Exactly Who are the Cowards Here?

      This morning CBS did a lengthy segment on the Democrat’s sit-in to force a vote on two gun control measures that have been on the administration’s agenda for years now. Background checks at gun shows, and barring anybody on the no-fly list from buying a gun. The latter measure is usually expressed as “keeping guns out of terrorist’s hands.” Trying to portray Republican’s as puppets of the NRA, the Democrats are calling them cowards for not even allowing a vote.

CBS showed the story mostly from the Democrat’s side, which is hardly surprising. They had quotes from John Lewis, Gabby Gifford, and others decrying the lack of action by Republicans to keep guns away from terrorists. But they did allow a very short clip of Paul Ryan saying that he was not going bring up anything for a vote that would deny somebody their constitutional right without due process.  It was the first and last time in the entire broadcast that anybody used that term. It went back to cowards-who-won’t-protect-us immediately.

I’m not a lawyer. I don’t even play one on TV. But I do know what Ryan was talking about. It’s really a shame that the Democrats don’t have any top notch legal minds available to answer the Speaker’s concern. You’d think that somewhere over there they would have some Ivy League lawyer, maybe even a Constitutional expert and scholar, maybe even graduated magna cum laude from Harvard (Obama) or Yale (Clinton.) Hell, I’d settle for the law schools at Syracuse (Biden), Boston College (Kerry), George Washington (Reid), and UW (Tammy Baldwin.) But apparently they don’t have anybody like that to explain it.  No, the only thing they seem capable of is making a statement that sounds ridiculous on its face. Who doesn’t want to keep guns out or terrorists hands? It’s that simple right?

Well, except for that 2^nd amendment anyway. And that’s where we find out who the real political cowards are. The very definition of a coward is somebody who does not have the courage of their convictions. The dilemma for Democrats is that the 2^nd amendment prohibits any infringement on the citizen’s right to bear arms.

 And if there is one thing that gun control advocates most definitely want to do, it is infringe on that right by any means necessary. So the path to that end would seem obvious: Repeal the 2^nd amendment. Except that that requires political suicide. In my assessment, the only honest player so far has been, ironically, Rolling Stone magazine. They are the only ones I know of who have endorsed repeal. Of course they are not a politician, and after discrediting the entire profession of journalism with a fake rape story, they may be just trying to regain relevance. So what’s Tammy’s excuse?

Do you know how one gets placed on the vaunted no-fly list? Me neither. In fact, Tammy Baldwin can’t tell you how. So I think it’s safe to say that getting on to the list does not constitute due process. You see, your constitutional rights can be taken away after due process. If you get convicted of a felony, you lose some of your rights, including the right to own a gun. The conviction in court was the due process. You may also lose your right to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness due to a conviction. But there is no process to getting on the list and therefore no legal way to deny a citizen their rights. Now, do you think that any of the numerous Democrat lawyers in congress understand this? Well they certainly pretend they don’t.