Reagan and Russia  by Tom Reynolds

Yesterday, SCOPE wrote about how the Ukraine crisis parallels the events prior to World War 2 and highlighted the ineffective responses to Hitler that eventually led to WW2.  The Biden administration is responding to the Ukraine invasion with sanctions but - what good are sanctions that don’t work?  As 2^nd Amendment defenders are well aware with gun control laws, the Left loves doing things that make them feel good, impose hardships on Americans, but have little or no effect.

It’s unfair to only highlight problems and then walk away; one should also offer a solution.  In responding to Vladimir Putin, Biden might take a lesson from history on a strategy that did work.  President Reagan brought down the Soviet Union / Russia without firing a shot.  One major part of his successful plan involved fossil fuels.

Russia’s only big source of hard cash was and still is from its exports of fossil fuels: oil and natural gas.  Has anyone bought a Russian made car or refrigerator?  Hard cash from fossil fuel sales is needed to pay for Russia’s military adventures. 

During Reagan’s non-shooting war on the USSR, he made permanent the deregulation of petroleum products and the windfall profits tax was reduced and eventually removed; these steps removed government disincentives and resulted in increased production.  The Alaskan Prudhoe Bay Oil Field ramped up to, what was then, peak production in 1988.  Reagan persuaded Saudi Arabia to open their taps and flood the market with oil, which they did in 1985.  North Sea oil production increased greatly in the 1980’s. 

The laws of supply-and-demand took over and as the supply increased the price of all oil dropped dramatically, cutting the revenue Russia got for its oil exports.  In 1980, when Reagan was elected President, the world price of a barrel of crude oil was $35 ($110 in 2020 dollars).  By late 1986 it was $10 ($24 in 2020 dollars).  In six years, Russia’s real revenue from oil dropped by 80%!  Basically, it was going bankrupt and could no longer attempt to compete militarily, or to sponsor client states like Cuba, and Russia’s always weak economy was a shambles.

As a side benefit, the price of gasoline plummeted and Americans reaped the benefits.

Then, the Soviet Union dissolved itself in December 1991.

Russia has reemerged as an aggressor and threat to peace with its invasion of the Ukraine.  Why not take a cue from Reagan and improve on current and proposed Russian sanctions by flooding the market with oil?

Why not?  Well, because:

In June 2021, Biden claimed, “When I first was elected Vice President with President Obama, the military sat us down to let us know what the greatest threats facing America were…This is not a joke: you know what the Joint Chiefs told us the greatest threat facing America was? Global warming”.

There you have it; not Russia or China or Iran is our greatest threat.  Instead, according to Biden, our military believes our biggest threat is Global Warming and Joe Biden has bought into it, hook, line and sinker.  (One thing to remember, the top generals and admirals are the equivalent of political appointees and, unfortunately, the worst of them get to the top by being political.  For example: generals during the Viet Nam War and General Milley with his enthusiasm for the Critical Race Theory instead of Afghan withdrawal planning.)

On Tuesday, Biden spokeswoman Jeb Psaki warned that, due to Biden’s sanctions, America’s high energy prices could be expected to go even higher, which is the opposite of what Reagan’s policies did.

Biden has shut down American pipeline construction.  However, Biden waived sanctions on a Russian built pipeline in order to allow the Russians to finish it and market more of their oil.  Apparently, Global warming only happens in the U.S.A.

Biden has stopped or delayed work on oil and gas leases so that he can decide how to proceed, after a judicial decision was made that he doesn’t like.

Biden ended America’s energy independence and often speaks of reducing or eliminating fossil fuels in America.  (Raising oil prices is necessary in order to economically justify Green New Deal programs.) 

Reversing Biden’s energy policies and adopting Reagan’s policies would be effective in bringing Putin to heel and, as a side benefit, lower the energy prices that are fueling inflation.  But, as always, Biden continues to be on the wrong side of history.

A side benefit to reversing Biden’s fossil fuel policies would be in dealing with another partner in evil: Iran.  Like Russia, Iran is dependent on oil for revenue.  Iran’s leaders chant “Death to America”; they hate us.  (Iran just returned 820,000 doses of Covid vaccine because it was manufactured in the USA.)  Iran is also in the middle of economic and social crises: their mismanaged economy is in shambles and, because it is government controlled, there is no safe haven from mismanagement; their young people are becoming more and more disenchanted with the Iranian government as they seek a better, less repressive life.

