Background Checks

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

As noted in previous blog posts, there are a multitude of legislative and thus political issues rising to the forefront of national discourse. The Madison Conservative will approach all of them from the point of any given issue and its ramifications and realities as they may relate to the United States Constitution. There are many from the entire political and media spectrum that have chosen, and will choose, to address these issues as they relate to the ’feelings’ involved. While a component for some, the Madison Conservative considers such perspectives to be useless, pointless and cowardly. Government is not based upon feelings, or any other emotional foundation.

Once stripped of the emotional, all that remains are the harsh and complex realities that these issues require substantive and thoughtful solutions and cannot be addressed with simple catch-phrases and bumper sticker ideology.

This particular post will consider the attempts made by the political class to answer the concerns of the electorate in the aftermath of the horrific Newtown school shooting.

The issue, once stripped of the emotional content, is not resolved by banning weapons and stronger background checks, despite what the political class and their media flacks would try to have the American people believe.

The framers and founders had sufficient experience with tyranny and an unrestricted government. They wrote their new Constitution with the deliberate intent of limiting the scope and power of the government. While many point to the second amendment as their sole defense and bulwark to spurn any further gun control, that is a limited view and disregards the wider breadth of the peoples right to thwart off an ever encroaching government.

This is little doubt of the framers fears when the second, third and fourth amendments are taken together to appreciate that they had no illusions of a utopian federal government but rather had a clear and concise understanding of the need to curtail an unchecked federal bureaucracy.

To wit:

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The Third Amendment:

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

The Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

One hundred and thirteen words that limit the ability for the sweeping gun control the Obama administration and liberals in Congress wish to impose upon the people.

{It should be noted before proceeding that Chicago, Illinois has the strictest gun laws in the nation. It is also currently the murder capital of the nation. The founding fathers wisdom is still prescient today.}

The three amendments, taken as a whole, expressly limit the ability of the government to impose their will upon the people without cause, and provides for their ability to fight back.

It is that simple – the federal authorities cannot infringe upon the rights of the people to bear arms, to allow the government to take control of a citizens dwelling for any purpose, unless specifically providing due legal cause. It is unconstitutional to take private information – their medical history, in this case – and make it public, which is in effect what the political left is advocating.

It is impossible to square gun bans and limitless background checks with the Constitution.

It cannot constitutionally be done – it is that simple.

Of course, those rights do not come completely unfettered of responsibility. One may not use freedom of speech to shout ‘fire’, absent one, in a crowded theater. One may have the right to bear arms – that does not extend to owning tanks and nuclear missiles.

In addition, despite what the left would attempt to have the electorate believe, there are indeed background checks in place for weapons purchasers. There are a multitude of laws that have been enacted to regulate gun purchases, but they lay fallow and absent any manner of enforcement. Adding new layers of impotence serves no point – the law abiding citizen is already predisposed to  following the law; it is the criminal who will find a way to circumvent any new legislation, especially attempts to add new guidelines to background checks.

For those who want background checks extended to include any history of mental illness, there seems no ability to answer two fundamental questions inherent in that choice:

1 – Define what mental illness is, and at what point does it remove a citizens rights, and

2 – How will that information be provided and data-based? It would seem that many would attempt to extend The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) to allow the personal medical information of a patient to be streamed into some national informational registry.

That is unacceptable, and no longer would allow a citizen to be secure in their property or personal papers and would constitute an illegal search and seizure, in this case a seizure of information.

These are not easy issues to grapple with, and a national debate must be had.

It cannot allow to be had by those offering quick salves to the problem. The American people must remain vigilant against an ever expanding federal government who is acting, the people are told, only in the nations best interest – to ‘save the children’, a convenient ruse used by many authoritarian regimes as a means to a tyrannical end.

We owe ourselves and our posterity more than subservient acquiescence.

The Colorado Shootings

It is apparent that events are occurring that require opinionated observation. To that point, we will be deferring the restart of our platform creation to discuss the Colorado shootings on two key tiers: gun laws and the media as a whole as it reported on this tragic event.

As to gun control, The Madison Conservative still believes, as was discussed after the Arizona shootings, that there can be limits on magazines with 100 bullets and still respect the full integrity of the second amendment. The Madison Conservative is heartened by Supreme Court Justice Scalias’ recent comments that there can be certain limitations on arms, but that the issue first needs to be addressed at the state level.

