Perfect Clarity...

...should have been attained worldwide by now:

Supposing Joe the Plumber actually got rich. Here’s what’s in store for him. As The Hill reports, “Obama budget to take aim at wealthy IRAs”

President Obama’s budget, to be released next week, will limit how much wealthy individuals – like Mitt Romney – can keep in IRAs and other retirement accounts. The senior administration official said that wealthy taxpayers can currently “accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving.”

Under the plan, a taxpayer’s tax-preferred retirement account, like an IRA, could not finance more than $205,000 per year of retirement – or right around $3 million this year....

The shorthand for this process is ‘Cyprus’....

And sure enough the trend is global. Australian Prime Minister “Julia Gillard has failed to rule out if Labor will raid superannuation funds in the May budget, saying any decisions made for the sector will be in Australia’s long term interest.” That means she’s going to do it.

It will interest Americans to note that according to the Australian Labor party, being “fabulously wealthy” means A$2 million in lifetime savings.

Are you fabulously wealthy? Are you planning on becoming fabulously wealthy anytime soon?

Forget the anxiety about government coming for your guns. It’s your money they’re interested in. The gun part is just to make the money part easier. And if they can’t get the bucks one way, they’ll try another. “French President Francois Hollande declared on Thursday that companies would have to pay a 75 percent tax on salaries over a million euros after his plan for a “super-tax” on individuals was knocked down by the constitutional court.”

I've long believed that national governments provide one another with two things:

• Sources of new ideas in oppression;
• Boogeymen with which to frighten one another's subjects into blind submission.

In the column cited, Richard Fernandez, one of the true ornaments of the Blogosphere, gives us a perfect example of the former. Ponder any recent development in international affairs if you need an example of the latter.

To be sure, some governments are more devious than others:

In the middle of a photo-laden essay on protesters greeting Obama on San Francisco’s Billionaires’ Row, filled with loads of shots of all of the Bay Area moonbattery you can imagine, Zombie stops to make a brilliant observation:

It all culminated in this one sign, which of all the signs at the protest disturbed me the most. Yes, Obama really did say “Show me the movement. Make me do it.” (At least according to Michael Pollan, who quoted Obama while speaking at an environmental event in 2009.) In fact, a more extended quote from that speech might explain the motivation behind this entire protest:

Now, this agenda that I’m talking about, your own agenda, is not gonna happen just because we have a President and a First Lady who are sympathetic. That’s not how change comes. Change is much, much harder than that. Presidents cannot flip the switch and make things happen…. A friend of mine had occasion to have dinner with him and Michelle, and Obama made it clear that he got it, that he really did understand the issue, but he also said he didn’t think the time was right to push hard. He understood the forces arrayed on the other side and the great amount of political capital it would take to defeat them. … He challenged my friend, he said, “Show me the movement. Make me do it. Make me do it.”

I don't know about you, sports fans, but I don't need a cartoon. The governments of the world have decided that we cannot resist them -- that they can take whatever they want without fear of negative consequences. The Obama regime is cleverer about contriving a popular facade for its desires; Obama has encouraged his hardest-left supporters to create a pretense for actions he desperately wants to take but has refrained from taking out of fear of an adverse reaction.

Either we halt these thieves and start pushing them back right now, or within five years they'll own us utterly. Don't imagine that the Twenty-Second Amendment will protect us in America; Obama's successor, even if he's a Republican, is all too likely to preserve whatever usurped powers and Constitutional cessions Obama manages to achieve. After all, he'll reason (if only to himself), they might come in handy some day.

Decent persons can't imagine the lust for power that animates those in high office. It's the one and only thing they value. No amount of power is quite enough; there's always more to be sought, wider and tighter control to be gained. Sadly, getting laid doesn't seem to scratch the itch.

Keep your powder dry. All it will take is a match to start a conflagration that could incinerate the entire world. The time is upon us to make ready. Only the prepared will have a chance to survive.

The War On Guns: A Flank Attack

From a conventional, gun-control-friendly news story such as this one:

Supporters of a U.N. treaty designed to regulate the multibillion-dollar global arms trade were optimistic that a final draft circulated a day before Thursday's deadline will reach consensus.

Negotiators reconvened last week in a final attempt to reach a deal on the Arms Trade Treaty, which would require all countries to establish national regulations to control the transfer of conventional arms and to regulate arms brokers....

