One Hundred Million Bullets

The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest Vol: 136 Issue: 15 - Tuesday, January 15, 2013

One Hundred Million Bullets The Obama White House is reportedly preparing some nineteen different executive orders that it can use to circumvent the Congress and the courts in order to violate the Second Amendment. Wow!  What a sentence! The White House is the Executive Branch of government.  It has no authority to write laws, pass new laws or re-interpret or ignore existing laws. The writing and passage of new laws is entirely the function of Congress, which has no authority to delegate it away to the Executive Branch. The authority to review laws, re-interpret laws or rescind existing laws on Constitutional grounds is entirely the function of the Judiciary Branch. The Judiciary has no authority to re-write laws or ignore existing laws.  The Judiciary can overturn existing laws on Constitutional grounds, but it cannot ignore existing laws because it doesn't like them. Amendments to the Constitution cannot be modified, rewritten, changed, rescinded or ignored without first going through a carefully-drawn out process. An amendment can only be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress or by a special convention summoned by Congress on the petition of two-thirds (34) of the state legislatures. After passing the Congress, an amendment must be sent to the states for ratification.  Ratification requires the consent of three-quarters of the state legislatures or the approval of three-quarters of the delegates to special state conventions. Now, to return to the language of the Second Amendment.  Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in Heller vs. the District of Columbia, noted that in every instance in the Constitution, a "right" attributed to "the people" refers exclusively to an individual's right. In its decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the term "keep and bear arms" meant the individual right to both own and to carry weapons. The dissenting justices in Heller attempted to argue that the 2nd Amendment was an effort by the government to give itself the right to bear arms, but since governments automatically have the right to bear arms as a function of their sovereign existence, the 2nd Amendment was upheld as an individual right. First, let's look at the Second Amendment as it was ratified and signed into law: "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." So, by every possible understanding of what is going on in Washington, the effort by the White House to introduce gun control by Executive Order is an effort to "infringe" on the rights of the people to keep and bear arms. Of course, words have little meaning when they are being used by Democrats. Bill Clinton attempted to win his perjury deposition by disputing what the meaning of the word "is" is when trying to justify using his office to hide his extramarital affairs.  (Now, he's Father of the Year.) The way Obama is attempting to redefine "infringe" will probably earn him the title of Democrat of the Year.  Or perhaps, Dictator of the Year? To "infringe" according to the dictionary, means to "actively break the terms of a law or agreement, or to act so as to limit, undermine, or encroach on (something) -- in this case, a citizen's Constitutional guarantees. The arguments being offered in favor of gun control are deliberately dishonest. Study after study has demonstrated that the areas where crime is lowest are areas where firearm ownership is the most dense.  The fewer firearms that are in the hands of the population, the higher the crime rate. Since the Supreme Court ruled on the Second Amendment in Heller, the number of guns in private hands has almost doubled, while instances of violent crime have halved.  Ten of the fifteen states with the highest rates of homicide also have the most restrictive gun laws. Proponents of gun control argue that citizens are adequately protected by police.  The law forbids police from protecting citizens.  If you doubt it, call the cops and tell them you think you are about to be robbed.  They'll tell you they can't do anything until after you have been robbed. They cannot protect you.  But maybe they might be able to avenge you. Assessment: I note with interest that the guns the government seems most interested in going after aren't handguns. Instead, they are focused almost exclusively on "assault" weapons.  What is an assault weapon? The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban defined an "assault weapon" as a semiautomatic weapon with a detachable magazine (of any size) that has a bayonet mount and a pistol grip, like an AR-15. Common sense argues that any weapon used to assault a person, like a hammer or a knife, is an assault weapon.  What is described here is a hunting rifle. For the record, hunting rifles are among the least-often used weapons in mass shootings.  But they are among the most often-used weapons by citizens in revolt against tyranny. Human nature, hasn't changed much since the Babylonian Captivity of the children of Israel.  A serious reading of history teaches us that any time a population is disarmed under the modern state, the potential for tyranny and genocide can result.  For those who recite the mantra, "it can't happen here," they are simply deluding themselves. One salient reason the United States has never been invaded by a foreign power is because the population has remained armed under the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution.  Those who own firearms in this country understand this and will do what is necessary to protect their freedoms. It is interesting that at the same time the White House is orchestrating the big push to disarm American citizens, it is rushing to arm itself.  Recently the Social Security Administration came under fire (pardon the pun) after it ordered 174,000 rounds of .357 Sig Sauer hollow-point ammunition. NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) put in an order for 46,000 rounds of hollow point ammunition, which it said it was ordering for the National Weather Service.  The Department of Homeland Security put in an order for an additional 200 million rounds of hollow point ammunition to augment the 750 million rounds it bought last year. The number of bullets purchased by the DHS now adds up to a staggering 1.4 billion over the last six months alone, before declaring its ammunition purchases a national security secret. The US Department of Agriculture ordered 326,000 rounds of hollow point ammunition for the Forest Service.  The FBI ordered one hundred million rounds of .40 cal. handgun ammunition. How many feds with guns would it take to shoot one hundred million bullets, anyway?  Do we even have that many? In almost all cases, the government said it was for "training," presumably meaning target practice.  Why would they need hollow point ammunition for target practice? Why would they need enough bullets to kill every man, woman and child in America?  And why is it that the only weapons the government is worried about are those that might be useful in a military confrontation? Enquiring minds want to know.  Archives of past issues of The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest plus many other Omega Letter member features can be found at: www.omegaletter.com The Omega Letter is published daily by Jack Kinsella and exists through subscriptions and free will contributions. © www.omegaletter.com