Nancy Pelousy is on quite the roll the past few days. Yesterday she mustered up her best Orwellian newspeak to claim that letting the Bush tax cuts expire wasn’t a tax increase.

Ah, yes. It’s not a tax cut but ‘eliminating a tax decrease that was there.’ Mmmm….Okay!

Then, yesterday the Speakerette was asked by a CNS News reporter where in the constitution the Congress had the power to force people to by health insurance. Here’s how that went down according to CNS News (h/t Gateway Pundit):

CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”

Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

CNSNews.com: “Yes, yes I am.”

Pelosi then shook her head before taking a question from another reporter.

(Click here for the audio of this exchange)

Afterwards, Pelousy’s office justified the mandate by – what else – invoking the Interstate Commerce Clause; liberals’ favorite part of the constitution to pervert and abuse in their undying quest to expand the federal government.

Pelosi’s press secretary later responded to written follow-up questions from CNSNews.com by emailing CNSNews.com a press release on the “Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform,” that argues that Congress derives the authority to mandate that people purchase health insurance from its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.

Not too long ago, I posted regarding the constitutionality of healthcare. Embedded in that post was this quote form The Heritage Foundation on this very issue:

Lastly, proponents might argue that national health insurance is part of Congress power “to regulate commerce…among the several states.”  While progressives have often used this clause to expand the federal government, it does not apply especially to the creation of a national health insurance, because to create and engage in commerce is not the same thing as regulating commerce among the several states.

Nobody during the framing generation expected the commerce clause to expand the federal government’s authority to anything relating to or resembling commerce.  James Madison wrote that it is a power “which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained.”  The clause was designed to prevent some states from taxing goods that passed through their boundaries as those goods proceeded to market.

In Mark Levin’s book, Men In Black (pp. 131), Mark also highlights how the commerce clause was undermined by the Supreme Court and, in turn, used to expand government.

Under the Articles of Confederation, each state had been free to issue its own currency and set its own tariffs. The purpose of the commerce clause was to promote commerce and trade by breaking down these barriers. But over the years, the Supreme Court has adopted an expansive definition of ‘commerce’ to justify virtually unfettered federal intrusion into the conduct of state and local governments, and to defend the establishment of massive bureaucracies and their imposition of seemingly endless regulations on private enterprise. As a result, the government has become increasingly centralized, and the economy is lurching toward socialism.

In this sense, Pelousy’s views are just symptomatic of years of abuse and wrong-headed decisions. This is the logical end when the clear intent of the constitution has been tossed aside, its limits on federal power ignored and the rights of the individual have been disregarded. And that end result is essentially tyranny.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

The Obama Administration apparently is hell bent on controlling the media and stifling dissent at every turn. If it isn’t fighting a war with Fox News – the only war the administration is willing to fight I might add – it is threatening to bring back the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ to, ultimately, kill talk radio. Now, the next target in their crosshairs is the Internet.

On Thursday, the FCC will be voting on so-called ‘Net Neutrality’ rules. As is typical of the left, they couch their anti-freedom, un-American agenda in innocent sounding phrases. But ‘Net Neutrality’ is anything but. It is just another effort by this administration to erode our first amendment rights and attempt to silence opposing voices; in this case, by taking steps that would set the stage for government takeover of the Internet.

Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity explains how this will work – and what you and I can do to try and stop it:

As important as all the fights are that we’re in right now, perhaps the biggest of all is the fight over whether the government will take over the Internet.  That’s because as long as the Internet is free, we can use it to communicate, educate, and organize.  Tea parties, townhalls, and AFP events would be very difficult to organize if government owned and controlled the Internet and chose to interfere with it.  That’s what’s at stake this week as the Federal Communications Commission decides on Thursday whether to move forward with so-called “net neutrality” regulations.

The net neutrality movement is an outgrowth of the larger so-called media reform project of radical left-wing activists like Robert McChesney who seek to destroy private control of the country’s communications systems.

I discussed McChesney and the so-called media reform movement last night on the Glenn Beck show, and you can watch that clip here.  I’ll be on with Glenn again tonight to discuss net neutrality specifically.

