U.S. Senate Bids to Ban Emergency Gun Confiscation

One of the great weaknesses of government is the temptation of officials to do what looks good rather than what is good. For example, it is easier to allocate more money to a program than it is to address the effectiveness of lack thereof of the program in solving the stated problem. It is easier to have quotas in hiring than to tackle real prejudice. It is easier to ban and confiscate guns from privet citizens than it is to apprehend and prosecute real criminals. In the later case that is what happened in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina.

While the city was drifting toward anarchy in the days after the storm passed, citizens who had no other protection armed themselves to protect their property and neighbors until order could be restored. The city chose to disarm these very citizens, not because they were a danger but because they were an easy target to attack that looked good in the press. To have gone after the criminals was too much like work not to say dangerous. If ever there were a case for the exercise of 2nd amendment rights this was it, yet the very government that was charged with preserving law and order exasperated the lawlessness by denying the citizens that right.

Somehow the US Senate has found the backbone to support the citizen's right to bear arms by introducing legislation that will prohibit jurisdiction from disarming citizens who are not committing crimes during an emergency.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) charges a Republican-backed amendment that prohibits the confiscation of guns during an emergency puts police officers and first responders in danger. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), was added to the Homeland Security appropriations bill during a July 13 Senate vote.

No surprise Sen. Kennedy opposes this. He and his ilk fear the armed citizen as much as the criminals do. It is hard to dominate a self reliant populace. What is remarkable is the Democrats who did support this amendment.

But Republicans were not the only backers of the amendment. Several key Democrats also voted in favor of the provision. Democratic Sens. Robert Byrd (WV), Barack Obama (IL), Ben Nelson (NE), Bill Nelson (FL), John Rockefeller IV (WV), Evan Bay (IN), Jeff Bingaman (NM), Russ Feingold (WI), Patty Murray (WA), Joseph Biden (DE), Patrick Leahy (VT), Joseph Lieberman (CT) and Mary Landrieu (LA) all voted in favor of the amendment.

There are some real anti second amendment people on that list, an indication that the original intent of the right to bear arms is being restored.

Kennedy, politics, second amendment