Evil + Stupid = Bipartisan

by Jeff Knox

We are now just a couple of months from the midterm elections and the political gamesmanship has begun to heat up. It was former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson (a Republican) who declared that in America we have the Evil Party, and the Stupid Party, adding that he belonged to the Stupid Party. For those committed to restoring and protecting the rights of gun owners, the labels are broadly accurate. While there absolutely are Democrats who are personally committed to individual rights, the Democrat Party itself is not only opposed to gun rights, they lie about it. There are two basic policy positions for Democrats on guns and they both start with politicians declaring, "I strongly support the Second Amendment."

Members of the first group are generally part of the "Blue Dog" caucus, representing rural areas. Most of them are hunters and gun owners who actually believe that they support the Second Amendment, but they also tend to support their party on what they call "reasonable restrictions" on gun ownership and possession reasonable restrictions which are clear violations of the Second Amendment. Under no circumstances does their support for the Second Amendment trump their obedience to Party Leadership either. Granted, the existence of "pro-gun" Democrats probably helps to reduce the amount and severity of gun control proposals introduced or advanced in Congress, but it's been a long time since a "pro-gun" Democrat broke party discipline to help pass a pro-rights measure, defeat an anti-rights bill, or block confirmation of a rabidly anti-gun presidential appointee.

The other group of Democrats who "strongly supports the Second Amendment" are those who are simply lying.

John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama fall into this group. Even notoriously anti-rights Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has claimed to support the Second Amendment.

There might be a few Democrats who haven't been able to bring themselves to declare support for the Second Amendment, but the official party line is broad support for the constitutional right, while interpreting it in the narrowest terms, and doing all they can to undermine and dismantle it.

Appointing and confirming Federal Judges and Supreme Court Justices who are hostile to the Second Amendment – or any other part of the Constitution – is a travesty and an unforgivable sin, yet we see Democrat Senators who claim to be staunchly pro-gun like Tester and Baucus of Montana, Casey of Pennsylvania, and Webb of Virginia, casting votes for the likes of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Republicans, on the other hand, are generally supportive of the right to arms, but few of them have any more understanding of the issue than do the Democrats. They definitely lack the resolve and the backbone to vigorously oppose the Democrats' attacks on the Constitution and the President's appointments of radical extremists to the courts and high level government positions.

Under the new Democrat power structure the President will be able to simply declare his desire and his minions in the various bureaucracies will fulfill his wishes – without all of the mess and smell of going through Congress.

The next such bypass could directly impact shooters as the EPA is considering a petition to ban all traditional, lead-based ammunition from hunting and possibly even target shooting. The petition claims that raptors such as Bald Eagles are eating remains of game animals and contracting lead poisoning from remaining bullet fragments. The fact that there is no scientific evidence to back up this claim is unlikely to interfere with enacting a lead bullet ban because doing so would help further two fundamental objective of Democrat leadership: making the "environmental movement" happy, and making it harder, more expensive, and more troublesome to own and use firearms.

If Republicans don't discover some spine soon and start fighting Democrat assaults on our system of government and our way of life, the voters might be so frustrated and fed up that they shift to third-party candidates or not to bother voting at all. Either way, that would leave Democrats in control and the destruction of the Constitution would be accelerated.

The Republic is in grave jeopardy and the "leaders" in Washington are either participating in its destruction or uselessly wringing their hands.

Permission to reprint or post this article in its entirety is hereby granted provided this credit is included. Text is available at www.FirearmsCoalition.org.