In response to what could be the collapse of a government that hates us, Biden appears to be throwing the Iranian government a lifeline.  He speaks of rejoining the Iran Nuclear Deal, which would have positive financial benefits for Iran. 

Biden and the Left will not admit that their soft-on-crime, bail reform, open border immigration, anti-gun policies might have anything to do with an increase in crime.  But…they are on the defensive as their policies aren’t working and they face a critical off year election in November.  Suddenly, they stopped being in favor of defunding the police and “Beto” O’Rourke says he no longer has plans to confiscate your guns. 

If Biden wants to “reset” his policy and admit that, forty years later, Reagan still gets it right, it needs to be done now.  (By the way, another thing that Reagan also got right was that he was also a defender of the 2^nd Amendment.)

Of course, Biden can probably count on his partners in the left-wing media to adopt a policy of, “What Ukrainian crises?  Nothing there worth reporting on”.  (The New York Times once got a Pulitzer Prize for not reporting Stalin’s murderous policies in the Ukraine.)

Lessons from History  by Tom Reynolds

Instead of learning from history, the far left led by Joe Biden wants to destroy it.  Perhaps, because a reading of history invalidates their agenda?  History is still available, at least for now, for us to learn from it.

In the 1930’s, Hitler, rightly, saw France and England as having weak leadership and consumed by their own internal political problems and America as isolationist.  Thus, none of them would be willing or able to respond to Germany’s expansionism.  From 1935 until 1939, Axis partners Germany and Italy invaded and conquered countries with only ineffective responses from European and American governments.

Ethiopia (formerly Abyssinia) is a landlocked country in eastern Africa.  In October, 1935, Italy’s Mussolini invaded Ethiopia.  France and Britain responded by imposing toothless sanctions on Italy.

The Rhineland is a strip of land about 50 kilometers wide on the west bank of the Rhine River.  Following the end of World War 1, it was declared a neutral zone separating Belgium and France from Germany; German troops were banned from entering it.  Having observed the response to the Ethiopian invasion, Hitler used the toothless Franco-German Pact as an excuse, saying Germany was threatened, and marched German troops into the Rhineland.  Britain and France did nothing, even though there were two treaties in effect that had forbidden Germany from doing that.

Austria was an independent German speaking nation bordering southern Germany.  After World War 1, it was prevented by treaties from unifying with Germany.  In March, 1938, an election was called to decide if Austria wanted to continue as an independent nation.  Afraid of a vote not to his liking, Hitler and German troops marched into Austria and annexed the country into Germany.  Other nations stood by and did nothing. 

After World War 1, the nation of Czechoslovakia was created on Germany’s and Austria’s eastern border.  The areas closest to Germany contained many people of German descent and Hitler, falsely, claimed these ethnic Germans were being harshly treated by the Czechoslovakian government.  In September 1938, Germany started a low intensity undeclared war on Czechoslovakia.  In response, Britain, France and Germany (but not Czechoslovakia) met in Munich where France and Britain ceded the ethnic German provinces that bordered Germany to Hitler, who eventually took over the entire country.  Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made his famous statement “Peace for our time” upon his return from Munich.

In August, 1939, Russia and Germany signed a non-aggression pact that included a secret agreement on dividing Poland, which is a country between Germany’s eastern border and Russia’s western border.  On September 1, 1939, Hitler’s troops invaded Poland.  Seventeen days later, Stalin’s Russian troops also invaded Poland.  World War 2 had begun and more than 60 million people would die, which was more than 2.5% of the world’s population. 418 thousand of them were Americans.

Today’s Ukraine is a country on the southwestern border of Russia and the Crimea is a peninsula in southern Ukraine, which is separated from Russia by a narrow strip of the Black Sea.  The Ukraine and Crimea were formerly a part of the Soviet Union.  In June, 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Crimea reached an agreement with the Ukraine that Crimea would become a part of the Ukraine as an Autonomous Republic with special economic status.  In a 1997 treaty, Russia recognized Ukraine’s borders and its sovereignty over Crimea.

In February, 2014, Russian soldiers took over the Crimean government and elected a pro-Russian Prime Minister who asked for Russia to send more troops.  Eventually, a formal agreement was reached between the pro-Russian Crimean government and Russia.

