“Brady” Antigun Group Tries Once Again to Dupe the American Public with New Campaign to Expand Background Checks

The antigun mob recognizes defeat even as it vows to “finish the job to expand effective Brady background checks.”

This past Friday, February 28, 2014, Dan Gross, President of “The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence,” kicked off another disturbingly familiar and familiarly distasteful campaign to destroy the Second Amendment: this one, so Dan Gross states, marks the 20th Anniversary of the “Brady Bill.” Gross stood at the podium at the U.S. Capital Visitor Center, looking morally smug, cultivating a practiced air of quiet self-confidence. His hair was carefully coiffed, his suit finely tailored. A political action button was affixed to the lapel of his jacket. The button read: “Finish the Job.” The usual “props” stood behind Gross: police “brass” in full regalia, stone-faced and humorless. No doubt they were invited to the news gathering to lend critical weight to the entire inane proceeding. Civilians, pensive and shy, stood just off camera. House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Representative Mike Thompson, Democrat, California, Chair of the “House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force” and cosponsor of HR 1565, the “Enhanced Background Check” Bill, appeared at the CSPAN newscast, seemingly magically, just moments before each was scheduled to speak – their presence, like that of the police “brass, a naked attempt to give weight to the entire ignoble show.

After Gross delivered the opening salvo, the civilians marched to the podium one by one, struggling to maintain composure, hesitantly, plaintively talking through the microphone. Clutching photographs of deceased family members, they related personal tales of woe. Their intent was plain and unapologetically emotive: to spread their personal misery around for the Public at large to experience. Their message was clear and terse: lunatics and psychopathic criminals use guns to kill innocent people. No kidding! Lunatics and psychopaths also use knives and hatchets and anything else available to create mayhem, including their hands and feet. Dan Gross praised these people for having the “courage” to step forward. But, was it courage that motivated these people to step forward or was it a phone call or personal visit from “The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence?” These antigun groups are shameless. They see in these sad souls a useful political trick – “Appeal to Sympathy” – to motivate the American Public to their un-American cause.
This new campaign, calling for enhanced background checks, was noticeably restrained, almost melancholic, unsure of itself: this time, no flamboyant rhetoric about getting rid of guns;” no boisterous, holier-than-thou outrage directed at the NRA; no overt attack on Americans who support the unalienable right to keep and bear arms. Is this a new approach of the antigun coalitions? A new tactic? Talk was deliberate and measured. The antigun groups remembered, apparently full well, suffering spectacularly stunning, truly abysmal defeats. Dianne Feinstein’s 2013 “Assault Weapons” Bill was political farce – a dismal, absurd failure. Also, in 2013, two Colorado State representatives, strong supporters of gun control in the State were unceremoniously tossed out of the State Legislature – “tarred and feathered” – victims of a successful recall drive. Is the “Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence” demonstrating less ambition? Is the new focus of the antigun groups decidedly narrower? Does the “Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence” seek merely to push through enhanced background checks and nothing more, as both it and their political allies in Congress claim? Is it also true that “enhanced background checks” would not negatively impact Americans’ right to keep and bear arms? Don’t believe any of it.

Taking the podium, Representative Mike Thompson made the obligatory and, at once, deceptive remark that the “Enhanced Background Check Bill” protects Second Amendment rights because it does not take away a citizen’s guns. So, Congressman Thompson, let me ask you: “if an antigun Bill does not, on its face, take away a citizen’s guns, this means the Bill preserves the Second Amendment?” Clearly, the Congressman is being less than forthright with the American Public.

Take a look at the formal title of the Bill (HR 1565): “the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act of 2013.” Politicians love to “tag” their Bills with names that are the antithesis of the intention behind them. There is nothing about this antigun legislation that is remotely protective of the Second Amendment. Do politicians hire public relations firms to deliberately invent names for pieces of legislation that sound innocuous or palatable to the Public, in a fraudulent attempt to hide an illicit purpose? Apparently so. Look at what HR 1565 really does: namely, amends the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act to reauthorize for three years, FY2014-FY2017, the grant program for improvements to the criminal history record system. The Bill paves the way for universal firearms registration. The Bill is inconsistent with the framers’ intent in drafting the Second Amendment. For, why would the framers draft language in the Constitution that serves at once to check the power of the Federal Government and its standing army if that very Government could use a universal registry to confiscate the weapons of its citizens, and, in so doing, neutralize the power its citizens might have over it? Would not such a Government with its vast powers eventually do just that to consolidate ultimate control over its citizens? If the Federal Government knows what guns a citizen has, the Federal Government could readily and easily confiscate those very guns. When seen in this light the true horror of HR 1565 is evident. Moreover, it not only infringes the Second Amendment, it infringes the Fourth Amendment as well. The Bill is inconsistent with the “Bill of Rights” and should be vigorously assailed. The “Brady Campaign” and similar antigun groups exhibit a false face to the public.

Spokespersons for these groups talk frankly of their wish to protect citizens from gun violence. Yet, the underlying intent of the drafters of restrictive gun legislation is far from benign. An ominous cloud hangs over all such legislation. Overtly, Congressional proponents of antigun legislation and the antigun coalitions whom they tow behind them, talk only about a desire to curb crimes committed with guns. They talk only about the desire to curb gun violence. The true motive is not reflected in or revealed in the remarks of proponents of antigun measures. Their real goal, though, is to negate the power – the only real power – the American citizenry might hope to wield against an overbearing, overreaching Federal Government and its standing army. So, don’t be deceived.

The antigun groups and their allies in Congress keep trying to dupe the American Public. It hasn’t worked before. It won’t work this time.
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Copyright © 2014 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour) and Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.