Obama, Terrorists, and Gun Control

The president, in both Sunday night’s speech and his weekly address, sullied the memories of the victims by beating on the gun control drum. At least he finally one of these attacks by Muslims terrorism, though he watered it down by referring to ‘radicalism.’ In seven years, this was probably the first time President Obama explicitly admitted Islam has a terrorism problem. Gun control, as Obama has admitted, is a priority in his final year of office. In light of this latest Islamic terror attack, Obama is trying to change the subject away from the real issue and push his leftist agenda.

‘Terrorist Loophole’?

There seems to be hidden blueprint for further infringing upon the Second Amendment. After the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings, the call was, among other things, to ban the so-called “gun show and internet loopholes” by banning private sales. After the federal ban failed in Congress, anti-gunners took their show on the road and states, like Nevada, have are facing an onslaught of ‘universal background check’ initiatives and laws.

Each of these infringement offensives have a unique goal to tighten the noose around Second Amendment without addressing the underlying causes of tragedy supporters are tying their efforts to. With universal background checks, all recent high-profile shooters passed a background check or otherwise got their guns in a way that a background check would not have been required (the Sandy Hook murderer killed his mother to get her guns, for example).

Between the Paris attacks and the San Bernardino attacks, leftists began bandying about the term ‘terrorist loophole’ because people on the ‘no-fly list’ of suspected terrorists can legally buy a gun. The ‘boyfriend loophole’, which has less panache, was floating around before that. Interestingly, felonious boyfriends and husbands often get their girlfriends/wives to buy a gun for them in a straw purchase. Leftists see freedom as a series of loopholes. Being consumed by loophole mania, they probably complain about Swiss cheese not being a solid block. One day, they’ll be complaining about the “Melvin M. Johnson loophole” because he’s the last person who can legally buy a gun.

One would suspect that if someone was on a terrorist watch list, then the FBI would have them under surveillance and know if they bought a gun. Or the components for a pipe or pressure cooker bomb. The lunacy of this working is lost on the leftists. Buying ephedrine when a cold has reduced you to mouth-breathing is about as intensive as buying a gun, but meth still gets made.

The cornerstone of American jurisprudence is due process of law.  Without it, we are subject to the whims and Byzantine workings of bureaucracy. All other categories of prohibited persons have been adjudicated in some fashion; the checks and balances of a day in court ensuring that someone isn’t being capriciously deprived of their rights.

"What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon?" —@POTUS pic.twitter.com/sfmJiitjZd

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 7, 2015

Last time the Democrats, used a list to round up citizens and stripped them of their rights. @WhiteHouse @POTUS pic.twitter.com/p4mAJi3xDZ

— Ryan B. Leslie (@RyanBLeslie) December 7, 2015

The no-fly list, a subset of the Terrorist Screening Center’s list of surveillance targets, lists nearly 50,000 people, though the actual numbers are secret. Wikipedia has a small list of notable cases of persons, not actually terrorists, who have been stopped from flying, including some who were apparently added to the list in retaliation for something the government didn’t like.

The ACLU calls the process “[…] to challenge their blacklisting is grossly insufficient and violates the U.S. Constitution’s due process guarantee.” It goes on to describe the challenge process, which is an entirely bureaucratic process without court review. 

“If you are a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, and the TSC determines that you are on the No Fly List, DHS TRIP will send you a letter informing you of your status on the No Fly List and providing the option to submit and receive additional information. If you choose that option, DHS TRIP will provide a second letter identifying the general criterion under which you have been placed on the No Fly List and possibly including an unclassified summary of the reasons for your inclusion on the List. You should know that the government’s summary likely will not include all of its reasons for your placement on the List, and in some cases the government will choose not to provide any summary at all. The government also will not provide you any of the evidence it relied upon in deciding to place you on the List, and it may also withhold information in its possession that undercuts its basis for putting you on the list. Finally, the government does not provide a live hearing at which you could testify, or give you an opportunity to cross-examine witnesses against you.” 