President Barack Obama’s response to the Crimean invasion was several phone calls to Putin warning him of consequences.  Then, Obama hoped to bring Putin to his knees by announcing that the U.S. would not send a delegation to the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi, Russia. Later, Obama imposed economic sanctions which had marginal impact on Russia.  Putin managed to not fall to his knees under Obama’s pressure.

As a Senator, Obama was instrumental in getting $48 million to speed up the destruction of conventional weapons held by the Ukraine for defense.  Obama claimed in a press release, at the time, that this would guarantee “the safety of the Ukrainian people and people around the world, by keeping them out of conflicts around the world.”  In 2014, When the Ukrainian government asked President Obama for weapons, he sent military ration kits instead.  One British analyst said that “we went to a knife fight with a baguette”. Did President Obama deny lethal weapons aid to the Ukrainians because it would seem like a repudiation of his former stance?  Obama claimed he was giving Putin a face-saving way out; an off-ramp.  Putin didn’t take that exit.

Donald Trump was criticized by Democrats for not immediately providing lethal aid to the Ukrainians when, in short order, he did provide arms.  The Democrats criticism seems a bit hypocritical in view of Obama’s actions.  Putin’s Ukrainian dreams were put on hold while Trump was President.

Obama lite, Joe Biden, is now faced with a Russian invasion of the Ukraine.  Like Hitler’s claim for invading Czechoslovakia, Putin claims ethnic Russians are being mistreated.  Like Hitler’s rationale for the invasion of the Rhineland, Russia feels threatened. Biden’s response, like Obama’s, was to make a phone call.  Reminiscent of Munich, Biden also promised that no NATO nation would be invaded without consequences; Putin has certainly noticed that the Ukraine is not a NATO nation and, like Hitler, he has seen this as a green light to move forward. 

Putin has now recognized as independent, two regions in eastern Ukraine that are partly controlled by Russian-backed separatists.  President Biden’s initial reaction was limited to issuing a narrow set of sanctions on these areas which would have virtually no effect, since there is almost no financial investment in these areas.  Putin has since sent in Russian troops.  Biden further clarified that a “minor incursion” would not trigger a response by the United States.

And in the rest of the world:

From 1933 to the start of World War 2 in 1939, Nazi Germany increasingly engaged in internal anti-semitism.  Prominent churchmen, intellectuals and politicians throughout the world said little about the persecution of the Jews, even though refugees brought increasingly appalling stories about it.

China is now being accused of committing crimes against humanity and genocide against the Uyghur minority in northwest China.  But the Genocide Games, otherwise known as the Winter Olympics, went on as planned in China.  And prominent athletes, especially pro basketball players and the NBA, itself, are very critical of the USA but silent on China.  Perhaps because China is viewed as a big financial investment opportunity?

Oh yes, and China is sending warplanes into Taiwan’s air space on a regular basis.  The U.S. no longer has a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan, which Biden touts as “strategic ambiguity”.

But not to worry, Biden and our military have been focused like a laser on Global Climate Change and Racism as our biggest defense threats, while the FBI is investigating domestic terrorists such as parents who protest at school board meetings.

Does anyone in the world, especially our enemies, view Joe Biden as having the strength to lead the free world in standing up to these crises?  Remember, he has been characterized as forever being on the wrong side of history.   

In his defense, it should be remembered that Biden did show strength in standing up to Ukraine when he was Vice President.  He single-handedly forced Ukraine to stop criminal investigations of his son, Hunter.  Great leaders are known for the priorities they set.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on President’s Day  by Thomas Jefferson, Founder of the Democrat Party

• ·      No free man shall ever be disbarred the use of arms.
  
  
• ·      The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
  
  
• ·      The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
  
  
• ·      I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them.
  
  
• ·      The democracy will cease to exist when we take away from those that are willing to work and give to those who would not.
  
  
• ·      To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes, the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.
  
  
• ·      It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debt’s as it goes. A principle which if acted upon would save one-half the wars of the world.
  
  
• ·      My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
  
  
• ·      When we get piled on one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

Extreme Risk Protection Order and Violence Prevention Act of 2021  by Bohdan Rabarsky

   On February 8, 2021 Senator Marco Rubio R-FL again re-introduced the Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) and Violence Prevention Act of 2021 with 3 cosponsors, Democrat Jack Reed-RI, Republican Rick Scott-FL and Independent Angus King-ME. This is one of those bills that’s supposedly for the good of the people, because the citizens of America don’t know what’s good for themselves.  Give up some freedom; the government will decide our safety for us. As Ben Franklin said: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”       

   There are those citizens, Women’s Rights Group, the local YWCA and County Sheriff’s Departments that feel this is a good idea. Authorities will tell us it not only protects vulnerable people, but prevents possible domestic abuse; law enforcement says the latter is the majority of their calls.

