Monday, April 22, 2013

Politifact: Obama Tells Truth, La Pierre Lies

PolitiFact

This week, the drive to mandate universal gun sale background checks and close the "gun show loophole" failed in the Senate.

President Barack Obama blamed the gun lobby for the bill's defeat, saying the National Rifle Association and others lied about the bill's content.

"They claimed that it would create some sort of ‘big brother’ gun registry, even though the bill did the opposite," Obama said. "This legislation, in fact, outlawed any registry. Plain and simple, right there in the text. But that didn't matter."

The NRA's Wayne LaPierre said the Association would never back a federal gun registry.


"That's what they're after, the names of good, decent people all over this great country who happen to own a firearm to go into a federal database for universal registration," he said.

Many U.S. Senators voted no on the bill fearing the measure would lead to the government keeping tabs on gun-owning Americans.

Angry constituents, such as the Arizona Citizens Defense League, sent emails saying the bill was "proposing the universal regulation of all firearms and their owners."

PolitiFact rated Obama's statement as true.

The government is currently required to destroy all personal information found in background checks, and the bill would have actually outlawed a federal gun registry.

20 comments:

  1. Apparently, Politifact doesn't know about ATF form 4473, the one that gets preserved in the licensed dealer's bound book.

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  2. Yes, the bill said no registries. However, the person who drafted it carelessly (or cleverly) put "notwithstanding" at the head of the clause enabling federal rule making. The fear was that the AG could use that as cover down the road, saying that a database of some sort was needed to help solve crimes, or some such excuse.

    Yes, this would be stretching the language quite a bit, but executives of both parties have a long history of stretching precedents and laws to the breaking point or beyond. This is why those who draft laws need to be as careful as those who draft contracts.

    This explanation was out there during all of the debates after the new language was published. Someone could have changed the language, introduced a new draft, offered an amendment, etc. Maybe they didn't because they never looked at our discussions to see what our problem was. Maybe they were lazy. Maybe they wanted to leave it in so that they could see how much wiggle room a court would give them if they passed it.

    Whatever the reason, the language stayed in, and the possibility stayed real

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    Replies
    1. Mikeb, I've asked you this before, but you've never answered. Why do you trust the government? Which is to say, why are you willing to give the government wiggle room? We've seen cases time and again when the executive branch, in particular, chooses to stretch the meaning of laws out of all proportion or simply to ignore what the law says altogether.

      Explain, please.

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    2. For anyone interested in the facts (everyone involved in this discussion except Mikeb, in other words), highly regarded attorney and Second Amendment scholar David Kopel provides an excellent argument for changing "Politifact's" name to "Politifiction."

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    3. It's a stretch, but we've seen stretches that are far bigger than this. Heck, every president becomes a fan of the "Unitary Executive." The whole idea behind that doctrine is that the president is not limited in power and authority by the Constitution and can do anything any other executive can do in any other country. This is based on the difference between the first sentence of Article 1 and article 2 of the Constitution--"All Legislative power herein granted shall be vested..." vs. "The executive power shall be vested..." The general idea is that the executive power is some broad power, not limited to what the Constitution authorizes the president to do, whereas the legislative power is limited to what the Constitution authorizes Congress to do.

      Other examples exist of torturing legal language. This is why we try to avoid language that can obviously be stretched. Most of these legislators are attorneys. If they drafted things, they know how carefully that has to be done. If they were litigators, they know how much they and their opponents would stretch language, whether it was statutory language or language in a contract.

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    4. Well isn't this interesting? After highly respected attorney and Second Amendment scholar David Kopel wrote a New York Times editorial detailing the objections to the Manchin-Toomey "compromise" (what Politifiction refers to as the NRA's "lies"), the hate group Mayors Against Illegal Guns demanded that the NYT retract it.

      The NYT has refused, and is backing Dr. Kopel and his assertions up.

      Clearly the liars here are Politifiction, Obama, Sen. Manchin, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and of course Mikeb.

      Absolutely amazing--the NYT backing the truth on the gun rights/"gun control" debate. I would love to have been a fly on the wall in "Furious Mike" Bloomberg's office when he heard about that ;-).

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    5. "Mikeb, I've asked you this before, but you've never answered."

      I have answered that, more than once. Do you think it's some kind of victory for you to accuse me of not answering?