The draft treaty does not control the domestic use of weapons in any country, but it would require all countries to establish national regulations to control the transfer of conventional arms, parts and components and to regulate arms brokers. It would prohibit states that ratify the treaty from transferring conventional weapons if they would violate arms embargoes or if they would promote acts of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.

The final draft makes this human rights provision even stronger, adding that the export of conventional arms should be prohibited if they could be used in the commission of attacks on civilians or civilian buildings such as schools and hospitals.

...you'd most likely come away thinking that this treaty proposal is innocuous, even benign. After all, who's in favor of "acts of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes," or "attacks on civilians or civilian buildings such as schools and hospitals," anyway?

But the NRA is strongly against the treaty, and there are some mighty good reasons:

On Monday, March 25, the permanent mission to the United Nations from Mexico sponsored a press event where representatives of four major non-governmental organizations (NGOs) made statements on the progress of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) negotiations currently underway in New York....

“This treaty is not good enough,” said Anna MacDonald of Oxfam. “This is not the treaty that is going to save lives and protect people.”

Decrying the “loopholes,” “weaknesses,” and “deficiencies” of the proposal, the groups called for increased regulation and more robust enforcement provisions....

Among the many complaints registered by these human rights groups, the one most often mentioned Monday was the draft proposal’s failure to clamp down on the sale, trade, and transfer of ammunition....

When pressed by reporters to name the state parties responsible for the treaty’s lack of substantial anti-ammo provisions, MacDonald named the United States....

There is also the irrefutable fact that there would be no conference right now were it not for the fact that the Obama administration’s previously filed objections to the treaty mysteriously disappeared after the president won reelection in November.

Within hours, in fact, of locking up another four years in the White House, President Obama ordered the U.S. diplomats to vote in favor of another round of negotiations and to green light the globalist gun grab.

That sort of coverage makes you whip out a magnifying glass and scamper back to the first article...and looky here!

... if they would promote...
...if they could be used...

What criteria would be used to decide such things? Who would write them -- and who would interpret them?

(Apropos of that second article, The New American is the magazine of the John Birch Society, and a very fine publication it is. No matter whether or not you completely accept the Birchers' conspiratorialist premises, their coverage of freedom-related issues and political developments is about the best around.)

One of the worst mistakes a polity can make is to allow public officials any discretion at all. The law is supposed to be plain of meaning, stable and reliable, and consistent in its effects on everyone under its jurisdiction. If it isn't, you don't have "rule of law;" you have "rule of whim:" the whim of whoever's in office at the time.

Americans are jealous of their right to keep and bear arms, and rightly so: an armed populace is the ultimate control on the actions of government. Public officials dislike the thought of being controlled. In their opinion, it's their prerogative to do all the controlling. So they like "reasonable and proper" clauses, and laws filled with "coulds" and "woulds." The discretion those weasel words provide allows them latitude...latitude they can put to use in strapping us down ever more straitly.

The final form of the ATT Treaty is guaranteed to contain all sorts of variably interpretable language: the sort that allows public officials to rationalize any and every sort of intrusion on private firearms manufacture, sale, ownership, and use. If it's ratified by the Senate, the right to keep and bear arms will be chipped away to nullity. You can bank on it.

Geez, Maybe It Is A Conspiracy!

It's important that freedom lovers remember that those who oppose us aren't all motivated by the same things:

• You have your "low-information" voter, who thinks that by voting for tyrant wannabees Democrats he's doing the right thing for the country;
• You have your "special interest / single issue" voter, who votes for redistributionist thugs Democrats specifically to advance his pet cause or fatten his wallet;
• You have your really-and-for-true evil political genius, whose pole star is absolute power -- perhaps shared with a few like-minded friends -- and whose tactics are chosen for that reason and no other.

That third category sits at the pinnacle of the Democrat Party and utterly controls the special-interest groups that are the backbone of the Democrats' coalition. By way of Common Sense and Wonder, we have this reflection on the relentless consistency of that group over the decades:

If you are old enough, you can remember Democrats such as Ted Kennedy, in their rare candid moments, rhapsodizing that someday, when they could get 50% of the U.S. population plus one receiving a government check of some kind, they would never again lose a national election! The notorious but true 47% cited by Mitt Romney apparently is close enough.

Then, an especially vile tributary of this liberal Democrat cynicism is what they have done to destroy the U.S. underclass, especially the black underclass.

