by Bob Barr | Feb 12, 2021 | Uncategorized |
FullMAGnews As I wrote last week, the Biden administration is just getting warmed up when it comes to attacks on the Second Amendment. In fact, Biden will test the Second Amendment like never before in U.S. history; both in the ferocity of attacks, and in finding new ways and methods to undermine its place in American culture. Making matters worse, conservatives are woefully underprepared to properly defend it. This is the central thesis of my report on firearms published this month at The Heritage Foundation. In it, I assert the current “needs-based” defense of the Second Amendment not only is inadequate to withstand today’s onslaught by Democrats but also fundamentally misinterprets the spirit of the Amendment. Instead, conservatives must learn to defend the Second Amendment as their natural right; one that is far beyond the reach of gun-grabbers at all levels of government. Consider what is the most common response from liberals when arguing whether a particular firearm or accessory is covered by the Second Amendment’s guarantee. It is almost always some version of, “nobody needs that;” as if there is some unwritten, but obvious list indicating which specific items are protected by the Amendment and which are not. The 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban was based on the argument that citizens did not “need” modern sporting rifles; a sentiment that persists to this day, long after the legislation expired a decade later. Bans on high-capacity magazines and certain types of ammunition, monthly limits on purchases of firearms, and similar legislative efforts are all premised on the same justification of a perceived lack of “need” by law-abiding citizens. Kevin Drum, a contributor to Mother Jones,...
by Bob Barr | Feb 8, 2021 | Uncategorized |
FullMAGnews What the Biden Administration has planned for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is anyone’s guess, other than the certainty the agency’s regulatory power will continue to be used to go after legally owned firearms and ammunition. In fact, ATF already is on the move. An official request for public comment by ATF just last December provides a road sign as to where the regulatory agency is likely to start now that it is under the command of a gun-control president. Even though pressure from House Republicans forced the ATF to withdraw its public notice at the time, it very clearly outlines the agency’s intent to reexamine the legal status of pistols that use “stabilizing braces.” Stabilizing braces are a common feature for increasingly popular AR-style pistols that were approved by ATF nearly a decade ago. Manufacturers of the pistol accessory declared to ATF in 2012 that such devices served to facilitate one-handed shooting of pistols — an important feature for individuals unable to do so because of disabilities or other physically limiting factors. However, in what has become a preferred modus operandi for the agency’s decision-making, it has changed its mind, claiming that the popularity of AR and AK-type pistols featuring these braces suggests the accessory no longer is being used in the “spirit” for which its original approval was sought. If, as expected, the ATF returns to the issue now that Joe Biden occupies the White House, individuals who currently own the estimated three to four million of these pistols already deemed “lawful” by the government, would be forced to register the firearms as “short-barrel rifles” subject to registry and...
by Bob Barr | Jan 28, 2021 | Uncategorized |
FullMAGnews Second Amendment supporters should take no comfort in the fact that President Biden issued no executive orders restricting firearms or ammunition during his first week in the Oval Office. The new Commander in Chief remains a clear and present danger to our Second Amendment rights, and with Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress, it is only a question of when and how boldly he will move his gun control agenda forward, not if he will do so. Even by most Democrat Party standards, many of the Biden campaign’s gun control proposals were extreme. The former vice president is too sly and too experienced from his long tenure in the Senate to believe he will succeed in quickly accomplishing every item on that wish list. But, by having set the bar so high with his campaign’s radical gun control agenda, now as President he can make his Administration appear magnanimous and willing to “compromise” with the GOP by adopting the agenda bit by bit (a façade that always appeals to “moderate” Republicans). To paraphrase Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “there may be method to his madness.” The start of any real action on guns almost certainly will take place within the regulatory environment, which is where Biden’s old boss, Barack Obama, found the most fertile soil for gun control. Here, the Biden Administration can work mostly in the shadows under the cloak of regulatory interpretation and rulemaking, largely hidden from the media and without attention-drawing hearings and floor votes. Rather than having to squabble with Republicans and moderate Democrats, like West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, Biden would be dealing with career bureaucrats...