      I don't trust the government. And I think they need to do something about gun control. If you think that's incompatible, just look at yourselves. You gun rights folks have sit still for unwarranted wiretaps, for indefinite detention and the erosion of many other rights but you won't accept the slightest increase in gun restrictions. If you were the freedom-fighters you keep saying you are, you'd already have been up in arms. But you're not. You're weak, insecure, self-centered gun fetishists, nothing more.

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    6. There you go again, being snide and insulting, as well as being flat wrong. I have opposed the violations that you named in many contexts, including on the Internet and in my classes. If, for once, you'd pay attention to who I really am, you would save yourself the trouble of making stupid remarks like that.

      What I'm pointing out is the incongruity of someone who frequently talks about how government violates rights, but then wants to hand over vast powers to do more of the same. I am consistent in my opposition to such things.

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    7. Mike,

      If you actually paid attention to what we said here rather than treating us as nothing but stereotypes, you would see that Greg, Orlin, Kurt, and I--and many others--have mentioned these other abuses. We have tried fighting against them just as we fight your attempts to institute gun control.

      Yes, we've been losing that battle--now at an accelerating rate since Obama adopted those policies from Bush and the Democrats rolled over and stopped opposing them since it was their guy executing these policies.

      However, running down a litany of abuses we've opposed one more time is going to be a waste of time. You'll ignore it again.

      Instead, the main point I want to address is this: you said, "If you were the freedom-fighters you keep saying you are, you'd already have been up in arms."

      The reason we are not "up in arms" at the moment is because we're still trying to stop this slide through the political system--the same way that the founders tried to stop it by petitioning the king and parliament over and over for years before our war for independence started. Yes, we're living in a broken society where the government has done many tyrannical things, but we still have elections, and some of us are still trying to vote our way out of this mess.

      Your comment shows a complete misunderstanding of what we have tried to tell you about our views of defense against tyranny. Many times, you or, more often, Laci and Jade have called us "insurrectionists" and accused us of wanting the blood of cops and soldiers. We have protested against this and tried to have a conversation on the topic. All we get in return is insults, non sequiturs, or links to smart ass graphics showing some bubba with a shotgun vs. the entire might of the US military.

      cont'

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    8. Some of us have Still tried to get through, ignoring these remarks and rehashing things that the founders or other philosophers have said about exhausting the political process and trying to do anything we can to prevent bloodshed, or making our own statements in our own words to that effect.

      All of it has been ignored, or met with mockery. Now you come along, point us to a long train of abuses, and accuse us of being paper tigers because we haven't started shooting people. Are you trying to goad someone into shooting? Or are you just so convinced of your own superiority that you can't help it?

      The reason nobody is shooting right now is because we're rational, moral human beings. We know that a civil war would be a bloodbath, and we don't want to have such a bloodbath, even if it means we have to live under some minor abuses.

      Are the wiretaps an abuse? Yes. But we don't feel like unleashing the horrors of war on account of something so minor. Are the indefinite detention laws Unconstitutional? Absolutely--and I hope Lindsey Graham and the others that pushed them get stomach cancer. However, they are not currently being used to arrest and imprison political foes--the worst abuses possible under them are still theoretical, though we came dangerously close to setting a precedent that would take us down the road to those abuses with the junior dirtbag from Boston. Thankfully, the President said no to the aforementioned tyrant in waiting from South Carolina. This time.

      I talked in a previous comment thread about how we've become a balkanized powderkeg, and I mentioned the detention issue as one of the things that has the biggest chance of touching things off. I Tried to engage in discussion on that post, hoping to foster understanding that might prevent the civil war that the pro-gun control commenter had expressed fear of. That comment was never responded to.

      Maybe you'll respond to this one. Maybe Laci, Dog Gone, and Jade will show up and actually have a discussion rather than slinging insults and disappearing. I hope so, because frankly, I'd rather we all live out our days in peace and get a handle on the government peacefully and politically before some Democrat tries rounding up tea partiers, or some Republican starts rounding up Muslims or environmental activists and we all get plunged into the darkest scenario any of us can imagine.

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    9. Your lengthy defense is not convincing. It's not people on my side of the aisle who talk about 2nd Amendment solutions. It's guys like Kurt and his buddy Mike V. And guys like you and Greg support and defend their nonsense.

      Most of you gun-rights extremists are full of it. You're basically one-issue gun nuts who talk big but don't follow through. Am I trying to goad people into shooting? No, that's Kurt and Mike V. You and Greg are too smart to do it yoursleves, but that's not true of many of your fellow gun owners in Tennessee and Arkansas.