One still could file a lawsuit, but only after the fact. Most citizens learn of their status on the No Fly List by attempting to board a flight. Imagine going to gun store, only to be denied the ability to purchase a firearm. You would have first find out why you were denied, then begin the appeal process with the FBI, which you couldn’t do until the Dept. of Homeland Security removed you from its terrorist watch list. It’s a Kafkaesque nightmare meant to ensnare people. With the IRS targeting conservative groups illegally, one can imagine a rogue government agency or bureaucrat (or even under direction from President Obama or another leftist president) actually considering some gun owners (such as we of Nevada Carry) potential domestic terrorists.

Placing names on a list to restrict rights that is established by arbitrary criteria, secret information, and nearly impossible to challenge is un-American. If the ‘no-fly’ list didn’t have problems such as government security workers on it or listing children and people with similar names by accident, the argument might be valid. However, as we saw today, the San Bernardino terrorists committed their atrocity without going through a single so-called loophole. In fact, despite coming from countries that are rife with terrorism and radicalization factories and communicating online with suspected terrorist sympathizers, the California jihadist went unnoticed by law enforcement.

As with background checks, the ‘terrorist loophole’ non-sense is coming to the states. California Assemblyman Mike Gatto told the Sacramento Bee “It’s safe to say that if people who are under a mental-health hold cannot buy a weapon, then I think it makes sense that people who have been deemed so dangerous that they can’t board an airplane should be in that same category.” It’s just not that simple, unless Gatto approves of using an inaccurate database and trampling on the Fifth Amendment right to due process. Of course, since it involves guns, the Democrat doesn’t mind. Surely the legislature which banned open carry in 1967 because black people were doing it will easily pass this law.

Chris Cox, executive director, NRA Institute for Legislative Action gave the best reaction to President Obama’s rhetoric earlier this week. 

“The National Rifle Association is not to blame. Neither is our Second Amendment freedom. An act of evil unfolded in California. President Obama used it not as a moment to inform or calm the American people; rather, he exploited it to push his gun control agenda. Policy discussions should be intellectually honest and based on facts, not politics. And the fact remains that California has already adopted President Obama’s gun control wish list: "universal" background checks, registration, waiting periods, gun bans, magazine bans and an expansion of prohibited gun categories. But those laws did nothing to prevent this horrific crime from taking place. Nothing.” 

Obama and the leftists push the ‘terrorist loophole’ because it narrows who can buy guns. It sounds great and they think it can pass in the aftermath of this tragedy. What they are really doing is broadening the definition of who is prohibited from possessing firearms. The terror watch lists have no real criteria. If the Obama Administration decides that those who read this blog as potential terrorists, you could wind up on the list. It’s not far-fetched.

Quit with the Gun Control Already

Leftists and politicians do not understand that laws and disarming the law-abiding will result in safety. They are so deluded by their hate for guns, and some salivating over a disarmed populace, helpless to resist their agenda, they will use any tragedy, any excuse, fabricate any data, manipulate any statistics, and make any lie to promote their evil. Under President Obama’s administration, we’ve seen more true high-profile mass shootings than under any other recent president. Knowing that the media and the White House is behind them, those that would rob you of your rights have gun into full-battle mode. At no time in American history has the Second Amendment been under such.

Anti-gunners like the president are hecklers; they ask only rhetorical questions that ignore truth and facts. They rely on hyperbole, logical fallacies, and capitalizing on crises. They offer no solutions, only restrictions.

Leftists, who have asserted that their policies hold all the answers for life's problems, do not have the humility to admit that they are on the wrong side of the issue. Maybe in the '60s and '70s, we could have forgiven their ignorance, but waves of evidence show guns aren't the problem and leftists are so far gone the truth has lost all meaning to them. Lies and distortions have become such a part of their daily life that their capacity for rational thought has been destroyed.

Any attempt to confiscate or infringe any further upon the Second Amendment is likely to result in revolution. President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the establishment Left is pushing America to the brink of armed resistance to the trampling of our rights, our faiths, our freedoms, and our way of life.