This tragedy can be exposed via one rhetorical question: What would happen to the Democrats if all the poor in this country suddenly became rich? They'd never win another election, would they?

So the Democrats have a vested need to keep the poor down. Our permanent welfare class is no accident. Government incentives for people to stay poor may be well-calculated.

But with a repressed minority manipulated into believing that Democrats are on its side, now to be joined via immigration by a large number of Hispanics that the Dems see as captive voters, the new U.S. demographics make the liberal Democrats' scheme to finesse a permanent one-party government a near certainty.

This is a keeper. Read it all! Perhaps the most striking of the author's observations is this one:

Another symptom is the Democrats' heavy-handed, even brutal, proclivity to criminalize any opposition to their agenda, i.e., a blood sport political orientation of "we will not only ruin you, we will prosecute you."... As Bill O'Reilly of FoxNews, has said, "People fear the left because the left is vicious."

Author John Gaski is an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame.

Where The Eye Does Not Focus...

...is often more important than where it does:

New Jersey police and Dept. of Children and Families officials raided the home of a firearms instructor and demanded to see his guns after he posted a Facebook photo of his 11-year-old son holding a rifle.

“Someone called family services about the photo,” said Evan Nappen, an attorney representing Shawn Moore. “It led to an incredible, heavy-handed raid on his house. They wanted to see his gun safe, his guns and search his house. They even threatened to take his kids.”

Don't think for a moment that this was really about the safety or well-being of Moore's son:

Moore immediately called Nappen and rushed home to find officers demanding to check his guns and his gun safe.

Instead, he handed his cell phone to one of the officers – so they could speak with Nappen.

“If you have a warrant, you’re coming in,” Nappen told the officers. “If you don’t, then you’re not. That’s what privacy is all about.”...

Nappen told Fox News the police wanted to inventory his firearms.

“”We said no way, it’s not happening,” he said. “This is a guy who is completely credentialed and his son is also credentialed.”

The attorney said police eventually left and never returned.

“He has a Fourth Amendment right and he’s not going to give up his Fourth Amendment right or his Second Amendment right,” he said. “They didn’t have a warrant – so see you later.”

The police were there, not because there was any honest suspicion that Moore's son was at risk -- the boy has his own New Jersey state hunting license, after all -- but because it might provide them with a pretext for seizing Moore's firearms.

We will see more of this, for some very simple reasons. First, the backlash against legislative incursions on the right to keep and bear arms has swelled to a great height: great enough to put many a politico in fear of his livelihood. Second, the Democrat Party, which has attempted to leverage recent atrocities in Colorado and Connecticut into a new "assault weapons" ban, has pulled back out of fear of losing the U.S. Senate to the Republicans in the 2014 midterms. But the third reason is the most compelling of all:

“You can’t be prosecuted for making an allegation of child abuse –even if it’s false,” [New Jersey Department of Children and Families spokeswoman Kristen Brown] said.

"Child Welfare" departments operate, de facto if not de jure, outside the bounds of the Constitution and its protections of individuals' rights. If the accused:

• Has no defense against an illegal search or seizure;
• Cannot demand a trial by a jury of his peers;
• And cannot compel his accuser to face him and stand responsible for the accusation in open court;

...then unless he's exceptionally rich and well connected, he's probably a sitting duck.

Shawn Moore was fortunate that the New Jersey police didn't force entry to his home despite their lack of a warrant. Under recent Supreme Court decisions, he would have had no recourse regardless of what happened next.

The anti-gun forces are the worst thugs in the political system. They will use your children against you if they can. If you're a firearms owner, keep that in mind.

Cyprus Part Three: The Infection Spreads

I was pleased to read yesterday that the Cypriot Parliament rejected the savings-confiscation measure the EU central bank had proposed as a condition of a bailout loan for Cypriot banks. I was considerably less pleased to read this:

The National Government are pushing a Cyprus-style solution to bank failure in New Zealand which will see small depositors lose some of their savings to fund big bank bailouts, the Green Party said today.

Open Bank Resolution (OBR) is Finance Minister Bill English’s favoured option dealing with a major bank failure. If a bank fails under OBR, all depositors will have their savings reduced overnight to fund the bank’s bail out.

"Bill English is proposing a Cyprus-style solution for managing bank failure here in New Zealand – a solution that will see small depositors lose some of their savings to fund big bank bailouts," said Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman.

