by Bob Barr | Mar 16, 2023 | Townhall Article |
Townhall President Biden signed an Executive Order on “Reducing Gun Violence and Making Communities Safer” this week and delivered prepared remarks to those gathered in Monterrey Park, California, to witness the event. The Order itself promises the American people more “reports” and “plans” that largely repeat what the laws already on the books allow or require. His public remarks added nothing new to the “reduce gun violence” debate, even as he reiterated a favorite gun-control lie to the American people. In other words, the much-heralded event was more of the same – plans, reports, and lies. First, the Big Lie. A major component of this administration’s narrative to “reduce gun violence” has been to shift blame from failures by prosecutors to enforce gun laws already on the books, to businesses that lawfully sell firearms and to the firearms industry more broadly. To market this blame-shifting, Biden and the previous Democrat administration of which he was a part, routinely claim that the “gun industry” is immune from being sued. Yesterday, for example, Biden declared that the “gun industry” is “the only outfit you can’t sue these days.” This is a flat out lie, but, as with other falsehoods by government officials, the more it is repeated the more likely it is to be believed by the American public and to serve as the basis for more gun control measures. In fact, the 2005 “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,’’ does not shield firearms businesses from being sued for the negligent manufacture of a firearm, nor does it immunize them from being held legally liable if they sell or transfer a gun knowing or having reason to believe...
by Bob Barr | Mar 9, 2023 | Townhall Article |
Townhall For more than five decades, the degree to which the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to “keep and bear arms,” and the extent to which that right may be “infringed,” have been among the most hotly debated issues demanding the attention of courts and governments at all levels. Now, two months into 2023 (and 232 years since the Second Amendment’s ratification) things have not changed a bit. In fact, the battle between gun control advocates and Second Amendment supporters is hotter than ever, especially with banks and credit card companies moving toward monitoring firearms purchases. The U.S. Supreme Court threw down the gauntlet to gun control advocates last June, when it ruled in a New York case that arbitrary and absolute government restrictions on an individual’s right to possess a firearm must be evaluated based on the meaning and history of the Second Amendment. Accordingly, only those government-imposed restrictions consistent with such analysis would henceforth be deemed constitutional. Not surprisingly, the Bruen decision has met with fervent pushback from New York and several other states where gun control proponents wield the levers of government power. Immediately following that decision, New York openly thumbed its nose at the Supreme Court, enacting a new anti-carry law even more restrictive than the one shot down by the Court. It has become clear the High Court will again be forced to tackle the underlying and fundamental questions surrounding how individuals in 2023 and beyond may possess firearms for self-defense in the real world. Precisely when the Supreme Court will decide to again weigh in on the Second Amendment (and hopefully slap down the...
by Bob Barr | Feb 23, 2023 | Townhall Article |
Townhall In a boon to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has afforded him exclusive access to tens of thousands of hours of heretofore unreleased Capitol Hill Police video of the turmoil surrounding and inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The Pandora’s Box opened by this unusual move may not play out as smoothly as perhaps the Speaker hopes. McCarthy did indicate last month that he favored public release of the vast trove of video footage that had been provided to House Democrats previously by the Hill police. His decision this month, however, to grant access not to the media generally but to a single commentator, surprised many on Capitol Hill. House Democrats, especially those who served on the now-defunct January 6th Select Committee in the last Congress, have decried the Speaker’s decision as one that endangers congressional security. Crocodile tears in this regard – as shed for example by South Carolina Democrat Bennie Thompson who chaired the Select Committee – are misplaced. Thompson bemoaned the “significant security concerns” that will result from the Speaker’s actions, but provided no meaningful details to support those fears. The fact is that House Democrats maintained access to the 40,000-plus feet of the video footage for more than two years, while selectively releasing various portions during their extended and one-sided investigation. Claims that release of the entire video trove will enable would-be “insurrectionists” to better plan future attacks on the Capitol – a public building open to the public – are laughable. Such “security” concerns already had been rejected by at least one federal judge in 2021 in response to media demands, and portions of the otherwise...
