This is Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach, Florida.
It is a resort strictly for the wealthy. It costs $200,000 to join (doubled after Trump took office) and $14,000 for annual membership dues plus $2,000 for annual food and beverage costs. (None of those amounts, you may want to know, includes taxes.)
Trump is there currently, as he has been numerous times already in his first year in office, and enjoying the Christmas / New Year's holiday period. His time has included tweets, of course, including taking credit for returning the U.S. to saying "Merry Christmas" again, and lots of golf. His time has also included basking in the glow of his victory for the rich in the form of the tax bill he signed into law before leaving for Mar-a-Lago.
That basking in the glow has included a statement made by Trump that confirms the suspicions -- not that facts that support this, but merely the suspicions -- that the "tax bill" was a nothing more than a huge wealth grab right in front of the American people. Trump once claimed that, "The rich will not be gaining at all with this plan." Permanent corporate tax cuts and temporary personal tax cuts, except for the wealthy, does that?
Let's look at how the whole series of disgraceful events leading to this wealth grab unfolded:
On Tuesday, December 19, at just before 2:30 p.m. EST, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of the bill by a vote of 227-203. (All Democrats and twelve Republicans voted "no".) That same day, the Senate took up the bill and the Senate parliamentarian noted that there were some things included in the bill the House passed that should not be in the bill. Therefore, the House would have to vote again. Nonetheless, the Senate also voted in favor of the bill by a vote of 51-48. (The vote in the Senate was around 1:00 a.m. EST on December 20, again, in the middle of the night.) Twelve hours later, at just before 1:00 p.m. EST, the House, not surprisingly, voted again in favor of the changed bill by a vote of 224-201. Then, in the late morning of December 22, Trump signs the bill into law, citing the "rush job" on getting the printed bill -- I guess without scribbled notes in the margins -- and the signing of it put together was because of the media asking if he would keep his promise of signing the bill or not. Later that that same day, Trump, at his Mar-a-Lago resort, says, "You all just got a a lot richer." The White House tried to suggest that the "all" meant the middle class in general. Trump said, "You all just got a lot richer," to his fellow wealthy elite at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Yes, they did ... and the middle class just got screwed.
The GOP "tax bill", the greatest overhaul of the tax code ever, will be voted on this week. The House of Representatives vote on it tomorrow; the Senate votes on it either Tuesday, right after the House vote, or on Wednesday. I wrote about this legislation on the 3rd of this month and my focus then was on the just-passed Senate version. Below are some key points to the finalized bill with the updated figures from the Senate's version: > All personal deductions are temporary (gone in 2025), while corporate deductions would be permanent. > The top level of taxation drops from 39.6% to 37%, but that top level of taxation that currently does not kick in until $418,000 of income for single filers would not kick in until $500,000 of income ... for joint filers, the new threshold (that, in the Senate version, was $1,000,000) would now kick in at $600,000 of income. > Corporate taxation would become territorial, meaning only profits made within the U.S. would be taxed. > The child tax credit (which would have dropped from $2,000 to around $1,100) will now be $1,400. (More on that below.) > The top level of taxation on "flow-through" companies ("S" corporations) would drop from nearly 40% down to 25%. [*** Watch video below this paragraph regarding "S" corps.] > The overall corporate tax rate would drop from 35% down to 21%. > The estate tax exemption would double from $11,000,000 to $22,000,000 ... eventually to be eliminated altogether. > The Obamacare mandate is eliminated (Last I heard, a person would pay a penalty, not a tax, for not having health insurance. I guess they nicknamed it a tax so they could chip away at Obamacare.) I will discuss the child tax credit in a moment, but, if you did not see this video from my December 3rd post, please watch this twenty-minute video that goes into "S corporations", and "pass-through" entities first.
Regarding the child tax credit, allow me to single out Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who said he would vote "no" if the proposed credit of $1,100 was not raised. It was raised to $1,400 and he said he will vote yes. Whereas the $1,400 figure doesn't even split the difference between that and the original $2,000, Senator Rubio's gain of another $300 on the total exemption will translate to roughly an extra $25 per month. In my opinion, Senator Rubio made a lot of noise for a pittance of a return to gain favorable attention for himself.
One more senator I would like to single out is Tennessee Republican Senator Bob Corker. He voted "no"'on the Senate's version of the bill originally because he said he would not vote in favor of a bill that adds to the deficit. However, even though estimates show that this bill would add anywhere between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion to the deficit, he is now a "yes" vote. Why? An added-at-the-last-minute provision for an additional tax reduction on "pass-through" companies, which was not included either the House's or Senate's original bills, and which would give a huge tax break to people like Corker (and Donald Trump and his family), swung his vote.
