U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Senator Marco Rubio introduces bill to suspend gun rights of anyone who has ever been ‘investigated’ for domestic terrorism,” The Unz Review reported Sunday. “The Senate bill, named the Terror Intelligence Improvement Act, was reentered last week in hopes of exploiting the hysteria surrounding the January 6th Capitol protests. The law intends to violate the civil liberties of American citizens who are not charged or convicted of a crime if somebody is deemed politically dangerous.”
“Reentered”?
Yes, Rubio tried this before in 2016 as a “kinder, gentler” alternative to a bill being pushed by then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. No doubt the rationale is if Republicans throw a scrap of flesh to the circling pack of Democrat jackals, it will satisfy them and keep them from pushing through something worse.
Like that works in nature.
You don’t give the gun-grabbers an inch because they will take it and then come back for more. They always have and you’d have to be an idiot not to see it. Their end goal has also been clear for anyone willing to admit the truth to the lie about “commonsense gun safety laws” and see them for what they are (and what their early “leaders’ have admitted to — incremental steps on the way to total disarmament).
And while Rubio’s bill makes noises about “due process,” those are just that. It would still remove guns from citizens not only not convicted of any crime, but not charged with any. And who among us has the financial resources to take on the government’s virtually limitless reserves in the hopes that the judge won’t be a robed Democrat apparatchik, and/or that the Roberts Supreme Court would hear our appeal if he was?
Then again, “due process” and “Marco Rubio” don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand, as Rubio’s flat-out lie of a promise that “A red flag law will reduce bloodshed and respect the rights of gun owners” shows anyone willing to look behind the weasel words.
So first “red flag laws” and now a “blacklist,” despite NRA assigning Rubio an “A+” rating and telling members he “has a proven record of support for our Second Amendment freedoms,” pointedly adding:
“Opposes Government Blacklists – Voted against denying persons on secret government lists their Second Amendment right to purchase or own a firearm without due process.”
What goes unsaid in all the “national security” flag-waving (ironically much of it being done by politicians who otherwise demonize nationalists as “extremists” and worse), is that if I were a terrorist, I’d want to be on the blacklist. That way, if I wanted to find out if I’d been made, I’d try to buy a gun, see if I was flagged, and plan my next evasion moves accordingly.
Suddenly the list isn’t so secret. I’m no surveillance pro, but isn’t it a cardinal rule not to let your subject know he’s being watched? The thought strikes: Maybe that’s not what this is really about?
OK, but what about all those other items on NRA’s list, all those things we’re told Rubio “opposes” and “supports”?
Most of them are meaningless happy talk: What does “Opposes Anti-Gun Supreme Court Justices” really mean when the whole system is set up to protect them – during their “job interview” – from telling us what the Founders intended when they declared “shall not be infringed”? And it’s easy to say you support permit “reciprocity” when you know the “Republican leadership” has no intentions of bringing a bill to the floor, and when your symbiotic relationship with NRA protects you from answering direct questions about “Constitutional” carry (really “permitless” carry, as gun bans and “gun-free zone” prohibitions, still apply).
That’s not saying Rubio hasn’t voted “right” much of the time and that an overt Democrat gun-grabber wouldn’t have voted “worse.” But the thing about that is, his (and other Republiquislings’) actions on another issue will ultimately undo and reverse every one of those “good” votes:
“Republican Senators Marco Rubio, John Cornyn, Susan Collins, and Thom Tillis will attend a Thursday “summit” meeting hosted by the “American Business Immigration Coalition,” a pro-amnesty group consisting of big business donors, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as the George Soros-funded United We Dream organization.”
We know where that will lead, particularly after Joe Biden fast-tracks millions of illegals on his superhighway to citizenship: All credible polls and all real-world experience in places like California and Virginia demonstrate that “amnesty” and a “pathway to citizenship” for MILLIONS of foreign nationals in this country illegally (and legally, with CURRENT culturally suicidal policies) will overwhelmingly favor Democrats and anti-gunners. This will result in supermajorities in state and federal legislatures that will then be able to pass all kinds of anti-gun edicts. It will also result in confirmations of judges to the Supreme and federal courts who will uphold those edicts and reverse gains made to date.
I know there are some who discourage such talk under the false assertion that we must focus exclusively on the “single issue.” Nonsense. Anything that threatens the right to keep and bear arms IS the single issue. These are the same people who tell us it’s OK for gun owners to consider other issues more important than guns and vote for Joe Biden. Again, nonsense. If appreciation of firearms and shooting was what mattered, we’d have no better friend than Lon Horiuchi. They’re (deliberately!) disregarding that it’s really not about guns at all. It’s about freedom, and nothing is more important than that.
So what do we do about politicians like Rubio?
If we don’t vote for him, we’ll get someone really, really bad, the common excuse goes, pretty confident that in the interim, we’re not going to be doing what we can to look for “primarying” alternatives. Based on the ratio of gun owners complaining about things to the number actually doing the hard and consistent work of organizing to change things, they probably have a point.
“Politics is the art of the possible,” a “gun rights leader” once told me, using silly platitudes to persuade me to tone down on the hardline rhetoric. “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
How anyone afraid to push the envelope with just words is able to determine what is possible is beyond me. And forgive me for not acknowledging that a flexible-principled political ingrate subverting our efforts from inside the gates is “good.”
“He votes our way 90 percent of the time, the argument goes. Well then make the damn political rating reflect that. We’re smart enough to know the difference between a “C” and an “A,” and to present things otherwise smacks of cynical deception to maximize fundraising. And here I thought the object was to have an informed membership.
Just for argument’s sake, would you accept that level of “fidelity” from your wife or husband?
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