As the Internet Freedom Coalition shows on our Net Neutrality Scare Ticket it has now been nearly 7 years since the November 19, 2002 letter that started the net neutrality scare, without a single significant incident of the kind of egregious behavior by evil phone and cable companies we’re told require government intervention.  It’s a solution in search of a problem.

Net neutrality sounds simple–force phone and cable companies to treat every bit of information the same way–until you realize that modern networks are incredibly complex, with millions of lines of code in every router.  Making sure services like VoIP, video conferencing, and telemedicine (not to mention the next great thing that hasn’t been invented yet) get priority may be necessary to make the Internet work. But the government is working to do just the opposite.

These networks cost billions of dollars to build and maintain, and if there is uncertainty whether there will be a good return on that investment, private investment will dry up.  And then government will step in, spending billions of our tax dollars on a government-owned and controlled Internet.

That’s their plan.

The push for a Washington takeover of the Internet is coming from the White House.  It includes Susan Crawford, the so-called Internet Czar, who told The Wall Street Journal in April that the $7.2 billion of stimulus money for broadband she is helping spend is a “down payment on future government investments in the Internet.”  She went on to say: “We should do a better job as a nation of making sure fast, affordable broadband is as ubiquitous as electricity, water, snail mail or any other public utility.”

It comes right from the top.  President Obama himself said on the campaign trail: “I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to Net Neutrality.”

The FCC will vote Thursday on what it calls a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Net Neutrality.  If it passes, it will start a public comment period and I’ll be emailing you again with instructions on how to file comments.  But for the next couple days, we need to make our case against the FCC even taking that first step down the road to a Washington takeover of the Internet. 

Here’s what you can do to help: The FCC created a website at www.OpenInternet.gov where you can comment on government regulating the Internet under so-called net neutrality rules.  The left has been flooding it with comments.  Please take a moment to head over to www.OpenInternet.gov and click on “Join the Discussion” to make your voice heard for keeping the Internet in private hands.  

Honestly, I don’t know what else is left for this administration to attack. They don’t like the free market. They don’t like the free press. And they don’t like free speech. To wit, it’s hard to conclude anything other than, this administration doesn’t like freedom much at all.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

Late last night, Sarah Palin posted a piece on Facebook entitled “Good Intentions Aren’t Enough with Health Care Reform.” Her post begins as follows:

Now that the Senate Finance Committee has approved its health care bill, it’s a good time to step back and take a look at the long term consequences should its provisions be enacted into law.

The bill prohibits insurance companies from refusing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and from charging sick people higher premiums. [1] It attempts to offset the costs this will impose on insurance companies by requiring everyone to purchase coverage, which in theory would expand the pool of paying policy holders.

However, the maximum fine for those who refuse to purchase health insurance is $750. [2] Even factoring in government subsidies, the cost of purchasing a plan is much more than $750. The result: many people, especially the young and healthy, will simply not buy coverage, choosing to pay the fine instead. They’ll wait until they’re sick to buy health insurance, confident in the knowledge that insurance companies can’t deny them coverage. Such a scenario is a perfect storm for increasing the cost of health care and creating an unsustainable mandate program.

Those driving this plan no doubt have good intentions, but good intentions aren’t enough. There were good intentions behind the drive to increase home ownership for lower-income Americans, but forcing financial institutions to give loans to people who couldn’t afford them had terrible unintended consequences. We all felt those consequences during the financial collapse last year. Unintended consequences always result from top-down big government plans like the current health care proposals, and we can’t afford to ignore that fact again.

Sarah Palin, of course, clearly has Presidential aspirations and, in that light, saying the proponents of government-run healthcare have ‘good intentions’ is certainly a diplomatic approach. In fact, I think most Republicans and conservatives have been of the opinion that our leftist friends generally have good intentions but are simply naive or misguided. For most of my adult life I have shared that opinion as well.

