Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are glad to see not all Democrats have lost their minds after Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet begs 2020 candidates not to campaign on expanding the Supreme Court. They also hammer Beto O’Rourke and other liberals for using the New Zealand mosque massacre to push a ban on the AR-15. And they defend Chelsea Clinton after progressives accuse her of facilitating the New Zealand massacre with her critique of Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Listen to “What’s Really in the Universal Background Check Bill” on Spreaker.
This week, the House of Representatives passed legislation requiring universal background checks for any gun purchase, but one of the leading defenders of the second amendment says there a whole lot more in the bill than meets the eye.
Universal background checks sound simple. The idea is that if you want to buy a firearm, you must go through a background check to make sure you don’t have a criminal record or present a threat to those around you. But Gun Owners of America Legislative Counsel Mike Hammond says there are all sort of transfer provisions that could turn any gun owner into a lawbreaker.
“If you transfer a gun to any other person for as little as a second and you don’t come with an exception, you are a criminal and can be put in prison for up to a year.
“So if you sell your gun to your son for a dollar, you’re a criminal. If you give your gun to your stepson, you’re a criminal. If you hand your gun to your neighbor to look at and go into the kitchen for a paper towel, you’re a criminal. If you go hunting with a friend and hand him your gun and he doesn’t have a hunting license or is a veteran with PTSD, you’re a criminal,” said Hammond.
“It’s simply an effort to make gun ownership so full of trap doors that no one wants to own a gun because every time you handle that gun or hand that gun to someone, you basically risk going to jail,” he added.
Hammond says no mass shooter in 20 years would have been stopped by this legislation. He says law-abiding Americans are the only ones who get stopped from buying guns with a background check.
“Most people who walk into gun dealers and fail background checks, their overwhelming reaction is absolute surprise. They’re people like veterans, people who haven’t paid traffic tickets, people whose psychiatrists have turned them in, people who had no idea in the world that the convolutions of federal law would prohibit them from purchasing a firearm.
“The murderers, on the other hand, just get their guns on the street,” said Hammond.
Listen to the full podcast to hear more of Hammond’s analysis of the House bill, why he thinks the legislation is already dead even before getting to the Senate, and what he thinks Democrats would push for if the universal background check bill ever became law.
Listen to “Schultz vs. Warren, Harris Goes Hard Left, California’s Pronoun Politics” on Spreaker.
Alexandra DeSanctis of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America enjoy watching Howard Schultz and Elizabeth Warren trade insults over Warren’s proposed wealth tax and shudder to think that Schultz might be the most sensible liberal considering a 2020 presidential run. They also slam Kamala Harris for suggesting that lawmakers who don’t support gun control don’t care about the victims of mass shootings and contending that if Republicans saw photos of murdered children that they would vote differently. And they laugh and cringe as the chairwoman of a California State Senate committee bans the use of gendered pronouns in committee – and then proceeds to violate her own rule over and over again.
Listen to “Virginia Gun Control Effort Misfires” on Spreaker.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and his Democratic allies in the legislature are fuming after Republicans killed a gun control bill before it ever reached a final vote, and second amendment advocates say the contents of the bill would have instantly turned many law-abiding gun owners into criminals.
“I wish Ralph Northam had run on the issue of gun control. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be the governor now if he had said, ‘Oh, incidentally, I’m going to take away all your guns,'” said Gun Owners of America Legislative Counsel Michael Hammond.
Among the initiatives pursued by Northam and other Democrats are a ban on “assault weapons,” a ban on any firearm that can hold a magazine containing more than ten rounds, and strengthening of so-called “red flag laws,” which allow a court to take away guns from someone deemed to be an imminent threat to themselves or others.
Hammond says Northam essentially wants to ban semi-automatic rifles, like the AR-15. He says there are roughly 50 million semi-automatic rifles in the U.S. But he says that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
“He goes on with universal background checks, which sets the stage for a national gun registry and would outlaw private gun transactions between you and your neighbor. And he goes on to these insidious gun confiscation orders, which he calls red flag laws,” said Hammond.
Hammond calls them insidious because judges can order gun confiscation based only on a complaint and no due process for the person accused of being a threat. He says any attempt to take someone’s gun away should be treated like a criminal charge, meaning the accused should have full rights to paid counsel.
According to Hammond, the confiscation orders are carried out in the middle of the night and can often lead to deadly consequences when a groggy gun owner fears what’s on the other side of the door.
Listen to the full podcast to hear Hammond explain why most mass shooters – from Parkland to Newtown and many places – could have been arrested for felonies or had their firearms taken away on clear legal grounds. He also explains why gun owners in many states need to brace for fierce efforts to limit their second amendment rights in the weeks and months ahead.
Listen to “Clearing the Barr, Gun Grabbers Target Insurance, Oscar Upheaval” on Spreaker.
Daniel Foster of National Review Online and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud President Trump’s nomination of Bill Barr to be attorney general and also sound off on Trump’s choice of Heather Nauert for UN ambassador and rumors that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly may soon resign. They also fire back at liberals in New York pushing legislation requiring residents to have a million dollars in liability insurance before buying a gun – and that’s only part of the story. And they groan as comedian Kevin Hart is forced to give up hosting the Oscars because he refused to apologize yet again for tweets he made a decade ago.
Listen to “Corruption Crackdown, 9th Circus on Guns, Vote Dem to Fix GOP?” on Spreaker.