In my opinion, Senator Corker is a leech.
I have another video I would like you to watch. This one is from 'The Dylan Rattigan Show', which ran on the MSNBC cable news channel from 2010-2012. This particular video is of Rattigan passionately arguing the case about how money is being taken out of this country, to the benefit of the rich and to the detriment of the country itself. What he talks about here is still true today.
It is no secret that politicians, along with big business and the banks, have been doing more for the wealthy that the rest of the citizenry ... long before Trump took office. No, it is not right. What Rattigan in the video above calls the "extraction" of the U.S., is continuing ... and is getting worse. As sneaky as they may have been -- and no, hiding it from us did not make it right -- they are more emboldened and brash about doing it. What they are doing is a power-driven, forced series of actions that financially give them something gratifying, but leave us with the unsteady, disheveled remains.
An assault is happening. It is a wealth rape of this country, and this "tax bill" is the biggest single means to that end.
Yesterday, in the wee hours of the morning, when most of the very citizens who would be affected were asleep, the U.S. Senate voted in favor of its version of the Republican tax overhaul bill. (The U.S. House of Representatives passed its version on November 16.) The two bills now go to a committee for what's called "reconciliation" in order to come up with one bill that will go to President Trump's desk for his signature. Some good things are included. Some. Consider the child tax credit being doubled from $1,000 to $2,000 and the standard deduction being almost doubled from $6,350 to $12,400 for single filers and from $12,700 to $24,800 for joint (married) filers. Both good things. Now consider the following: > All personal / itemized exemptions would, over ten years, disappear. > The top level of taxation drops from 39.6% to 38.5%, but that top level of taxation that currently does not kick in until $418,000 of income for single filers would not begin until $500,000 of income ... for joint filers, whereas the higher level of taxation kicks in at $480,000, the new threshold would $1,000,000 (more than double). > Corporate taxation would become territorial, meaning only profits made within the U.S. would be taxed. > The top level of taxation on "flow-through" companies ("S" corporations) would drop from nearly 40% down to just under 30%. [*** Watch video below this paragraph regarding "S" corps.] > The overall corporate tax rate would drop from 35% down to 20%. > The estate tax exemption would double from $11,000,000 to $22,000,000 ... eventually to be eliminated altogether. This video from the old MSNBC program 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' from 2010 will talk, in part, about "S corps". It runs about twenty minutes, but is still relevant and worth the watch...
There is much more to the Senate's bill than what I have mentioned above, but let's see who wins with it. The Republicans "win" -- I put it in quotes here because it is a shallow victory -- because they get a major piece of legislation finally passed in both houses of the Congress. Big business wins. Wealthy people win. The President wins -- he and his family, by means of his family's businesses, could gain anywhere from hundreds of millions to possibly even one billion dollars -- even though he claimed just days ago...
Some of the exemptions flat-out giveaways go to such small numbers of individuals, it is mind-numbing, but still an example of who these politicians really want to help. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, prior to the under-the-cloak-of-night vote, and following the clandestine handwritten "final version", highlighted just one example of this:
I described the hand-written "final version" as clandestine. This video from Montana Senator John Tester will help explain why...
The handwritten addendum was done behind closed doors with Republican senators excluding Democratic senators from attending. I would like to single out one Republican senator in particular, even though all but one voted in favor, Arizona Senator John McCain. During a vote in the Senate earlier this year regarding repealing Obamacare, he voted in the affirmative to move the bill forward for debate. At the time, he seemed the rare voice of reason from the Republicans on the issue, so, like many others, I was upset with him with that vote. It turned he voted that way because he wanted to see regular order followed and not a secretive jamming through of the bill. That did not happen and it resulted in his dramatic thumbs down vote on the floor of Senate on the final bill itself.
And yet, for all of his bravado about regular order in the Senate, including an impassioned "We're getting nothing done" speech just days before his thumbs down vote, Senator McCain voted in favor of this financial raping of the American people. Like the lies that prefaced this vote, it is hard to see how regular order was followed in this vote yesterday. Unless there are those in Congress who want to remove regular order from Congress, or simply allow that to happen. Here is a list of the senators, all Republicans, who voted in favor of this legislative abomination:
This latest act of Congress is nothing less than the behavior of traitors. Let me remind you that this vote took place in the wee hours of the night, around 2:00 a.m. EST. This disgrace affects everyone. Watch the moment when Vice President Mike Pence announces the vote...