However, I can no longer say that I subscribe to such a view. There simply are no good intentions behind socialism. There is only misery, poverty and tyranny. That the leaders of today’s Democratic Party would pursue such an agenda – an agenda that subverts our very constitution I might add – when they are presumably knowledgeable about the history of socialism, let alone the disastrous consequences of socialized medicine in other nations, is the epitome of bad intentions. One who would pursue such an agenda does not have good intentions, but instead has a selfish quest for power and control over our lives.

As such, the days of Republicans and conservatives being kind enough to attribute ‘good intentions’ to the statists and socialists on the left need to cease. We need to begin calling a spade a spade. And we need to begin forthrightly telling our fellow citizens that intentions are only good when they begin and end with unapologetically promoting individual liberty and unbridled capitalism.

It would be a good start if Sarah Palin, the darling of many conservatives and potential 2012 Presidential nominee, would carry this torch and bring this message to the American people instead of - dare I say - trying to ‘put lipstick on a pig.’

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

Does this look like a problem to you? Well, to an apartment management company in Albany it is.

The company has told their residents in no uncertain terms that their flags are unwelcome and, if displayed, will result in eviction – even if the flag is displayed on their own vehicles!

ALBANY, Ore. – At the Oaks Apartments in Albany, the management can fly their own flag advertising one and two bedroom apartments – but residents have been told they can’t fly any flags at all.

Jim Clausen flies the American flag from the back of his motorcycle. He has a son in the military heading back to Iraq, and the flag – he said – is his way of showing support.

“This flag stands for all those people,” said Clausen, an Oaks Apartment resident. “It stands for the people that can no longer stand – who died in wars. That’s why I fly this flag.”

But to Oaks Apartment management, Clausen said, the American flag symbolizes problems.

He was told to remove the red, white and blue from both of his rides, or face eviction.

“It floored me,” he said. “I can’t believe she was saying what she was saying.”

Even long-time residents like Sharron White, who has flown a flag on her car for eight years, has been told to take it down.

White said management told her that “someone might get offended.”

“I just said to her ‘They’ll just have to get over it,’” White said.

Resident we talked to who had been approached to take down their flags all told us the same thing: that management told them the flags could be offensive because they live in a diverse community.

Attempts to find out for ourselves why management would ban flags were unsuccessful. KATU wanted to talk to management at Oaks Apartments, but no one has returned our calls. The woman we were told had made the decision said she was “not going to answer any questions.”

The mother of one soldier fighting in Iraq put up a poster in her son’s apartment window when she learned of the ban. Her son’s roommate said he’ll risk eviction to make sure it stays.
 
Another Oaks Apartment resident, Judith Sherer, doesn’t have a car. Instead she carries an American flag around the complex to protest the ban, and wonders if the flag pin she wears is next to be “singled out.” 

“If I put it on and I walk outside, what’s going to happen?” Sherer muses. “Am I going to be confronted by a manager about this?”

We’re told the ban includes sports flags and even flag stickers on cars.

If the building management had a rule against displaying any symbols on one’s property or outside a window, I could understand this to a point. But to tell people flat out that they can’t display the American flag anywhere is simply outrageous.

Sounds like another target for the tea party protesters if you ask me.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

I just nearly fell out of my chair when I came across this news. The House passed the following legislation by way of voice vote:

HRES 686 EH

H. Res. 686

In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

September 14, 2009.

Whereas the United States Constitution is the fundamental law of the United States;

Whereas people in the United States of all ages, income levels, and political beliefs fail tests of civic literacy;

Whereas a 1998 survey revealed that more teenagers knew who the ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ was than the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, more knew the star of the motion picture ‘Titanic’ than who was the vice president of the United States, and more can name the Three Stooges and the 3 American Idol judges than can name the 3 branches of government;

Whereas fewer than half of all people in the United States can name the three branches of the United States Government;

Whereas students at top colleges and universities in the United States scored an average of only 59.4 percent for seniors and 56.6 percent for freshmen on tests of civic literacy;

Whereas people in the United States aged 25 to 34 score an average of 46 percent on a test of civic literacy and people aged 65 and over score the same 46 percent;

Whereas research shows that an increase in civic knowledge, including that of the United States Constitution, almost invariably leads to the beneficial use of that knowledge; and

Whereas research shows that greater civic learning leads to more active citizenship, and people in the United States who fulfill their civic obligations beyond voting are more knowledgeable about their country’s history and institutions: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that–

(1) all high school seniors across the country should spend at least one week learning about the United States Constitution in September of their senior year, as knowledge of this historic document, which constitutes the very foundation of our country, is critical to being an effective citizen; and

(2) upon reaching voting age, high school seniors should engage in civic learning activities on an issue of importance to them to demonstrate their understanding of their rights and responsibilities as citizens of the United States.

