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By Larry Keane

How many lawyers does it take to…stop me if you have heard that joke before. Sadly, what the American Bar Association (ABA) has done recently is no laughing matter. Apparently, currying political favor is more important to the ABA than fulfilling its core mission.

The ABA recently ramped up its attempts to restrict lawful gun ownership and further stigmatize the firearm industry. The association, which sets professional and academic standards expected of those practicing law, recently adopted three resolutions that abandon core American liberties.

The ABA’s mission is, “To serve equally our members, our profession and the public by defending liberty and delivering justice as the national representative of the legal profession.” Despite that, the association passed resolutions on so-called “ghost guns,” firearm permits and mandatory firearm storage requirements.

Take another read of that mission statement, especially the part about defending liberty. It’s curious that there’s no mention of publicly advocating for the erosion of Constitutional rights. Yet, this is exactly what they’re doing.

The ABA has long been against the rights of gun owners and touts that it has been a “leader on the issue of gun violence” for over 50 years.

Standing Committee Against Guns

The ABA’s Standing Committee on Gun Violence will take tax-deductible donations and work on its “evidence-informed policy, education, and advocacy.” This one-sided political activism flies in the face of the ABA’s own mission – to serve members equally.

There is, for example, no ABA Standing Committee for Advancing and Protecting the Second Amendment. The ABA fights fiercely to protect other rights not actually written in our Constitution.

80 percent arms ghost gun
Courtesy 80 Percent Arms

Resolution 107A focuses on “ghost guns” and urges the government to criminalize the sale or transfer of an unfinished frame or receiver. The proposal presents so-called “ghost guns” as a growing threat and argues that they are being increasingly used by people who cannot legally possess or buy firearms (criminals).

This flawed proposal will only target law-abiding citizens who have long enjoyed the right to make their own firearms, which has always been legal for law-abiding individuals.

The second resolution asks that law enforcement officials require gun permit applicants to apply in person, be fingerprinted and have both a criminal records and background check completed. This is step one to a registry for law-abiding firearm owners and is a severe burden on gun owners.

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It’s alarming the association of lawyers would advocate for the government to maintain lists of Americans who choose to exercise their civil rights. The only presumption of the maintenance of these “lists” is that law-abiding citizens are potentially dangerous and must be monitored. All that, they argue, just for exercising a God-given right protected by the Constitution.

Imagine the (justifiable) outcry if the government kept lists of those that exercised other constitutional rights? Justice Clarence Thomas, in dissent of a denial of certiorari petition, noted that the Second Amendment is treated with less dignity than other constitutional rights.

Unconstitutional Storage Laws

Gun Trigger Lock
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Mandatory storage laws, their third proposal, prescribed by the government will not increase safety. The firearm industry has long championed the safe and responsible use and storage of firearms. For example, for over 20 years the NSSF, on behalf of our industry, has partnered with over 15,000 law enforcement agencies in every state and U.S. territory, to distribute over 38 million firearm safety education kits including a free cable-style gun lock.

We recognize that there isn’t a “one size fits all” prescription. Having the government mandate what must be done to secure a firearm strips the individual firearm owner from making their own responsible choice for their situation.

The resolution requires firearm owners to meet these requirements but doesn’t state how the government would confirm whether a gun owner is in compliance with the law. It is not unreasonable to think that this proposal would in fact erode public liberty by leading to unreasonable search and seizure of law-abiding citizens.

The Supreme Court in its landmark Heller decision held that the District of Columbia’s mandatory storage law was unconstitutional.

The only saving grace from the ABA’s announcement was from Darin Scheer, a delegate from Wyoming who states that he didn’t believe it was a “core function” of the ABA to consider Second Amendment issues. Scheer is correct. He might have more success in proposing a revision to ABA’s mission statement than actually getting them to focus on it.

Given the ABA’s chosen course of destroying, instead upholding Constitutional rights, a more honest mission statement might read, “To serve equally our members, our profession and the public by defending liberty and delivering justice as the national representative of the legal profession, so long as those members don’t value their individual, God-given right to keep and bear arms.”

