Saturday, December 26, 2015
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
ISIS Recruitment Video Features Clinton, Not Donald Trump
ISIS Recruitment Video Features Clinton, Not Donald Trump
Former President Bill Clinton featured in recent ISIS recruitment video
I
demand an apology from Hillary Clinton for the disgusting story she
made up about me for purposes of the debate. There never was a video.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2015
But
in an interesting development, a video recently released by ISIS
actually features an image of the democrat candidate’s husband.“A four-minute video released by ISIS last month, entitled ‘No Respite,’ includes an image of Bill Clinton, who is called a ‘fornicator’ — a reference to his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, among many others,” reports Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross.
On Saturday during the last Democrat debate of the year, Clinton ludicrously blamed Donald Trump for the rise in the recruitment of foreign jihadists.
“We need to make sure that the really discriminatory messages that Trump is sending around the world don’t fall on receptive ears,” Clinton said.
“He is becoming ISIS’s best recruiter. They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists,” added Clinton.
Earlier today Trump, for the second time, asked for an apology “for the lie” Hillary told.
Do
you think that Hillary Clinton will apologize to me for the lie she
told about "the video" of me being used by ISIS. There is no video.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2015
Despite the emergence of this latest video, the Clinton campaign has yet to retract the erroneous remark.A former Special Operations doctor explains why he would rather be shot with an AK-47 than an M4
A former Special Operations doctor explains why he would rather be shot with an AK-47 than an M4
Wikipedia/Amanda Macias/Business InsiderAn AK-47 (top photo) and an M4.Admittedly, I’d rather not be shot with either, but if I had to choose, I’d take a round from the AK-47 over the M4 any day of the week. To add a caveat to that statement, I’m talking from relatively close range here—say up to 150-200 meters. To understand why, it’s important to first take a very basic look at the physics behind terminal ballistics.
In this case, consider the science of what happens when a penetrating missile enters a human body.
The first place to start is the following kinetic-energy equation:
KE = ½ M (V1-V2)2
Breaking this equation down into its components, we have kinetic energy (KE) influenced by the mass (M) of the penetrating missile, as well as the velocity (V) of the missile.
This makes sense; it is logical that a heavier, faster missile is going to do more damage than a lighter, slower missile. What is important to understand is the relative influence that mass and velocity have on kinetic energy, as this is key to understanding why I’d rather be shot with an AK than with an M4.
You’ll notice that the mass component of the KE equation is halved, whereas the velocity component is squared. For this reason, it is the velocity of the projectile that has far more bearing on the energy that it delivers into the target than the mass.
An AK-47.The V1-V2 component of the equation takes into consideration that the projectile might actually pass straight through the target, rather than coming to rest in the target.
In this instance, the change in the velocity of the projectile as it passes through the target (V1 being its velocity as it enters, and V2 being velocity on exit) is the factor that is considered when calculating how much energy the missile delivered into the target.
Naturally, if the projectile comes to rest in the target (ie: no exit wound), then V2 equals zero and the projectile’s velocity as it entered (V1) is used to calculate the KE.
That’s enough physics for now, but you get the concept that the optimum projectile to shoot someone with is one that has a decent mass; is very, very fast; and is guaranteed to come to rest in your target so as to dissipate as much energy as possible into them, and hence do maximal damage.
The next concept to grasp is that of permanent cavitation versus temporary cavitation. Permanent cavitation is the hole left in a target from a projectile punching through it. You can think of it simply like a sharp stick being pushed through a target and leaving a hole the diameter of the stick.
An AK-47 bullet.The permanent cavity left by a bullet is proportionate to the surface area of the bullet as it passes through the tissue. For instance, if an AK-47 round of 7.62mm diameter at its widest point passes cleanly through a target, it will leave a round, 7.62mm permanent cavity.
If this hole goes through a vital structure in the body, then the wound can be fatal.
However, if the bullet passes through soft tissues only, the permanent cavity can be relatively benign.
Below is a slow-motion video by Brass Fetcher of a 5.56x45mm round (same as what the M4 fires) hitting ballistic gelatin in slow motion.
After watching, the medical provider can begin to appreciate the damage done to tissues by the pressure wave of the temporary cavitation.