Well, I’ll try to put aside my cynicism for the most part (the second provision has my antennae up a bit) and say this is a good thing. However, I think one week isn’t enough time. Spending a semester on the Constitution and reading things like The Federalist Papers is a little more to my liking.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

First, the White House wanted people to snitch on their fellow citizens who opposed their government-run healthcare scheme. Now, we learn of the latest potential intrusion by the White House into our privacy. According to the National Legal and Policy Center, Barack Obama’s White House wants to snoop on our activities on the Internet.

NLPC has uncovered a plan by the White House New Media operation to hire a technology vendor to conduct a massive, secret effort to harvest personal information on millions of Americans from social networking websites.

The information to be captured includes comments, tag lines, emails, audio, and video. The targeted sites include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others – any space where the White House “maintains a presence.”

The story goes on:

Other troubling issues include:

extremely broad secrecy terms preventing the vendor from disclosing to the public or the media what information is being captured and archived (page 7, “Restriction Against Disclosure”)

wholesale capturing of comments by non-White House staff on publicly accessible sites

capturing of content of any type (text, graphics, audio, or video)

capturing of comments by both Obama critics and supporters, with no restriction as to how the White House would use the information.

Yes, my friends. The next time you update your status on Twitter it might be used against you. Heck next thing you know playing Mafia Wars on Facebook will be considered a threat by this White House.

One has to wonder at this point, do we have a President in the Oval Office or a KGB agent? In fact, I’m beginning not to wonder at all.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

When I had the opportunity last week to question Congressman Rothman at the Wallington session, I felt it was important to address not just the specifics of the bill being pushed in the House but also to take issue with the concept that our national government was within its rights to even pass such a bill. As such, I challenged him on the matter; telling him that the Founders - who designed a national government of enumerated and limited powers - expressly forbade such profound government intervention in free enterprise.

Not surprisingly, Congressman Rothman contended that “he believed the power was there.” Of course, liberals tend to see a lot of powers that are not in the document that safeguards our rights and liberties for they simply reject the idea of a limited federal government. In this case, the Congressman (scary enough, a former constitutional law professor) would have us believe the Founders thought it OK for our elected officials to be de facto insurance salesman (Can you say ‘Senator Willie Loman,’ anyone?) Of course, this notion is absurd.

Interestingly enough, our friends at The Heritage Foundation have addressed this very question, debunking Congressman Rothman quite thoroughly.  

We have heard a great deal about the costs and benefits of a “public option” and “single-payer system.”  We have heard about the financial costs—and the other costs—of allowing the government to interfere with matters of life and death.  However, we haven’t heard whether the Constitution gives Congress the power to enact these plans. What does this say about the status of the Constitution in the minds our policymakers today?  If a concerned citizen asks a proponent of nationalized healthcare to point to the constitutional authority for such a law, he may hear that the “General Welfare” clause, the “Necessary and Proper” clause, or the “Interstate Commerce” clause enables Congress to create national public health insurance to act.

None of these clauses—or any others found in the Constitution—gives Congress the power to create a government healthcare system.

The “General Welfare” clause gives Congress the power “To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.”  This clause is not a grant of power to Congress (as constitutional law professor Gary Lawson has shown). It is a limit to a power given to Congress. It limits the purpose for which Congress can lay and collect taxes.

During the founding, some Anti-Federalists were concerned that this clause “amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defence or general welfare.” But James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” explained very clearly that it granted no power to Congress. If the “General Welfare” clause gives Congress the power to promote the general welfare, then why specifically list the other powers in Article I, such as the power to establish post offices and post roads, or to coin money? Wouldn’t it be redundant to list them?