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel at National Shooting Sports Foundation.

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49 COMMENTS

  1. This may be another good reason to find a gun friendly self-defense lawyer before you only have one phone call.

    • “This may be another good reason to find a gun friendly self-defense lawyer before you only have one phone call.”

      Indeed. Several of those self-defense ‘insurance’ plans include just that.

      (I cannot opine if any one is any better than any of the others…)

      • Geoff – Depending on how the lawsuit goes, that might not be the case for much longer. The NRA is getting bled dry by the idiot mismanaging NY. Somehow, no one is talking much about how discriminatory it is for banks and insurers to be threatened with financial repercussions unless they stop doing business with the NRA. Can you imagine the fallout if a Republican governor tried to force companies not to do business with the NAACP?

        • Can you imagine the shit if the white people started NAAWP??? We are racist!! Need I say more?

      • Since it’s a private organization, join it and demand it change.

        Become a lawyer, and then an ABA member, and when those votes come up, vote constitutional freedoms.

        Since you will be a lawyer, do ‘pro bono’ cases for gun rights…

        • Wouldn’t it be easier to just shoot all the lawyers? Or, at least all the lawyers who voted for this crap.

      • The best way is to register all of your guns with the police, let them search your house when they come to your door, get in the train car when ordered, and don’t ask any questions….. then you will be free my friend.

    • It can go both ways. One did me a *major* solid last year when I was nearly killed.

      (And thanks to him, I now have fun guns and new expensive bionic eyeballs I never would have been able to afford otherwise… 🙂 )

      • I was going to add the caveat that everyone hates lawyers UNTIL it’s YOUR lawyer. Glad you got squared away. What was the number 1 “fun” gun you picked up?

        • The prevailing attitude toward lawyers seems to be similar to that toward congress. To wit. “They’re all crooks, except mine/ours.”

        • “What was the number 1 “fun” gun you picked up?”

          Will soon pick up. I’m in the planning stages for an AR-15 platform pistol in .300blk with a brace, and hopefully a 9mm can for it.

          I realize 9mm isn’t the ideal size for ideal hearing-safe for .300blk, but my funds are not unlimited and I’d like to also use it with the other new fun gun, a CZ 2075 RAMI in 9mm that’s now my bedside gun. I’m gonna need ‘one can to rule them all’ until I can afford cans for each caliber.

          I am very tempted to snag that $350 ‘Sparrow’ .22lr can mentioned a few days back, however…

        • When I was looking for “one can to rule them all” in the pistol class of things I went with the .45 Osprey. Covers up to .45 (obviously) and swapping pistons changes your thread pattern for various guns and calibers.

          She’ll do .300blk too.

        • Actually – to be perfectly honest – I hated my own lawyers, just as much as any other. I mean – Christmas time, the guy looks real hard at my finances, and takes everything I have liquid, and a little bit more? Ensuring that there really was no Christmas that year. Then with ten minutes actual work, he has my case thrown out.

          But, yeah, I could have gone to either of the other two choices of lawyer, who are known to take slam-dunk cases and lose them. Or, I could have gone to the capital, where lawyer fees start at multiples of my annual salary.

      • Another vote for the .45 Osprey.
        Sounds great on a 9 mm pistol, 9 mm carbine and is rated for 300 blackout subsonic.
        I bump fire my Scorpion thru it all the time, works great shooting 9 mm full auto

        • “Another vote for the .45 Osprey.”

          Then that qualifies as official ‘Doctor’s Orders’.

          Thanks doc and Strych…

    • This is the same ABA that advocate killing babies up to and during birth? It’s estimated over 60,000,000 killed.

      • That’s from O.P.M.. Great movie, always liked this scene, and today seems more relevant than ever.