They sure are pleased with themselves sticking it to the American people, aren't they? The ruining of the American public has been going on for years, long before the current administration. Long before even George W. Bush's administration, if you want to look back further than the past ten months in recent history. However, it seems that, beginning with the time of Bush's administration, the raping of the American citizen has become more and more blatant, and it gets more so year after year. They still, however, act sneakily. (Isn't that something our founders were trying to get away from with their establishment of governance here?) In this particular instance, they can argue that the debate and vote were televised. To that point: a) your amendments were handwritten, and not all of it legibly, behind closed doors, so full transparency was discarded like an old rag doll; and b) most Americans can watch a recorded copy of the vote Sunday or a summation and discussion on Sunday morning news programs, but that all takes place after the fact. You callously used the late hour to your devious advantage. One can bemoan about why in the world would they stick it to us like this. Their feelings are not misplaced, but the reasoning behind it on Capitol Hill is correctly placed in favor of the wealthy. Here are some of the reasons I would argue for this overreach: > Like-kinds look out for each other. (The rich look out for the rich primarily or solely.) > Republicans still support, to whatever degree, President Trump. > It's all about getting the win and not about doing the most good for the most people. > Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn now aiding Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation (and that investigation getting closer and closer to the President) making Republicans feel as though jamming this disgraceful legislation through before anything worse happens (possibly including some of them) is justified. No calling for executing the Second Amendment (raising militia) here, notatall, but we need a kind of revolutionary response of our own desperately. This is an assault, a pillaging, and a war on all of us. It has been going on for years and is being willfully accelerated at our peril. We must declare our own assault on our government and we must do it now. Complacency aids and abets these thieves. Here is my contribution: I have just written both of my Senators about how this current debacle unfolded, thanking them for their opposition to the bill (they both voted Nay), and offered a suggestion on how to possibly address this in the future. (If your Senator voted Yea, state how disappointed you are in their vote.) Now, to be transparent, this applies to both the Senate and the House of Representatives, but I am starting with the Senate since that is where this vote took place ... and yes, what I offer as a suggestion can be ignored or gotten around, if ever put in place, but at least it's a start. Your correspondence does not have to be long -- in fact, it's better if it's not -- but it needs to have, and get to, a point. In the subject line, I highlighted "Taxes". Even though my concern, based on the options their websites offered, would fall squarely under "Other", putting "Taxes" as the subject, in light of yesterday's vote, may garner it more attention. (Be attentive to being timely.) Here is the full text of what I wrote to both of my senators. Feel free to copy and paste it yourself:
Dear
Senator [Senator's last name]:
My
name is [Your full name] and I am writing to you today in light of the Senate's
passage of H.R. 1 (Tax Cuts and Jobs Bill).
Thank you very much for voting against this abomination, both in
substance and parliamentary order, of legislation. This should not and must not happen again! A stop to this kind of behavior must be put
in place!
I
would like to suggest a law or constitutional amendment be introduced that
would: a) require any legislation that affects a minimum of 20% of the American
public be debated on and voted within reasonable hours as to allow the public
to avail themselves to said proceedings the same day; b) prohibit any one-party
closed door sessions regarding such a bill as noted in "a)" from
taking place [i.e. controlling a body of Congress of a party must not be akin
to willful exclusion of the other party]; and c) require a minimum of a reasonable
length of time to absorb and debate any such bill as noted in "a)".
Again,
I thank you very much for your opposition to H.R. 1 and I hope my suggestion
may be helpful to moving toward preventing this kind of unfair activity from
being allowed to continue.
Sincerely, [Your full name]
Click HERE to find out how to contact your respective Senator.
For those for whom going out to a protest is their style, go out and protest. (Help organize one if there are none near you.) I sent the above message via E-mail, but if your style is to write a physical letter and mail it, or to make a call, then get to writing and mailing and calling.
We can no longer continue to do all that we have been doing so far. The people in Washington, D.C., are still doing what they are doing and their accelerated activities mandate we accelerate our activity. Get on social media, get to your paper and envelopes, get on the horn, take it to the streets, and do not stop!
This is Ajit Pai. He was appointed as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by President Donald Trump three days after taking office. President Trump nominated Pai for a five-year term as FCC Chairman. The U.S. Senate confirmed Pai for a five-year term last month. Prior to recently, Pai was notable as the first American of Indian descent to hold the office.
Next month, Mr. Pai will become far more notable as the man by whom big business will triumph at the citizens' expense by overturning President Obama's regulations upholding net neutrality.
