting in scope as to be little help for the masses. Think of it as betting on which one of the two pigeons sitting on the branch above your freshly washed car is going to poop first. Just because you win doesn’t mean you don’t get crapped on.
All of this brings us to one critical reality for firearms owners. We need to come together right here and right now. We can no longer afford to stay within our circle of like-minded friends and resist only when it impacts us personally. We need to fight each of these infringements on our rights as if the law had our name and our personally owned firearms written at the top of it. We need to fight every law, every ordinance and every executive order like it is our last chance because one day soon, it will be.
Bob
#oddstuffing, #2ndAmendment, #2A, #executiveorders, #gunvote