by Bob Barr | Feb 16, 2023 | Townhall Article |
Townhall For every patient tired of filling out repetitive and privacy-invasive forms every time they visit a doctor, a medical facility, or a hospital, here is a questionnaire those patients should present to their doctor for him or her to answer and return to them: Questionnaire To Be Filled Out By Physician and Returned To Patient* 1. Your intake form asked me about whether I feel “stress.” I sure do and I don’t think I’m alone in this sentiment. I also don’t consider that the fault is mine. Unwanted stress comes to me from all sides in our polarized society. I don’t know about you, Doc, but the loss of some of my longtime friends, simply because they see one another as too far left or too far to the right, is devastating. Is this of concern to you as a physician? 2. I and most patients are bothered that doctors and hospitals ask so many questions that seem like a waste of time to regular folks, and that they do this over and over again, as if each time is the very first time. Does this bother you as well? 3. Do they really think that they are going to get an honest and useful answer to “Do you feel safe at home?” or “Are there any firearms in your home?” or “Do you think often of suicide and have a plan on how you would accomplish that?” I’d like to know how many times you have received a truly honest “yes” answer to those questions, but more importantly, what do you do with such information and who...
by Bob Barr | Feb 9, 2023 | Townhall Article |
Townhall The Concise Oxford English Dictionary I keep by my desk defines “conniption” as “a fit of rage or hysterics.” To illustrate more clearly what a “conniption” means in modern parlance, a picture of Gavin Newsom, the Democrat Governor of California, should accompany the definition. It is he and his anti-Second Amendment colleagues in other deep blue states who are having recurring conniptions over the June 2022 Supreme Court decision commonly known as Bruen. That decision, which arose factually in New York but applies to the entire country, declared that the Second Amendment means what it says, and that it is to be interpreted according to the historical context in which it was written and ratified in the late 18th Century. What exactly is it that sends these public officials, who regularly profess devotion to other civil liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, up the wall? At its core, it’s all about control. Under the century-old New York “Sullivan Act” law that the six-member Bruen majority struck down last June, local officials had enjoyed virtually absolute control to decide which citizens were deemed worthy to be permitted to carry a concealed firearm for self-defense. That power was deemed “arbitrary” by the High Court’s majority and therefore fatally defective as a limitation on an individual’s fundamental right to “keep and bear arms” expressly guaranteed by the Second Amendment against being thus “infringed.” For decades California, New Jersey, Hawaii, and a handful of other firearms-averse states had permitted officials to exercise similar control over citizens within their jurisdiction. Bruen swept away such noxious power and established – finally – what should have been obvious...
by Bob Barr | Feb 2, 2023 | Townhall Article |
Townhall In 1971, left wing provocateur Saul Alinsky published Rules For Radicals, which remains even today, a half century later, a favored handbook for extremists intent on undermining our nation’s economic, civic, and legal foundation and rebuilding it in the image of a socialist society. For the radical disruptor in Alinsky’s worldview, “everything is relative and changing”; in other words, to succeed as a revolutionary, existing values and norms must attacked and unanchored. Only by so doing can the new, radical ideas take hold and replace existing principles. This is precisely what the “woke” movement is doing, most disturbingly to our legal system. At the most fundamental level, the “anchor” for our legal system is the Bill of Rights, which provides a set of substantive and procedural guarantees designed to ensure that fairness and objectivity attach to all aspects of the civil and criminal justice processes. These well-known standards include among many others, the right to counsel, the right to be tried fairly by a jury of one’s peers, and the right to be considered innocent unless and until proven otherwise beyond reasonable doubt. These are not “relative and changing” standards, and if they were thus unmoored, legal chaos would prevail. Yet this is precisely what the “woke” movement is attempting to do to our judicial system and the legal profession. How about the right to have a lawyer to represent you? The idea that even hated defendants have a right to be represented by competent legal counsel to ensure their rights are protected, predates the incorporation of that principle in the Bill of Rights. John Adams, one of our Founders and our second...