"Net neutrality" is a term that has been floating around for years. It simply means that, aside from pay sites on the Internet (i.e. Hulu, Netflix, some sports and entertainment sites), access to all areas of the Internet is the same for everyone, thus the neutrality part of "net neutrality". You pay for your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to gain access to the Internet and off you go ... you are not blocked unless a site is like one of those mentioned above. On December 14, less than three weeks from now, a vote in the FCC will take place to make the Internet, theentireInternet, not neutral. What this means is that any ISP will be able to block anyone from accessing any sites it deems fit without any oversight. Yes, it is that simple: if they don't want you to gain access to those sites, then you won't be able to access those sites, period.
What this means in terms of a triumph for big business is that the larger ISP's like Verizon, Comcast, TimeWarner Cable, and AT&T (although this vote does not limit it to them) can charge you to gain access to those sites. No, not the sites that are already pay sites, but any sites they choose. ALL websites will be fair game for blocking and charging extra. It will be a financial boon for them. In case you are thinking a few steps ahead of me, this vote will not apply to just websites, but also to apps ... ALL apps.
In terms of the the consumer, it means paying more money, or some websites and apps running far slower than usual. Don't like being blocked, fork over more money. Don't like the way a website or an app is running, fork over more money. Therefore, what you pay to simply access the Internet will still mean you will have to fork over more money if you frequent any and all websites and apps your provider decides it wants to block or slow down ... if this vote on December 14 goes through.
California Congressman Ro Khanna looked to Portugal for an example, posting this on his Twitter page...
Splitting Internet access into packages means more income for the ISP's ... and more money users have to pay in the long run. Let's look at existing history here in the United States: > Madison River
Communications (a subsidiary of CenturyLink), itself not exactly a big
fish in the ISP pool, was blocking access to VOIP services. > Comcast was denying customers access to p2p services without
any notice. > AT&T censors a live stream of a Pearl Jam concert because
of disparaging remarks about then-President George W. Bush made by
lead singer Eddie Vedder. > Verizon blocked text messages from the abortion
rights activist group NARAL Pro-Choice America. > AT&T was blocking
various VOIP's, including the popular Skype, because it didn't want the
competition. > MetroPCS attempted to block all streaming services other than
Google. > AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint blocked access to the Google Wallet
app because of competition. > Verizon wanted Google to block tethering apps [apps
that make your mobile phone a wi-fi hotspot] on Android phones
because they were losing out on their own tethering fee. > AT&T wanted more
money from its users to access Apple's FaceTime app. > Verizon stated publicly
that the net neutrality rules in place were the only things stopping them from showing a preference to certain websites and apps.
And all of that has occurred with net neutrality in place!
Mr. Pai is intending to go even further than just eliminating net neutrality rules. He wants to block the states from stepping in on this issue on behalf of their residents. He has the gall to call this move "Restoring Internet Freedom" and it will, in essence, block any state from imposing its own net neutrality regulations. For example, should my home state of New Jersey, if this vote passes as expected, decide to pass regulations that put net neutrality in effect here, any company -- let's say Comcast -- can file a complaint with the FCC. The FCC would likely side with Comcast in its decision, and the net neutrality regulations New Jersey put in place would be forced to be rescinded. It is boorish, heavy-handed, autocratic, and unfair ... except to corporations, of course. The only freedom gained is for Internet providers to charge more.
With all of this at stake, there is another piece of this that is potentially nefarious. If corporations can block users from any websites they want to get more money, what is stopping them with this vote to simply block access to websites and apps, period? Not Pay us another fee to access this website or app, but access denied altogether. The truth is there is nothing to stop Internet providers from doing just that if this vote goes through. Add the possibility ... no, make that the likelihood of attempting to incentivize providers to do so for political reasons and you can see where this can go.
Mr. Pai claimed that, as a result of the expected passage of his proposals, the FCC would "simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices so that consumers can buy the service plan that’s best for them and entrepreneurs and other small businesses can have the technical information they need to innovate.”
Mr, Pai, we already have that now. Passage of your proposals will not give us what we already have; it will take it away.
I urge you, dear readers, to pass along this blog post and to click on the link below and get involved to stop FCC Chairman Pei's attempt to ruin the Internet for all of us!