In short, as Madison argued, Congress derives no power from the general welfare clause, which merely serves to limit Congress’s power to lay and collect taxes.  Congress can only do so for purposes of common defense or general welfare, in the service of the powers granted to it elsewhere in Article I.

Second, “Necessary and Proper” gives Congress the power “to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States.”  Like the general welfare clause, this clause was not a stand-alone grant of power to Congress.  Rather, it authorizes Congress to make laws that are necessary (and also proper) to make the other grants of authority in Article I effectual.

In other words, the necessary and proper clause cannot itself authorize national public health insurance.  One would have to show that national public health insurance is necessary and proper to execute some other power granted in the Constitution.This puts the proponents of nationalized healthcare back where they started.

Lastly, proponents might argue that national health insurance is part of Congress power “to regulate commerce…among the several states.”  While progressives have often used this clause to expand the federal government, it does not apply especially to the creation of a national health insurance, because to create and engage in commerce is not the same thing as regulating commerce among the several states.

Nobody during the framing generation expected the commerce clause to expand the federal government’s authority to anything relating to or resembling commerce.  James Madison wrote that it is a power “which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained.”  The clause was designed to prevent some states from taxing goods that passed through their boundaries as those goods proceeded to market.

In case proponents of government healthcare latch on to another clause, the three clauses above and rest of Constitution are explained in depth in the Heritage Guide to the Constitution .

Of course, most progressive advocates of national health insurance are unconcerned whether the Constitution authorizes such a law when a pseudo-constitutional reasoning to reach the desired result will suffice.  But constitutionalists should not allow such attempts to dismiss the Constitution go unanswered.

Not only should this question not go unanswered, but as we conservatives engage with others on healthcare, it is imperative that we address – not just the specifics of the bill being proposed - but the larger issue at hand: that the nationalization of healthcare represents a direct threat and attack on our individual liberties for it undermines the very document the Founders established to protect those rights. It is the only way we will gain the high ground in the debate and the only way to begin to re-establish the system of limited government the Founders desired and created.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

This article was pointed out to me from a poster at Conservatives with Attitude! It is essential reading and needs no further embellishment from me. I’d urge you to take a few minutes to read it in its entirety.

Health Care Is Not A Right

by Leonard Peikoff  (January 23, 1998)

Delivered at a Town Hall Meeting on the Clinton Health Plan
Red Lion Hotel, Costa Mesa CA
December 11, 1993

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen:

Most people who oppose socialized medicine do so on the grounds that it is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical; i.e., it is a noble idea — which just somehow does not work. I do not agree that socialized medicine is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical. Of course, it is impractical — it does not work — but I hold that it is impractical because it is immoral. This is not a case of noble in theory but a failure in practice; it is a case of vicious in theory and therefore a disaster in practice. So I’m going to leave it to other speakers to concentrate on the practical flaws in the Clinton health plan. I want to focus on the moral issue at stake. So long as people believe that socialized medicine is a noble plan, there is no way to fight it. You cannot stop a noble plan — not if it really is noble. The only way you can defeat it is to unmask it — to show that it is the very opposite of noble. Then at least you have a fighting chance.

What is morality in this context? The American concept of it is officially stated in the Declaration of Independence. It upholds man’s unalienable, individual rights. The term “rights,” note, is a moral (not just a political) term; it tells us that a certain course of behavior is right, sanctioned, proper, a prerogative to be respected by others, not interfered with — and that anyone who violates a man’s rights is: wrong, morally wrong, unsanctioned, evil.

Now our only rights, the American viewpoint continues, are the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. That’s all. According to the Founding Fathers, we are not born with a right to a trip to Disneyland, or a meal at Mcdonald’s, or a kidney dialysis (nor with the 18th-century equivalent of these things). We have certain specific rights — and only these.

Why only these? Observe that all legitimate rights have one thing in common: they are rights to action, not to rewards from other people. The American rights impose no obligations on other people, merely the negative obligation to leave you alone. The system guarantees you the chance to work for what you want — not to be given it without effort by somebody else.