      YOu guys are bad news. Guns are bad news.

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    10. Tennessean and Greg have, as I've come to expect, made the case superbly, but I'll add my perspective.

      I have been a frequent critic of the offensively misnamed "Patriot" Act, our nation's foreign policy that bears an uncomfortably close resemblance to imperialism, drone war against even American citizens, etc.

      Much of my criticism of these abuses has not been on the internet, so you can, I suppose, accuse me of lying about this. I'm confident that my history and yours will indicate to anyone who's opinion matters to me who the real liar is.

      Is it wrong for me to narrowly focus to the extent I do on gun rights--to, so to speak, "specialize" in gun rights? Believe that if you wish. Do you also believe that cancer researchers are morally deficient, for not putting any work into research for an HIV cure?

      I know the gun rights issue. I read about the politics of "gun control" extensively, daily. I'll leave the heavy lifting on (for example) privacy rights to the people who put similar effort into knowing that issue. That just makes sense to me.

      As for my choice of "specialties"? Suzanna Gratia Hupp perhaps puts it best:

      “How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual...as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.”

      I consider gun rights to be representative of other rights, and am very much aware that if all other rights are trampled, it's by killing the tramplers and their myrmidons that those rights will be reclaimed.

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    11. Most of you gun-rights extremists are full of it. You're basically one-issue gun nuts who talk big but don't follow through. Am I trying to goad people into shooting? No, that's Kurt and Mike V.

      If I were on your side, and a liar (oops--that's redundant), that's what I would say, too.

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    12. And, Mike, this is why I tremble for the future. I try to engage you in a discussion, and you dismiss me with a sentence. You again call us one-issue gun nuts and dismiss anything that any of us might have said in defense of other rights, and rather than discussing defending these other rights, you just go on to insult Kurt and give Greg and me a backhanded slap that we’re liars and full of it, but at least we’re smarter than Kurt.

      This is not how you bridge gaps or defuse tensions. All you do with posts like this is show that you want to take away guns so badly that you are happy to alienate the other side and push them away as rudely as possible, thus goading unstable people to do something that gives the government cover to ram through every gun control law you could possibly want.



      Finally, you close by saying that we are bad news. Greg, Kurt, and I have all been trying to engage you in discussion. We have all been telling you that we don't want to see 2nd Amendment solutions employed now or in the future. You are the one who has spat back in our faces. God and history will judge who is bad news.

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    13. Mikeb, I don't know how you can live with yourself, being either so desperately ignorant or willfully deceitful, but that's your life.

      Just about every semester for the last decade, I have raised the issue of the PATRIOT Act with my students. I explain to them that if an FBI agent comes to me and demands information about someone in my class, I have to hand that over, and I'd be barred from telling the student. If said agent goes to the library and demands a list of books that someone has checked out, the same is true for the librarians as it is for me. Your messiah, Obama, has done nothing to change that, other than to make it worse.

      This is repugnant to liberty. It flies in the face of everything that our Founders stood for. I sincerely hope that by informing citizens, we can put a stop to this evil and turn things around. I don't want another civil war. I'd much rather teach and write and edit in a free society. We haven't passed the point of no return yet, but we're so close to it, and if we don't turn around, we'll pass it and not realize that we've done that for a while afterward. Then will come the fighting.

      I don't expect you to answer any of us, other than to make more snide remarks. You're hopeless. But you have readers who may not have made up their minds or who may be able to learn things they didn't know before.

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    14. It seems like half of your comments lately are a criticism of the way I run the blog. You're continually whining that you're so frustrated in unsuccessfully trying to engage me in discussion.

      Listen, this blog is what it is. Stop complaining, especially since your complaints are exaggerated. My opinions about the issues are all over these pages. You make it sound like I never discuss anything and only respond with one-liners. If my way of communicating is not the way you'd like, too bad. Stop crying about it.

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    15. Mikeb, will you at least stop characterizing us falsely?

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    16. Mike,

      Sometimes you respond--other times, you give us one liners, logical fallacies, or flat out refusals to answer.

      Yes, this blog is what it is, and as the blogger, it's your prerogative to argue what you want, how you want, but it's also our prerogative to counter-argue as we see appropriate.

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  3. The bill does not “outlaw a registry”. It only says that the Attorney General can’t create it. If it is not coming from the AG or any offices underneath, it is fine.

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