"The Reserve Bank is in the final stages of implementing a system of managing bank failure called Open Bank Resolution. The scheme will put all bank depositors on the hook for bailing out their bank.

"Depositors will overnight have their savings shaved by the amount needed to keep the bank afloat."

An Anglospheric country -- a country steeped in Anglo-American conceptions of individual rights, most notably the sanctity of property -- is actually entertaining the EU's noxious scheme. Moreover, the proposal has strong support from inside the sitting government of New Zealand.

If memory serves, the subjects of that government are not conceded the right to keep and bear arms. That might be all that's keeping Finance Minister Bill English's skin intact.

I hate to say "I told you so," even when I did. Just as much as anyone else, I wanted to believe that "it can't happen here." But if it can happen in New Zealand, why can't it happen in America, especially as several variations on the idea have already been discussed on the floor of the Senate, in open session?

Now more than ever, it's vital to the survival of any degree of freedom whatsoever that Americans retain their firearms. The one and only control we have over the actions of our political class is the threat of an armed revolt. It's high time we let the politicos know that we've had enough and will tolerate no more...and that the price for any further incursions upon our rights will be exacted from their hides.

Knowledge Is Power

The above aphorism, which Queen Cersei seemingly refuted by demonstration in season 2 of the HBO production of A Game of Thrones, nevertheless contains a large kernel of truth. In any contest between opposing forces, all other things being equal, the one with better knowledge -- of the terrain; of the enemy's motives; of the enemy's forces and disposition -- will prevail nearly all the time.

Charles Hurt of The Washington Times gives us a soliloquy on that today:

Rage over the waste and injustice of agents sent by the federal government to bang on doors of law-abiding citizens to ask probing, creepy questions is normally something that bubbles up only every 10 years. But ever since the federal government became a cancerous leviathan, the outrage is now an annual occurrence....

Like all Orwellian schemes, this diabolical obsession comes with a harmless-sounding name — American Community Survey — as if it is nothing more than the local Girl Scout troop stopping by to offer you little boxes of sweet, crunchy goodness — all for a good cause!

The feds want to know exactly who you are and the color of your skin....

And they want to know your "relationships" with all the people in your house. And they want to know of any "disabilities" and — ominously — what time you leave for and return from work everyday.

These creepos even want to know how many bedrooms you have and all about your plumbing and even your "fertility."...

Forget data addiction, these people should be forced to register as sex offenders.

And, of course, they want to know exactly how much you are making, including wages, tips and even that loan you got from your grandmother. Why?

After staging a rare, genuine filibuster on the Senate floor, Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, last week introduced Senate Bill 530 to remove the criminal penalty for those who refuse to take part in this annual federal creep-fest that is not even required by the Constitution. You can add this legislation to the growing nationwide mantra of "Stand with Rand."

He who thinks of the federal government as an essentially benevolent, beneficent entity will probably approve of all that data gathering. "It will help them to make policy," he'll say. But he who sees the federal government as the enemy -- an entity controlled by men whose raison d'etre is the acquisition of ever more power over us -- will disapprove to the brink of violence. He too would say "It will help them to make policy," but in a quite different tone of voice.

A government that knows, even institutionally, who and what you are, where you are, what your obligations are, what your resources are, and so forth has everything it needs to reduce you to a pawn, an item to be manipulated for the State's own purposes. In the fullness of time, it will do so -- no matter how ardently its masters protest their good intentions.

Skeptics of government have argued for many decades that every capability allowed in the hands of the State is eventually put to use. Think of an exception if you can; I can't.

Government snooping, greatly facilitated by the unprecedented power of modern digital technology, threatens to reduce the whole population of the United States to pawns. Should the State ever decide that it could profit by your removal from its chessboard, it will know where to find you, and what it needs to break your resistance.

Think about it.

That National Conversation You Wanted To Have, Senator Feinstein?

Courtesy of this extremely nice lady comes a semi-sarcastic reflection on the recent stockpiling by the Department of Homeland Security:

The Denver Post, on February 15th, ran an Associated Press article entitled Homeland Security aims to buy 1.6b rounds of ammo, so far to little notice. It confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security has issued an open purchase order for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. As reported elsewhere, some of this purchase order is for hollow-point rounds, forbidden by international law for use in war, along with a frightening amount specialized for snipers. Also reported elsewhere, at the height of the Iraq War the Army was expending less than 6 million rounds a month. Therefore 1.6 billion rounds would be enough to sustain a hot war for 20+ years. In America.

