There can be little doubt that the unconstitutional abuse of power in response to coronavirus allowed government at every level to destroy many of our God-given rights. Now, based on a recent declaration by N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, it looks like coronavirus tyranny has become the model for denying gun rights.
Surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance we’ve come to know whenever government tyrants make such announcements, Cuomo declared gun violence a statewide “disaster emergency” as part of a wide-ranging plan aimed at cracking down on illegal guns and gangs amid a troubling surge in shootings across New York (via New York Daily News):
The disaster emergency order is the first-of-its-kind in the country and allows the state to quickly allocate money and other resources to areas of New York where gun violence is running rampant, Cuomo said at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.
The order comes less than two weeks after New York’s disaster emergency on COVID-19 expired, and Cuomo pressed the case that gun violence is on par with the pandemic and must also be treated as a public health crisis.
“If you can beat COVID, you can beat gun violence,” the governor said. “We’re in a new epidemic, and it’s gun violence, and it’s a matter of life and death also.”
Cuomo’s emergency disaster declaration puts into motion what he called a “comprehensive” seven-tiered plan.
For starters, Cuomo’s plan requires major police departments across the state, including the NYPD, to share incident-level data on gun violence on a weekly basis with a newly-formed state Office of Gun Violence Prevention. The prevention office will then track emerging trends and deploy state resources to those “hot spots” accordingly.
Cuomo’s order frees up a total of $138.7 million for gun violence intervention and prevention programs, according to a fact sheet from his office. (emphasis mine)
By the way, “gun violence intervention and prevention programs” is political doublespeak to describe red flag laws and other unconstitutional measures government has adopted to seize guns from people without due process.
It’s tempting to dismiss Cuomo and his attack on gun rights as just another example of far-left New York politics, but doing so is naïve and foolish.
Besides the fact that the development of this kind of tyranny and executive overreach has been taking place in the name of coronavirus in states across the country, it’s important to remember that Washington has entertained taking this same approach as a way to deny gun rights — and Trump gave them the idea.
Regardless of where you came down on the issue of the border wall a few years ago, Trump’s abuse of executive power when he issued a constitutionally questionable national emergency declaration to build it essentially gave the green light for Biden and future presidents to do the same to advance their agenda.
This usurpation of Congress laid the groundwork for the destruction of what little remains of the separation of powers and the role of Congress as the representatives of the people, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Democrats at the time.
During the Democrat presidential primaries, Washington Governor Jay Inslee warned Republicans that Trump’s abuse of executive power would greenlight a new standard by which Democrats would govern on issues like so-called climate change.
“Republicans ought to stand up on their hind legs, because they took an oath to the Constitution, not to Donald Trump, and reverse this decision.
“But if there are new rules, the Republicans have to understand that Democrats will play by whatever the rules are, particularly when it comes to climate change.”
After the election, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reasserted Inslee’s suggestion in an MSNBC interview with Rachel Maddow:
“It might be a good idea for President Biden to call a climate emergency.
“He can do many, many things under the emergency powers … that he could do without legislation.
“Trump used this emergency [power] for a stupid wall, which wasn’t an emergency. But if there ever was an emergency, climate is one.”
What does this have to do with denying gun rights? EVERYTHING!
In February 2019, Nancy Pelosi informed her Republican colleagues that Democrat president could use a national emergency to advance other far-left goals, such as destroying the Second Amendment.
“A Democratic president can declare emergencies, as well. So the precedent that the president is setting here is something that should be met with great unease and dismay by the Republicans.
“Let’s talk about today: The one-year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America. That’s a national emergency. Why don’t you declare that emergency, Mr. President? I wish you would.
“But a Democratic president can do that.”
In support of Pelosi’s warning about how Trump’s abuse of executive power will come back to bite him and the Trumpist Republicans supporting him, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) tweeted his own list of Far-Left issues he thinks need to be addressed using a “national emergency” declaration.
Gun violence is a national emergency
Climate Change is a national emergency
Income inequality is a national emergency
Access to healthcare is a national emergency
Building a wall on the southern border is not.
— Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (@repcleaver) February 14, 2019
It has become a game of sorts for Republicans to ridicule the far-left agenda of the Democrats as simply too extreme to be a serious threat, but I remember how they ridiculed healthcare reform when Democrats first proposed Obamacare.
Chuck Schumer and the rest of the Democrat leadership and the socialists running the party have been setting the agenda for the Party, and they shouldn’t be dismissed as the rhetorical rantings of extremists. Nor should we assume they will fail to advance that agenda, particularly in light of the noticeable shift to the left by Trumpist Republicans who have abandoned conservatism and embraced nationalist ideology to create what I’ve come to call “conservative socialism.”
Cuomo abused his executive power when he declared gun violence a “disaster emergency,” but coronavirus tyranny set the standard that will allow him to deny gun rights to law-abiding New Yorkers.
Likewise, when we remember Trump’s abuse of executive power and how Republicans let him get away with it, we could soon see Cuomo’s anti-gun rights action become national policy in the very near future.
Coronavirus tyranny essentially made our constitutionally protected God-given rights null and void, and it could serve as the model for denying gun rights to every American.
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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