Senator Lautenberg’s Assault On Civil Rights Knows No Bounds

Opinion

Manasquan, NJ –-(Ammoland.com)- Literally within hours of the Aurora Colorado Massacre, New Jersey Senator, and contender for the Academy Award in the category “Best Impersonation of a Congressman defending the Constitution”, Frank Lautenberg, raced for the nearest microphones and TV Camera’s to continue his unrelenting assault on law abiding Citizens and their Right to own firearms of their choice.

Renewing calls for even further infringements on the Rights of law-abiding citizens as a response to the criminal actions of a single individual. Lautenberg solemnly ran down the “Top Ten” list of reasons gun control advocates trot out to justify their insatiable lust for power and control, wrapped in the emotional rhetoric of “reasonable”, “need” and “commonsense”.

Words that are intentionally and carefully chosen for their inherent open ended interpretations, words that have vastly different meanings to different people, yet have no place in any rational discussion about laws or proposed laws.

They are words used as a cynical sales pitch, worthy of the best advertising ever devised by Madison Avenue. Used to sell the idea of taking, by government force, just a little bit more of the Rights of Americans in the name of an impossible-to achieve level of safety.

And Founding Father Benjamin Franklin warned us of precisely this tactic when he stated

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Astutely recognizing, after long experience dealing with tyrants and those with tyrannical leanings, that the desire for control and power over others is the product of someone’s mind. So whether it’s 1775 or 2012, they feel no remorse in their efforts to sell to people the idea that they should voluntarily give up their rights and freedoms.

After all, it’s exponentially easier, and much more palatable, to con people into surrendering something of their own volition than it is to have to resort to force. Remember, this is the same Frank Lautenberg that was caught on videotape last Spring, gleefully exclaiming to a cheering crowd of supporters that “they (people that dont agree with him or his supporters) dont deserve their rights. but we will give them to them anyway !”.

Think about that statement and its ramifications. This is a sitting United States Senator, openly and with stunning hubris, exclaiming his feelings that he, with the help of his supporters will decide what Rights American Citizens will and will not have!

He will decide to parse them out, to people he deems are “undeserving“, as if, by virtue of the fact that he is a member of Congress, he even has that power to begin with!

It was with these thoughts in mind that I contacted Senator Lautenberg’s Office in Washington D.C. a few weeks ago, seeking clarification and comments on his remarks about the issue of gun control and his public statements that “no one needs XYZ gun or accessory for duck hunting” I was connected to a staffer named Sean, and, after explaining I was an independent journalist with a few questions, and enduring an interrogation regarding “who do you write for?” I proceeded to pose the following questions, asking that they be relayed to the Senator.

1. Why does the Senator, and indeed many others, feel that “need” has anything to do with a discussion of Rights?
2. Why does the Senator, and others, feel that the Second Amendment is only about hunting?
3. Why does the Senator feel that his proposal to ban certain firearms and their accessories would be any more effective in its results than other bans enacted by Congress in the past that have clearly and provably been dismal failures?

This last question really threw Sean for a loop. He claimed he didnt understand what my question alluded to and asked me for clarification. I explained that as a Nation, we tried Prohibition and it was a dismal failure of Public Policy.

It didnt stop anyone from drinking, led directly to the establishment of Organized Crime on a large scale, with its associated violence, and simply drove the market for alcohol underground, giving rise to “speakeasies” and homemade “bathtub gin“.

I further explained that we currently see the exact same results with the colossal failure of the ” War on Drugs”, with the same predictable results. Drugs are more potent, cheaper, and more readily available than at any time in this Nation’s History, Drug Gang violence is at epidemic levels in every major urban area of the country, at a cost of billions of dollars of taxpayer money, and the sacrifice of the chipping away of Citizens Rights with policies like “warrantless stop and frisk”, checkpoints on our roads, and the incarceration and warehousing of vast numbers of people for NON-Violent Crimes related to mere possession of personal use quantities of drugs. Giving proof to the adage that history does indeed repeat itself.