David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud the West Virginia legislature for impeaching four of the state’s five state supreme court justices for gross mismanagement of taxpayer dollars. They also roll their eyes as the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a California law requiring any guns subsequently purchased in the state must include features that don’t actually exist. And they unload on “conservatives” from Michael Gerson to Steve Schmidt, who contend that conservatives need to vote for Democrats because supposedly the only way to save the Republican Party is to burn it to the ground.
A sitting member of Congress is publicly proposing a ban on so-called military-style semi-automatic rifles and advocates criminal prosecution for Americans who refuse to take part in a mandatory buyback program.
In an opinion piece for USA Today, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif, laid out his proposal.
“[W]e should ban possession of military-style semiautomatic assault weapons, we should buy back such weapons from all who choose to abide by the law, and we should criminally prosecute any who choose to defy it by keeping their weapons,” wrote Swalwell, who does allow for such weapons to be kept in police stations and shooting clubs.
Earlier this week, in a heated debate with Tucker Carlson on the Fox News Channel, Swalwell stood by his proposal, insisting no one would be going door to door to look for the banned weapons and make arrests, but he did say people could be charged and prosecuted for still owning the rifles if police found them in the course of normal police work.
“And if you were caught, just like if you were caught with drugs or anything else, and they had probable cause to go into your home and you had one of these weapons, yeah, you’d be prosecuted,” said Swalwell in his Fox News interview.
Gun Owners of America Executive Director Emeritus Larry Pratt says gun control advocates are now showing their cards.
“They really do want to go very, very far indeed and they’re willing to resort to extreme measures to do that,” said Pratt, who says the rhetoric about not wanting to take the guns away from law abiding citizens largely evaporated after the February massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Pratt believes the biggest spark came a New York Times column from former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
“Stevens has opened the door to the deeper recesses of the left’s mind. He called for the elimination of the second amendment. That seems to have been followed by statements made by gun control advocates like Mr. Swalwell,” said Pratt.
According to Pratt, research shows that semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 save many more lives than they take.
“He is focusing on firearms that have been used for criminal purposes and he’s overlooking the fact that firearms are used four times more often – every day – to protect life,” said Pratt, also pushing back against the notion that the typical homeowner doesn’t need that kind of firepower.
“Many people have saved their lives from multiple invaders of their home with their AR-15. One fellow said, ‘Yeah, I used all 30 rounds in my magazine. I had to start using my semi-automatic pistol before it was over,'” said Pratt.
Pratt also says Swalwell’s ideas demonstrate why pro-second amendment Americans must stand their ground.
“He’s just making it easier, frankly, for the rest of us to say, ‘We better not be giving these people even an inch because you can see where they want to go,'” said Pratt.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is making enforcement of existing gun laws a high priority. In fact, Sessions is now being criticized by the very people demanding new gun laws for being too aggressive in applying the old ones.
“If it weren’t for double standards, the left would have no standards at all. These people really don’t live in the real world, I don’t think. That’s why I don’t think they’re going to be getting much traction, and when they speak this way, not likely at all,” said Pratt.
To stop mass shootings in our schools and elsewhere, Pratt urges lawmakers and school officials to study what works. He says 98 percent of mass shootings occur in gun-free zones, effectively working as a magnet for would-be shooters because they know they will not encounter armed resistance.
To the contrary, Utah allows weapons on school grounds and Texas, Georgia, and Alaska allow it to some extent. Pratt urges the scrapping of gun-free zones and for other states and locales to emulate the Utah model.
In the meantime, Pratt suspects the increasingly brazen gun control proposals will bring gun rights supporters to the polls.
“The more they talk like that, the more they’re going to motivate the pro-second amendment, pro-constitutional voter. This hasn’t worked out well for them in the past,” said Pratt, noting the 1994 Republican revolution occurred just months after Democrats in Congress passed the “assault weapons” ban.
“If they want to campaign this way, we’ve got enough experience now that I can sit back and say, ‘Well good. Keep on doing that,'” said Pratt.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America recoil at the horror of four people killed in a Tennessee mass shooting, but the shock turns to anger at the news that authorities took away the shooter’s guns last year, left them with his dad under orders to keep the guns locked up, but the dad gave the weapons back to the shooter. At the same time, they marvel at the heroism of James Shaw, Jr., who attacked and disarmed the shooter without any weapons of his own. And they discuss Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker’s “endorsement” of Marsha Blackburn in the race to replace him – in what might be the most pathetic endorsement we’ve ever seen.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America welcome a new poll showing that the edge for Democrats is shrinking ahead of the midterm elections and that support for the GOP among gun rights supporters is ahead of support for Democrats among gun control activists. They also roll their eyes as former Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos interviews James Comey for ABC News and Comey sanctimoniously concludes he always did the right things for the right reasons and never got obsessed with his own virtue. And they reject a Washington Post editorial calling for the voting age to be lowered to 16 years old, but they do offer some creative tips for tweaking the voting age.
Alexandra DeSanctis of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer Vice President Pence for going to North Dakota and hammering Sen. Heidi Heitkamp for her liberal votes on health care, taxes, abortion, energy and more – in a sign the Republicans are getting on message early in the states with the best pickup opportunities. They also take aim at Heitkamp’s attempt to look strong on the second amendment after the senator makes a pathetic attempt to liken passion for gun rights similar to passion for abortion rights. And they slam “Fire and Fury” author Michael Wolff, who is now admitting he is an observer rather than a journalist and says his job “has nothing to do with the truth.”