During his campaign for the Presidency, Obama said “I have no intention of taking away folks’ guns.” He was right.  His pick for Attorney General tells us that he doesn’t intend to take away our guns.  He just intends to make it so difficult for us to purchase and possess them that we won’t want them in the first place

Back in 2000, when Eric Holder was a deputy AG under the Clinton administration, he answered a question about control with a rather long answer which details the fact that he has little to no respect for the 2nd amendment.  Here’s a key excerpt (full answer here):

We know that there is not one simple answer, and we know that there is nothing we can do that will prevent every single crime or act of violence. But we also know that there are some common-sense things that we can do and that we must do. And so I want to add my voice to those who are calling on Congress to finally—to finally—pass these very common-sense gun measures:

* First, to require child safety locks for all handguns that are sold

* Second, to ban violent juveniles from ever having the ability to own guns

* Third, to pass the president’s handgun licensing proposal, which requires safety certification for all handgun purchasers

* Fourth, to support research in smart gun technology which can limit a gun’s use to its authorized owner

And finally, to close the gun show loophole by requiring a background check for all gun purchases at gun shows.

First, while keeping guns secure from children should be a priority for any gun owner, a law requiring child locks for handguns is both redundant and almost totally unenforceable.  There is no really good way to ensure that such locks are being used short of random home searches which aren’t going to happen unless we suspend a few other constitutional amendments.  And is there really a need to make such locks mandatory under laws?  There are already legal consequences for those who are lax in securing their guns.  People who do so will face them, and an additional charge for not having a lock on the gun is going to be almost meaningless when they do.  Plus, there are other alternative to locks.  Such as safes and such.  Is the government going to require us to have a lock and a safe?  I mean, why not just require that the guns be placed in a satellite orbiting the earth until they’re needed?

Second, the ban on gun ownership for violent juveniles seems draconian and excessive.  I mean, what sort of violence are we talking about?  High school fistfights?  Do we really want to take away the right to bear arms from a citizen because of a few youthful indiscretions?  There are already plenty of laws on the books preventing violent criminals from getting weapons.  Another one isn’t going to make much of a difference

Third, a safety certification requirement for gun ownership isn’t necessarily a bad idea but I think coming from gun-grabbers like Holder and Obama it’d be structured in such a way as to make buying a gun a really arduous process.  Which sort of plays into Holder’s final point about requiring background checks even for guns sold at gun shows.  The anti-gun rights crowd has realized for a long time now that they’ll never be able to outright ban guns, so they’ve settled for throwing as many obstacles in the way of purchasing/owning a gun as they can in the hope that they’ll make it such a depressing bureaucratic nightmare that people will give up and go without their 2nd amendment right.  It seems to me that we have plenty of laws on the books now pertaining to gun safety and background checks.  More of the same, again, isn’t going to change much

Finally, smart gun technology?  Seems to me that technology that can disable our guns despite the gun owner’s wishes sort of defeats the purpose of the founders having included the second amendment in the Constitution in the first place.  What good is an electorate of armed citizens ready to fertilize the “tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants” (as Jefferson put it) if the government can disable those guns?

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