PA Bill Number: HB1472
Title: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contributions ...
Description: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contrib ...
Last Action: Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT
Last Action Date: Apr 22, 2024
Columnist Upset That Gun Rights Actually Matter To Some People :: 04/08/2019
Based purely on the name, the Violence Against Women Act sounds like a slam dunk as far as legislation goes. After all, who would actively oppose a law designed to protect women from violence?
Ordinarily, no one. However, Democrats felt the need to inject anti-gun language into the bill. Now, Republicans are working against it, and some supposed “thinkers” are upset at the idea [emphasis mine]:
Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act should have been a layup in Congress. I mean, c’mon.
There is bipartisan agreement that this a good law.
Statistics paint a damning picture of the danger women can face when an ex-husband or boyfriend can’t let it go.
The Violence Policy Center issued a report entitled “When Men Murder Women.” FBI data from 2015 and showed 928 female murder victims were either wives or “intimate acquaintances” of the man who killed them.
But as Congress debated reauthorizing the 25-year-old law, it turned into a debate over – wait for it – Second Amendment rights.
Democrats wanted to close the so-called “boyfriend loophole” where an unmarried partner convicted of abuse can own a weapon. Spouses and ex-spouses already are prohibited from gun ownership.
Uh oh. We live in a world where nothing matters more than the almighty Second Amendment rights. That’s true even when the subject is violence against women. You know what happened next, don’t you?
While that comment about nothing matters more than the Second Amendment is meant facetiously, it’s accurate. Almost nothing does matter more than Second Amendment rights.
You see, what the writer–Joe Hernandez at Florida Politics–doesn’t understand about Second Amendment rights is that they’re freaking rights protected by the United States Constitution. They’re no different than someone’s freedom of speech or protection against unreasonable search and seizure. These are basic civil liberties protected by the Constitution.
They don’t get rolled back just because it’s convenient. Rights don’t work that way.
While Hernandez continues by going into the tired old anti-gun mantra of the GOP being bought and paid for by the NRA while never acknowledging that anti-gun organizations also contributed heavily to campaigns, he glosses over what he said above. He ignores the fact that he acknowledges that gun rights are rights.
It started with felons. Then it was domestic abusers as the term was understood then. Now they want to expand that to still more people who have never been convicted of a felony.
It won’t stop there. There are some who want to bar people from buying guns for DUI convictions, this despite there being no link to speak of between DUI convictions and gun violence. There are others who want anyone whose name appears on the No Fly List to not be able to purchase a gun. Nevermind the untold number of people who have no ties to terrorism except sharing a name with a suspected terrorist.
Over and over again, the anti-gunners want to expand the people who can’t buy a gun.
But no, Mr. Hernandez, your facetious comment is right. Nothing is more important than our Second Amendment rights. Especially since those rights also empower women to shoot abusive thugs in the face self-defense.
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/
https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2019/04/08/columnist-upset-gun-rights-actually-matter-people/