   But there is another small issue, often referred to as the United States Constitution!

   The Extreme Risk Protection Order and Violence Prevention Act overlooks the Constitutional Rights of American citizens under the guise that such a law might prevent domestic violence. That would be like the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles denying you a driver’s license, because some day you might cause an accident. Make sense to you? That’s the logic the government uses in their ultimate wisdom of “it’s for the good of the people”.  What also might the government do for the “good of the people”.  Perhaps censor those that disagree with the government under the guise of misinformation?  Deny people their job if they don’t get vaccinated?  Seize bank accounts and even the pets of protestors?  Once you start down this slippery slope, your rights will be in freefall.

   The Constitutional Amendments that the Extreme Risk Protection Order and Violence Prevention Act overlooks are Amendments 1, 2, 4 and, most significantly, 14.  The 14^th Amendment, Section 1 states, “No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”.

  Under ERO, you’re guilty until proven innocent, according to the Judge that issued such Protection Order. In many cases the probable cause is just an accusation in the midst of a heated domestic dispute.  Under that Protection Order, all your long guns and handguns will be confiscated - violating the 2^nd Amendment. Most of the time the local Sheriff’s Department will enter your home without a warrant, only a judge’s court order - violating the 4^th Amendment, which says, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause.”

   This Extreme Risk Protection Order and Violence Prevention Act of 2021 is already written into the New York State “Secure Ammunition & Firearm Enforcement Act” also known as The Safe Act of 2013. This new bill, introduced by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, is SB 292.  But it was first introduced on March 22^nd 2018 as SB 2607, then on January 3^rd 2019 as SB 7. With any luck, without a corresponding sponsored bill in Congress, it will wither away on the vine and our Constitutional Rights will remain intact.  But we can’t trust to luck.  Let your Representative know that you oppose this unconstitutional denial of our rights.

One Day’s Newspaper  by Tom Reynolds

On Wednesday, the news was full of so much…misinformation…that it begs some clarification.

One story was about the families of victims in the Sandy Hook shootings settling a lawsuit against Remington for $73 million.  Misinformation, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which represents gun manufacturers, so it should know.

The Remington brand was previously used by several separate corporations.  Remington Outdoor Company (ROC) was the corporation that produced the rifle in question.  The decision to settle was not made by ROC.  The settlement was reached with the insurance carriers that held policies with ROC.  The insurance companies make their decisions on a financial basis and not in the best interests of a former client or, in this case, not on a principle that needed defending.

I say “former client” because ROC no longer exists. It effectively ceased to exist as a going concern in 2020 when its assets were sold.  The lawsuit, however, continued against the estate of ROC.  The estate consisted of ROC’s insurers and their insurance policies in effect at the time. Vista Outdoors, which is the current owner of the Remington brand, wasn’t a party to the lawsuit or involved in the decision to settle.   

This settlement by insurance companies has no impact on the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which remains the law of the land. PLCAA will continue to block baseless lawsuits that attempt to blame lawful industry companies for the criminal acts of third parties.  But this settlement will encourage misleading newspaper articles as well as anti-2A radicals who see a new pot-of-gold at the end of their rainbow.

Another story was about a Missouri bill (that failed to be passed) that, according to the headline, would “make murder legal”. 

The proposed law would have changed Missouri’s stand-your-ground laws for using deadly force and write “innocent until proven guilty” protections into such cases.  It would also have offered some civil immunity for someone who uses deadly force in self-defense. 

Defending oneself is not murder.  Unfortunately, Soros’ funded prosecutors like St. Louis’ Kim Gardener have been prosecuting people like the McCloskeys for political purposes.  Our justice system must be independent of political factors.

One Missouri Democrat Senator said the proposed law would let people like those who killed Ahmaud Arbery go free.  Not so, by a long shot.  But the truth and a deceptive headline never stopped the anti-2A fanatics.

An Associated Press story was headlined: “Conspiracies fuel recent extremist killings”.  The entire report was about right wing extremists being responsible for domestic terrorism.  Are there no left wing violent extremists like…say…Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA?

