by Bob Barr | May 24, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerLast year’s toxic confluence of urban violence and COVID lockdowns led to a surge in gun ownership, particularly among first-time purchasers and minorities. More firearms were purchased in 2020 than any year on record – some 21 million, with about 40% being first-time buyers. The radical offshoot of 2020’s urban violence to “defund the police,” led in many cities by the Marxist-inspired Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, also has given rise to an increased interest in private police forces, run not by government and not paid for with taxpayer funds.The concept of private policing is by no means a new or novel idea; the Foundation for Economic Education, or FEE, wrote about it in an article by Nicholas Elliott 30 years ago in February 1991, for example. It is, however, taking on new life – and controversy – as a result of the dramatic rise in violent crime rates in cities hit hard by the “defund” movement. Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and of course, Minneapolis where the “defund” movement really started, all are witnessing significant increases in violent crime as law enforcement funding has been cut and as anti-police sentiment has grown.Historically, and contrary to popular belief, the primary responsibility for protection of oneself does not fall to the police; it is the primary responsibility of the individual. This not only reflects the reality that the police cannot be everywhere all the time, but also represents a legal principle recognized in federal court decisions, including by the United States Supreme Court. In fact, that there were no organized, publicly funded police departments in...
by Bob Barr | May 17, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerShortly after being sworn in as our nation’s 46th president, Joe Biden issued an executive order emphasizing that his first priority as commander-in-chief was to ensure that transgendered individuals in the military are protected. Biden’s unusual, but not wholly unexpected, emphasis on transgenderism was followed within days by the new secretary of defense, retired Army General Lloyd Austin, issuing a military-wide order mandating protection for transgendered personnel. On Feb. 4, Austin doubled down on this inward-looking focus when he declared a 60-day “stand down” designed to identify and ferret out “extremism” in the ranks.Since early February, this administration’s obsession with wokeness in the military — referred to officially as “diversity” and “inclusion” — has only become worse. According to civilian military experts, this fixation is weakening our nation’s war-fighting ability.To confirm this disturbing state of military affairs, one need look no further than the U.S. Army’s recent recruitment video, “Emma/The Calling.” This animated video, designed obviously to encourage lesbians to enlist in the Army, does not even pretend to value what heretofore has been the raison d’etre for maintaining a military — the ability and responsibility to fight and win wars. Instead, Emma stresses the paramount importance of “inclusion,” as depicted by the character’s lesbianism and her “two mothers.”The Army video shares this vision with a similarly focused CIA recruitment video, in which a “Latina” employee of the Agency encourages other “intersectional” and “cisgender millennials” to join today’s “inclusive” Intelligence Community as she did, notwithstanding her preexisting mental problems (which she identifies as “generalized anxiety disorder”).The controversy surrounding the mission and values undergirding both our national intelligence capabilities and those of our armed...
by Bob Barr | May 10, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerDespite being labeled a major health epidemic in 2013, the extremely powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl continues to flood into our country and ruin lives in communities from coast to coast. A nagging question is whether the United States Postal Service (USPS) is part of the solution or part of the problem.The lethargy exhibited by the USPS in complying with federal law mandating that it do a far better job of stopping fentanyl from entering the United States from abroad – especially from China — has been the subject of more than a single congressional hearing in recent years.Also problematic, however, is failure by the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to uphold its part of the bargain, as also mandated by the Congress.Despite the “Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention Act” (STOP Act) becoming law in 2018, only now, two-and-one-half years later, is the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, getting around to issuing final regulations to implement the act.For its part, the USPS has been openly dismissive of the law’s requirement that it implement technology, known as “Advanced Electronic Data (AED),” by which to identify suspicious packages coming into one of several international mail facilities to be flagged for inspection by CBP. Such AED technology was supposed to have been in place by Jan. 1 this year but was not. Last September, the USPS Inspector General publicly blamed CBP for this shortcoming because it had failed to issue implementing regulations for the STOP Act.The CBP has taken an almost Alice-in-Wonderland view of the problem. For example, in testimony last Dec. 10 before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security...
