Republican cave to the Far-Left gun control agenda is about to commence

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Republican far-left Democrats gun control red flag laws

The Republican cave to the Far-Left gun control agenda is about to commence

In the days following the mass-shooting in Uvalde, Texas, the Far-Left, as expected, seized the tragedy as another “never let a crisis go to waste” opportunity to push for more gun control, and it looks like the Republican Party’s cave to their anti-Second Amendment agenda is about to commence.

In addition to the usual gun control talking points we hear from Democrats and the Far-Left following such tragedies (expanded background checks, assault weapon bans, etc.), Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is suggesting expanding the Supreme Court and then packing it with pro-gun-control justices along with calling for an end to the filibuster in the U.S. Senate to make it easier for Democrats to pass gun control legislation.

We’ve also seen a proposal for a national gun licensing program from Sen. Cory Booker that would require persons wanting to purchase a firearm to get approval from the Department of Justice in the form of a license. And retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, a man who once wrote a book calling for a gun control amendment to the Constitution because the right to bear arms shouldn’t be protected — the same argument Joe Biden makes — is calling for the Second Amendment to be repealed outright.

Ahead of the “red wave” many are predicting for the 2022 midterms, Republicans are trying to convince voters that they will prevent the Far-Left’s gun control agenda from seeing the light of day even though the cave is already underway.

With the full cooperation of GOP “leaders” like Sens. Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn, negotiations with Democrats and the Far-Left were launched last week by a “bipartisan” group of senators that included Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA).

Among the many gun-control ideas considered by the group is to nationalize red flag laws — or if your Susan Collins, yellow flag laws — an idea that has been near and dear to the hearts of Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal for many years.

Graham and Blumenthal introduced the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Act (FERPA) over four years ago. Under their federal version of state-level laws known as Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO, aka red flag), the Graham/Blumenthal bill would move the decision from the state courts to the federal courts.

For the “this never would happen if Trump were still in the White House” crowd, let me remind you that ERPOs had the blessing of Donald “take the guns first, go through due process second” Trump when he was in office. Trump’s belief that law enforcement could  seize guns from people “whether they have the right or not” served in part as the motivation behind Graham’s FERPA legislation along with a pro-red-flag law introduced by Marco Rubio that uses tax money to incentivize bribe states to pass them.

Speaking of Rubio, the Florida senator believed in the concept of red flag laws so much during the Trump years that he teamed up with Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) to co-sponsor the Threat Assessment, Prevention, and Safety Act of 2019 (TAPS Act), a bill that puts red flag laws on steroids.

Rubio’s TAPS Act would have required law enforcement to give EVERYONE a personal threat assessment (adults and children) in order to single out those deemed to be a future threat and then “stop dangerous individuals before they can commit an act of violence.” Though it failed to become law at the time, provisions of the TAPS Act are receiving new life. (Emphasis mine)

The was also a House version of the TAPS Act co-sponsored by Reps. Brian Babin (R-TX) and Val Demings (D-FL (H.R. 838) that recognized “mass casualty attacks” as a “threat to public safety” that require “a proactive solution … in order to prevent future tragedies.” (Emphasis mine)

Donald Trump has always been pro-gun control and anti-Second Amendment and as president, he wasn’t shy about doing an end run around the Constitution whenever the mood struck him. For example, he used an executive order to ban bump stocks — an order that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down last year.

During his presidency, Trump’s anti-gun-rights agenda took other forms, such as:

If those three things sound familiar, it might be because they were included in Joe Biden’s anti-gun rights executive orders announced shortly after beginning his presidency.

In hindsight, calling Republican support of Far-Left gun control a “cave” isn’t quite correct because that implies the party was at one time opposed to the gun control agenda when the exact opposite has been true for a very long time.

There can be little doubt that Biden and the rest of the Far-Left have every intention of destroying the Second Amendment. Likewise, there can be no doubt about the Republican cave to the Far-Left gun control agenda; in fact, the odds of it happening have always been in Biden’s favor.

It’s tempting to erroneously dismiss the Far-Left’s gun control agenda and put our trust in the Republican Party to protect and defend the Constitution, but history shows us that Republicans only pretend to oppose gun control; they will cave when the time comes to put up or shut up.

I will close with a quote I have used in the past from Patrick Henry (Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Jonathan Elliot, ed. 1836, vol. 3 p. 168):

“Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?

“Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress?

“If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?”

Considering the Far-Left gun control agenda and the coming Republican cave, Patrick Henry’s questions are just as relevant today as they were 186 years ago.

 

David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.

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