Burr & Hagan, Toomey-Manchin, and that can of worms known as ‘background checks’
Well, our two US Senators have thrown in with the Ruling Class effort to chip away at our Second Amendment rights. Kay Hagan (D) and Richard Burr-McCain-Graham (R?) voted for cloture on the grand compromise on gun control put forth by West Virginia’s Joe Manchin (D) and Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey (R). Instead of standing firm and reminding the masses about their rights under The Constitution, Hagan and Burr joined the stampede for fawning approval from the mainstream media, which has been milking the Newtown, Conn. school shooting for ALL IT’S WORTH. You expected this from Hagan. But Burr — not so much. What makes Burr’s sellout especially frustrating is that NO ONE really knows the details of the bill.
“Background checks” give the government one more way to nose around in your private business. These “background checks” that are being demanded for gun purchases — will they include criminal record checks as well as reports into ANY mental health counseling or treatment? Who decides WHAT offenses make you unfit to legally purchase a gun? Will a conviction for writing bad checks or fraud keep you from legally purchasing a gun? Those are not exactly violent crimes. What about folks who seek mental health counseling for stress or depression — say, following a job loss, divorce or death in the family? Would that restrict you FOR LIFE from buying a gun legally?
What about HIPPA and all of those other privacy laws around medical records? Who will review customers’ medical records to determine whether they are “safe” to sell guns to? The clerk at Wal-Mart?
If I recall correctly, neither the Virginia Tech shooter, the Gabby Giffords shooter, the Colorado theater shooter, nor the Newtown shooter had any sort of prior record of violent criminal behavior. How would background checks have stopped those crimes? The Newtown shooter stole his guns from his mother — who had NO criminal record, no history of treatment for mental health disorders, and had purchased her guns legally.
Opening up mental health records to government scrutiny may have the effect of discouraging people from seeking mental health care. Imagine your medical records being used a lot like your credit report. Imagine your ability to lawfully purchase something being determined by what you told your therapist, or what your therapist said about you.
During World War II, our leaders responded to a national panic about the Japanese by locking up thousands of innocent Japanese-Americans in internment camps. Talk about a national disgrace and an affront to The Constitution. Currently, we have opportunistic, devious politicians and a duplicitous mainstream media attempting to chip away at our Constitutional rights by whipping up a national panic over gun violence and gun ownership.
Burr is a disgrace. He has sold out the 2nd Amendment to curry favor with the liberal media elite. He needs to be primaried and removed in 2016. His treachery against citizens is also a good reason that we have a avoid nominating a squish like Tillis or Ellmers against Hagan.
This should become a legitimate issue in upcoming elections for NCGOP officers. The candidates for Chair and Vice Chair should all be quizzed on whether they see the Party’s role as to provide political cover and support for all Republican elected officials, even in situations like this, or whether they see the Party’s job to call guys like Burr who do this on the carpet, in public.
There should be a resolution denouncing both Burr and Hagan on this introduced at the state convention, and indeed at district conventions as well.
Something tells me you’ll see exactly that.
Burr doesn’t listen to grassroots North Carolinians anymore than Hagan does. They are both totally aloof from the average citizen. Remember that both Burr and Hagan also voted for gays in the military–even though our state’s voters overwhelmingly opposed that.
Unfortunately, grassroots North Carolinians didn’t pay close attention to Burr in his first term. That’s why he got a second, plus he played up his “conservatism” in year 6, much the same as Hagan is playing up her “moderate” image in year 6. Anyone see a pattern here? We had our chance with at least two primary challengers to Burr. I didn’t know either of them but I was definitely in an “anybody but Burr” mode when I stepped into the voting booth.
Watch both of this pair of turkeys vote ”right” when it only takes a simple majority and there are votes to spare. They will then tell us that they ”voted against it after they voted for it”. We voters will not be fooled. The key vote to stop it was the one they voted with Obama and the left on.
One other thing to remember is that we are where we are due to the NRA’s extremely stupid endorsement policies where they value being an incumbent or insider rather than a challenger of outsider more than how strong a candidate really is on the fundamental issue of the 2nd amendment. Their endorsement of insider Manchin in a close open seat Senate race in West Virgiinia in 2010 over a much more stongly pro-gun Republican outsider, was the key to Manchin winning that race and has put the 2nd Amendment in the crosshairs in which it finds itself today. That was the NRA’s fault and they should have known better, but they made lots of other bad endorsement that year, as they do every election year. Only an outcry from conservatives when it leaked ahead of time, stopped the NRA from its plan to endorse Harry Reid. Keene and LaPierre need to go!
“We voters will not be fooled”
Looks like he’s going to try and fool us anyway, if the following tweet is any indication. 😉
RT @SenatorBurr: I have numerous #2A, due process & privacy concerns abt Manchin-Toomey & will vote against it http://t.co/nN8BVtryap #ncpol about 10 hours ago