by Bob Barr | May 3, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerSince at least the early 1990s, Democrats and other gun control advocates have used the term “common sense” to characterize virtually every scheme they concoct to limit citizens’ ability to own, possess, use or carry firearms, gun parts or ammunition. The phrase has served as a clever way to camouflage the true nature of what such measures are designed to do, which is to undermine the rights protected by the Second Amendment to our Constitution. The linguistic ploy often has worked to Democrats’ advantage, which is one reason President Biden has proposed a new round of “common sense” gun control measures.There soon may be some good news on the “common sense” front, however, not for gun control advocates but for Second Amendment supporters.Late last month, and for the first time in more than a decade, the United States Supreme Court accepted a lower court case that directly confronts the fundamental scope of the Second Amendment. If the High Court actually decides this case — New York Rifle & Pistol Assn., et al. v. Corlett, et al. — by overturning the lower court’s decision, it will in fact be rendering one of the most common sense decisions in its 232-year history. Moreover, it will make all those liberals constantly clamoring for “common sense” gun control furious beyond anything we have seen in many years.Considering the blatant and heavy-handed attacks now being leveled against the Court by Biden and Senate Democrat leaders, and despite conservatives now enjoying what many observers consider a 6 to 3 “conservative” majority among the nine justices now serving, how the Court will rule in the case, and how...
by Bob Barr | Apr 26, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerLast week it was revealed that the United States Postal Service (USPS) is an active participant in the government-wide effort by the Biden administration to surreptitiously surveil social media postings by American citizens, with the apparent goal of identifying individuals inclined to protest government policies and activities; in other words, people who plan to exercise their First Amendment rights.The response on Capitol Hill to this news of a special USPS intelligence unit called “iCOP” (Internet Covert Operations Program) secretly surveilling social media usage by citizens, was predictable – Democrats yawned, and House Republicans expressed shock and amazement.The sad reality is that anyone who has followed government operations ever since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, knows that every federal, state and local government agency with even the slightest degree of law enforcement power is always looking for ways to gather more information on citizens. This has only become far worse since the Jan. 6 trouble on Capitol Hill.A brief review of the legal authorities according to which the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) operates reveals that the Service in fact can be employed to investigate far more than mail theft or damage to postal facilities, which had been its long-standing and primary responsibility. For example, the Attorney General of the United States can direct Postal Inspectors to aid in enforcing any “laws of the United States.” All that is needed to send Postal Inspectors off on such missions is a decision by the Attorney General “that violations of such laws have a detrimental effect upon the operations of the Postal Service.”In other words, according to authority already on the books,...
by Bob Barr | Apr 19, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerEver since the Supreme Court of the United States was instituted by Article III of our Constitution as ratified by the states in 1788, many of Western civilization’s greatest legal minds have served as justices on that august bench. One of these exceptional jurists was America’s very first Chief Justice, John Marshall, who served from 1801 to 1835.It was Marshall who, in 1805, authored an opinion that to this day remains a bedrock principle according to which our government, and indeed our very culture, has rested. In that seminal case of Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court declared that the final authority by which the constitutionality of any law passed by Congress and signed by the president is to be measured, is the federal judiciary, with the Supreme Court of the United States at its apex.Over the ensuing 216 years, presidents, members of Congress, lower courts and citizens of all political stripes have complained – sometimes bitterly – when application of this principle of judicial review results in a decision with which they disagree. However, Marshall’s assertion that such process is essential for “the government of the United States” to remain “a government of laws, and not of men,” is at least as important today as it was in 1805.Our 32nd President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was so angered by the Supreme Court’s decisions during his first four years in office declaring provisions of his “New Deal” to be unconstitutional, that in 1937 he launched a frontal attack on the independence of the court; a proposal that quickly became known as Roosevelt’s “court-packing plan.” FDR’s plan would have amended...
