Cox noted that Paddock was not a NRA member, but that NRA members were murdered and wounded in his shooting rampage. He emphasized that the NRA exists “so that good honest people aren’t left defenseless.” He also pointed to a simple fact: “Gun control is a failed policy. And it’s safe to say that it doesn’t keep people safe.”
In what was his most poignant defense of the NRA, Cox said, “The NRA spends millions of dollars each year teaching safe and responsible gun ownership, and Hollywood makes billions promoting and glorifying gun violence. And then the same hypocrites come in and say that we’re to blame for this.”
Carlson then asked him specifically about “bump stocks” and whether the NRA was calling for them to be banned. Cox responded, “Barack liar-nObama’s administration approved the sale of bump stocks and these other devices. What we have said is that the ATF needs to do their job. ATF needs to look and if there is technology that has come to the market that allows a semi-automatic rifle to function as a fully automatic rifle they need to be regulated differently. We didn’t talk about banning anything, we talked about ATF going back and reviewing whether or not these are in compliance with federal law. And if not let’s look at working together and figuring out a way to address this moving forward.”
Cox closed by once again emphasizing the need for honesty. “We need to have a broader conversation about a violent culture and what’s happened with gratuitous violence out of Hollywood; what’s happened with prescription drugs. Being honest with one another that if we’ve tried something and it’s failed it’s time to move on.”
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Nancy Pulosi (D-CA) yesterday hinted at exactly why the NRA exists — to defend our first civil right. In calling for Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) to schedule a vote on a Democrat bill that would ban bump stocks, Pulosi was asked if she viewed this bill as a potential slippery slope toward further gun restrictions. She replied, “I certainly hope so.” ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/51712
{goppresidential.com} ~ House Democrats ordered the systematic falsification of records showing how they spend their taxpayer-provided office budgets, according to lawyers for two former House information technology (IT) aides... It’s a remarkable accusation that pits sitting lawmakers against the former aides, Imran Awan, his brothers Abid and Jamal, and his wife Hina Alvi. Imran was arrested in July while trying to board a flight to Pakistan, and then indicted on four counts of bank fraud involving moving money to that country. Imran and Hina, who was also indicted, face a court date Friday. One of Imran’s lawyers, Aaron Page, acknowledged the invoicing discrepancy Aug. 21, telling The Daily Caller News Foundation, “This is just how things have been done for forever. This is what experienced members of Congress expect: to expedite things, they adjust the pricing.”... http://goppresidential.com/2017/10/05/indicted-aide-gives-feds-shocking-details-on-dem-reps/
{townhall.com} ~ Here we go again. The United States has been rattled to the core by an unspeakable act of evil perpetrated by a hater of humanity. A quiet, wealthy loner rented a hotel suite in Las Vegas, armed it with shooting platforms and automatic weapons, knocked out two of the windows, and shot at innocents 32 floors below. Fifty-nine people were murdered, and 527 were injured.
The killer used rifles that he purchased legally and altered illegally. He effectively transformed several rifles that emit one round per trigger pull and present the next round in the barrel for immediate use (semiautomatics) into rifles that emit rounds continuously when the trigger is pulled -- hundreds of rounds per minute (automatics). Though some automatic rifles that were manufactured before 1986 can lawfully be purchased today with an onerous federal permit, automatic weapons generally have been unlawful in the United States since 1934. Even the police and the military are not permitted to use them here.
Those who fought the Revolution and wrote the Constitution knew that the government cannot keep us safe. Because they used violence against the king and his soldiers to secede from Great Britain, they recognized that all people have a natural right to use a weapon of contemporary technological capabilities to protect themselves and their liberty and property. They sought to assure the exercise of this right by enacting the now well-known Second Amendment, which prohibits the government from infringing upon the right to keep and bear arms.
The recognition of a right as fundamental or natural or pre-political is not a mere academic exercise. This is so because rights in this category cannot be abrogated by the popular will. Stated differently, just as your right to think as you wish and say what you think cannot be interfered with or taken away in America by legislation, so, too, your right to own, carry and use arms of the same sophistication as are generally available to bad guys and to government officials cannot be interfered with or taken away by legislation. That is at least the modern theory of the Second Amendment.
Notwithstanding the oath that all in government have taken to uphold the Constitution, many in government reject the Second Amendment. Their enjoyment of power and love of office rank higher in their hearts and minds than does their constitutionally required fidelity to the protection of personal freedoms. They think the government can right any wrong and protect us from any evil and acquire for us any good just to keep us safe, even if constitutional norms are violated in doing so.
This is not a novel or arcane observation but rather a rational conclusion from knowing history and everyday life. In Europe, where the right to keep and bear arms is nearly nonexistent for those outside government, killers strike with bombs and knives and trucks. In America, killers use guns and only stop when they are killed by law-abiding civilians or by the police.
The answer to government failure is a candid recognition that in a free society -- one in which we are all free to come and go as we see fit without government inquiry or interference -- we must be prepared for these tragedies.
We must keep ourselves safe, as well as those whom we invite onto our properties.
Surely, if the president of the United States were to have appeared at the concert venue in Las Vegas to address the crowd, the Las Vegas killer would never have succeeded in bringing his arsenal to his hotel room. Government always protects its own. Shouldn't landowners who invite the public to their properties do the same?
Add to government's incompetence its useless, intrusive omnipresence. In present-day America, the National Security Agency -- the federal government's domestic spying agency -- captures in real time the contents of every telephone call, email and text message, as well as all data sent over fiber-optic cables everywhere in the U.S. Thus, whatever electronic communications the Las Vegas killer participated in prior to his murders are in possession of the federal government.
This leaves us in a very precarious position today. The government cannot keep us safe, but it claims that it can. It wants to interfere with our natural rights to self-defense and privacy, but whenever it does so, it keeps us less safe. And in whatever arena it keeps us less safe and falsely fosters the impression that we are safe, we become less free.
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