“Legal Insurrection”, a very reliable internet source, reported in September 2021 that in 2020 Antifa/BLM-Led Riots “…resulted in some 15 times more injured police officers, 30 times as many arrests, and estimated damages in dollar terms up to 1,300 times more costly than those of the Capitol riot.”

How could the Associated Press have completely missed the information about left wing extremists on Legal Insurrection and also on multiple other sources?  Perhaps the authors only read information that agrees with their foregone conclusion that domestic terrorists are limited to the right wing?

Another story covered taxpayer’s woes when dealing with an unresponsive I R S.  The article covered the many cases of an unresponsive I R S dealing with telephone inquiries and processing tax returns. 

If a private business does not respond to its customers, that business usually goes out-of-business.  If a government agency (think about the term “Public Service”) doesn’t respond to its customers, that agency goes to Congress and is rewarded with a budget increase.  Of course, it’s a conspiracy theory to think that the IRS would intentionally slow down service to get a budget increase as a response to Joe Biden’s failed attempt to get them a massive budget increase.  And the Associated Press would never stoop to mentioning the possibility of a conspiracy theory, unless it accused right wingers of something.  Thank goodness Lois Lerner is gone and only upstanding public servants are left in the IRS.

And last but not least, the Associated Press also covered the Ukraine Crisis.  It reported on Joe Biden’s statement that, “…defending democracy and liberty is never without cost…I will not pretend this is painless.”   The article went on to briefly single out energy as a specific cause of that pain.  The exact nature of the pain was left undefined but inflationary costs of energy and possible shortages of energy are the obvious conclusions. 

How can we have energy shortages when we’re energy independent?  Oh wait, that was under President Trump.  Not mentioned was President Biden’s foreign policy strategy of again making America dependent upon foreign sources.  Even before the Ukraine Crisis, the US Energy Information Administration estimated that, under Biden, we would increase oil product imports by 1 million barrels per day.  After Canada, our top importers are such stable, pro-American companies as: Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Colombia.  Way to go, Joe!

Marijuana, Government Registries and Guns  by Tom Reynolds

Recent headlines accuse the federal government of illegally having a registry of gun owners and some congressmen are accusing the CIA of illegally gathering information on US citizens.  Besides the usual reason that a gun registry is a prelude to gun confiscation, why should New York State gun owners be concerned if the federal government illegally compiles a gun registry?

The New York State government - in its infinite wisdom but mostly to get more tax dollars - has legalized the use of marijuana.  

To legally purchase a firearm in New York State from an FFL, you need to fill out BATFE Form 4473.  On it, question 11.e. asks: “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana…”?  If you use marijuana, you are automatically an unlawful user because it’s use is still illegal under federal law and federal law supersedes state law.  If you answer yes to the question, you are disqualified from buying the firearm. 

Question 11.e. is worded in the present tense, “Are you now” (at this moment when you are filling out the form) addicted to or a user of marijuana.    Since most gun owners are law abiding and, previously, the use of marijuana was illegal in NY State, this was not usually a problem. 

But what about future use?  It gets complicated and gun grabbers love complicated.

What if you had never used marijuana at the time you filled out the form but, since NY has given its blessing, after buying a gun you decide to start using marijuana on occasion?  Maybe even only once?

Unlike voting, where it is “racism” to have to have to show a picture ID to vote, it’s not “racism” to have to show a picture ID to buy marijuana.  That ID will probably be a driver’s license.  Will that identifying information be turned over to the government?  It is not illegal to keep a registry of marijuana users.  If so, the government then knows that you used marijuana and, if it also keeps a gun owners registry, knows that you have a gun. (Theoretically, the government should only know if you have a pistol permit since it is forbidden by law from keeping a gun registry and we all know the D.C. and Albany Swamps always follow the law.)  In order to harass gun owners, will the nice people at BATFE cross reference and use that information as a basis to open an investigation into whether you lied when you filled out 4473?  Will those nice people interpret that 4473 also applies to future use and not just use at the time you bought your firearm?  If they interpret the law in the latter way, can you expect a visit from law enforcement to confiscate your firearms and even prosecute you?

Just a conspiracy theory?  Would gun grabbers use a possible loophole or change a definition from present tense to future tense in order to further their anti-gun agenda?  Would the government violate existing law and keep a gun registry?  Does the left want to confiscate all guns from civilians?

