The NRA fails yet again

The Patriot Act, which was written with the (stated) good intention of being used to fight terrorism, has been abused many, many times since its inception. The FBI itself has admitted to collecting thousands upon thousands of phone records with neither warrant nor a direct investigation targeted to warrant them. The act permits law enforcement to write its own warrantless "national security" letters collecting information on American citizens - not just foreign nationals in this country legally or illegally - with little or no oversight whatsoever.

The Patriot Act has come up for renewal of certain time-limited sections which Congress is voting to approve. Senator Rand Paul wrote an amendment to require a warrant which indicates the information is germane to a specific investigation before law enforcement can access the records of firearms purchases by Americans. These records are called "4473's", because that is the number of the form used to gather that information for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. These records are by law kept by the Federal Firearms licensees who sell rifles and handguns to the public, but are only accessible to the BATF in the case of an actual investigation of a specific firearm used in a crime or if the licensee (FFL) goes out of business.

The government, through the BATF specifically, is not supposed to keep records they can access of what guns are purchased by citizens. There are specific laws written to prevent this, although BATF and the FBI have circumvented them at times, including during the "Instant check" program where a call is made to law enforcement during the purchase of every firearm by a citizen. Those records are supposed to be wiped, but government insiders have stated that they usually are not destroyed, but kept in a database.

In every country where these records have been kept and accessed by the government, the government has later used them to confiscate firearms from the public. And in almost every country where this has been done - with the exception of England and Australia, so far - the government has gone on to oppress and kill its own citizens after taking away their means of defense, their firearms. JPFO, the Jews For the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, has documented the almost 200 million - yes, 200 million - people killed by their own governments in the Twentieth Century, all in countries where guns were controlled, recorded, and then confiscated. Nazi Germany, Russia, Red China, Turkey, Cambodia, and others.

So, Senator Rand Paul attempted to get an amendment inserted into the Patriot Act. Not to keep these records from ever being seen by the government, but simply to state that viewing the 4473 forms must require an actual warrant, signed by a judge, and specifying what was being searched for. The Senate voted 85-10 to refuse this amendment. obviously including a number of the Republicans we thought were interested in protecting the Constitution (4th Amendment) and the citizens who hired them to represent them.

The NRA, National Rifle Association, touted by the Democrats as the premier lobby for gun-crazed, Bible-toting, rednecked veterans and other ignorant American citizens, sat this one out. They were silent on this issue, instead of fighting to protect the rights of the people they pretend to lobby for, to the tune of many millions of dollars in dues and donations. They caved in again, simply because they really aren't interested in protecting the Second Amendment or citizens rights, but actually exist solely to enrich themselves at the expense of gun owners, playing a "double-agent" role of claiming to support gun owners while sucking up to legislators in favor of gun control.

At times this toothless lion will roar and posture, pretending to fight against the government's desire to control guns more stringently, but it is all a sham. The NRA has had a hand in writing every major piece of gun control legislation written, including the NFA: the National Firearms Act of 1934 - the grandaddy of all gun control:

"The NRA supported The National Firearms Act of 1934 which taxes and requires registration of such firearms as machine guns, sawed-off rifles and sawed-off shotguns. ... NRA support of Federal gun legislation did not stop with the earlier Dodd bills. It currently backs several Senate and House bills which, through amendment, would put new teeth into the National and Federal Firearms Acts." —American Rifleman, March 1968, P. 22

They also had a large hand in writing the Gun Control Act of 1968, the second most damaging piece of gun control legislation written in America. You can read more about it here:

http://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=3247.

I'm certain that those on the Left who love gun control and would prefer to see the Second Amendment struck from our Bill of Rights would actually donate to the NRA if they knew - as most politicians of both parties already know - that the NRA has done more to support gun control than any other group in the nation, including all of the liberal organizations such as Handgun Control. As it has so many times before, the NRA has sided with the DC elite to quietly sit back and allow the Patriot Act to include identifying each and every one of us who has ever purchased a firearm. If the decision is ever reached by our government to begin firearm confiscation - as they did in New Orleans when law enforcement went from door to door to confiscate guns from innocent residents who needed them to protect themselves from the looters and criminals who remained in the city after the flooding - they will have been assisted by the NRA's failure to keep this information out of the hands of those in government who wish to deny the rights of American citizens to self-defense.

Don't get confused now: the NRA had nothing to do with the recent Supreme Court decisions supporting the "individual right" construction of the Second Amendment. Yes, they appeared in court, and tried to "piggy-back" upon the efforts of the Second Amendment Foundation and the GOA (Gun Owners of America), in the suits that were brought before the Supreme Court. It needs to be noted that the NRA sat on prior attempts to get these cases before the Supreme Court, saying it was "premature", "the time isn't ripe", etc. The Second Amendment Foundation via Alan Gura, and the GOA were finally able to push the cases through - in spite of the NRA, not because of them or with their actual help. As usual, though, the NRA has attempted to take credit for these successes, pretending to those who pay their millions in dues and donations that it was all thanks to them at the NRA. What a crock.

I am a gun owner and I say, "Damn the NRA."