Washington DC – -(Ammoland.com)- Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Gun Owners of America’s Executive Director Larry Pratt about the current push for more gun control and the bulwark for freedom our Founding Fathers intended the Second Amendment to be.
AWR: When you look at the current gun control push in DC, what are the odds of an “assault weapons” ban, or a “high capacity” magazine ban, or universal background checks passing?
LP: I think if you look at it in terms of odds, they have the greater odds of beating us on the universal background checks. Yet I believe we’re making some headway by pointing out that we already have background checks in place and by showing that we have no way of knowing whether those checks have been used to create some type of registry.
There’s nothing demonstrable from the Justice Department proving they’re not keeping the names of the people who’ve had their backgrounds checked. They refuse to tell you how long they do keep that information, although federal law in at least two places prohibits them from keeping the information for more than 24 hours.
Our assumption is that they’ve been building a registration list from the current background check system since its inception. And that’s just one more reason why we can’t give them even greater access into our personal information via universal background checks.
We should actually do away with the background check system in its entirety.
AWR: But let’s say the worse case scenario happens, and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and others don’t stop this push for universal background checks, then what? What is so bad about universal background checks?
LP: Well, let me say that Speaker Boehner has no backbone, so we can’t trust this situation to him. But once the government knows where the guns are–which is what would happen if what are now private transactions become subject to universal checks–once the government has a list of guns and guns owners that is 100% complete, how can they convince us confiscation won’t follow?
We have governors talking confiscation in some states right now. And you’ll recall how government entities acted after Katrina. They went through various gun store records in and around New Orleans and then went and confiscated guns.
I think we would be foolish to overlook Rahm Emanuel’s infamous statement, “You never want a serious crisis to go waste…It’s an opportunity to do things…you could not do before.”
Once the government has the list, we simply can’t trust them. They will not let a crisis go to waste.
AWR: Our Founding Fathers knew the government couldn’t be trusted on these issues long before we reached the point we’ve reached today.
LP: Exactly. That’s why we have a Second Amendment. The purpose of the Second Amendment isn’t about hunting–although there’s nothing wrong with that–it’s about keeping the government from becoming tyrannical.
About:
AWR Hawkins writes for all the BIG sites, for Pajamas Media, for RedCounty.com, for Townhall.com and now AmmoLand Shooting Sports News.
His southern drawl is frequently heard discussing his take on current events on radio shows like America’s Morning News, the G. Gordon Liddy Show, the Ken Pittman Show, and the NRA’s Cam & Company, among others. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal (summer 2010), and he holds a PhD in military history from Texas Tech University.
If you have questions or comments, email him at awr@awrhawkins.com. You can find him on facebook at www.facebook.com/awr.hawkins.