I’m not sure I can wrap my brain around this kind of double-think, so I’m going to have to take baby steps.
For years now, terrorist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda have told local Radical Islamic Fundamentalists (RIFs) to use our supposedly lax gun laws to arm themselves.
This video shows one RIF leader telling recruits they could go to a gun show and pick up a full-auto weapon without a background check. As a result, groups like the Brady Campaign to Celebrate Prevent Gun Violence and Everytown for Gun Safety have been pushing for Congress to “close the terror gap” and pass other gun control measures.
Amanda Marcotte of Salon.com is taking it one step further, accusing NRATV of promulgating a “conspiracy theory.” So what’s this insane, black helicopter, tin-foil hatted lunatic “conspiracy theory” the NRA is pushing? In the words of Ms. Marcotte:
the NRA … [is] claiming that ISIS is praising lax gun laws in an effort to dupe gullible Americans into supporting gun control.
ISIS and Al-Qaeda are praising lax gun laws: True. Various American anti-gun groups are using this fact to promote gun control: True. As NRATV host Grant Stinchfield concluded:
ISIS issues this calling not just to arm jihadists, but to scare the left into issuing a call for more gun control indicating that the NRA believes that one of the goals of this calling might be to get more gun control passed: Amanda says that this is insane.
So those of us who believe that the “gun show full-auto” video was a RIF propaganda ploy are nut-job conspiracy freaks, while Marcotte’s belief that these RIF leaders are far too backward and stupid to engage in such chicanery is a result of sensible, mature analysis. I thought it was conservatives who were the racists.
But let’s delve into the array of lies, red herrings and straw men that Ms. Marcotte has presented us with. She starts with some lovely passive-aggression:
One of the biggest tension points for gun industry apologists in this country is the issue of terrorism. On the one hand, the conservatives who make up most of the gun industry’s customer base think of themselves as stalwart defenders of Second Amendment “rights.”
I’m not sure just why Amanda put scare quotes around the word “rights.” I can only assume that she doesn’t consider an enumerated Constitutional right — one upheld by the Supreme Court in Heller v. District of Columbia — to be an actual right. And she accuses us of ignoring facts.
Let’s dive deep into the outright lies:
On the other hand, the same conservatives like to imagine they are tough on terrorism. That’s a problem, because the lax gun laws in this country are perhaps the biggest friend a modern-day terrorist has, as evidenced by the high-profile shootings in San Bernardino, California, and Orlando, Florida, in the past year and a half.
Lax gun laws…in California. The state that’s every gun grabber’s scorecard leader, with 48 out of a possible 50 Brady points for “Keeping Guns Out of the Hands of Dangerous People.” Is that the California Marcotte’s talking about?
Even the old Grey Liberal Lady herself, The New York Times, admits in this piece that all the guns used by the San Bernardino shooters were purchased lawfully (although the rifles were transferred to the husband without the required background check…which he would have passed anyway).
As for the Orlando shooter, again, the Grey Lady tells us he was not a “prohibited person” and passed the necessary background checks when he lawfully purchased the weapons he used in his killing spree.
So just exactly what “lax gun laws” is Marcotte objecting to?
She never says precisely, referring instead to an ISIS propaganda article which, she says “outlined a number of loopholes that allow would-be gun buyers to evade background checks — loopholes that gun-safety activists have been trying to shut down for years.”
These “loopholes” are the laundry list of private sales avenues which the antis have been campaigning against for years.
Oddly enough, these are the same people who have been trying for decades to increase the number of private sales by choking off the number of FFLs. Increasing fees (from $10 a year to $200 for three years with passage of the Brady Bill), increasing paperwork (requiring photographs and fingerprints with applications), increasing penalties for paperwork violations, eliminating “kitchen table” dealers who were not “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms (guys like the TMC on my first sub who got his FFL to increase his collection and help guys on the boat get cheap prices for guns) and so on have led to us going from about 250,000 Class 1 FFLs in 1993 to 56,623 dealers as of 04/10/17.
Near the end of her screed, Marcotte again alludes to supposedly “lax laws” when she states:
Before the Rumiyah article appeared, liberals and gun-safety advocates were not lacking evidence that ISIS-inspired terrorists would exploit easy access to high-powered weapons. The aforementioned shootings in San Bernardino and Orlando offered gruesome examples of how demented people inspired by overseas terrorists, plus easy access to firearms, can add up to an appalling body count.
In other words, as far as Ms. Marcotte is concerned, California’s gun control regimen is far too lax, .even though it features:
• Laws requiring background checks for all gun sales
• laws that give law enforcement full discretion in issuing carry permits
• laws allowing law enforcement to conduct thorough screening for all firearms purchases
• laws requiring fingerprints as part of that screening
• laws prohibiting violent misdemeanants from purchasing firearms
• laws prohibiting violent juvenile offenders from purchasing firearms
• laws prohibiting the severely mentally ill from purchasing firearms
• laws prohibiting drug and alcohol abusers from purchasing firearms
• laws prohibiting domestic and intimate abusers from purchasing firearms
• laws prohibiting those under 21 from purchasing a handgun
• laws requiring records of all gun purchases be provided to law enforcement so owners can be identified if they become prohibited
• laws securing guns from armed and prohibited people
• laws securing firearms from domestic abusers
• laws providing legal tools for family members to prevent gun violence (gun violence restraining orders)
• laws empowering state law enforcement to shut down “bad apple” dealers
• laws allowing law enforcement to verify gun store inventory through dealer records
• laws mandating security measures to prevent gun theft from stores
• laws requiring dealers to report weapons lost and stolen from stores
• laws permitting law enforcement to conduct warrantless searches (aka “inspections”) of gun dealers
• laws to prevent bulk purchases of handguns
• laws to make straw purchasing even more illegal for straw buyers
• and laws requiring dealers to report sales of multiple guns to law enforcement
I can just imagine the sorts of “reasonable, common sense” gun laws the Salon writer and her friend in the civilian disarmament industrial complex would like to see put in place in California and nationwide. But I don’t want to.
Meanwhile, if Ms. Marcotte is looking for groundless conspiracy theories she doesn’t have to look far. Her article will suffice.