This series of photos you can see a particularly nasty M4 gunshot wound, with a small entrance wound in the right lower buttock, and a massive exit wound in the right lateral thigh.
The X-ray in the last image shows that the projectile struck the upper femur and demolished the bone, sending secondary bone fragments flying through the tissues and accounting for the majority of the exit wound.
The damage done by the pressure wave of the temporary cavity can be appreciated in the first image, with deep bruising extending up the buttock and into the casualty’s lower back. This bruising resulted from the energy dissipated through the tissues pulverizing small blood vessels in its path (think back to the ballistic gelatin video to imagine what went on in the tissues).
Don't worry, he's okay.The granular material in the middle of the thigh wound seen on the X-ray is an older-generation QuikClot advanced clotting sponge (ACS), which was inserted at the point of injury for hemorrhage control to excellent effect. The bright white fragments on the X-ray are small pieces of the bullet, which had disintegrated on impact with the tissue and bone. This is another characteristic of the M4 round that makes it all the more unappealing to be shot with—the tendency for the bullet to disintegrate if it strikes tissue at a decent velocity.
Despite being a jacketed round, because it’s smaller, lighter, and faster than an AK-47 projectile, the 5.56mm tends to yaw faster once it hits tissue. The shearing forces on the bullet once it is traveling at 90° through the tissue often tears the bullet into pieces, thus creating multiple smaller projectiles and increasing the chances of all of the bullet parts remaining in the target, and hence dissipating more energy.
The AK-47 round, being slightly heavier and slower than the M4 round, has a tendency to remain intact as it strikes tissue, and although it will penetrate deeper, it tends to remain intact and not yaw until it has penetrated much deeper than the M4.
Here’s a video from The Ammo Channel of the AK-47’s 7.62x39mm projectile being fired into ballistic gelatin for comparison to the video above of the 5.56x45mm (M4) round. Although the video shows a soft-point round being used, which theoretically should be more destructive than its full metal jacket counterpart, the video still illustrates nicely the significant penetration of the AK-47 round without it yawing significantly or disintegrating.
I once saw a good case study illustrating this point, where a casualty had sustained an AK-47 gunshot wound to the right lateral thigh and we recovered the intact bullet from the inside of his left upper abdominal wall. It had passed through approximately one metre of his tissues and shredded his small bowel, but the projectile hadn’t fragmented at all, and the temporary cavitation hadn’t done enough damage to be lethal. The casualty required a laparotomy to remove multiple sections of small intestine, but he made a good recovery. That one is a story for another time.
Don't worry, he's okay too.The entrance wound is at the top of the left buttock, with the exit being down on the left upper thigh. Although an unpleasant injury to have, the fact that the AK-47 round was traveling slower than an M4’s round at the same range would have been, coupled with the fact that the projectile remained intact and didn’t yaw significantly as it passed through him, meant the wound was nowhere near as devastating as the above-mentioned M4 injury in the same area.
It must be noted, however, that the comparison is far from perfect given that the M4 injury involved the bone, with the one immediately above passing solely through soft tissues.
So there it is. All things being equal, when all is said and done, I’d rather be shot with an AK-47 than a M4 on any day of the week. Naturally, as medical responders, it is always important to treat the wound and not the rifle that inflicted it, and I have certainly seen some horrendous AK-47 wounds over the years and some relatively minor ones from M4s. It all depends.
The main take-home points for first responders and medicos are: Be aware of the magnitude of damage that can be caused by the temporary cavitation resulting from high-velocity missile wounds, and if you find an entrance wound, there’s no telling where in the body the projectile might have ended up!
'possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition——totally illegal.”
The Clinton Files II
by Dave Hardy -
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
On Nov. 19, 2015, Brady
Center president Dan Gross (left) and New York Governor (and New York
SAFE Act author) Andrew Cuomo (right) present Hillary Clinton with the
Mario M. Cuomo Visionary Award for her leadership on gun control.
Last month, we outlined the Bill Clinton administration’s plans for gun control, including a plan to use lawsuits against gun manufacturers to force a settlement that would have imposed gun registration, bans on magazines holding more than 10 cartridges and many other forms of gun control, all without going through Congress.
