One of the issues that Donald Trump campaigned on that enabled him to get into office is gun rights. You and I believe in them, and he campaigned to protect them. But is he breaking that pledge with his pick for the next Attorney General?
In case you’re not familiar with Trump’s nominee, William (Bill) Barr has a ton of experience working as a Federal prosecutor and in the Justice Department. It seems pretty clear that he is both experienced and qualified. The problem, though, is that those two factors doesn’t mean that he is looking to do the right thing on issues important to us.
Specifically, when the subject of gun control came up, Barr said that this issue was the “problem of our time.” Matt Zapotosky, Karoun Demirjian, and Seung Min Kim, writing for The Washington Post, write,
Calling the gun violence epidemic the “problem of our time,” Barr called for improvements in state gun laws that would help authorities detect people with mental illnesses to ensure they don’t have access to firearms.
In his afternoon testimony, Barr acknowledged that the current background check system for firearms is “sort of piecemeal” and called for states to pass red flag laws, which would allow guns to be temporarily seized from those people deemed a threat. Such laws would help supplement background checks to ensure people with mental illnesses could not obtain a gun, Barr said.
“This is the single most important thing I think we can do in the gun control area to stop these massacres from happening in the first place,” Barr said under questioning from Feinstein, one of the fiercest advocates of stricter gun laws.
Barr added, “We really need to get some energy behind it and get it done.”
The attorney general nominee continued to speak about gun policy under questioning from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). Barr said while the right to own a gun is protected under the Second Amendment, “there’s room for reasonable regulation” on firearms laws.
“What I would look for is . . . what’s the burden on law-abiding people, and is it proportionate to whatever benefit in terms of safety and effectiveness will be conferred?” Barr told Cornyn. “As I said just a moment ago, let’s get down to the real problem we’re confronting, which is keeping these weapons out of the hands of people who are mentally ill.”
If this information doesn’t scare you enough, maybe the fact that rabid anti-gun Senator Dianne Feinstein said that she looks forward to working with Barr on using red flag laws to disarm Americans will make it clear how bad a choice Barr is for gun owners.
Maybe someone out to send Barr a link to this article about why universal gun rights are vitally important.
Regardless of whether you send him a link to that article, it’s pretty clear that Bill Barr is a terrible choice for Attorney General when he doesn’t even uphold straightforward and clear Constitutional principles like the right to bear arms.
Contact your Senators and the office of the President and have them give us an Attorney General who will look to uphold all of the Constitution and not just the parts that he likes.
I’m not real sure that Pres Trump’s pick of Barr for Atty Gen is too far off the mark. I’d be willing to bet that every person who has been involved in a mass shooting was a mental case.
Do I want to be subjected to gun registration? Hell no! But I also don’t see too many ways to weed out mentally disturbed people from getting their hands on a gun. Maybe that should be a requirement for eligibility for the Office of Atty General and good luck with that.
I agree with the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. I agree also that our current background check system is broken, because organizations don’t submit info to the system, when a suspect has mental health or violence issues. That’s not a problem with the 2nd Amendment. That’s a problem with the system. Red flag laws are being abused by those who engforce them. Red flag laws aren’t the right way to go. Protect our rights; all if them!
I believe mental health issues are the reason for many of our mass shootings, But Red Flag laws are not the answer. Not only do these laws undermine the second amendment, they undermine due process as well. The current background checks are sufficient if only the appropriate government agencies would enforce their own laws. If one lies on the background form it is supposedly subject to prosecution. Plenty of people are denied firearms based on a rejected background form, yet less than 1% of those “rejections” are ever prosecuted. Why bother having a background check if you have no intention of using the data to prevent unlawful possession or to prosecute those trying to unlawfully possess a firearm. Instead lazy lawmakers want to turn gun ownership into a tool for disgruntled spouses, neighbors, friends, political enemies to declare someone mentally unfit to own a firearm so they can be disarmed without due process.
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