Proposed Federal Legislation It should come as no surprise that the gun grabbers in D.C. and Albany never stop trying to take away our rights guaranteed under the 2nd Amendment.  SCOPE found 37 major bills that would affect gun rights that are currently before Congress.  Those bills are listed on the attachment at the bottom of this email. You can also find them on SCOPE’s web site.  Just click on link below: Federal Legislation | S.C.O.P.E. - Shooters Committee On Political Education - Dedicated to preserving the 2nd amendment rights for the residents of NYS SCOPE opposes over two thirds of those bills.  Those two-thirds take many different approaches to neutering the 2nd Amendment but, have no doubt, that is their goal.  SCOPE would encourage you to take a few minutes to review those bills and, if you are so inclined, send a message (mail or Email) to your congressperson expressing your opposition or support. (Some of hose bills are actually positive).  Even though they are firmly against the 2nd Amendment, you might also consider sending something to Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to let them know that we are watching in ever increasing numbers. And spread the word.  Pass on the web site link to your gun owning friends. FEDERAL Proposed Laws 2022.pdf DONATE HERE

It’s magic  by Tom Reynolds

Every Monday, we read about the number of weekend killings in Chicago and many other major cities.  The Left is filling newspapers and web sites with propaganda blaming guns for the increase in murders, while also painting career criminals as victims. 

Someone once said, killing one person is a tragedy but killing one million is just a statistic.  The number of murders seems to be just a statistic to be exploited by the gun grabbing left.  But beyond the statistics, there is grief and heartache that will never go away.  Those murdered were someone’ son or daughter or maybe a husband, wife, brother, sister, father or mother.  Lives are snuffed out leaving behind others to grieve.  To the Left, the victims and those left grieving are just collateral damage on the road to abolishing the 2^nd Amendment.

If the Left was serious about doing something about the violence, they would admit that soft-on-crime policies are a major factor in increased violence. It's not any one policy that has created this mess but the entire soft-on-crime package.   Taking a pass on riots where arson, looting and even murder were committed sends a more powerful message to criminals than all the gun control laws in the books.  Catch-and-release bail reform does not discourage criminals but it must certainly discourage law enforcement, who see their efforts going for nothing.  Are criminals missing the fact that police are not being aggressive in pursuing crimes because police are practicing C.Y.A. and they also can’t escape the feeling of “why bother, the D.A. isn’t going to do anything”?   Putting a dollar threshold below which theft crimes are virtually ignored sends the message that crime does pay.  And leaving the southern border open not only facilitates crime but also sends a message about crime.

The basis of this warped philosophy is the Left’s drive to blame American society for all that is wrong.  But, four decades ago, Reagan got it right when he said: "We must reject the idea that each time a law's broken, society is guilty- rather than the lawbreaker.  It's time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions." 

It’s said that the secret strategy of magicians is to keep the audience looking at their right hand, not their left.  Joe Biden and the radical left use the same principal to hide their growing list of failures.  You are a racist if you point out their failures and by extension it’s your racism that becomes the focus and not their failures.

It would be hard to miss the mass brainwashing that the media and the Left (but I repeat myself) have been currently pushing: more gun violence means more gun laws are needed.  Deaths due to firearms rose dramatically in 2020 and preliminary figures indicate 2021 will also be high.  Don’t look at the Left’s soft-on-crime policies in the left hand as a cause, just focus on the gun in the right hand.   

Some of the reasoning is so sophomoric that it would be comical if it wasn’t so serious.  USA Today’s February 3^rd article on gun violence started by quoting an 18 years old girl in Poughkeepsie, obviously an expert, “Young people get bored and have nothing to do…’So they go out into the street and they have gun violence’”.  Sure.  Bored?  Go kill someone.  Another part of the article quoted a pawn shop owner from Anguilla, “This is the most stressed I have ever seen kids in my life”.  If any of this were true, shouldn’t the article have been about ending the boredom and stress induced by Covid restrictions or delving into a culture where young people put so little value on human life?  Nope.  It’s the guns; we need more gun control.    

In another case of look at my right hand and not by left, the white house web site says: “Black and brown Americans are disproportionately harmed by the direct and indirect consequences of gun violence”.  The indirect message is that guns are racist!  But the White House failed to mention that the overwhelming number of black and brown people who are harmed are harmed by other black and brown people!  But let’s not go there, since Biden’s White House loves charging racism as the root cause of everything that goes wrong. 