by Bob Barr | Dec 8, 2020 | Uncategorized |
American Action News Runoff elections, required in Georgia if no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote in the underlying primary or general election, historically have been relatively straightforward — all about turnout. Not this time. There is nothing straightforward about the runoff election scheduled for January 5, 2021. Nothing. To begin with, it is a double-header, with both of Georgia’s sitting Republican senators — Kelley Loeffler and David Perdue — on the ballot. Loeffler is in the runoff by virtue of having been appointed earlier this year by Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Then, in a field of 20 candidates, she came in second in the November 3rd special election. Perdue joins Loeffler on the runoff ballot because in his race to secure a second six-year term last month, he barely missed winning a majority. Loeffler’s opponent is Rev. Raphael Warnock, the fire-and-brimstone preacher at Atlanta’s venerable and historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. His well-documented views are far to the left of any person who ever has served as a senator from Georgia. Facing Perdue is Jon Ossoff, a self-styled “investigative reporter” who also has aligned himself with the extreme left wing of his Party. If those were all the elements for the runoff equation — two Republican Senators with solid conservative credentials each facing a Democrat with aggressively liberal views — you could pretty much draft the headline for January 6th: “GOP Easily Holds Both Georgia Senate Seats.” But there are other elements swirling around in this mix; factors that make it far more difficult to handicap either race one month out. Overarching everything in this runoff is...
by Bob Barr | Oct 5, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Daily Caller Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber is likely heaving a huge sigh of relief that the attention of the nation’s media is focused on COVID’s infestation of the White House, the Senate battle over the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and, of course, the looming national election. Were it not for these stories (and a handful of other newsworthy events such as continuing violence in one American city after another), Eisgruber’s September 2 letter openly admitting that the fabled Ivy League school engages in “systemic racism,” would be vying for front-page news coverage. Eisgruber’s letter, however, did not escape the eye of lawyers at the U.S. Department of Education; and it should not be allowed to be swept under the rug. Two weeks after the Princeton President’s highly unusual mea culpa, Robert King, the Education Department’s Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education, sent a letter to the university demanding that the admissions made by Eisgruber be explained and documented. The Department gave Princeton 21 days to provide the required evidence of its self-admitted racism, and one more week after that to schedule interviews “under oath” by Eisgruber and other Princeton officials. So far, there has been no publicly acknowledged response to the Education Department’s demand letter, other than a September 18 press release by the University stating that it “stands by” Eisgruber’s letter and would “respond” to the federal government “in due course.” Not surprisingly also, several dozen other university presidents quickly leaped to Princeton’s defense. In a letter made public only a few days following the Education Department’s letter, presidents of the seven other Ivy League schools and...
by Bob Barr | Sep 30, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Townhall Of all the methods of control and surveillance conjured by George Orwell for his dystopian novel 1984, the use of children as spies is one of the most disturbing. As with so many of the measures and actions depicted in Orwell’s fictional work, however, the use of child snitches has today become an eerie reality; fostered, not surprisingly, by the fear according to which governments and government-like institutions such as schools now seek to control the population. Today, it is fear of COVID that is transforming students into Snitches for the State. In seeking to ensure students on campus and off abide by rigid COVID safety protocols that essentially forbid the broad range of activities in which college students traditionally have engaged, universities are strongly urging (if not requiring) students to report other students for violations of COVID safety protocols. Yale University even established a “tip line” for individuals to file confidential reports against their fellow students. Offending acts need not occur in the classroom or anywhere on campus to qualify as reportable infractions. Students at schools such as Cornell and New York University have been suspended for allegedly participating in social events hosted off-campus after being the target of other students’ snitching. For example, at NYU a student was caught in a video recorded by another student at an outdoor, rooftop party that apparently was in accord with New York City’s rigid social gathering rules. The student, who claims he maintained what he believed to be safe distances while in attendance, was only aware of his grave mistake after receiving an email from school officials excoriating him for “threatening...
