Supporting gun ownership and sportsmen's rights in response to the flurry of anti-gun and sport legislation under consideration in Congress and the Illinois State Legislature.
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We roll out our handy "RINO ban-ner" again since Mark Kirk is at it again!
Kirk unrolled H.R. 6664 which seeks to close the "firesale" loophole...
What is the firesale loophole?
Under current law, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issues Federal Firearms Licenses (FFLs) to qualifying gun dealers, which are required to conduct background checks on potential buyers. A license may be revoked if a dealer willfully violates the law or engages in criminal activity. But due to the fire sale loophole, after a license is revoked the dealer may legally sell excess inventory as a “private seller” without conducting any background checks.
Sounds sinister, right?
But it's a sham, folks.
Here's an analogy: imagine you own an Italian/pizza restaurant which has a bar. You get closed down for some violation, say a health code violation do to bad plumbing. Your friends know the real deal and know it isn't roaches or improper storage, but your competition takes over and there is no way you'll be able to get ahead.
So, you're left with all this food and liquor. What to do?
Being a smart entreprenuer, since it is close to football season you decide to throw non-stop weekend parties at your place and serve the leftovers (pasta and pizza) and beverages (beer, mainly - some harder stuff...).
Since it is your property and your house, you're able to do that.
This is almost exactly the same for many Gunstore owners - the BATFE has shut down numerous dealers on minor technicalities, such as clerical errors. If the owner decides to close the business, then they're left with a boat-load of inventory which they can sell face to face to law-abiding owners if they reside in a states that permits private sales.
This is what Kirk wants to assail - your right to broker your property as you see fit.
Don't believe me? Just check out what Supreme Court lawyer, David Hardy has to say about the BATFE (and Red's Trading Post in Idaho). To boot, the Inspector General is actually looking at the BATFE for possible abuses...
Posted 01:47PM Sep 02, 2008 by MCSA
From John Lott's blog (Check it out), we have an audio clip of John Lott talking about his experiences with Obama at the University of Chicago Law School. Just to clarify, Obama taught there as an adjunct faculty member and was not on a tenure track...
Audio is in ".mov" (Aka Apple Quicktime) format. It's about 15 minutes.
Posted 01:28PM Sep 02, 2008 by MCSA
The Washington Times ran an op-ed by John Lott calling Obama's position on the 2nd Amendment into question. Read the whole thing here.
The day the Supreme Court struck down Washington, D.C.'s gun ban, Mr. Obama claimed the court's decision merely ratified his own position. He told Fox News he had "said consistently that I believe that the Second Amendment is an individual right, and that was the essential decision that the Supreme Court came down on." So, has Mr. Obama consistently supported individuals' rights to own guns and opposed the D.C. handgun ban? Last November, Mr. Obama's campaign told the Chicago Tribune that "Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional." After the Illinois senator's statement supporting the Supreme Court striking down the ban, the campaign quickly disowned the Chicago Tribune quote as a staffer's "inartful attempt" to characterize his position.
Combine this with the following:
A candidate questionnaire shows that Mr. Obama supported a ban on handguns in 1996. In 1998, he backed a ban on the sale of all semiautomatic guns (a ban that would encompass the vast majority of guns sold in the U.S.) In 2004, he advocated banning gun sales within five miles of a school or park (essentially a ban on all guns sold in almost all the states). Possibly, even more importantly, he served on the board of the Joyce Foundation, probably the largest private funder of anti-gun and pro-ban groups and research in the country.
I can respect Democratic candidates that put their money where their mouth is regarding "gun issues" - people like Brain Schwitzer (Gov. Montana) and Bill Richardson (Gov. of New Mexico) - but Obama's stance is lock-step with the those of the Chicago political machine.
Folks out there reading this from states other than Illinois: You see what we're up against here because of Daley's political influence. We're an entire county away and we can't escape it! Stop for a moment and imagine how bad it'd be if someone like that influenced the entire country...
Posted 01:13PM Sep 02, 2008 by MCSA
