The Wasatch Behind: Is Mexico just the excuse?
By TOM MCCOURT
Guest contributor
Last week president Obama's new attorney general, Eric Holder, said the new administration might have to impose a gun ban on American citizens to help Mexico fight the war on drugs.
What?????
That's what he said. According to Holder, the weapons the Mexican drug lords are using are coming from our side of the border and it's our fault, yours and mine. While he was talking, CNN was showing videos of M16 military rifles, M60 machine-guns, grenade launchers and bazookas in the hands of Mexican drug lords.
The last time I checked, most Americans can't legally own fully automatic military rifles, machine-guns, grenade launchers or bazookas. So how could we possibly be part of the problem? It's obvious that the guns in question are American military weapons that were given to Mexico by our government to help Mexico fight the war on drugs. Corrupt Mexican officials have been giving or selling the weapons to the drug cartels. I'm real stupid and I can see what's going on here. How come a smart guy like Eric Holder doesn't get it? Or does he? You don't suppose our new administration is using the Mexican drug war as an excuse to try to put new restrictions on our second amendment rights, do you?
Most of us knew the Obama administration would get around to banning guns, but even the most hard-core guns rights advocates didn't expect it to happen this soon. There seems to be a lot going on behind the scenes of government.
On top of the Mexican drug war excuse to impose a gun ban, there are other schemes in the pipeline, too. In Chicago, Democrats have proposed a plan to force gun owners to buy a million dollars of liability insurance or forfeit the right to own a gun. Obama himself has said he would support a 500 percent tax on the sale of guns and ammunition. And in several states there is legislation pending to put serial numbers on bullets and ban all bullets without the serial numbers. They say this will reduce crime, but it's really just a new way to track the sale of ammunition. They also hope to force people to get rid of any stockpile of ammunition they might have by banning the possession of pre-serial numbered bullets. A first violation would be a felony. Where are our politicians going with all of this?
I can't understand why liberals and Democrats are so damned afraid of free people having free access to arms and ammunition. I sometimes wonder if they're afraid their political agenda might spark an armed insurrection. What else could it be? Only despots and dictators worry about an armed citizenry. If you're worried about crime in the streets, enforce the laws already on the books and lock up the bad guys. Don't make felons of honest people with an old box of .38 bullets in a closet.
We should never forget the purpose of the second amendment. They don't teach it in schools, and most people don't like to be reminded, but our founding fathers guaranteed us the right to defend ourselves from our own government. Those who signed the constitution had just fought a war to free themselves from a tyrannical government, and they knew that sometime down the road of history, our people might have to do it again. That's why they guaranteed us the right to keep and bear arms. The second amendment has nothing to do with duck hunting.
I don't know about you, but I'm very suspicious of anyone who wants to deny me the right to defend myself. And with a million holes in our southern border where armed drug smugglers and terrorists can come and go at will, and with states like California releasing thousands of violent criminals to ease prison overcrowding, our citizens need guns to protect themselves now more than ever.
Our government is doing a lousy job of protecting us. Maybe our attorney general should set aside tampering with lawful gun ownership and put his efforts into dealing with our criminal justice nightmare, securing our borders and solving the illegal alien problem.
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