        Perhaps this is why the Democrat establishment, who are mostly lawyers, want to stop Bernie so badly…

        …if there is a silver lining to electing a communist this has to be one…

  2. I am reminded of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2, act 4, scene two wherein Cade and Dick are discussing lawyers and how much trouble their “sheepskins” (diplomas) cause and what might be done to remedy the scourge of lawyers.

    *note this was written 429 years ago and, apparently, the public’s feelings regarding the profession have not changed much in the interim.

    • Sure they have.

      People’s feeling towards lawyers have gotten worse.

      Most elected officials are lawyers.

    • You realize that the whole point in killing the lawyers in that play is to silence the people who might stop the tyranny they are planning, right?

  3. I’ve been in four cases that went through the courts and required me to hire attorneys, both accident and criminal venues, and as plaintiff or defendant. Mixed results across all four cases, but every attorney I encountered (even my own representation, and even when I won) was overpaid and left a slimy “ick” factor behind them. Not a single one was straightforward and genuine. I discovered first hand that it’s never about obtaining justice to them…it’s all about their ego, jostling for potential career opportunities, and playing roulette with their clients’ fates while they collect their paychecks from you. Just as you’d imagine from all the jokes and bad TV shows. That’s exactly what I got…all four times.

  4. What do you expect from a bunch of subversive elitists who are deceitful crooked immoral treasonous and socialist? Likewise sworn enemies against our constitution, American gun owners, the NRA, our Second Amendment heritage, decency and morality! This is “LBJ/KGB” style class warfare which has it’s roots under Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ), the corrupt Earl Warren Supreme Court :(protector of the guilty and criminal, yet enemy against the innocent crime victim, including women), the Warren Burger Supreme Court, Ted Kennedy, Thomas Dodd (D): of Connecticut: LBJ’s then lieutenant in the U.S. Senate and framer of the damnable unconstitutional 1968 Federal Gun Control Act! Dodd was afterwards censored by his own peers for abuse of power, corruption, and the public trust. Why has the American public tolerated scum like this for decades? Why do deceitfully ignorant deluded voters continue to re-elect repeat offenders to both houses of Congress, and state legislators? Why aren’t corrupt judges removed from the high judicial bench? Why do the masses place more emphasis, value, and attention to football, sports, and athletics instead of holding these crooks in Congress, state legislatures, judges benches, and in high office accountable? Why why why?

  5. For those of the “glass half full” mind-set:

    It was reported yesterday by Mark Levin that only about 50% of America’s lawyers belong to the ABA.

    Levin is not a member nor a supporter.

  6. Another longtime left wing organization masquerading as nonpartisan. People should stop taking them seriously, along with the SPLC.

    “Senator Ted Cruz pointed out at Wednesday’s hearing that eight of the 15 members of the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which evaluates nominees, have together contributed at least $60,000 to Democratic candidates and related organizations, and donations to the campaigns of presidential nominees have gone exclusively to Democrats: Five members donated to Barack Obama’s campaign, three to that of Hillary Clinton, and none to the last three Republican nominees.”

    https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/yes-the-aba-is-still-a-left-wing-advocacy-group/

  7. This is hardly news. The ABA has been a politicized, left-wing organization for decades.

    Like most lawyers, I’ve never been an ABA member, despite constant solicitations from their membership department. They finally stopped calling me several years ago, after I pointedly told them that I would never become an ABA member — even if they paid me!

    • We all got a free one year ABA membership upon passing the Bar. I let mine lapse and haven’t been an ABA member for 20 years – specifically because of their anti 2A positions.

      • Same here. I’m a lawyer. The ABA is a bunch of fucking commies. Anytime you see anything approved by the ABA, you should just substitute “Josef Stalin” for “ABA.

  8. Some years ago a friend was “getting divorced”. It drug on and one for months, into years. Finally determined the two lawyers were collaborating in stalling while they continued to send bills. I took my friends guns away because he was planning to go kill both attorneys. I finally talked him into getting a different attorney and it was quickly completed. The new attorney said there was no reason it had gone on so long.