Those were not the only gun control secrets stashed in the archives of the Clinton Presidential Library—not by any means. The archives also held evidence of the Brady Campaign’s real agenda, as revealed by its lobbying of the Clinton White House.
The Brady Campaign has long claimed that its agenda is limited. Just some “reasonable, common-sense” gun restrictions—no need for anyone to worry about confiscation or onerous regulations. Brady officials would prefer that no gun owner read the words of its former chairman Nelson “Pete” Shields—the man who put the organization on the political map. In the July 26, 1976, issue of The New Yorker, Shields gave an interview and summed up the group’s program. Saying that for now his organization would have to accept that half a loaf is better than none, and that for now he’d “be happy to take just a slice,” he explained: Neither Brady nor the mayors got all of their wishes, but they certainly got some. The Brady Act, the “assault weapons” ban, and the driving of small FFLs out of business represented their major successes.
“Our ultimate goal—total control of handguns in the United States—is going to take time. My estimate is from seven to 10 years. The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition—except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors—totally illegal.”
Around that same time, the Brady Campaign (then known as Handgun Control Inc.) sent out a fundraising letter that listed gun control measures that it was pushing, but assured contributors it would not stop there: “Ultimately, we want strict federal laws that will effectively restrict the possession of handguns to only the police, the military, licensed security guards, licensed pistol clubs and registered collectors.
(This, we know, will take time. But we hope and believe it will come.)”
For years, the Brady Campaign had to sit on these hopes. The Carter administration was willing to use the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to harass gun owners, but had sense enough not to publicly endorse Brady’s agenda. After Carter came the Reagan administration, during which there was no sense even trying, and the first Bush administration, which for Brady Campaign purposes wasn’t much better.
Then came the 1992 elections, when a new world opened up for gun control advocates. Bill Clinton, with campaign promises of more gun control, occupied the White House, and his party controlled both houses of Congress. At last, the opportunity Brady had waited decades for had arrived!
The Clinton archives show that the Brady Campaign moved quickly to take advantage. A September 1993 letter sent by Richard Aborn of the Brady Campaign to Howard Paster, head of Clinton’s White House Office of Legislative Affairs, showed the opening of the White House door. It begins, “Dear Howard: In preparation for the possibility of Sarah, Jim and I meeting with the president, we thought the White House might want to consider signing some additional presidential directives. ... I’d be happy to discuss these with you and would like to discuss with you the actual meeting with the president.”
Paster forwarded the letter, and its attached list of ideas, to the White House Domestic Policy Council with a handwritten note asking to be notified “ASAP” if any were usable ideas. He added, “The president’s focus on violent crime makes anti-gun directives logical.” The Domestic Policy Council’s reply was essentially that some of the ideas were not legally doable, and they were already working on the rest.
From that point on, the archives show, anti-gunners had exceptional access to the White House, and used it to the fullest. In fact, the files of President Clinton’s Domestic Policy Council read like the archives of the Brady Campaign.
The White House files were filled with Brady Campaign/Handgun Control Inc.’s legislative plans. A memo stamped “confidential—do not circulate” (with the label set out by images of skulls and crossbones) outlined Brady’s real agenda.
It began with a list of what Brady wanted from the Clinton administration. The list was long, but mostly quite predictable: licensing requirements and registration for handgun ownership, a ban on “assault rifles,” “one-gun-a-month,” a seven-day waiting period, and stiff increases in fees (to $1,000 per year) for FFLs.
Even that would not be enough to please the Brady Campaign, though. Its memo added some proposals that (until now) have never seen the light of day.
Brady also asked for a federal requirement of a special “arsenal license” for any gun owner who possessed 20 guns or 1,000 rounds of ammunition. (The White House copy has a handwritten note: “all guns.”) The memo described the arsenal license’s requirements as “similar to the requirements for a machine gun license,” including the requirement for police approval, since “anyone who has an arsenal is a danger to society.” In this scenario, two bricks of .22s would be enough for a gun owner to be treated as a public menace. From that point on, the archives show, anti-gunners had exceptional access to the White House, and used it to the fullest.
Brady also asked that each component of a handgun, including the “barrel, stock, receiver, any part of the action, or ammunition magazines” be treated as if they were the receiver. “Buyers would need a license, sellers would need an FFL, and interstate sales would be illegal,” Brady explained. Replacing the grips or a firing pin spring, or purchasing an extra magazine, would actually require a 4473. Apparently they consider handguns to be that dangerous!