When I finished explaining things to Sean, I was met with silence and the distinct impression he had no rational response to offer. He said he had written down the questions and would ask the Senator for his responses and get back to me within a few days’ time. After not receiving any response back, I called the Senator’s DC Office again, explaining my reason for calling and asking to speak to Sean to get the answers to the questions I had asked. I was passed off to yet another staffer, who claimed Sean wasnt in the Office, and requested that I now e-mail my questions to him so they could be addressed.

Now, two weeks and several e-mail follow up’s later, I have received no response at all.

And I believe it’s obvious why. Remember, I was grilled about who I wrote for, the clear implication being an aversion to any perceived “hostility” from the press. It’s also clear that Senator Lautenberg doesnt want to answer difficult questions. Questions like the ones enumerated and presented to his various staffer’s, but also others. Questions like,

1. In the event a renewed Assault Weapons Ban became law, instantly making illegal tens of millions of firearms and firearm accessories overnight, would the suppliers, businesses, and private owners be compensated for their losses?
2. If so, by who? We are talking about 100’s of millions of dollars after all. And where would the money come from? Who would decide what a fair price would be to compensate those so affected? Would there be an appeal process in instances where the compensation offered was artificially low as a result of some ignorant bureaucrat pulling random valuations out of thin air?
3. How does one assign a dollar value to the loss of freedom and a right? Who decides?
4. What about the clear ex-post facto implications? Something that is expressly forbidden by the Constitution.

These, and others, are extremely important questions that cannot be ignored and answers to them must be demanded of people like Frank Lautenberg, Dianne Feinstein, Carolyn McCarthy, Micheal Bloomberg, and all the others who arrogantly view themselves as rulers, who will decide for the rest of us what freedoms we will be permitted to practice. They will decide what size drink you will be permitted to enjoy, whether or not you may have salt on your meal in public, whether or not you will make the choice to breastfeed or use formula, where and in what size gathering you will be permitted to assemble to redress your grievances, and what types of firearms and which accessories for them you will be permitted to own.

I wrote quite extensively about this “new normal” last Spring, in the wake of President Obama signing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), here are some choice and particularly relevant excerpts from that article.

The Founding Fathers universally agreed that the proper order of things in our Republic is that the Government should fear the Citizens and their ability and power to keep in check, by force if necessary, an out of control, tyrannical Government. The Founders enshrined that very ideal for all posterity when they wrote the Declaration of Independence. Read More

A Pennsylvania Court Decision from 1843 offered yet another warning to the Citizens of what would happen if they shirked their obligation to “guard with jealous attention the jewel of liberty”

Read the Court’s words carefully and let them sink in.

“The Constitution itself supposes that our representatives may abuse their trusts, and provides against such a contingency as well as human wisdom can provide. It is a consolation to every lover of his country’s welfare, that insidious or open attacks upon the Constitution cannot ultimately succeed, unless through the corruption of the people themselves. And when the time occurs when assaults on the Constitution are regarded with indifference, it will be an easy step to take refuge in the arms of tyranny. They will deserve to be slaves, because they are unworthy of the blessings of liberty.” ~ Commonwealth ex rel. Hepburn v. Mann,

During the Constitutional Conventions in Philadelphia in 1787, Benjamin Franklin emerged from the building on the final day of debate and a woman waiting outside asked “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”

Doctor Franklin replied simply and to the point “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

We are poised on the edge of a very dark time in the United States. The Citizens had better wake up, and right quick and start being proactive in slowing our headlong descent into tyranny, for gaining back liberty after it’s been lost will be much more difficult and result in immense pain, suffering, and violence on all sides.

With a thoroughly corrupted Fourth Estate, actively complicit in assisting the usurpation of Citizens Rights under the guise of “safety” the time is long overdue for We the People to start demanding not pithy soundbites, but actual answers, of politicians and the media alike. And if we dont start soon, we will awake one day in the future and wonder how we allowed our descent into tyranny to take place under our very noses, out in the open.

And lament the even more painful route back to freedom that could have been avoided had we taken action when it was so readily apparent action was needed.

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About Dan Roberts

More articles, commentary and information by D. Roberts available at That Every Man Be Armed.com