In the absence of true leadership, it seems that there is a simple answer to the immediate concerns on the issue of gun control. The solution would avoid the infringement on the constitutional guarantees of the second amendment and simultaneously allow Congress to do what it enjoys doing most – creating tax legislation in search of money from any source.

To wit:

Do not attempt to regulate assault weapons at this time, but put a fifty dollar tax on the ammunition needed for said weapons. This will protect that portion of the citizenry who employ firearms for sport or security, as those arms do not utilize assault weapon munitions, but the tax would allow the government an easier way to track purchases of the assault weapon magazines.

It is understood that such an idea is simplistic and perhaps unrealistic in that simplicity, but the debate must be had and the full constitutionality of assault weapon bans must be addressed. The tax would follow constitutional protocols that require a tax to be paid before it can be addressed through the judicial process.

The media seems to be of late an easy target for individuals and blog posts to criticize and critique for the woes of the nation and for perceived predispositions to one slice of the political spectrum. The Madison Conservative avoids that save for specific instances that require an exploration of the decision process employed by a media outlets editorial theology.

To wit:

In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, while specifics were unclear and details ambiguous at best, ABC News, at the national network level, opted to pronounce that they had found an individual with the name of the assailant appearing on the Colorado Tea Party list.

The question demands to be asked:

Why on earth was ABC News looking for a Tea Party connection first, and without properly vetting the information at all proceed to present that information, quickly proven absolutely wrong, to the nation? Many may protest that the mass media has a political agenda, but attempting to associate a deranged murderer with a political party is much more than a political agenda and ABC News must be held accountable. Imagine the hue and cry if ABC News had reported that the killer was a donor to the Obama campaign, and then that information was found to be false.

Secondly, and more importantly, a father of one of the victims challenged CNN, live, on air, to cease providing the name and photo of the killer, pointing out that it was merely feeding the need for similar individuals to attain the fame they are seeking. It has been a low point indeed for the media as a whole not to follow this suggestion. Many years ago it was considered comedic to race onto a baseball field during the game to garner some television attention. Major League Baseball quickly understood the goal of such imbeciles and implemented a protocol that any such individual would never again be on camera, hence the rare ‘on field delay’ provided by the sportscasters. And this is for just a baseball game; why do the media not understand this and merely report on the facts without providing personal information and mug shots.

The American people must demand responsibility from their free press.

Finally, amidst all of the convoluted rationale provided by all corners, here is the official transcript of President Obama’s remarks relative to ‘you didn’t build that’ fiasco. Taken in context, as many have stated, it appears worse than what is being shown on endless  loops on cable news.

To wit:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own.

I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there.

It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that.

Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

Mr. President – this is not referring to merely ‘roads and bridges’.

The comments have not been taken out of context – incorrectly edited, perhaps, but not out of context.

The smart, hard working American electorate deserve better.

The Arizona Shootings

In the aftermath of the horrific shooting in Arizona this past weekend, the usual suspects have once again exited the woodwork to spew forth their nonsensical ranting about the politics involved in such acts of violence. This is of course not a time for callous political calculations, nor a time to blather on with lame attempts to affix partisan blame. These murders and assaults were the act of one evil man, and our focus on him should be limited to assuring that his actions are met with the full extent of our laws. Placing any additional focus upon him is what individuals like this are hoping for. We should not care about his motives; he murdered six people and critically wounded several others, including a sitting United States congresswoman. His acts were that of insanity; to try and understand them would be to attempt to understand insanity. We should have better uses of our time. One such more useful endeavor would be to address our gun laws.

As a staunch Madison conservative, I believe firmly in the second amendment. The founders and framers understood that one of the first acts of a tyrannical government is to confiscate the implements of defense needed by the citizenry. The pundits can debate the degree of those weapons in the scheme of the ‘militia’ stated in the second amendment. What cannot be understood in this day and age is what does a citizen need with a magazine of 31 shots? The term ‘assault weapon’ is by definition outside of the scope of the protection afforded by the Constitution. The framers wanted the public to be able to protect and defend; assault is an offense maneuver. To address the sale of these assault weapons whose sole reason for existence is to fire the maximum number of bullets in the shortest amount of time should be the prevailing government action to come from this tragedy. Those who will cry that any such limitations on these weapons are the first step towards a loss of liberty are missing the overriding point and overriding question: does anyone need to fire 31 shots at anyone to provide for their individual protection?