Incredibly, Brady also wanted a ban on manufacturing magazines that held more than six rounds, and a requirement that transfers of used seven-round and larger magazines have law enforcement approval. Essentially, nearly every magazine in the United States, apart from those for some pocket guns and deer rifles, would be banned if new, or tightly restricted if already in existence.
So much for Brady’s claim that they only want “reasonable, common-sense gun control”! The moment there seemed to be an opening for more, they seized the opportunity with both hands. They were obviously seeking to implement anything that made gun ownership more difficult, burdensome or legally risky. Want a different action spring for that pistol? See your dealer and fill out the 4473. Want to a buy magazine for that 1911? See your chief of police. Want to own two bricks of .22 Long Rifle? After you see your police chief, send your application, fingerprints and photo to Washington, and wait for them to license you as a “danger to society.”
Yet even that wasn’t the limit. In a later letter to the Clinton White House, Brady expanded on its idea to heavily tax handguns and ammunition, and in the process showed its disdain for hunters and shooting ranges. The October 1993 memo, sent by Brady’s president Richard Aborn, was aimed at Pittman-Robertson funds. P-R funds come from an excise tax long imposed on new firearms and ammunition, and earmarked for state game and fish agencies, which use them for game conservation and shooting ranges. The memo recommended raising the tax on handguns and handgun ammunition to 30 percent, and diverting all of these funds away from conservation and into paying the medical costs of treating handgun shooting victims.
What about game conservation and ranges? To Brady, these were not a concern. “The Pittman-Robertson program is a product of another era,” the letter stated. “If it was ever important to subsidize hunting and sport shooting, that time has past [sic].”
To the Brady Campaign, damaging Pittman-Robertson and hunting was a benefit, not a bug. The memo ended:
“It would probably be politically impossible to eliminate the Pittman-Robertson program. It has developed an entrenched constituency in every state. Still, that program could probably be trimmed by eliminating all funding from handgun taxation. That would cut the program by about one-third.”
To be fair, Brady was not the only group charging ahead with plans for gun control, nor did the Clinton White House need much prodding. A December 1993 letter from the U.S. Conference of Mayors related that group’s desires. As might be expected, first and foremost was dealing with the “root causes of crime” by … wait for it … giving city governments more taxpayer money. After that came a litany taken directly from Brady’s list. Possession of “assault weapons” and their “component parts” should be outlawed. So should all possession of firearms (not just handguns) by minors. Small FFLs should be put out of business, and the licensing fee for surviving FFLs raised to $1,000 per year. The excise tax on firearms should be “increased significantly,” and taken out of Pittman-Robertson.
The mayors’ demands in some areas even went beyond what the Brady Campaign had proposed. The mayors proposed that gun shows be banned, period, and likewise the sale of hollow-point ammunition. FFLs with paperwork violations should be subject to a minimum penalty of $20,000 for a first violation, “with increasing amounts for subsequent violations.” The mayors apparently felt that was an appropriate response to failing to write down a county name or ZIP code on a form.
Neither Brady nor the mayors got all of their wishes, but they certainly got some. The Brady Act, the “assault weapons” ban, and the driving of small FFLs out of business represented their major successes. Then came the midterm elections. In his autobiography, Bill Clinton described the effects: The goal is to make handgun ownership illegal: Along the way, remember that half a loaf is better than none, and if you have to, settle for just a slice. Take whatever you can get, and keep on asking for more.
“On November 8, we got the living daylights beat out of us, losing eight Senate seats and 44 House seats, the largest defeat for our party since 1946. … The NRA had a great night. They beat both Speaker Tom Foley and Jack Brooks, two of the ablest members of Congress, who had warned me this would happen. … The gun lobby claimed to have defeated 19 of the 24 members on its hit list. They did at least that much damage, and could rightly claim to have made [Newt] Gingrich the House Speaker.”
It’s said that one form of insanity consists of taking action, experiencing disaster and then repeating the action in hopes of getting a better result. After an electoral thrashing like that, we might have expected the Brady Campaign to take stock of the situation and lie low for a time. After all, they would be lobbying the very man whom they just led into political disaster.