    Lesson learned: your attorney is not always on your side.

  9. My uncle was a criminal defense lawyer.. then a DA, then a judge.. before all that he was a sherrif, before that a door gunner in a huey.. he is the only person in my family with more guns than I. Aunt was a dr, carried a .380 at work in an ER. WI sure has changed…

  10. They are just protecting (convicted felons) and adding to (by making felons of the formerly law abiding) client base and assuring their continued growth in income. With a registry felons in search of new firearms to steal need not waste time burglarizing at random.

  11. The national lawyers Guild, the ACLU, the American Bar Association, all lawyers. And all of them supported the internment of Japanese-American Citizens during World War II. So much for supporting civil rights. That question was answered 70 years ago.

    FYI
    That also includes the thousands of German American and Italian American citizens who also lost their civil rights and were interned.

    But these same lawyers do support the national socialists marching through jews neighborhoods. AND they support the Klu Klux Klan marching in black neighborhoods while carrying guns.

    And those same mostly Jewish lawyers never supported the civil right of blacks to carry guns.

  12. The system is the problem. It was set up by attorney’s for attorney’s. Try to go down to your local law library and see if they let you in without an ABA card. Simple fact is there are far too many laws on the books. While I agree with the necessity of some laws as a recourse to wrongs committed, most laws these days are designed not as a means of legal recourse but as revenue generating tyranny. Perfect example, it is against the law in IL to fish from the neck of a girraffe. Wth?? I had a lawyer one time that refused to take my case (airbag non deployment @70mph) because it was too hard to prove it should have gone off, at which point I stated its the principle. He flat out told me he doesn’t have those(priciples) so find a lawyer that does. Didn’t work out for him when he ran for circuit judge in the area as I took great joy in pointing this out to all who would listen. Also, consider the multi-million dollar actions against Takata(?) 2 years later. It’s true what they say, sharks don’t eat lawyers out of professional courtesy. Legal and illegal is not the same as right and wrong.

  13. And this is surprising to anyone????
    We ALL know most attorneys are LBGTQ…. and whatever other letter you wanna add today….
    Anyway, these “people” HATE rednecks with guns… they consider you a threat to their (disgusting) way of life…. so since they are in the law profession, they will do whatever it takes to destroy country folk….heed my words… there’s another demographic that sees rednecks as a threat to their way of life… and they congregate in the inner city…
    So they have a common foe….
    Consider all the “justice reform” on one hand, yet they wanna restrict the rights of gun owners on the other hand… none of it makes sense unless you consider everything i’ve just said….. then it makes PERFECT sense..

    Moral of the story is these two groups, along with illegal/ legal immigrants are a threat to this country’s way of life…. so it’s time for the POTG to KNOW THEIR ENEMY!!!!

  14. Stop me if you’ve heard this before…What’s lower than whale shit on the bottom of the ocean? Yeah, pretty well summarizes all attorneys. Never had a good experience with one….even the occasional one that I played money ball with or against. While we all may need their sneaky ways on our side one day, they are all …….lower than whale shit on the bottom of the ocean. Even my daughter-in-law.

  15. The majority of lawyers are scum. I know. I had front row seats while in law school, where I soon learned how manipulative and deceitful they can be. I was in bad company.

    Half of what they say is a lie. But they usually do it by leaving out important stuff.

    They inculcate fear into their clients to keep so they can gorge them with massive retainers; meanwhile, they do the bare minimum for you and often agree to just negotiate with prosecutors.

    They talk in sound bytes if running for political office. And they hate relinquishing power in the courtroom or elsewhere.

    The regulatory committee only reprimands lawyers in serious cases. You have lawyers regulating their own; it’s a self-regulating profession that doesn’t protect the public–it protects their own. But if the regulators need to be regulated, you can imagine how crooked some of these judges and lawyers can be.

    I will be doing a story about my experience with the regulatory agency here in Colorado–stay tuned for a tale of lies and deceit!

    Michael
    exposingthetyrants.com

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