Attorney General Eric Holder still talking gun registration?...

[spin]

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Before the Senate Judiciary Committee November 18th, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed a stunningly broad and aggressive anti-gun agenda.

"The President of the United States asked that politicians not use the Ft. Hood attack to engage in 'political theater.' It appears those committed to attacking gun owners and the Second Amendment simply can't help themselves and are engaged in blaming guns and gun owners on the heels of this terrorist attack. Sadly it looks like 'politics as usual,'" said LEAA's spokesperson, Ted Deeds.

After explaining and defending his decision to give enemy combatants constitutional protections and the right to public trial in civilian courts, Attorney General Holder revealed his support for a national gun owner registration scheme and authorizing the government to ban firearm possession for any person by merely adding that person's name to the terror watch list.

Drawing reasonable conclusions from what Holder publicly said, we now know:

* Holder wants a national, permanent gun registration system administered by law enforcement. A registration of honest citizens that have cleared the federal background check for gun purchases with those records permanently retained by and shared among law enforcement.
* Holder wants new federal authority to prohibit any person on the federal watch list (reported to be 400,000 names) from buying guns and supports confiscating guns from those on the list who possess them.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/attorney-general-holder-reveals-aggressive-gun-control-in-response-to-ft-hood-terror-attack-70535237.html emphasis added

To form your own opinion of what Holder said visit the site below which contains a transcript.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m11d21-Holder-tells-Senate-committee-Justice-Department-supports-more-gun-control

[notesdev]

1. To be shortly followed by

a national, permanent speech registration system administered by law enforcement, a registration of 'honest' (read: compliant) citizens that have cleared the federal background check to express an opinion, those records permanently retained by and shared among law enforcement.

See what I did there?


What part of "shall not be infringed" do these people not understand?

[GreenStormCloud]

2. Haven't we just seen the Canadian scheme to be a disaster? N/T

[spin]

7. It's in the process of being repealed...

Now that MPs have voted 164-137 to repeal the registry of long guns and shotguns, several realities stand out in the whole emotional question of the gun registry.

For starters, gun registration has cut down on neither crime nor gun violence -- and forget the support given the program by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. Try asking individual cops, and you get a different, non-political answer.

The idea that police rely on the registry in the detection of crime, makes no sense. When you get down to it, no one has an accurate idea of how many guns there are in Canada, or who owns them.

Officially, three million Canadians own seven million guns. (The Toronto Star's editorial board thinks two million are gun owners). Two or three million gun owners in a population of 33 million? Who is kidding whom?

In the mid-1970s, when gun registration was barely hinted at and Canada's population was under 25 million, it was estimated that seven million Canadians owned 21 million firearms. How come such a discrepancy, when our population has grown by 25% from those days?

The answer is that there are literally millions of unregistered hunting rifles and shotguns out there that Canadians haven't registered and aren't declaring -- and aren't using to commit crimes.

If you accept this -- and how can you not, if you check the record -- the gun registry is little but an expensive, unnecessary, largely useless waste of time. Bureaucratic boondoggle aptly describes the program.
http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/peter_worthington/2009/11/14/11743116-sun.html

[taurus145]

3. I smell California

We just want you to register those guns so we know where the EBR's are. We won't take them from you.

Hand them in or go to prison.

[spin]

5. We will have to build a hell of a lot of prisons...

and put a lot of previously honest citizens in jail to make registration work. There are 80 million gun owners in this country and a very high percentage will refuse to register their weapons. No current records exist. Some estimates say there may be 300 million unregistered firearms in circulation right now.

Despite promises, gun owners know that registration leads to confiscation. If there was registration today, the extreme anti-gun liberal faction of the Democratic Party would be calling for confiscation of the "cop-killer" FN FiveseveN pistol used in the shooting at Fort Hood.

[PavePusher]

8. They'll also have to dig more than a few graves. n/t

[taurus145]

14. From what I hear

there are already quite a few holes being dug, but it ain't bodies being buried.

6" PVC, end caps and desiccant are selling stronger these days, as are silicone socks and Vaseline.

[Arctic Dave]

4. A PR outlet? Am I supposed to get all worked up on there command?

[spin]

6. That's fair and why I included the link...

to Attorney General Eric Holder's testimony. Unfortunately, I can't copy and paste from the document without registering. The document is in this link.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m11d21-Holder-tells-Senate-committee-Justice-Department-supports-more-gun-control

As I read it, I have to agree that Holder would love to register all weapons or at a minimum register all new purchases.

[Euromutt]

9. And there's plenty to get honked off about right there

From Holder's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Holder: It seems incongruous to me that we would bar certain people from flying on airplanes because they are on the terrorist watch list and yet we would still allow them to possess weapons.

It is incongruous, but the answer to my mind is to scrap that piece of unconstitutional, Bush-era-holdover, presumed-guilty-with-no-way-to-prove-yourself-innocent garbage that is the terrorist watch list. Both Feinstein and Holder need some remedial reading classes, and the reading material I suggest is the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, specifically the part about no person being deprived of life, liberty or property without due process.

Holder: The position of the administration is that there should be a basis for law enforcement to share information about gun purchases.

There already is. The only thing is that it requires that there be a current criminal investigation; you know, involving stuff like reasonable suspicion and probable cause. One would hope that the Attorney-General of the United States, as well as the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee would be familiar with these concepts, but evidently, it's too much to ask for.

Frankly, where civil liberties are concerned, the Obama administration has, so far, been a disappointment.

[westerm]

10. Agreed

If you call yourself a progressive or a liberal and you think that it's acceptable to revoke rights based on a secret list with no appeal/removal process, well, you're pretty much human garbage. Not referring to you, Euromutt, but to the people who will inevitably come to defend this.

[eqfan592]

11. Couldn't agree more here.

Very eloquently laid out as usual, Euromutt. :)

[AtheistCrusader]

12. All right, sign right up if you think continuing to screw with people via Bush's 'terror watch list'

is a good idea, since in this particular cast, it messes with people who own guns.

Go ahead. Defend this Bush era bullshit. I dare you. No due process for you, get off the fucking bus.

[spin]

13. The terrorist watch list needs to go...

If you support the Constitution you would have a difficult time defending the terrorist watch list.

Plus the watch list is poorly set up and inefficient.

Nearly eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI's terrorist watch list is so flawed that at least 10 people who should have been kept out of the United States were allowed to cross its borders, an internal audit released Wednesday shows.

Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn A. Fine concluded that the bureau also was slow to remove names that should not have been on the list, leading to outcries from civil libertarians who have long been critical.

The list also audited more than 65,000 names and concluded that more than one-third were outdated. The whole list includes 1.1 million names, though aliases and variant spellings mean these represent fewer people.

"That the FBI continues to fail to place subjects of terrorism investigations on the watch list is unacceptable," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which has oversight of the FBI.

"Disturbingly, today's report reveals that in 72 percent of the cases, the FBI has also failed to remove subjects from the list in a timely manner. ... Given the very real and negative consequences to which people on the watch list are subjected, this is unacceptable."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/07/gaps-in-fbi-watch-list-let-terror-suspects-into-us/