But the Brady Campaign didn’t seem to know when to quit. In November 1996, Brady’s legislative director wrote the White House to propose several new and old ideas for gun restrictions. First, he proposed “one handgun a month,” a by-then old idea (but which 20 years later is still being floated from time to time). The Clinton people may have been getting tired of Brady’s ideas: When the letter argued that one-gun-a-month would reduce gun-running, someone in the Domestic Policy Council wrote “How?” in the margin. Brady also proposed requiring private sales to go through FFLs (again, an idea that is still at the top of the anti-gun wish list), “smart guns” that could only be fired by their owner (ditto) and some other measures, before coming down to their single new idea.
That idea: Make it illegal for anyone but an FFL to sell more than one gun a month. That way, the administration could claim it wasn’t closing down gun shows or requiring background checks for private sales. In effect, of course, it would greatly curtail participation at gun shows, but that wouldn’t be the administration’s problem.
I could find no reply to that Brady letter in the Clinton archives. The group had apparently worn out its welcome.
The Brady Campaign’s correspondence with the Clinton White House, revealed here for the first time, illustrates how well and persistently it has stuck with the agenda laid out by its first real leader. The goal is to make handgun ownership illegal: Along the way, remember that half a loaf is better than none, and if you have to, settle for just a slice. Take whatever you can get, and keep on asking for more. Anything that makes gun ownership more burdensome or risky is a step toward that goal. Federal licenses to own ammunition or a gun collection, higher fees and more penalties for FFLs, treating springs and grips as if they were receivers, one-gun-a-month—get them if you can. Stripping away funds for wildlife conservation—go for it, less game means fewer hunters. What matters to them is not the impact on crime, but the impact on gun ownership.
That is exactly what should be on gun owners’ minds as another election approaches. The Brady Campaign’s new highest hope is that a White House door—and especially a new Clinton White House door—will open for them next year.
See the full text of Handgun Control Inc.’s (now The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence) gun control recommendation from the Clinton Presidential Library, by clicking here.
The New Clinton-Brady Connection
It’s little surprise that Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton is a darling of the Brady Campaign.
On Nov. 19, the Brady Center presented Hillary Clinton with the inaugural Mario M. Cuomo Visionary Award at the Brady Bear Awards Gala in New York. The Brady Campaign is “honored to recognize Mrs. Clinton for her leadership on this issue [gun control].”
Of course, Clinton’s “leadership” has included an increasingly vocal desire to dismantle the Constitution of the United States. Cocooned by Secret Service protection, she doesn’t believe ordinary Americans like you and me should have the right to a firearm for self-defense. She thinks Australian-style gun confiscation is “worth considering.” And she’s declared the highest court of the land to be in error, stating, “The Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment.”
Kudos to Hillary on her win last November. We say enjoy it … because as long as America’s gun owners have anything to say about it, she won’t be enjoying any wins this November.
Last month, we outlined the Bill Clinton administration’s plans for gun control, including a plan to use lawsuits against gun manufacturers to force a settlement that would have imposed gun registration, bans on magazines holding more than 10 cartridges and many other forms of gun control, all without going through Congress.
Those were not the only gun control secrets stashed in the archives of the Clinton Presidential Library—not by any means. The archives also held evidence of the Brady Campaign’s real agenda, as revealed by its lobbying of the Clinton White House.
The Brady Campaign has long claimed that its agenda is limited. Just some “reasonable, common-sense” gun restrictions—no need for anyone to worry about confiscation or onerous regulations. Brady officials would prefer that no gun owner read the words of its former chairman Nelson “Pete” Shields—the man who put the organization on the political map. In the July 26, 1976, issue of The New Yorker, Shields gave an interview and summed up the group’s program. Saying that for now his organization would have to accept that half a loaf is better than none, and that for now he’d “be happy to take just a slice,” he explained: Neither Brady nor the mayors got all of their wishes, but they certainly got some. The Brady Act, the “assault weapons” ban, and the driving of small FFLs out of business represented their major successes.
“Our ultimate goal—total control of handguns in the United States—is going to take time. My estimate is from seven to 10 years. The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition—except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors—totally illegal.”
