Now that Election 2014 has come and gone, and Bloomberg’s Everytown initiative suffered losses in nearly every arena, forcing him to waste $50 million on an effort Americans obviously oppose, it’s time to ask some questions about our rights.
Among the sea of rejection for the gun control mission, however, there were tiny spots of stupid that gave small victories to the gun grabbers.
Washington state (as if you hadn’t heard Gunsense drones crowing about it) has passed Initiative Measure 594 – a gun control measure that would require every person wishing to purchase a firearm – even those doing so via private sales – to get government permission to do so.
This, in essence, has banned private sales. When you insert a government transaction, done through an FFL, into a private transaction, said sale ceases to be private.
Was the initiative about safety? Anyone who has been following the gun rights debate for any length of time knows that safety has nothing to do with it. Criminals, for the most part, do not get guns through legal channels.
Basic economics indicate that as long as there is a demand, there will be a supply, and when you close off legal supply channels, the black market flourishes.
So it’s not about safety. So why is it that Washingtonians were so eager to cede their basic rights to government infringement, even though this measure has no hope of stopping crime?
Why hand over your rights so easily?
Make no mistake, these are rights.
The right to keep and bear arms is a natural right that stems from the right to life and the right to defend your life. Why allow petty elected tyrants to control what tool you use to do it?
What about the right to property? Why would you allow the government to intrude on your right to dispose of your property as you see fit? If it rightfully belongs to you, why would you allow any government to control to whom you sell it?
And lastly, why would Washingtonians subject their natural rights to a vote in the first place?
Less than 50 percent of Washington residents voted in this election, and yet, they decided the fate of the natural rights of their fellow citizens – the right to dispose of their property, and the right to purchase it without government intrusion.
They decided this despite the fact that no loud, screeching, uninformed majority should ever be allowed to decide the fate of our natural rights with a push of a button.
That is not a decision any majority should be allowed to make. And yet Washingtonians not only allowed the right to keep and bear arms and the right to property to be limited by their fellow state residents, but also allowed those rights to be put on the chopping block in the first place.
Rights exist. They are not and should not be up for discussion, debate, or a vote.
Even more troubling, or at least as much so, is why didn’t conservative/liberty minded citizens turn out in overwhelming numbers?
This election should have been a total rout.
Have Americans become so apathetic, so uninterested in what goes on in the the supposed halls of power?
I’m afraid I won’t like the answer.
The new “law” prohibiting actual private sales is truly the least of the problems with this stupid bill. The real horror is all the new requirements for any sort of “transfer.” Technically, this would include gun training courses, casual trading of guns to shoot at a range, and just about any other incident where a person hands a gun to someone else, even momentarily.
Such stupidity would be truly mind bending if the gun grabbers had not already demonstrated that this is actually par for the course. The real question is just how they plan to enforce this insanity. They really can’t, of course, but the “law” will be very handy to prosecute selectively anyone they wish to destroy, both legally and financially.
Gottlieb and his crew now have a 100% fantastic opportunity to demonstrate how dedicated they are to freedom. Throw every ounce of expertise and money you have at this and get it repealed.
“Initiative Measure 594 – a gun control measure that would require every person wishing to purchase a firearm – even those doing so via private sales – to get government permission to do so.” (emphasis added)
Incorrect. See the bolded parts. As Mama Liberty pointed out, I-594 didn’t just ban private sales; it banned all private transfers (with very few exceptions), including gifts and temporary transfers like loans and possibly just handling a gun for a few seconds. It’s even possible that a strict reading would require a gun dealer to run a background check (and registration paperwork) on themselves for each and every firearm he/she receives into their inventory from the manufacturer/distributor, and again before/after an employee handles them, and again before/after the customer handles them (to say nothing of the sale itself) – the law is very (overly) broad*.
But the media played into what the gun-grabbers said it would do, which was simply to force background checks on all sales of firearms. The text of I-594 is quite clear regarding both the definition of “transfer” and how all “transfers” (with few exceptions) are subject to background checks, but nobody in the media bothered to read it. Or worse, they did read it but went with the gun-grabbers’ words anyway, which wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
The media also played into I-594 as a “gun safety” measure, and how it was “needed” to prevent mass shootings, even as some proponents admitted it wouldn’t have prevented any of the recent mass shootings, ever. And as soon as it passed, I-594 supporters dropped the “gun safety” verbiage and called it a “first step” for “gun control”. Did the media report that? Not so much.
The gun-grabbers lied, the media repeated and transmitted those lies while actively drowning out the truth, and the voters listened to what they were allowed to hear. What happened next was no surprise.
(* – Personally, I think enough “strict compliance” from enough dealers, completely overloading the check/registration regime, could contribute to the law’s demise.)