I'd Like To Say More, But...

Tam has the latest on our friend TJIC.

In a nutshell, TJIC - who, remember, has never been charged with a crime, let alone convicted - applied for his MA FID card. This is the only card in MA that is "shall issue", and allows the holder to own low capacity rifles and shotguns. That's it. Since he's still at loggerheads with his local PD, getting the FID means he can have shotguns, bolt action rifles, and ammunition in the house.

Apparently, the police in his town decided - on Independence Day - to surround his house and illegally confiscate his firearms. No reason given, no criminal charges filed, nothing - although the Gestapo will more than likely dream something up and arrest him later to cover their pathetic asses.

Damn, I went Godwin, didn't I?

I was trying to keep this calm and even, because when all is said and done, I'm in MA. This could very easily be me. Someone with a grudge against me could send a link to some of my, err, more heated posts to my chief of police and get me declared unsuitable, and *poof* the armory disappears. As this new twist in the saga shows, even the supposedly "shall issue" FID license in MA can be revoked for any reason. Even though it's not supposed to be.

I hope Alan Gura is booking a flight to Logan Airport on Monday. This should be EXACTLY the kind of slam-dunk case he could use to get the horrific "shall issue" laws overturned, which would be a monumentous step in the right direction here in MA - remember, you need a permit to own *any* firearm in MA, something that very few other states require.

And with this new twist, we're seeing that one's Second Amendment rights can be completely revoked for no reason whatsoever. This in turn leads to one's Fourth Amendment rights against seizure of property being violated. And, remember, it all resulted from something TJIC said, so he's being punished for exercising his First Amendment rights.

Massachusetts: The birthplace - and graveyard - of liberty, indeed.

That is all.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Time For Another Round of "Imagine If"

Okay, here's the scenario: It's very late 2004. George W. Bush has just been re-elected over John F. Kerry, when a series of high-profile late-term abortions performed solely for shock value cause religious conservatives all over the country to agitate for action. Using the argument that late-term abortions are not needed, they push for something to be done. Attempting to placate his base, Vice President Cheney goes into a closed-door meeting with the National Right To Life organization and comes out with this statement:

WASHINGTON — President Bush is planning a comprehensive effort to pass legislation and use executive orders to prevent late-term abortions, representatives of about a dozen pro-life organizations were told Wednesday at a White House meeting.

Could you imagine the unholy s**tstorm that would have ensued?

To those on the left:  Please think long and hard about the precedent you are about to establish here. Think about how you would react to the above scenario, where President Bush/McCain/Romney passed an executive order banning late-term abortions. You point to Roe vs. Wade as the be-all, end-all in the abortion debate - yet ignore the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights when it comes to anything related to gun control.

I won't run through the arguments again - we've been through all of them before, over and over. Rifles are used in a tiny fraction of crimes involving firearms. 1 X 30 round magazine is indistinguishable from 3 X 10 round magazines. England is the most dangerous country in Europe for gun crime, and all handguns and "assault weapons" are banned there. Every single reason you can put up for President Obama passing new laws by executive order has be covered.

My good friend Borepatch doesn't think that Obama will waste the political capital in passing executive orders. He's too concerned about losing the Senate in 2012; Borepatch thinks; with a GOP-controlled House and Senate we can repeal ObamaCare. Now, I really admire my #1 blogson; he is, as we say around here, wicked smaht, but I have to disagree with him - I don't think the GOP has the stones to repeal ObamaCare even if they had the votes, and I certainly don't think that Obama cares whether the Senate goes GOP in 2014.

Honestly, I think Obama is doing what he's doing to one-up Bill Clinton. He did this with ObamaCare - the national health care that Clinton failed to enact in his two terms was passed in Obama's first term and will be enacted in Obama's second term. I think that he's going to push for a new, further-reaching, permanent assault weapons ban - this would be another area where he went further than Bill Clinton.

Someday, leftists, the GOP will field a candidate that doesn't suck. When this day arrives, are you going to want this new Republican taking office with the precedent that he can ban anything he wants via Executive order? Are you willing to give up abortion for this? Gay marriage? Legalized marijuana? A determined, right-leaning President could take the torch from Obama and  run with it - and make illegal all that you hold dear.

Remember, "Stroke of the pen, law of the land, kinda cool" works both ways.

That is all.