In decrying the surge in legal gun purchases, Biden will never mention that a significant number of these guns are being bought by black and brown people. (Perhaps as protection against other black and brown as well as white and Asian people - and not because they are bored?) If the Left was truly interested in helping minority communities, it would drop the racist labelling and pay attention to minority against minority crime.

The purpose of this current media blitz is to create panic amongst the uninformed in order to ease the way for more gun laws.  Read long articles spreading panic over gun violence and you will be lucky to find even one paragraph that alludes to soft-on-crime issues as maybe a contributing factor.  But if the media were really being honest – and if they really cared - it would explore soft-on-crime policies and its effect on crimes as a whole, not just gun violence.

Who are not victims in all this?  The elite liberals in gated communities with their own security.  Nor is it editors, publishers and owners of media organizations.  They may cry false tears but they don’t want or need answers that disagree with their own beliefs; those other answers are just statistics.  Unfortunately for the rest of society, those statistics had names.

A7771 and S3018; Experiments in Idiocy  by Tom Reynolds

In the NY legislature, proposed Assembly bill A7771 and companion Senate bill S3018 “…requires a person to apply for a hunting license prior to the purchase of a shotgun or rifle…taking a five hour gun safety course and exam…passing a shooting range test with 90% accuracy…providing notarized proof of a passed drug test and mental health evaluation…providing proof of purchase of firearm and ammunition safe storage depositories and passing a criminal background check”.

The sponsor of the bill, Chantel Jackson, is an Assemblywoman from the heavily Democrat 79th District of the Bronx.  The Bronx, as a part of NY City, has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation.  From a personal standpoint, she brags on her Assembly web site that she was a single mom because her boyfriend was serving 4 years in prison on drug charges. 

Under the section of the bill called “Justification”, Jackson writes,“…many New Yorkers are rushing to protect their families and homes by applying for pistol permits in order to purchase a firearm.  Although the need to have protection is understandable, the notion that every citizen should possess a firearm is absurd”.

In her first sentence, she gives a good reason to own a firearm and in the second sentence she says it is “understandable”, but then she contradicts herself and says all that is “absurd”.  She never gives a reason why wanting to protect a person’s family is “absurd”.  The left doesn’t have to explain its absurd statements, they just make ‘em. 

She then points out that, “New York is one of six states whose constitution does not explicitly protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms”.  That is very narrowly correct when taken out of context, something the Left does very well.  Chapter 6, Article 2, Section 4 of New York’s Civil rights Law does say, “Right to keep and bear arms. A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed”.  That probably sounds familiar to you?  Obviously, Jackson is also familiar with the 2^nd Amendment, (the wording if not the meaning) since she points out that it is not in NY’s Constitution.  But she seems to have missed the 14^th Amendment, which applies all of the Bill of Rights, including the 2^nd Amendment, to the states.  Therefore, it is of no consequence if it is in or out of NY’s Constitution; 2A still is governing constitutional law in NY State.     

Jackson is apparently familiar with the sayings of Barack Obama and various other leftist gun grabbers who believe it is easier to buy an apple than a gun.   She adds under justification, “This legislation will implement changes to the process by which licensing for a firearm can be obtained...Perhaps making the process a tad bit more detailed and lengthier may also assist in discouraging purchases made in anger”.

A “tad bit more detailed and lengthier”!  Apparently, Jackson never tried to legally purchase a firearm before she became an Assemblywoman.  Has she ever heard of NYSRPA v Bruen?  It’s been in all the papers, lately.  Her bill would take legally purchasing a gun in the Bronx from rare to nearly impossible and in Upstate NY from difficult to overwhelmingly burdensome.  And as to purchasing a gun in anger, under her bill a person’s anger will likely be redirected from its original target towards a government that is denying a constitutional right by making it unduly burdensome and expensive.  If purchasing an apple were more difficult than buying a gun, apple growers in NY would be out of business. 

There are some lessons here: when gun owners don’t vote, these are the people who get elected to hold office and make the laws; the Left never stops trying to do a work-around on the 2^nd Amendment.  I would add that all politicians and their advisors should be forced to study constitutional law, but they would just ignore it, as they currently do.

Registered in D.C.  by Tom Reynolds

The Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 expressly forbade a federal firearms registry. Any records required under this act cannot be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by any state or federal government.  In addition, no system can be established for the registration of:

• firearms, or

• firearm owners, or

• firearm transactions , or

• firearms dispositions .

