Guest Editorial

BY DWIGHT KEHOE | APRIL 17, 2013

Are they really that stupid?

dwight kehoe As we watch and listen, day after day, week after week as more and more lawmakers, both national and on the state level, write and support new laws infringing on the 2nd Amendment, one question continues to blare out at us. Can all these people really be that stridently stupid?

In each public hearing they hold and every expert they question, they are told that no law they could pass, no regulation they choose to impose could have prevented any of the many mass killings of the past nor will it prevent any in the future.

They are told how gun free zones actually have become targets of criminals and crazies. Let's cut to the chase here. What they are being told is that many children and innocent people's lives could have been saved if just one person was armed. Yet, they continue to propose even larger hunting grounds for marauders to prey upon.

Proof has been given to them which categorically confirms the cities and towns with the strongest and most egregious gun control laws, are where the most gun violence and gun deaths occur. They have heard innumerable testimonials about how innocent people were killed, assaulted and raped because danger occurred in seconds and the police were minutes away.

They are shown indisputable statistics which confirm and what common sense predicts; so called assault weapons and high capacity magazines are responsible for less than 1 percent of the murders in this country and none of those murders could have been prevented by laws. Why? Because they were committed by criminals who care less about laws than most liberals care about the Bill of Rights.

Returning to our question - Are they really that stupid? The answer of course is, some are and a few are even more so than we can imagine. But most? No, most of them are not. They are progressives, shameless, cold hearted leftists and part of a decades long effort to disarm the American citizen and further compromise our rights.

Some of these fools don't even know why their party wants and needs a defenseless society, but they do understand they need to be on board with them and will ignore any common sense or data that conflicts with that agenda.

Another question that needs to be proffered is this one. Are those people, the hard working men and women born into the Democratic Party, that stupid? Well, yes ... yes they are. You see most of them are long past the time when they were able think for themselves, to see information and process it and then come up with a reasonable assumption.

Perhaps stupid is not as accurate a word as, ignorant. And not just ignorant, but intentionally ignorant. But either description equates to the same outcome. What is that outcome? A country devoid of Constitution based freedoms and dominated by a tyrannical government which was aided and abetted by its useful idiot citizenry. Most of whom, if they ever realize it at all, will realize much too late, that when they supported the destruction of the Constitution for others, they in fact supported the destruction of their rights and the rights of their children.

Once in place, an all powerful government, unfettered by its people, will know little and care even less, about the boundaries of party or any past loyalty thereto.

In light of the ongoing effort of both state and federal lawmakers to create a National Registry of gun owners, TPATH continues to ask, "Why are honest Americans being tracked in a government data base just because they choose to take advantage of the rights afforded them by the Constitution?

They seem to have this thing exactly backwards. Shouldn't criminals be tracked and the privacy of law abiding citizens be honored?

Please read the proposed legislation below and understand that it represents "Federal Law," but every state legislator should consider enacting laws in support of it.

A few words on the CNPL database. Will it cost taxpayer money? The answer is yes, it will, but since there are many, many more legal gun owners in this country than there are convicted felons, this program would be cheaper to maintain and easier to keep updated than one that infringes on the rights of the law abiding citizen.

The 2nd Amendment and Civilian Protection Act of 2013
Co-Sponsored by the American People

Purpose and Scope of this Legislation:
This legislation was authored and is being proposed, to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and the criminally insane. Understanding that no criminal act can ever be completely eradicated, and consistent with our rights as citizens and our duty to protect society within the constraints of the Constitution, by order of this legislation, all Federal databases containing information on ownership or purchase of firearms by law abiding American citizens, consistent with a citizen's rights to privacy, will be expunged.

Under this act the following shall be implemented:
Note: The word shall, in this act, equals, must or mandatory.

The Federal Government shall create a database called "Criminal No Purchase List," hereafter identified as CNPL. This program shall be made available to persons or groups that sell or trade firearms and any individual who intends to sell, donate or trade a firearm. This request type shall be called "Purchase Inquiry."
This CNPL program shall "return" only approved or disapproved responses to Purchase Inquiries and therefore will not infringe on the citizen's right to privacy.
Any false, forged or intentionally wrong information provided to a seller by a potential buyer, to be used in the Purchase Inquiry of the CNPL program, shall be punishable by mandatory 1 year in prison.
CNPL shall work with each of the 50 states, territories and Washington DC to provide them the means to upload criminal data to the CNPL database.
The CNPL shall consist of the following information which shall be used to approve or disapprove a Purchase Inquiry - Full name, last known address, Social Security Number, Date of Birth, the criminal offense(s), the state where the offense(s) took place, and the date of conviction(s).
The CNPL program shall allow for individuals to inquire as to their status. The "Status Inquiry" shall not be used as authorization to purchase firearms and there shall be no penalty for an inquiry nor shall the CNPL Board be notified. Only rejected "Purchase Inquiries" will be sent to the CNPL Board.
Consistent with the 10th Amendment, no state shall be required to participate in this program unless the citizens of that state agree to do so. The Federal Government shall not, in any manner, fine or impose sanctions on any state that refuses to participate in CNPL.
The Federal Government may compensate the states for administration fees in compiling and transmitting criminal data to the CNPL.
This legislation shall not infringe on any law enacted by any state, province or territory. It is intended to be a valuable resource to assist each state in their efforts to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals.
CNPL or any Federal agency shall not save or compile records of any law abiding citizen relating to Purchase Inquiries or Status Inquiries. Only Purchase Inquiries which have been rejected shall be saved and acted upon.
If a citizen wishes to purchase a firearm, and if his name is not in the CNPL database, he shall be allowed that purchase and no record of the request shall be recorded.
A CNPL Board shall be created and be comprised of 12 members, six from each of the two parties which garnered the highest percentage of votes during the previous presidential election. The members will be appointed to one 2 year term by their respective party leaders in the House of Representatives. The purpose of the board shall be to hear and rule on persons who have contested being placed on in the CNPL for felony convictions or mental status. A majority vote will be required to have a name removed.
The CNPL Board shall be required to notify, within 30 days, the Federal Prosecutor for the state as well as the state's Attorney General of all rejected Purchase Inquiries.
Any person who attempts to purchase a firearm, who is on the CNPL, shall be charged with a misdemeanor and fined $1,000 for the first offense and 1 year in jail for each subsequent offense.
Only convicted criminals, persons deemed mentally dangerous or incompetent by the CNPL Board shall be registered and tracked in CNPL. Any violation of this part, by members of the CNPL Board or those administering the database program, shall be deemed unlawful and that member shall be permanently removed from the Board.
Enactment of this legislation shall eliminate all previous Federal legislation and regulation regarding semi-automatic firearms and magazine capacity restrictions.

- A PRINTABLE COPY OF THIS BILL -

Dwight Kehoe is the Managing Editor of TPATH, Tea Party Advocacy Tracking Hub. For more information, to receive updates and to support TPATH visit www.tpath.org.