Off The Publisher’s Desk – 8-19-2020
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All out assault on the NRA
I am an all out believer in our Constitution and it has served us well since it was first passed at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. But in the last twenty or more years it seems that the political movement within this country is to attempt to do away with the Constitution or at lease reduce it and give the power to a few elected individuals.
Now with Joe Biden bringing on the junior Senator from California, Kamala Harris, for his vice presidential candidate and as the New York Attorney General moves to dissolve the National Rifle Association (NRA), we will see an assault on the Second Amendment.
Just in case you need an explanation of what the Second Amendment states I will print it in its entirety: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Rick Manning president of Americans for Limited Government wrote this about Harris. “She is a wild eyed radical devoted to the politics of personal destruction.”
If I remember right, during the senate hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the United States Supreme Court, Harris called him out on being a Christian. But then, Biden’s choice of Harris as the vice presidential candidate has seen a rush of money into the campaign of the Democratic Party with some $26 million from grass root supporters in a 24-hour period.
Now comes Letitia James, New York’s attorney general who took action to dissolve the National Rifle Association. In her lawsuit she claims that she found financial misconduct in the millions of dollars and that it contributed to a loss of more than $64 million over a three-year period.
She has jurisdiction over non-profits in New York and as the NRA is registered as such in that state where she has a wide range of authority over non-profits including the authority to force organizations to cease operations or dissolve.
The NRA said in a statement that the legal action was political, a “baseless premeditated attack on our organization and the Second Amendment freedoms it fights to defend, we will not shrink from this fight, we will confront it and prevail.”
We have heard all the reasons to ban guns. We are told guns “kill people.” Should we also ban automobiles as more people die from vehicle accidents than from guns, but what is the number of deaths from drugs in this country?
Big cities with strict gun laws, like Chicago, see more gun violence than most other communities in the United States. It is not the gun, but the criminal element in our society. I don’t know if it is organized crime, youth gang members or an outside identity that are responsible for this violence. But I am sure a lot of it has to do with drugs.
Lets focus our attention and try to stop the drug abuse in our society and then I think you will see gun violence drop.
I would like to reprint part of an article from Vox (a news website) written by German Lopez and last updated on January 19, 2017, titled “How Obama quietly reshaped America’s war on drugs.”
“For decades, the war on drugs has been characterized by ‘stop and frisk’ militarized raids on people’s homes, and prison sentences that can span decades or lifetimes.
“This was all under the encouragement of the president. Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs. Ronald Reagan escalated the war with ‘tough on crime’ mandatory minimum sentences. George H. W. Bush gave his first televised national address on drugs, telling the country that drugs are ‘the greatest domestic threat facing our nation today’ while holding up a bag of seized cocaine. Bill Clinton signed laws that pushed for tougher prison sentences and stripped Prison inmates of much of their legal defense rights.
Early in 2016, President Obama began pardoning and otherwise shortening the prison sentences of hundreds of federal inmates. In November (2016), Obama said he would like to treat marijuana ‘as a public-health issue, the same way we do with cigarettes or alcohol.’ And recently, (2016) Obama signed a bill that will spend one billion over two years to combat the growing opioid painkiller and heroin epidemic, all through public health, not criminal justice programs.”
Now, there you have two different approaches to the problem, you can choose which one is the best in your mind. I like the treatment program, but that does not address the problem on the streets with drug pushers and that is where we need to start.
You push drugs; you are going to jail.
Thanks for reading! ~Carlton