The right to life, e.g., does not mean that your neighbors have to feed and clothe you; it means you have the right to earn your food and clothes yourself, if necessary by a hard struggle, and that no one can forcibly stop your struggle for these things or steal them from you if and when you have achieved them. In other words: you have the right to act, and to keep the results of your actions, the products you make, to keep them or to trade them with others, if you wish. But you have no right to the actions or products of others, except on terms to which they voluntarily agree.

To take one more example: the right to the pursuit of happiness is precisely that: the right to the pursuit — to a certain type of action on your part and its result — not to any guarantee that other people will make you happy or even try to do so. Otherwise, there would be no liberty in the country: if your mere desire for something, anything, imposes a duty on other people to satisfy you, then they have no choice in their lives, no say in what they do, they have no liberty, they cannot pursue their happiness. Your “right” to happiness at their expense means that they become rightless serfs, i.e., your slaves. Your right to anything at others’ expense means that they become rightless.

That is why the U.S. system defines rights as it does, strictly as the rights to action. This was the approach that made the U.S. the first truly free country in all world history — and, soon afterwards, as a result, the greatest country in history, the richest and the most powerful. It became the most powerful because its view of rights made it the most moral. It was the country of individualism and personal independence.

Today, however, we are seeing the rise of principled immorality in this country. We are seeing a total abandonment by the intellectuals and the politicians of the moral principles on which the U.S. was founded. We are seeing the complete destruction of the concept of rights. The original American idea has been virtually wiped out, ignored as if it had never existed. The rule now is for politicians to ignore and violate men’s actual rights, while arguing about a whole list of rights never dreamed of in this country’s founding documents — rights which require no earning, no effort, no action at all on the part of the recipient.

(more…)

Senator, Laut…err…Lousenberg is the primary sponsor of legislation to close a so-called “gun show loophole.” The bill would do the following:

The Senators’ bill would close the loophole by requiring background checks on all sales at gun shows. The bill defines a gun show as any event where 50 or more guns are offered or exhibited for sale. In addition, the bill would require:

• gun show promoters to register with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), maintain a list of vendors at all gun shows and ensure that all vendors acknowledge receipt of information about their legal obligations; and

• federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to submit information, including the manufacturer/importer, model and serial number of firearms transferred at gun shows to the ATF’s National Tracing Center (NTC). No personal information about either the seller or the purchaser would be given to the ATF. Instead, as under current law, FFLs would maintain personal information in their files. The National Tracing Center would request personal information from an FFL only if a firearm becomes the subject of a law enforcement trace request.

In typical liberal style, Lousenberg used the events like the anniversary of the Columbine shootings and the Virginia Tech shootings to gin up emotion and support for his initiative.

With the anniversaries of the Virginia Tech massacre and Columbine shootings in the news, Sen. Frank Lautenberg will push again Tuesday to close the so-called gun show loophole that lets some gun sales go through without background checks of the buyers. In a statement to Whispers, Lautenberg said: “There is no rational reason to oppose closing the loophole. The reason it’s still not closed is simple: the continuing power of the special-interest gun lobby in Washington. My legislation would require background checks for every gun purchased at every gun show across America and would keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them. Without this change in the law, anyone—from felons to fugitives—can buy a gun at a gun show, no questions asked. That needs to change.”

Interestingly, liberals like Lousenberg who push for anti-gun legislation don’t seem to be as interested in protecting us from criminals who cross our borders and commit violent crimes, let alone preventing terrorists from entering our country anywhere along our southern border (but I digress).

The Viriginia Tech killer, I might add, did not purchase his weapons at a gun show.

More to the point, however, the first thing to understand about this is exactly what is being referred to as a “loophole.” Wikipedia describes it as follows:

The “gun show loophole” is a term coined by gun control advocates to describe the legal sale of firearms between private individuals at gun shows in states where this is legal. When these sales take place at a gun show, some perceive a “loophole” in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), although these laws have never applied to individual-to-individual sales of personal firearms. United States federal law requires persons engaged in interstate firearm commerce, or who are in the business of selling firearms, to hold a Federal Firearms License and to perform checks prior to transferring a firearm, but there is an exemption for private sales by individuals who are “not engaged in the business” of selling firearms, or who only make “occasional” sales. Unlicensed private sellers are permitted by law to sell privately-owned guns at gun shows, or at any other location, in 24 states (as of 1998).^[9]

Senator Lousenberg and his anti-gun partners would like to have us believe that dealers are somehow skirting the law, but this is simply not the case. The law just does not require private individuals to have a license. And any dealer who tried to sell a firearm without a license would immediately be arrested and prosecuted.

