“Donald Trump’s persistent — and false — accusation that Hillary Clinton would abolish the Second Amendment as president is renewing scrutiny of her position on gun rights,” CNN‘s Eric Bradner reports. Wait. I don’t think “reports” is the right word. Let’s go with “concludes.”
If we take Mr. Bradner’s rejection of Mr. Trump’s assertion at face value, we’re done! The Democrats’ presidential hopeful doesn’t want to abolish the Second Amendment, the Second Amendment prohibits government infringement on Americans’ right to keep and bear arms, so . . . Hillary Clinton supports gun rights!
Yeah, no. Not even close.
Ms. Clinton doesn’t want to “abolish” the Second Amendment — a move that would be political suicide and, lest we forget, lies well beyond the scope of Constitutionally specified presidential powers. She wants to degrade and destroy Americans’ gun rights while leaving the Second Amendment ostensibly intact, a hollow shell providing political cover for civilian disarmament.
That’s an idea that even the Chicken Noodle News cheerleader can’t seem to escape, as he chronicles Ms. Clinton’s historical stance on the issue.
Testifying in a Senate committee in 1993 amid her health care reform push, Clinton told Sen. Bill Bradley, D-New Jersey, she was “all for” his proposed 25% tax on handguns and $2,500 licensing fees for gun dealers . . .
Once she entered the Senate in 2001, Clinton backed a series of gun control measures.
She backed Democratic bills to require the [federal] registration of all new guns, requiring photo IDs and safety lessons for all new gun owners and increasing the minimum buying age for handguns from 18 to 21.
Let’s file those ideas under common sense constitutional infringements, shall we? Moving forward (so to speak), The People of the Gun will remember that Ms. Clinton’s previous presidential ambitions led her to a wealth of weasel words on gun rights.
Once Clinton launched her 2008 Democratic presidential campaign, though, she backed away from some of those stances — including her previous support for national licensing and registration of handguns.
“What might work in New York City is certainly not going to work in Montana. So, for the federal government to be having any kind of blanket rules that they’re going to try to impose, I think doesn’t make sense,” Clinton said at an April debate.
She declined to support Washington, D.C.’s ban on handguns.
“What I support is sensible regulation that is consistent with the constitutional right to own and bear arm. I think a total ban, with no exceptions under any circumstances, might be found by the court not to be (constitutional). But I don’t know the facts,” she said.
Here’s a fact: the former First Lady has backed away from backing away from her kinda maybe sorta what-do-I-know support for the Heller decision. Ms. Clinton now believes Heller was “wrong.” She’s committed to appointing Supreme Court judges who will overturn the decision, returning gun rights to local command and control.
Mr. Bradner singularly, spectacularly fails to consider the implications of Ms. Clinton’s desire to bin the Supreme Court’s Heller decision, establishing Americans’ individual right to keep and bear arms.
Simply put, if the courts, police, politicians and bureaucrats operate under the assumption that Americans don’t have an individual right to keep and bear arms, the Second Amendment is as good as abolished. Just ask Americans denied their gun rights in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Maryland and elsewhere.
Bottom line: Bradner and his CNN masters have well and truly drunk the Clintonian Kool-Aid, accepting the ridiculous premise that the government can infringe on Americans’ gun rights while not infringing on Americans’ gun rights. Because Hillary Clinton (and others) say so! Like this:
“I’m not looking to repeal the Second Amendment. I’m not looking to take people’s guns away,” she said. “But I am looking for more support for the reasonable efforts that need to be undertaken to keep guns out of the wrong hands.”
Ms. Clinton is coming for your guns. This may not mean an early morning knock on your door by federal agents. At least not yet. But it does mean that a President Clinton will do everything in her power to render the Second Amendment meaningless. In effect, abolishing it. Repealing it? Whatever.