USA –-(Ammoland.com)-
“Sneaky White House budget provisions undermine the Second Amendment,” Emily Miller of The Washington Times reported yesterday.
“In November, the president signed the Justice Department appropriations bill, which included language… prohibiting federal agencies from facilitating the transfer of an operable firearm to an individual known or suspected to be in a drug cartel, unless they monitor the weapon at all times,” Miller writes.
“Now Mr. Obama is proposing to remove that provision from the 2013 spending bill, thus making it legal to revive gun-walking operations in the future” she reports.
That the administration claims the provision is “not needed” is hardly credible, and to do so under the rationale of “complete confidence” in Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department appears to be a slap in the face not only to Congressional investigators, but to all interested in holding those responsible for gun walking accountable.
Where this information came from is not made clear by the article. Per “General Provisions, Department of Justice” in the Fiscal 2013 Appendix Budget, posted on the White House website:
SEC. 219. None of the funds made available under this Act, other than for the national instant criminal background check system established under section 103 of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, may be used by a Federal law enforcement officer to facilitate the transfer of an operable firearm to an individual if the Federal law enforcement officer knows or suspects that the individual is an agent of a drug cartel, unless law enforcement personnel of the United States continuously monitor or control the firearm at all times.
This would appear to be unchanged language from Sec. 218 in the 2012 budget.
Miller also warns the administration is once more seeking to destroy surplus M1 rifles and ammunition casings. Longtime Gun Rights Examiner readers will recall the administration attempting to block the import of surplus rifles and to mutilate surplus brass.
However, again, from the Appendix, we see:
SEC. 8017. None of the funds available to the Department of Defense may be used to demilitarize or dispose of M-1 Carbines, M-1 Garand rifles, M-14 rifles, .22 caliber rifles, .30 caliber rifles, or M-1911 pistols, or to demilitarize or destroy small arms ammunition or ammunition components that are not otherwise prohibited from commercial sale under Federal law, unless the small arms ammunition or ammunition components are certified by the Secretary of the Army or designee as unserviceable or unsafe for further use.
Again, this appears unchanged.
Additionally, we are told Obama’s budget will restore “gun study” funding to the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control. That’s a concern, because veteran activists will recall many intolerable catalysts for defunding the use of tax dollars to promote an anti-gun agenda under the guise of “public health,” particularly then-Director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Control and Prevention (NCIPC) Mark Rosenberg telling The Washington Post in 1994 “We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like what we did with cigarettes. Now it is dirty, deadly, and banned.”
Still, both NIH and CDC are part of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Title V General Provisions Sec. 503 of the FY 2013 Appendix states:
(c) The prohibitions in subsections (a) and (b) shall include any activity to advocate or promote any proposed, pending or future Federal, State or local tax increase, or any proposed, pending, or future requirement or restriction on any legal consumer product, including its sale or marketing, including but not limited to the advocacy or promotion of gun control.
Here’s the thing: Miller is a journalism and Beltway pro, with access to information, resources and knowledge of how to ferret things out. Citing responses to the gunwalking question from Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Darrell Issa adds important corroboration to her report. If The Washington Times has budget information that is different from what is posted for public scrutiny on the White House website, or can point to additional provisions in the multiple and complex documents that challenge a non-accountant layperson to understand things, it would be helpful to those of us following their lead to be told the specific sections or documents they are deriving their conclusions from.
In fact, it’s vital.
UPDATE
Comment from Emily Miller:
All my work is well-sourced and thoroughly edited before publication. I will explain that the 219 and any other general provisions I mentioned are being edited because they are in brackets- that’s how to indicate removal of current law in the budget. To understand budet materials, I’d suggest you call the White House or the Senate and House Budget committees.
About David Codrea
David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. Read more at www.DavidCodrea.com.
