On WMUR Channel 9’s Closeup this morning, Congressman Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH CD-1) decided that she was going to talk about gun control at gun shows and certainly made it clear that NO background checks happen at gun shows. Well, she may not be the brightest bulb in the lot, but she’s not the dimmest (damning with faint praise: that would go to Congressman Hank “Guam might tip over” Johnson before CSP could rise to take the prize), but one of these is true:
- Maybe I HAVE judged her brightness wrongly?
- Perhaps she is subject to that line “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt”
- She is lying (employing the Saul Alinsky principle that “In the beginning the organizer’s first job is to create the issues or problems”?)
So, what is wrong? And where is she lying?
- Airport: “It’s up to you – you can go through the metal detector or you could go straight through; we leave that up to you”
IF ONLY! Trust me, if I had the chance to go through the security line or by-pass it, I WOULD by-pass it – hey, I’m no threat to any plane! She is, however, absolutely wrong unless she is boarding a private plane – I have NO choice in by-passing the TSA. If you are flying commercial at any kind of sized airport, you are going to get to go through the TSA Shuffle.
- “If you go and buy a gun at a shop, then you are going to have a background check. But if you decide you’d rather get your gun at a gun show, you won’t”
She’s lying. If you go to a gun show AND you are going to buy a gun from someone who also has a gun store (and who HAS to be licensed by the Feds), you WILL undergo a background check. ANY time, you buy from an FFL dealer, you have to go through the regular background check. Period.
- “So I don’t know why it’s OK in the shop but not OK in the gun show”
Again, if you are buying from a regular FFL dealer at the show, you will undergo a check just like you would at their shop. What she deliberately isn’t saying is that private citizens are also allowed to sell their guns at a show as well – just like they could if you were both haggling over the property line fence between your two houses. And she further amplifies the idea that no background checks are done at gun shows (a deliberate obfuscation at best and an outright lie at worst), she says this:
“But if you were going to do any harm, would you go into the shop and a background check or would you go to a gun show?”
Josh McElveen hesitantly started to bring up the point about neighbors (as in neighbors buying from neighbors, family members, et al) but chickened out as she continued to roll over him, knowing that is the huge chink in that argument – essentially, Shea-Porter is all in that Government needs and HAS to be involved in the sale – thus, outlawing private sales altogether.
Other observations:
- “…the art of compromise…knowing that’s a longer term political discussion talk about how many bullets you need, etc.”
Once again, we see the constant incrementalism of Progressivism – WHY is it the business of Government to know or regulate the bullets one possess when you compare their whining (like CSP is doing here) and the clear absence of such in the Constitution? Why should they arbitrarily decide, for me – a law abiding citizen – what I “need” by their standard? I have never read a definition of Freedom that says talks about my “needs” being set by somebody else. Or my “wants” either. I want all of our Political Leaders not only to swear an oath to the Constitution but to the values therein as well. I want them to believe that the Constitution doesn’t surround us all – but it should fence them in and keep them from harming or infringing our Liberties (the original purpose for Government – not to provide for “safety and security”).
- “And in that bill, it was illegal to have a Gun Registry.”
Er, it was ONLY illegal for the Attorney General of the United States to create a Gun Registry. What Shea-Porter knows full well (assuming that she actually bothered to read it) is that if the language specifically outlaws one specific entity to do something, it leaves the door open for another one to legally do something.
Ask yourself – a lot of people are reporting that going in for a doctor’s visit, the “Five Obamacare Questions” are now asking “Are there guns in your home?” – there is nothing in the bill that would have prevented the Dept of Health and Human Services from starting one under the guise of “Public Health”. And others are actually talking about doing so – and California, for instance, is already using their to confiscate guns (and where Missouri State government just handed all of their CCW holders’ info to the Feds).
“I’ll take an inch now….and another one a bit later….and another one a bit later….and another one a bit later….and another one a bit later….and another one a bit later”
And Carol, dear? Most criminals don’t bother to go to gun dealers or gun shows to get their guns – they steal them or buy them from other criminals.
And that last “Compromise? Yes” scares me.