Add to this perplexing outré purchase of ammo, DHS now is showing off its acquisition of heavily armored personnel carriers, repatriated from the Iraqi and Afghani theaters of operation....

Remember the Sequester? The president is claiming its budget cuts will inconvenience travelers by squeezing essential services provided by the (opulently armed and stylishly uniformed) DHS. Quality ammunition is not cheap. (Of course, news reports that DHS is about to spend $50 million on new uniforms suggests a certain cavalier attitude toward government frugality.)...

Meanwhile, Senator Diane Feinstein, with the support of President Obama, is attempting to ban 100 capacity magazine clips. Doing a little apples-to-oranges comparison, here, 1.6 billion rounds is … 16 million times more objectionable.

There are more armed federal agents than you'd imagine in your wildest dreams, sports fans. It's bad enough that IRS agents routinely go armed, though it's a tad more understandable than, say, the armed state of agents of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture. ("Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors -- and miss." -- Robert A. Heinlein) DHS might seem to have a prima facie case for arming at least some of its personnel, but I've been unable to learn how many field-qualified agents it employs. What's the number? 10,000? 100,000? It had better not be more than that; the Marines top out at 105,000.

Postulate that it's 100,000, though the number seems high. Let's see, now: 1.6 billion rounds divided by 100,000 armiger agents is 16,000 rounds per agent. Quite a lot of lead, eh? Costly, too, as DHS doesn't buy the cheap stuff.

I wonder how many people apply for employment by a government agency because so many such jobs come with the privilege of going armed. I'd bet it's a non-trivial percentage. So I have a suggestion for a new Civil Service rule:

To apply for a job as an armed federal agent,
Other than for the U.S. Marshals or the Secret Service,
You have to donate a kidney.

What's that? You only have one kidney? Sorry, a career in federal thuggery is not for you. Try one of the state-level agencies. They only want a cornea.

They Can't Win Without Cheating

This is why Instapundit is required reading. I have resolved never to let a day go by without checking on what Professor Reynolds has to say. He's simply too good an aggregator, particularly of the doings of the Bad Sort.

The report itself:

During a mid-afternoon session, as the Senate was debating a routine series of bills, Holmquist Newbry left the floor to care for her four-month-old son Makaio, who had been brought to the women's lounge off the Senate floor. Sen. Jim Honeyford, R-Sunnyside, moved to excuse Holmquist Newbry from voting. That meant the majority coalition had 24 votes, not 25, and they were tied at least temporarily with the Senate Democratic Caucus.

Sen. David Frockt, D-Seattle, took advantage of the moment. He rose to demand an immediate vote on a bill sponsored by a Democrat that did not appear on the afternoon schedule.

The unusual motion quieted the chamber. Members rushed to their seats. Frockt demanded a roll-call vote. The assumption was that Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, a Democrat, would cast a tiebreaking vote to advance the bill to the floor.

Members of the Senate Democratic Caucus voted yes as their names were called. Members of the Majority Coalition Caucus voted no. And just in time, Holmquist Newbry emerged from the lounge to cast her vote. The motion failed 25-24.

In this case, even their underhanded ploy didn't help them...but look how close it was.

In the days of the Roman Republic, the plebes, who were not entitled to sit in the Senate, were entitled to a representative called the plebes' tribune, who was empowered to veto -- that's the Latin word for "I forbid," sports fans -- any measure that came before the Senate. Any vetoed measure was thus denied the force of law.

Needless to say, that provision rankled the patricians in the Senate rather badly. So they developed a countermeasure: waiting for the tribune to fall asleep. Many a bill passed the Senate when the tribune was snoring -- and the plebes, whose representation in the Senate was limited to that one individual, had no recourse against it. So Frockt's ploy, as shameful as it was, isn't even original.

Yo, constituents of the Dishonorable David Frockt: Are you happy with your guy? Will you remember this incident when he stands for re-election? If so, will it influence your vote -- and in which direction?

That will tell us quite a lot about the character of the city of Seattle.

