GOP fear mongers about socialism while ignoring real threat to liberty: anti-gun laws

Last week, members of the Democratic Socialists of America serving in Congress officially introduced the Green New Deal, a liberty-killing plan that promises to end global warming and poverty while simultaneously curing every “social, economic, racial, regional and gender-based” injustice.

Donald Trump, members of the GOP, and so-called conservative media types like Sean Hannity have been busy fear mongering about the Green New Deal, trying to turn it into an issue ahead of 2020 — vote Republican because #notSocialist — but they’re ignoring a much more serious threat to liberty.

I’m talking about the end of the Second Amendment.

On second thought, maybe they’re not ignoring it. Based on two anti-gun stories in the news last week, Republicans at every level of government and their minions are working with the Far-Left to disarm America, turning the “land of the free” into a full-blown police state.

First, in a Newsmax.com article we learn about how the states are continuing to expand their power to seize the guns of law-abiding citizens without due process via the use of Extreme Risk Protection Orders — aka ERPOs or Red Flag laws. These laws allow police or household members to petition a judge to issue a court order requiring people deemed to be a “threat” to surrender their weapons to the authorities. No charges. No warrant.

Since the shooting at a high school in Parkland, FL one year ago, this Constitutionally questionable approach to public safety has been spreading like wildfire. The total number of states with ERPO laws has grown nearly 200 percent, from five to fourteen, since the Florida shooting and has resulted in record numbers of gun seizures. Sadly, more states are lining up to join in on the anti-gun fun.

The enthusiasm over anti-gun laws is growing in Washington thanks to some of the so-called conservatives in Congress.

Based on a host of anti-Second Amendment bills signed into state law (including ERPOs) by Sen. Rick Scott when he was still governor of Florida, Sen. Marco Rubio re-introduced the Extreme Risk Protection Order and Violence Prevention Act last month. Rubio’s measure would offer federal funds as a type of bribe to force every state into passing ERPO laws.

Just a few weeks after the Florida shooting last year, Sen. Lindsey Graham leveraged the tragedy to co-sponsor a bill federalizing ERPOS. Graham’s bill would give federal courts full jurisdiction over the states to seize guns without due process.

But hey, why go through the hassle of taking guns from law-abiding citizens after the fact? Why not prevent gun ownership on the front end? That’s the idea behind a bill introduced in Illinois last week, as we see in our second headline.

A Democrat lawmaker in Chicago has presented a bill that would give police in Illinois access to the social media activity of anyone applying to own a handgun. If it becomes law, the religious, political, and other beliefs of the applicant could be used to deny the application. In other words, the government decides who may or may not own a gun based on how an individual chooses to exercise his/her First Amendment rights.

The Illinois law is loosely based on a similar proposal made in December 2018 in New York. That bill requires gun-permit applicants to provide police with their user names and passwords so the state can access the social media accounts and internet search activity to look for “hate speech,” specifically: “commonly known profane slurs or biased language to describe race, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, disability or sexual orientation.”

The threat we face from the rise of socialism is real, but we must be wise enough to see through the politics of distraction. Instead, we need to remember that nearly every dictatorship in history began by disarming the citizenry, and that Trump and the GOP are working with Democrats to disarm America.

 

 

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David Leach is the owner of The Strident Conservative. His politically incorrect and always “right” columns are also featured on NOQReport.com.

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