Around that same time, the Brady Campaign (then known as Handgun Control Inc.) sent out a fundraising letter that listed gun control measures that it was pushing, but assured contributors it would not stop there: “Ultimately, we want strict federal laws that will effectively restrict the possession of handguns to only the police, the military, licensed security guards, licensed pistol clubs and registered collectors.
(This, we know, will take time. But we hope and believe it will come.)”
For years, the Brady Campaign had to sit on these hopes. The Carter administration was willing to use the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to harass gun owners, but had sense enough not to publicly endorse Brady’s agenda. After Carter came the Reagan administration, during which there was no sense even trying, and the first Bush administration, which for Brady Campaign purposes wasn’t much better.
Then came the 1992 elections, when a new world opened up for gun control advocates. Bill Clinton, with campaign promises of more gun control, occupied the White House, and his party controlled both houses of Congress. At last, the opportunity Brady had waited decades for had arrived!
The Clinton archives show that the Brady Campaign moved quickly to take advantage. A September 1993 letter sent by Richard Aborn of the Brady Campaign to Howard Paster, head of Clinton’s White House Office of Legislative Affairs, showed the opening of the White House door. It begins, “Dear Howard: In preparation for the possibility of Sarah, Jim and I meeting with the president, we thought the White House might want to consider signing some additional presidential directives. ... I’d be happy to discuss these with you and would like to discuss with you the actual meeting with the president.”
Paster forwarded the letter, and its attached list of ideas, to the White House Domestic Policy Council with a handwritten note asking to be notified “ASAP” if any were usable ideas. He added, “The president’s focus on violent crime makes anti-gun directives logical.” The Domestic Policy Council’s reply was essentially that some of the ideas were not legally doable, and they were already working on the rest.
From that point on, the archives show, anti-gunners had exceptional access to the White House, and used it to the fullest. In fact, the files of President Clinton’s Domestic Policy Council read like the archives of the Brady Campaign.
The White House files were filled with Brady Campaign/Handgun Control Inc.’s legislative plans. A memo stamped “confidential—do not circulate” (with the label set out by images of skulls and crossbones) outlined Brady’s real agenda.
It began with a list of what Brady wanted from the Clinton administration. The list was long, but mostly quite predictable: licensing requirements and registration for handgun ownership, a ban on “assault rifles,” “one-gun-a-month,” a seven-day waiting period, and stiff increases in fees (to $1,000 per year) for FFLs.
Even that would not be enough to please the Brady Campaign, though. Its memo added some proposals that (until now) have never seen the light of day.
Brady also asked for a federal requirement of a special “arsenal license” for any gun owner who possessed 20 guns or 1,000 rounds of ammunition. (The White House copy has a handwritten note: “all guns.”) The memo described the arsenal license’s requirements as “similar to the requirements for a machine gun license,” including the requirement for police approval, since “anyone who has an arsenal is a danger to society.” In this scenario, two bricks of .22s would be enough for a gun owner to be treated as a public menace. From that point on, the archives show, anti-gunners had exceptional access to the White House, and used it to the fullest.
Brady also asked that each component of a handgun, including the “barrel, stock, receiver, any part of the action, or ammunition magazines” be treated as if they were the receiver. “Buyers would need a license, sellers would need an FFL, and interstate sales would be illegal,” Brady explained. Replacing the grips or a firing pin spring, or purchasing an extra magazine, would actually require a 4473. Apparently they consider handguns to be that dangerous!
Incredibly, Brady also wanted a ban on manufacturing magazines that held more than six rounds, and a requirement that transfers of used seven-round and larger magazines have law enforcement approval. Essentially, nearly every magazine in the United States, apart from those for some pocket guns and deer rifles, would be banned if new, or tightly restricted if already in existence.
So much for Brady’s claim that they only want “reasonable, common-sense gun control”! The moment there seemed to be an opening for more, they seized the opportunity with both hands. They were obviously seeking to implement anything that made gun ownership more difficult, burdensome or legally risky. Want a different action spring for that pistol? See your dealer and fill out the 4473. Want to a buy magazine for that 1911? See your chief of police. Want to own two bricks of .22 Long Rifle? After you see your police chief, send your application, fingerprints and photo to Washington, and wait for them to license you as a “danger to society.”