It is said that Social Security is the third-rail of a American politics. For those unfamiliar with the term, the third rail is a electrified rail that subways and trams (usually in the East), draw power from. Touching it will kill you. The Second Amendment is the hangman’s rope in American politics and politicians are busy pulling the noose over their heads.

Although it is stems from the most unfortunate of circumstances, the reaction of the American public rejecting gun control and supporting citizen’s carrying guns for self-defense is most heartening. This nation is waking up to the reality that criminals and terrorists cannot be stopped by laws and to save our own lives in the face of death, we must have a gun and be willing to use it.

-G. C.

It's Really Islamic Terror and No, We Don't Need More Gun Control

The New Face of Islamic Terror in America

We now know that the terrorists in Wednesday’s attack in San Bernardino were identified as Middle Eastern Muslims, Syed Farook, his wife Tashfeen Malik, and Qatari-born Tayyeep Bin Ardogan. This was Islamic terrorism. The denial of this fact by the government and media is absolutely sickening. Because there is no smoking gun, such as social media posts (they were scrubbed the day before the incident) and the terrorists didn’t shout “Allahu ackbar!”, the government, leftists, and the media can only ‘guess’ at the motive. Other than the fact the perpetrators were all Muslims, their verified ties to suspected radicals and preparation indicates this was not random workplace violence.

It’s becoming apparent that ‘lone wolf’ attacks, not directed by a country or larger terrorist organization like Al-Qaeda, are the new threat. For the first few years of the last decade, America was focused almost solely on major terrorist attacks. Our airplanes got hardened cockpit doors, our pilots got guns, TSA stripped us virtually naked and made us take off our shoes. Lady Liberty closed, barricades sprung up around you local federal offices, and we held out breaths when we were warned to buy plastic sheeting and duct tape. WMDs, dirty bombs, suitcase nukes and sleeper cells were the stuff of nightmares.

FBI agents worked around the clock trying to prevent the next attack. Thankfully, the wars in Afghanistan and later Iraq drew the jihadi’s like moths to flame and they were slain overseas rather than in the United States. It was far easier for a riled-up young Saudi to travel across the border to Iraq and bomb Americans than it was for them to somehow infiltrate our country. Many, many would-be homeland terrorists instead died at the hands of our soldiers and Marines in the desert.

Al-Qaeda, the global terrorist organization dedicated to destroying the United States, was broken, leaving us without a Number One enemy in the War on Terror. It’s fair to mention that it never was some sort of James Bond-esque SPECTRE type organization. Once President Obama withdrew most troops from Iraq (and ended Bush’s War on Terror), a huge vacuum of power was left in the region and was filled with violent jihadists from Syria. ISIS is still only a small regional force. It does not have the power or organization to lead mass attacks abroad like the Bin Laden funded and led Al-Qaeda could. However, its powerful social media has duped thousands.

Despite the rather pedantic and naïve way the political dilettantes fought the Taliban and George W. Bushs’ misguided revenge on Saddam Hussein, there was a benefit to it all. We did not see a single Islamic terrorist attack in the United States until Barack Obama’s presidency in 2009 when a Muslim psychiatrist shot up Fort Hood. ‘Lone wolf’ terrorism was the new wildcard.

Israel’s experiences were the model for the fears of the kind of attacks that were (and still are) expected: suicide bombers and machine gun armed terrorists attacking buses, malls, and pizza shops. Paris’ two attacks this year are a good example of the extreme of non-directed attacks. In America, we had the two brothers  who bombed the Boston Marathon despite any orders from Chechen groups.

Fed by disgusting videos and violent rhetoric, ISIS has encouraged many to travel to Syria and Iraq to swell its ranks. It has claim to have infiltrated Western society with hundreds of terrorists willing to wage jihad. Time will soon tell if we have a rag-tag army among us or just random whack jobs radicalized online.

Americans will now have to worry about being shot in our workplace by our friends. A Muslim turns his hatred of the Western lifestyle against his friend and co-workers. This soft target wasn’t a mall, but the mastermind’s workplace. We expected schools, shopping malls, churches to be shot up—not a Christmas Party at work. Look around at your co-workers. Sure, we joke about someone being the type to go postal and blast the office when they have a bad day, but we don’t actually imagine that our dependable Muslim colleague is going to practice the parts of the Quran that call for jihad. Literally anywhere can become a target for terror, not just the obvious targets like malls, casinos, crowds, and high-profile attractions.  Being California, none of the employees could be armed (same story in most Nevada government offices).

