But I thought he was their guy?
GOA has said that they have influence on Senator Coburn. GOA has also opposed the NICS Improvement Bill with the made up assertion that it is the veteran’s disarmament act. Coburn, however, supported the bill:
We have 140,000 veterans with no history of mental deficiency, no history of being dangerous to themselves or others, who have lost, without notice, their right to go hunting, to skeet shoot, to have that kind of outing in this wonderful country of ours in a legal, protected sense. What this bill does is it attempts to address that by giving them an opportunity for relief. It mandates that, first of all, they are notified if that happens to them so that they know they are losing their rights. What a tragedy it would be if a veteran who lost his rights but doesn’t know it becomes incarcerated under a felony for hunting with his grandson because it is illegal for him to own, handle, or transmit a weapon? That is not what we intended to do in this Congress some 10 years ago. Yet that is the real effect of what is happening.
[…]
Again, my hat is off to Senator Schumer and those who have worked tirelessly to get this done. It is with great appreciation for the manner in which it was handled, and it is my hope that we will pass this on and see the great accomplishments of protecting people from those who are a danger to themselves and others.
Doesn’t quite jibe with GOA, does it?
December 27th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Phew, you absolutely mangled the meaning there. Don’t flip paragraph orders, it makes you look like a member of the mass media.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Huh? they’re not flipped. I just left out the middle.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:50 am
My bad, didn’t make it all the way to the bottom.
I don’t see why GOA is so uptight about the bill, if anything it’s a veteran’s REarmament act.
December 27th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
The GOA is upset because 1) the NRA is able to do something substantially good for gun owners even when Democrats are in charge, 2) the GOA in the meantime looked like a bunch of amateurs, and 3) the GOA simply does not understand how Congress works.
December 27th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Or so you say…
December 27th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Just one item for you all to think about. It appears too taxing of your abilities to handle more than that at a time. The one item will not even be the major one, but something you should think about. I mean, if any of you truly understand and/or want liberty.
If after a year a decision cannot be reached whether to reinstate an applicant’s 2A rights, the decision must then be decided at trial in a federal court.
So, in a year’s time no information comes to light that would disqualify the applicant, yet his “prohibited person” status remains in effect. He is guilty of something, nobody knows what at this point, because after a year, there still was not a sufficient reason to deny him. Our whole system is dedicated to the proposition that the individual is assumed innocent until proven guilty in every area of our lives except taxes.
Suddenly, that assumption of innocence is removed from another area of our lives, and the citizen must prove he is not guilty of what? That’s right, he must prove he is not guilty nor likely to be guilty of something a year’s worth of consideration couldn’t define.
This defies all the principles of liberty and all the principles upon which this republic was founded and codified in the Constitution of that republic.
That should be enough to outrage any person who claims to believe in liberty. But instead it seems to have been the genesis of gratitude for being allowed to beg for crumbs at the master’s table.
Arguments of principle aside, let’s look at the practical side for just a minute. Many of our self-supposed “gun rights leaders” urge pragmatism as a more sure way of achieving the restoration of our rights to that which “shall not be infringed”. Surprise! Pragmatism works against the citizen who would seek to appeal his prohibited status under this outrage of a bill.
Getting to federal court is very expensive. It takes many thousands of dollars, and if the process is protracted it is prohibitively expensive for all but the wealthiest citizens. None of which are in much danger of restriction of their rights,anyway, due to their connections, both political and economic.
Lawyers must eat and pay the mortgage and feed their children too. Ergo, an appellant or would be appellant would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find a lawyer to take the case without a guarantee of recompense from his client. Most clients likely to be affected by this bill will not have the financial wherewithal to make that guarantee of the attorney’s fees or the filing fees etc. Ergo, they are locked out of the courthouse.
There is sop, to the less discerning, in the bill that the successful appellant’s legal fees will be paid by the government. That payment would be more accurately described as reimbursemnt, since the appellant will not get to court without up front huge outlays of cash. Lawyers are not going to take a case such as this pro bono or on contingency where those thousands of dollars come out of their pockets, nor are they going to risk that kind of money only to be paid their normal fee, only if they win.
Those types of risks are sometimes taken by well-heeled legal firms in cases where the damages assessed can return much greater compensation than the normal fee if the case is very good and the odds of winning are great. But never are those risks taken for only normal compensation when the front loaded expenses could financially ruin the law firm. Especially when he must win to survive. Therefore, they will not represent a client no matter how good his case may be unless that client can pay his way as they proceed. This isn’t evil on the part of the attorney, it is a matter of his survival and pragmatism dictates he decline.
In summary, the mechanism presented as a protection is not. It is a clever way to fool the people who think they actually received a correction to a former wrong, while making it impossible for the greatest number of people to access that mechanism. More importantly, it establishes the precedent that even when government cannot present a valid reason to deny a citizen’s right, the citizen may still be deprived and forced to prove he deserves it, even in the face of lack of evidence that he does not. Once this precedent is established on this issue, it can be expanded to other issues. Thus turning every right into a privilege for which the citizen must apply.
It is amazing the lack of depth of thought supporters of this bill have demonstrated. I speak not of the politicians who support it, because they knew exactly what they were doing. It is expected that they would want more power. It is truly saddening that so many ordinary citizens want to give it to them.
December 28th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Straightarrow,
That’s a great argument against the Gun Control Act of 1968, and I don’t really take issue with the “presumed guilty until proven innocent tact” but currently, under GCA 68, if you’ve had a history of mental health problems that fall within the federal guidelines, you’re just presumed guilty: end of story. Even if you have a mental health problem that doesn’t fall within the federal guidelines, and another federal agency just decided to stick you in NICS, which is what the VA did, you’re shit out of luck.
I don’t disagree that the remedies provided here aren’t optimum, but they are a start. The argument that in a few years they will “improve” the bill, doesn’t really fly, because they could come along and “improve” any gun law. Even if we repealed the GCA of 1968 in it’s entirety, by the argument many are making, we should oppose this because some time later, Congress could “improve” it by passing provisions of it later. I say we take what we can get now, and worry about getting more later.
December 28th, 2007 at 1:22 am
Sebastian, you will someday find how fully you have been betrayed. I cannot convince someone who has an emotional attachment to his belief. Emotion trumps analysis and logic everytime in the undisciplined mind. It is usually the causation.
An opinion reached through logic is not held as tightly as one reached through emotional need because it doesn’t define us, it defines our assessment of the facts, history and what we know of the nature of the issue. An opinion thus reached can be discarded or amended readily when new facts emerge, or the holder is made aware of things he had not considered and that fundamentally changes the equation.
An opinion reached through emotional need to believe will never be discarded or amended thusly, simply because the holder defines himself through his emotional need to believe and it would feel like spiritual suicide to change his mind.
So the only thing that works for those so afflicted to make them start using thought and logic is massive monstrous betrayal. Not even history of betrayal will make them wary until the betrayal affects them personally.
You mentioned that I made a valid argument against GCA ’68. That argument was made then. Too many such as yourself did not see it, would not see it, and therefore made the same arguments you make today. You see where we are now. Enough said.
December 28th, 2007 at 11:50 am
I’m 100% with straightarrow on this… Rat poison sweetened with sugar is still rat poison. I don’t need to eat it to know it’s bad for me.