Yet even that wasn’t the limit. In a later letter to the Clinton White House, Brady expanded on its idea to heavily tax handguns and ammunition, and in the process showed its disdain for hunters and shooting ranges. The October 1993 memo, sent by Brady’s president Richard Aborn, was aimed at Pittman-Robertson funds. P-R funds come from an excise tax long imposed on new firearms and ammunition, and earmarked for state game and fish agencies, which use them for game conservation and shooting ranges. The memo recommended raising the tax on handguns and handgun ammunition to 30 percent, and diverting all of these funds away from conservation and into paying the medical costs of treating handgun shooting victims.
What about game conservation and ranges? To Brady, these were not a concern. “The Pittman-Robertson program is a product of another era,” the letter stated. “If it was ever important to subsidize hunting and sport shooting, that time has past [sic].”
To the Brady Campaign, damaging Pittman-Robertson and hunting was a benefit, not a bug. The memo ended:
“It would probably be politically impossible to eliminate the Pittman-Robertson program. It has developed an entrenched constituency in every state. Still, that program could probably be trimmed by eliminating all funding from handgun taxation. That would cut the program by about one-third.”
To be fair, Brady was not the only group charging ahead with plans for gun control, nor did the Clinton White House need much prodding. A December 1993 letter from the U.S. Conference of Mayors related that group’s desires. As might be expected, first and foremost was dealing with the “root causes of crime” by … wait for it … giving city governments more taxpayer money. After that came a litany taken directly from Brady’s list. Possession of “assault weapons” and their “component parts” should be outlawed. So should all possession of firearms (not just handguns) by minors. Small FFLs should be put out of business, and the licensing fee for surviving FFLs raised to $1,000 per year. The excise tax on firearms should be “increased significantly,” and taken out of Pittman-Robertson.
The mayors’ demands in some areas even went beyond what the Brady Campaign had proposed. The mayors proposed that gun shows be banned, period, and likewise the sale of hollow-point ammunition. FFLs with paperwork violations should be subject to a minimum penalty of $20,000 for a first violation, “with increasing amounts for subsequent violations.” The mayors apparently felt that was an appropriate response to failing to write down a county name or ZIP code on a form.
Neither Brady nor the mayors got all of their wishes, but they certainly got some. The Brady Act, the “assault weapons” ban, and the driving of small FFLs out of business represented their major successes. Then came the midterm elections. In his autobiography, Bill Clinton described the effects: The goal is to make handgun ownership illegal: Along the way, remember that half a loaf is better than none, and if you have to, settle for just a slice. Take whatever you can get, and keep on asking for more.
“On November 8, we got the living daylights beat out of us, losing eight Senate seats and 44 House seats, the largest defeat for our party since 1946. … The NRA had a great night. They beat both Speaker Tom Foley and Jack Brooks, two of the ablest members of Congress, who had warned me this would happen. … The gun lobby claimed to have defeated 19 of the 24 members on its hit list. They did at least that much damage, and could rightly claim to have made [Newt] Gingrich the House Speaker.”
It’s said that one form of insanity consists of taking action, experiencing disaster and then repeating the action in hopes of getting a better result. After an electoral thrashing like that, we might have expected the Brady Campaign to take stock of the situation and lie low for a time. After all, they would be lobbying the very man whom they just led into political disaster.
But the Brady Campaign didn’t seem to know when to quit. In November 1996, Brady’s legislative director wrote the White House to propose several new and old ideas for gun restrictions. First, he proposed “one handgun a month,” a by-then old idea (but which 20 years later is still being floated from time to time). The Clinton people may have been getting tired of Brady’s ideas: When the letter argued that one-gun-a-month would reduce gun-running, someone in the Domestic Policy Council wrote “How?” in the margin. Brady also proposed requiring private sales to go through FFLs (again, an idea that is still at the top of the anti-gun wish list), “smart guns” that could only be fired by their owner (ditto) and some other measures, before coming down to their single new idea.
That idea: Make it illegal for anyone but an FFL to sell more than one gun a month. That way, the administration could claim it wasn’t closing down gun shows or requiring background checks for private sales. In effect, of course, it would greatly curtail participation at gun shows, but that wouldn’t be the administration’s problem.
I could find no reply to that Brady letter in the Clinton archives. The group had apparently worn out its welcome.