Furthermore, very few of these private transactions actually even occur at gun shows. In an article by David Kopel of the Cato Institute, David explains:

Conversely, people who are not engaged in the business of selling firearms, but who sell firearms from time to time (such as a man who sells a hunting rifle to his brother-in-law), are not required to obtain the federal license required of gun dealers or to call the FBI before completing the sale.

Similarly, if a gun collector dies and his widow wants to sell the guns, she does not need a federal firearms license because she is just selling off inherited property and is not “engaged in the business.” And if the widow doesn’t want to sell her deceased husband’s guns by taking out a classified ad in the newspaper, it is lawful for her to rent a table at a gun show and sell the entire collection.

If you walk along the aisles at any gun show, you will find that the overwhelming majority of guns offered for sale are from federally licensed dealers. Guns sold by private individuals (such as gun collectors getting rid of a gun or two over the the weekend) are the distinct minority.

Yet HCI claims that “25-50 percent of the vendors at most gun shows are unlicensed dealers.” That statistic is true only if one counts vendors who aren’t selling guns (e.g., vendors who are selling books, clothing or accessories) as “unlicensed dealers.”

David’s last point is likewise quite important. Lousenberg has used the 25-50 percent statistic in his efforts to sell this bill. But he is clearly being disingenuous in this respect because, as Mr. Kopel points out, many of the vendors at gun shows are not selling guns.

Last but not least, very few gun crimes – a mere 2% in fact – are committed using firearms purchased at gun shows. Again, via Wikipedia:

A 1997 Department of Justice survey of 3,959 prison inmates found that only 2% stated that they had bought a gun used in a crime from a gun show.^[10] The remaining 98% were obtained from other sources, in which the criminal had no direct connection with a gun show. The most common sources (35%) were family or friends.^[11]

Considering the facts I have outlined, it is difficult not to conclude that this is just another effort by the left-wing to infringe on the right to bear arms and an utterly misguided attempt prevent gun crimes. Even if enacted, this legislation would do little if anything in this respect. But what it would do is set the stage for the next incremental step to prevent law-abiding citizens from exercising their 2nd Amendment rights.

Americans deserve an honest and truthful debate about gun issues, not the kind of demagoguery being put forth by the likes of Senator Lousenberg.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude! and Red County.

A little education for my readers. Here is a video explaining our true form of government. Should be required viewing for every American citizen. (h/t Justified Right blog)

While I’m on this subject, I should give a mention regarding Mark Levin’s new book, Liberty and Tyranny – A Conservative Manifesto. Just released this week, the book is selling like crazy (#1 already on Amazon.com) and is surely a must-read.

At a time when so many of our fellow citizens seemingly ignorant of the foundations of our democracy, and so willing to surrender their freedoms to an authoritarian central government, Mark’s book couldn’t come at a more appropriate time.

Here’s an excerpt of American Thinker’s review of Mark’s book.

Mark Levin’s new book, published today, is essential reading. It is a remarkable work on several different levels. It takes no degree of clairvoyance to predict that it will become an enormous best seller and very soon begin to influence the national political debate.

Liberty and Tyranny artfully presents a harmonious marriage of the timeless with the timely. On the one hand, the book is a thorough yet compact briefing on the major political issues of this era. On the other hand, the author brings to bear the principles of the American Founders and Framers of the Constitution (and the great thinkers who guided them), illustrating, dissecting, and explaining our current political arguments, while enlightening the reader with the genuine wisdom bequeathed to all of us — the sacred trust of the Founders, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and Federalist Papers, all of which are quoted and applied with insight and precision.

All in all, this is essential reading for every American.