Fusillade Atop The Mound Of Corpses

It would appear that the Dishonorable Charles Schumer has a competitor eager for space for her personal standard on that bloody hilltop:

Granted, you can't expect better from a leftist idiot such as Feinstein. But you'd think a creature with a seat in the United States Senate would be more aware of the transparency of such a naked appeal to raw emotion. Apparently we shouldn't expect that either.

As impressively incisive as Senator Cruz was -- which, incidentally, appears to be his pattern, and may we see much more of it in the months and years to come! -- I'd have loved to hear him pursue the Dishonorable Senator from California along the following lines:

"It would appear that the senior senator from California considers herself superior to other Americans. After all, she travels with an armed guard. She sits in a chamber guarded by men with fully automatic weapons. And she regards herself as qualified to decree what weapons private citizens should be allowed to own. That can only mean that she's a superior creature, privileged by God, one of the rightful masters of the people rather than one of their elected servants. In that light, it becomes terribly clear that my previous question was an act of lese majeste. Pray forgive me my presumption, Senator. I momentarily forgot my place."

Yes, there have been brawls on the Senate floor in the past, though it's been quite a while since the last one. Might liven the dive up a bit.

(I'd put an Andy Jackson on Cruz. Knockout in the third round. Any takers?)

Don't These Clowns Get It YET?

This is the Age of the Intertubes, Chuckie. You can't get away with this sort of crap any more, you moron:

Schumer had kept the bogus “background check” bill under wraps, only putting forth a shell bill with no specifics. Well, he applied the text through an amendment at the last minute, before it passed. John Richardson has the details, including the text. I’ve only skimmed the details, but here’s the key problems:

If you left town for more than 7 days, and left your gay partner, or unrelated roommate at home with the guns, you’d be committing a felony. This should be called the “denying gun rights to gays act.” Remember that the federal government does not recognize gay marriage, even if you’re state does, thanks to DOMA. 5 years in prison.

Actually, even married couples are questionably legal, because the exemption between family only applies to gifts, not to temporary transfers. The 7 day implication is if you leave your spouse at home for more than 7 days, it’s an unlawful transfer, and you’re a 5 year felon. I suppose you could gift them to your spouse, or related co-habitant, and then have them gift them back when you arrive back home. Maybe the Attorney General will decide to create a form for that.

It would be illegal to lend a gun to a friend to take shooting. That would be a transfer. 5 years in federal prison.

Steals the livelihood of gun dealers by setting a fixed fee to conduct transfers. The fee is fixed by the Attorney General. What’s to prevent him from setting it at $1000?

Enacts defacto universal gun registration, because of record keeping requirements. All lost and stolen guns must be reported to the federal and local government. This means everyone will have to fill out the theft/loss form, and not just FFLs. You only have 24 hours to comply. If you lose a gun on a hunting trip deep in the woods, and can’t get back home to fill out the form in 24 hours, you’re a felon and will spend 5 years in federal prison.

Want to lend a gun to a friend to go hunting? It’s a 5 year in prison felony.

No exception for state permits. All transfers must go through a dealer or 5 years in federal prison.

UPDATE: Teaching someone to shoot on your own land is a felony, 5 years, if you hand them the gun. Not an exempted transfer.

Sebastian continues:

We will go thermonuclear on anyone who votes for this crap, and that goes double for Republicans. It’s nothing more than an attempt to put more gun owners in prison. Schumer was wise to keep this under wraps, because his bill is truly draconian. I not only expect the GOP to vote against this piece of crap bill, I expect them to filibuster it. Let’s see if the Democrats can get to 60 without any Republican support, and let’s see how many of them want to lose their seats in 2014.

This bill has nothing to do with ensuring people who are getting guns are law-abiding, and everything to do with getting backdoor registration, and creating a patchwork of rules and laws that will land anyone who uses guns, and isn’t a lawyer, in federal prison for a long time. Lots of otherwise law-abiding people are going to federal prison if this ends up passing, and I’m convinced that’s the whole idea.

I'm sure of that, myself.

Beware the Dishonorable Charles Schumer. He's the lowest of the low: absolutely hostile to the Constitution -- especially the Second Amendment -- and an indefatigable publicity hound. If ever there were a creature utterly devoid of a moral conscience, bound and determined to plant his personal standard atop a mound of corpses, Chuck Schumer is it.

Sigh. If only Schumer had been aboard that train with Colin Ferguson. I know, I know: the odds would still have been in his favor, but one can always hope!