Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Wayne La Pierre - Defender of Rights


To quote Lawrence O'Donnell from his show back in February, Wayne LaPierre is "Washington's lobbyist in favor of murderer's rights, always to use the gun of their choice." There is no better summary of a man who ensures his $1.27 million salary every year by being a paid serial liar in defense of arms dealers, which groups such as the Violence Policy Center have made clear again and again.
Basically the complaint against Wayne is his opposition to the multiple sales reporting rule. Once Wayne, speaking for the NRA, expresses his opinion, loyal gun owners everywhere pick up the refrain, wealking sycophants that they are. Their opposition is immense, especially considering what it actually is they oppose.

The idea would be for any multiple purchases of rifles to be reported to the ATF. No law abiding citizen who buys two or more long-guns would have anything to worry about. If controlled, they'd produce the guns and the paperwork, end of story.

But, the gun smugglers and straw purchasers who buy more than one gun would be immediately detected for what they are. What could be more reasonable than that?

What's your opinion?  Do you think describing La Pierre as a defender of murderer's rights is a bit over the top?  How about his income and its source? Wouldn't that be a major point of criticism in a gun control person?

Please leave a comment.


10 comments:

  1. "The idea would be for any multiple purchases of rifles to be reported to the ATF. No law abiding citizen who buys two or more long-guns would have anything to worry about. If controlled, they'd produce the guns and the paperwork, end of story."

    So if it is such a great idea, and I have no problem with it personally, why don't they pass a law so that they can legally do it?

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  2. FWM writes:
    "So if it is such a great idea, and I have no problem with it personally, why don't they pass a law so that they can legally do it?"

    1. Because the NRA funds right wing obstruction to any gun legislation, no matter how justified, reasonable, or helpful, out of fear that it will reduce even minimally the sale of firearms. Because the NRA really serves the interests of the gun manufacturers far more than gun owners.

    2. Because the opinion that this is illegal has not been supported by any court decision.

    Rather it appears to be a correct interpretation of existing law, making no further legislation necessary, and it is therefore legal and proper, not illegal.
    AND a good idea, which if it proves as practical as it is intended, may be expanded.

    One of the series of articles, (a 3 or 5 parter, I'd have to go back to check) that I posted here, from the MN Star Tribune, was about legal gun purchases made in MN from Cabellas that were part of a gun smuggling pipeline to drug cartels in Mexico and beyond, and the arrests related to it. Those arrests derived from gun purchase paperwork. While for logistical purposes, it is likely that there are more of these legal purchases for illegal end owners along border states, there are also plenty of them in other parts of the country. For that reason, it would make sense that this be a pilot program that later could very well be extended nationwide to end the supply of firearms of all kinds, but particularly long-guns, to illegal end users, be it drug cartels or terrorists or whomever has the dirty money.

    So, support the paperwork on these firearms, not the NRA.

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  3. I am frequently delighted that I live in a northern tier state, with Canada on one of our state borders rather than Mexico. While no nation is perfect, I can't think of many countries as excellent as Canada to have next door.
    As I watch our gun policies and laws and lack of effective regulation contributing to the destabilization of Mexico on our southern border, it occurs to me regularly how much it is in our own self-interest to stop that illegal gun traffic. We need an effective, stable government in Mexico for our own security, not a corrupt and unstable one.

    We can act smart, or we can act stupid. FWM, sorry, but the position you advocate is the latter. It is wrong and it is unwise, and it is dangerous, to all of us, on either side of the border. And if you think that is not true, or that your little private arsenal is an adequate defense against that danger, sir, you are a fool.

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  4. FWM is obviously ignorant of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 08-205 (2010), decision that said corporations are people for donations to political campaigns.

    Likewise he is deluding himself if he thinks that the National Rifle Association is anything other than a lobbying arm of the Firearms manufacturers.

    The NRA is a long-time member and longtime funder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and an NRA representative has served on the Public Safety and Elections Task Force for many years.

    ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door.

    Of course, FWM thinks Heller-MCDonald is a pretty good thing in his ignorance that the same people who fund ALEC paid to fund those litigations. Note that the Koch Brothers are on the boards of both.

    FWM proves that people who support gun rights could give a rats arse about any other rights.

    They'll sell the rest of us into slavery.

    See: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Rifle_Association

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  5. "Rather it appears to be a correct interpretation of existing law, making no further legislation necessary, and it is therefore legal and proper, not illegal."

    Can you please cite that existing law that you claim makes it legal?

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  6. OH, FWM, you stepped into it!

    Her basis comes from DC v. Heller, in the part that I have put in bold type:

    Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Heller at 54-5

    Which has as a footnote (26):

    We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.

    There is no Constitutional barrier to such a law according to Heller-McDonald.

    At this point, it is only a federal regulation that such sales be recorded.

    There are also state laws which require these transaction to be reported.

    See this

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  8. FWM, I believe our difference in understanding comes down to a failure on your part to properly understand the role and legalities of presidential and executive orders, where they are proper, appropriate, and completely legal, without the requirement of additional law or legislation to make them so.

    See this on wikipedia
    >, which I hope will clarify this for you. Executive orders work in conjunction with laws and with administratie regulation in very specific ways.

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  9. Laci,

    Whoa, yeah. You got me. I really stepped in it. I made you quote a decision that you claim is wrong. Wow.

    I didn't say that the law was unconstitutional, nor did I ask if any supreme court decision applied. DogGone made the statement that the reporting requirement is covered under current law and I am asking what that law is.

    If she is correct, just tell me where I can read the law. I don't even oppose the reporting requirement if it is legal. Just tell me the U.S. code please. That shouldn't require pages of Laci b.s.

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  10. FWM, You said you have no problem with the requirement to report multiple rifle sales, is that right?

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