• In a 2001 lawsuit, the Pennsylvania state police could not identify any crimes solved by their registration system.

• In District of Columbia v. Heller II, the Washington, D.C. police chief could not "recall any specific instance where registration records were used to determine who committed a crime, except for possession offenses."

• In 2000, Honolulu’s police chief stated that he couldn't find any crimes that had been solved due to registration and licensing.

• New York and Maryland eventually abolished their registry systems because they never solved a single crime.

• In 2010, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police failed to identify any cases where registration was integral to solving the crime.

• Most importantly, registries don’t address already illegal crimes like: firearms trafficking; “Straw Man” purchases; and firearms’ theft

• Many states do not report complete data to NICS

• The Justice Department doesn’t prosecute background check fraud.  (It isn’t just Hunter Biden who get away with it.)

The FBI’s background check further requires that all weapons’ background checks be purged from the system

Seems pretty clear; governments cannot store or record firearms related data which would be the basis for a firearms registry.  The law would mean something if the gun-grabbers and bureaucrats in the D.C. Swamp actually believed in following the laws.  But as we know, they don’t.

Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL’s) keep possession of their own records while they are in business but when an FFL leaves the business or sells out to someone else, BATFE claims ownership and gets the records. Beyond just collecting, BATFE is now computerizing these records into a searchable database. 

How many records are we talking about? BATFE is computerizing about 900 million, in total.    

Issue number one: there is no constitutionally legitimate reason for the BATFE to claim that it has an ownership right to FFL business records unless the records have been seized by a valid subpoena. (In how many other businesses that go out-of-business, does the government seize, store and computerize the records?)

Another issue: the law currently calls for record destruction at 20 years.  Is the law being followed?  Will digitized records be purged and unrecoverable after 20 years?

Just to be clear, the NICS check does not violate this law.  Conducting background checks to see if someone can legally buy a gun is different from the government keeping a searchable record of those who own guns. What matters is what happens to the information in the background check, after it is over.

There is no legitimate reason for the federal government to have a database of nearly 1 billion firearms when it is forbidden by law to create a firearms registry.

Gun grabbers justify their push for firearm registration as a way to solve crime. If only criminals would leave registered guns at a crime scene, that might be true.  Leaving the gun rarely happens, mainly when the criminal is killed - in which case the crime is already solved.  Some studies in the USA have shown that over 90% of the firearms used in crimes were illegally obtained.  And in a Canadian study covering 2003 to 2009, three quarters of the firearm homicides were done with illegal guns and in only 4.7% of all registered gun homicides was the gun registered to the accused (including self-defense cases).  The bottom line is that gun registries don’t solve crimes.  And when one includes the expense of these registries in a cost / benefit analysis, the taxpayers are paying for another bureaucratic boondoggle.

Further anecdotal evidence that registries don’t solve crimes:

What are some of the problems with gun registries, in general, that prevent it from solving crimes?

Instead of solving the problems with current inadequate systems, the gun-grabbers want even more systems. 

With all this evidence to the contrary, why is the government persisting in pursuing a gun registration system?  Because it’s a prelude to gun confiscation.  You can’t confiscate what you don’t know and the gun-grabbers in D.C. and Albany want to eliminate all firearms possession by non-government entities.  (Commonly referred to as American citizens.)  That pesky 4^th Amendment about “unreasonable searches and seizures” gets in the way of house-to-house searches and seizures.  But if you have a registry, confiscation gets easier.

On the other hand, if you are going to ignore the 2^nd Amendment, why worry about the rest of the Bill of Rights? The answer may be, as one widely distributed meme suggests, “Why would the government want to seize all firearms unless it was going to do something for which we would shoot them”.  There is more than a little wisdom in that meme.  There are 80 million gun owners with 400 million guns in the U.S.A.  If even 10% of them were pushed to the brink by a socialist government…that’s 8 million gun owners with 40 million guns! 

And you may also have noticed that the Biden administration has made a priority of “Domestic Terrorism”.  Just a coincidence that it’s also pushing gun registration?  Guns are defined as Assault Weapons to justify laws against them.  Why not define gun owners as “Domestic Terrorists” to justify laws against gun ownership?

To read more articles by SCOPE President Tom Reynolds; go to our Briefings page

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