Denial of Islamic Terror

Federal and local law enforcement delayed and prevaricated in placing the blame of this attack squarely where it belongs; Islam. This was a pre-planned attack, not a case of sudden rage from a disgruntled co-worker. Not even the most irrational people who decide to commit a sudden act of murder stock up body armor, weapons, and pipe bombs ‘just in case’ they want to go off on a particular day. The media took forever to confirm the information, despite it being available for half the day.

CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, jumped out in front of the press Wednesday night trying distance Islam from this Islamic terrorist attack. CAIR has been tied to Palestinian terror group Hamas. CAIR is the group that comes out every time Muslims are implicated in an Islamic terrorist incident to lie about Islam being a religion of peace. Interestingly, the Arabic root work that Islam is derived from means ‘surrender’ and not surrender of the self, but surrender as give in to Islam (or die). Islam didn't spread across the Arabian desert through missionaries, but by war and slaughter.

Make no bones about it; Islam calls for the death of those who will not convert (kaffirs, or unbelievers). Islamic end-times prophecies hold that Isa, the Muslim incarnation of Jesus, will finally slay all remaining unbelievers on behalf of the Muslim messiah, the Mahdi. I’m not getting too much into how Islam is an existential threat to the west or how the Quran really is violent. I’ve done that in a previous post and you can find better articles online yourself. Thankfully, most Muslims in America aren’t going to kill you even if their more religious kin might.

Excuse for Gun Control

Even before any substantive details were out, politicians were calling for gun control and the media lamenting gun violence and mass shootings in America. I predicted this. You know, the same old story that helps push the narrative that guns are bad and need to be banned. Capitalizing on the crisis, senators attempted to ram universal background checks down the throats of Americans, but the measure was defeated.

Unfortunately, Democrats have lately been calling for closing the so-called ‘Terrorist Loophole’ by adding anyone on the terror watch-list to the roles of prohibited persons. This is at the same time when it has become fashionable for anti-gun leftists, who are calling the NRA a terrorist organization and its members terrorists. I don’t think any of the terrorists in San Bernardino were NRA members, nor has Wayne La Pierre called for murdering anyone. Can you imagine giving these mentally unbalanced individuals the power to put average American gun owners on a terror watch-list?

It could very well happen. TSA agents, innocent grandparents, people with a name similar to actual terrorists have wound up on the list, without due process, lost their right to fly, and had to endure a Kafkaesque process to get their name off the list. If people can wind up on the list by accident, for stupid reasons, or even protect airplanes from terrorists, and yet be on a list of suspected terrorists, do we really want to trust that kind of source?

No one wants terrorists to buy a gun, but the whole ‘terrorist loophole’ bullshit it just that. First, innocent until proven guilty. No one should have a right taken away until they’ve had their day in court, first. Second, the FBI or other law enforcement should be paying attention to anyone on the list if they buy a gun. Third, true terrorists, like in San Bernardino, will find another way to get guns, such as smuggling them as was done in the Paris attacks.

Never mind the fact that Wednesday’s terrorists bought their weapons legally in a state that has universal background checks and some of the strictest gun control laws in America. Those gun control laws deterred the terrorists as much as the laws against murder did.

Last, going back to the idiots who consider the NRA to be terrorists for using their right to free speech and democratic political action, just who constitutes a ‘terrorist’ is up for grab. Imagine the Obama administration finding a way to declare all gun owners who support the Second Amendment unfettered terrorists. “Those who believe they have the right to own guns to overthrow a government they disagree are a clear and present threat to the government of the United States.” Imagine your ‘Molon Labe’ or ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ bumper stickers being used to justify your support for a 'terrorist' civilian militia movement. Just take a look at the demonization of gun owners; it’s plausible and very frightening.

-G. C.