Guns, Obama, the NRA & Ryan the NRA is aware fully that Obama caught the gun sentinels asleep at their posts Eric LaMont Gregory
... the new speaker is coming to realize that any misjudgements in the gun arena will make him unelectable in his own district, where the oust Paul Ryan forces are already gathering, ominously
All other aspects of Obama's recent executive order on guns, pale into insignificance, when weighed against the far-reaching and fundamental game changing nature that will come from research within the Department of Defense (DOD) on bio-metric smart gun technology. The DOD research and development will alter forever how guns in the future can and cannot be used and by whom.
This is why the NRA, who normally scoffs dismissively at such attempts at gun legislation has in this instance had to rethink fundamentally its game plan for the 2016 election cycle and beyond.
The NRA is aware fully that Obama caught the gun sentinels asleep at their posts.
It is regrettable that Paul Ryan, who became speaker because he was the least objectionable alternative, has shown no other course but to continue in the false footsteps of his predecessor, Boehner. While his doors have been flung wide open to the flood of NRA money and lobbyists, there is little indication that he realizes just how important a juncture the gun debate has entered. At the same time, the new speaker is coming to realize that any misjudgements in this arena will make him un-electable in his own district, where the oust Ryan forces are already gathering, ominously.
On the 10th of January 2016, on the Sunday morning Fox News program, while interviewing Obama’s chief of staff, the moderator flashed a graphic of the article of the US Constitution which enumerates the legislative powers of the congress. The intent, of course, was to chastise Obama for his nearly two-term-long series of legislation by executive order, including his most recent foray into the realm of guns.
Naturally, on the Fox opinion network there would be no mention of the fact that the politics of obstruction, the main legislative program of the Republican Party in the House and Senate for the past seven years, stands as testament to the fact that ballyhooing under Boehner’s delft leadership, replaced the development of laws and programs to deal with the very real problems the American people have faced since the advent of the Great Recession, which coincides with the dawn of the Obama administration.
Boehner’s replacement, Paul Ryan, has an opportunity, albeit a very brief one, to return the congress to its constitutional role as the principle legislative body within the four-pillared foundation upon which the American Republic is structured – an executive, a legislature, a judiciary and the people themselves.
Since President Obama penned the gun executive order, the majority party in congress has again lambasted Obama for trampling upon their constitutional sphere of influence, a sphere which the congress has abandoned voluntarily these many years in favor of promulgating anti-Obama hysteria.
Just as the nonsense-speak from the congressional majority about how Obama was trying by executive order to undo the right to bear arms was reaching a crescendo, a humble cleric from the south side of Chicago suggested that we should make gun ownership absolute and the responsibility of gun ownership absolute.
This is exactly what Obama has instructed the Department of Defense to pursue with bio-metrics.
Whereas, it is beyond the scope of this contribution, one should understand that the bio-metrically smart gun is capable, in addition to restricting the ability to fire the weapon to those who are bio-metrically pre-verified to engage the trigger mechanism, it can also record the physiological state of the shooter, at the time the trigger is engaged. And, from the physiological state, that is, it can be bio-metrically determined whether the shooter fired in anger or out of fear, fight or flight. And, from the autonomic (not under the voluntary control of the individual) physiological information, the psychological state of the shooter state can be inferred to high a clinical standard. A standard of evidence that can be presented as exculpatory evidence in a court of law, for example.
All guns, the cleric proposed, should be titled, in the same way that all vehicles on our roads are titled, and the title holder is responsible for that vehicle, in fact and in law.
It is not beyond the realm of the imagination or technical feasibility that ammunition, should also bear unique markings, and when purchased those identifiers would be associated to the gun title holder. If that ammunition is used subsequently, outside the legal framework, the title holder of the ammunition can be compelled to explain how ammunition bought by the gun’s title holder ended up being associated with a purpose outside the remit of legal use.
In a phrase, to quote General Colin Powell, "if you break it; you own it."
Eventually, as technology develops, guns will be increasingly smart in a bio-metric sense, to an extent that they can only be fired by the gun's title holder or holders. Parents will still be able to instruct their offspring in the proper use of firearms, and neither the title process nor bio-metric smartness will stand in the way of that generational process, and therefore the ability to have more than one title holder for the same gun.
In this way, there is no infringement whatsoever of the constitutionally protected right to bear arms, and by implication the right to gun ownership, none.
If, the current Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, had a scintilla of leadership wherewithal, he would seize the opportunity and spur discussions within the relevant congressional committees to begin to look into the matter of the wisdom or otherwise, of legislation to make all guns come under the requirement to be titled.
At the same time, there is nothing standing in the way of the states to exercise their reserved authority in this regard.
If, the congress does not act, the president can. If, the states do not act, the people, of course, retain the constitutionally protected right to legislate through the initiative referendum process, directly.
Whether guns are titled by federal, state, local action, or by the people directly, it is a very very good idea.
One, well thought out executive order and the bio-metric gun for all intents and purposes is a reality, and now the leadership of the NRA can wake up to that fact.