The Brady Campaign’s correspondence with the Clinton White House, revealed here for the first time, illustrates how well and persistently it has stuck with the agenda laid out by its first real leader. The goal is to make handgun ownership illegal: Along the way, remember that half a loaf is better than none, and if you have to, settle for just a slice. Take whatever you can get, and keep on asking for more. Anything that makes gun ownership more burdensome or risky is a step toward that goal. Federal licenses to own ammunition or a gun collection, higher fees and more penalties for FFLs, treating springs and grips as if they were receivers, one-gun-a-month—get them if you can. Stripping away funds for wildlife conservation—go for it, less game means fewer hunters. What matters to them is not the impact on crime, but the impact on gun ownership.
That is exactly what should be on gun owners’ minds as another election approaches. The Brady Campaign’s new highest hope is that a White House door—and especially a new Clinton White House door—will open for them next year.
See the full text of Handgun Control Inc.’s (now The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence) gun control recommendation from the Clinton Presidential Library, by clicking here.
The New Clinton-Brady Connection
It’s little surprise that Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton is a darling of the Brady Campaign.
On Nov. 19, the Brady Center presented Hillary Clinton with the inaugural Mario M. Cuomo Visionary Award at the Brady Bear Awards Gala in New York. The Brady Campaign is “honored to recognize Mrs. Clinton for her leadership on this issue [gun control].”
Of course, Clinton’s “leadership” has included an increasingly vocal desire to dismantle the Constitution of the United States. Cocooned by Secret Service protection, she doesn’t believe ordinary Americans like you and me should have the right to a firearm for self-defense. She thinks Australian-style gun confiscation is “worth considering.” And she’s declared the highest court of the land to be in error, stating, “The Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment.”
Kudos to Hillary on her win last November. We say enjoy it … because as long as America’s gun owners have anything to say about it, she won’t be enjoying any wins this November.
Monday, December 21, 2015
“Anyone can go in and buy a fully automatic gun that can fire hundred of rounds per minute.”
“Anyone can go in and buy a fully automatic gun that can fire hundred of rounds per minute.”FALSE! The NFA Act, which was originally passed in 1934, updated in 1968, and again amended in 1986 prohibits the sale of fully automatic firearms to anyone who does not apply to the ATF and receive approval for a “tax stamp” to own a fully automatic firearm (machine gun). Additionally, the buyer can only purchase a fully automatic firearm if it was manufactured prior to 1986. A tax stamp is also needed to purchase noise suppressors, a.k.a. silencers, and short barreled rifles and shot guns. This is a Federal law. We recommend reading this article about purchasing a fully automatic firearm from the Firearm Blog web site.
“You can buy a gun online and have it shipped to your house”
“You can buy a gun online and have it shipped to your house”
FALSE! We again refer to the ATF. The Gun Control Act Of 1968 requires any firearm purchased by mail to be processed through an FFL dealer (Federal Firearms License). This includes in modern times the internet. You can make a purchase on the internet, but the seller must ship the firearm to a FFL so they can run a background check on you before you can take possession. The seller in an online transaction does not need to be a licensed FFL, but they must ship the firearm to a FFL so they can have the buyer go through a background check.
FALSE! We again refer to the ATF. The Gun Control Act Of 1968 requires any firearm purchased by mail to be processed through an FFL dealer (Federal Firearms License). This includes in modern times the internet. You can make a purchase on the internet, but the seller must ship the firearm to a FFL so they can run a background check on you before you can take possession. The seller in an online transaction does not need to be a licensed FFL, but they must ship the firearm to a FFL so they can have the buyer go through a background check.
“The only purpose one of those assault weapons has is to kill”
“The only purpose one of those assault weapons has is to kill”
The modern sporting rifle, based on the AR-15 platform, is widely misunderstood. Why? Confusion exists because while these rifles may cosmetically look like military rifles, they do not function the same way. Also, groups wanting to ban these rifles have for years purposely or through ignorance spread misinformation about them to aid their cause. (from the NSSF).Modern sporting rifles, which have been named “assault weapons” by their opponents are the most popular rifle to own in America. Aside from competition and hunting, many people purchase these for home defense. Please visit the NSSF web site and view a great list of facts about these firearms.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)