ANOTHER CHURCH SHOOTING ANOTHER MASSACRE THE DEADLIEST CHURCH SHOOTING IN THE U.S. THE DEADLIEST MASSACRE IN TEXAS 26 PEOPLE KILLED 20 INJURED INCLUDING ... JUST OVER HALF OF THE DEAD WERE CHILDREN 8 KILLED WERE FROM THE SAME FAMILY 7% OF THE CITY'S POPULATION KILLED AND INJURED AGES OF THOSE KILLED ARE BETWEEN 1½ AND 77 (A YOUNG CHILD WHO, AT THIS POSTING, IS STILL ALIVE, WAS SHOT FIVE TIMES) BUT THE TERRORIST DID EVERYTHING "RIGHT" AS FAR AS GUN RIGHTS PEOPLE MIGHT ARGUE HE HAD MULTIPLE WEAPONS IN HIS CAR HE APPARENTLY PAID FOR THEM ALL NO, HE SHOULD NOT HAVE KILLED THOSE PEOPLE BUT HE WAS MERELY EXERCISING HIS 2ND AMENDMENT RIGHT BY HAVING ALL OF THOSE WEAPONS THE TERRORIST WAS COURT MARTIALED IN 2012 AND RELEASED FROM THE U.S. AIR FORCE IN 2014 WITH A "BAD BEHAVIOR" DISCHARGE BECAUSE OF ABUSING HIS WIFE AND CHILD BUT EVEN THE DOMESTIC ABUSE ISSUE ALONE WASN'T ENOUGH TO KEEP HIM FROM LEGALLY BUYING WEAPONS AND THE TERRORIST WAS DENIED A RIGHT-TO-CARRY PERMIT NOT DENIED TO BUY, MIND YOU, JUST DENIED TO CARRY BUT GUN RIGHTS PEOPLE WILL SAY HE SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN PREVENTED FROM BUYING HIS ARSENAL SO HIS DOING SO WAS NOTHING MORE THAN EXERCISING HIS SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHT AFTER ALL, HE DID EVERYTHING "RIGHT" KEN PAXTON, TEXAS' STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL OFFERED THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT: "As we speak, we've had shootings at churches for forever. This is going to happen again. And so, we need people in terms of professional security or in terms of arming the parishioners or the congregation so that they can respond when something like this happens again." [underline and italics mine] "RIGHT", MR. PAXTON, MORE AND MORE GUNS SINCE THE TERRORIST DID EVERYTHING "RIGHT"
AMERICA IS A GUN by Brian Bilston England is a cup of tea. France, a wheel of ripened brie. Greece, a short, squat olive tree. America is a gun. Brazil is football on the sand. Argentina, Maradona’s hand. Germany, an oompah band. America is a gun. Holland is a wooden shoe. Hungary, a goulash stew. Australia, a kangaroo. America is a gun. Japan is a thermal spring. Scotland is a highland fling. Oh, better to be anything than America as a gun.
Yes, we are, indeed, not only the free country to which many people want to live and aspire, but we are also looked at as the most violent among those peaceful nations ... and we are. Hands down, we are.
We have been shot at and killed far more often by fellow citizens than by foreign terrorists.
What helps to fuel that is the ongoing partnership among lawmakers, lobbyists, and gun manufacturers. Do they force the weapons into the peoples' hands? (That is a common argument the death-for-profit people make.) Of course they don't. However, does that mean that what they are doing is stopping or stemming the tide of increased gun violence in this country? Clearly, it doesn't. It shows also no desire for safety. The greatest culpability in a killing that involves a firearm is clearly the person(s) doing the killing. That is undeniable. If, however, your involvement does include willful intent to increase forearms sales and to increase access to weapons through relaxed legislation, you do have a level of culpability as facilitators.
Many times, when someone facilitates another, they do so out of either a warped sense of "better this action than that action" (merely swapping one bad behavior for another) or a sheer case of giving up. In this case, those in power are not looking to merely swap one bad behavior for another, and they are not simply giving up. Why, then, push as they do?
My term of "death-for-profit" that I used earlier this month goes along with why. Have you heard of the phrase "selling your soul"? (Usually, the phrase is used in terms of the Devil, but I am using it in a broader sense here.) These politicians and gun business folks are doing it for money, money, money. They are selling the soul of this nation for financial gain. The soul of America, as well as the lives of its citizens, is nothing more than a commodity. Yes, the weapons are the physical, more obvious commodity, but this nation's soul is clearly an expendable commodity.
And they could not care less!
Throughout this month of October, I have posted several times about the issue of massacre prevention (aka gun control), including mentioning the National Rifle Association many times. This is, of course, not the only blog where that organization is mentioned in relation to the isuue of gun control. As much as the NRA deserves whatever measure of condemnation it receives, there are other groups who think that the NRA is too soft. (Yes, the NRA is too soft!) Some of these groups are the National Association for Gun Rights, the Gun Owners of America, and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. They believe that the NRA has been too compromising and too lenient regarding some gun-related legislation.
No surprise, the common themes among these three groups are a perceived far-too-high level of anti-gun sentiment in this country and the defense of the Second Amendment. Their allegiance is to the belief that "gun control" is a code term for "unlawful gun acquisition". All of these groups, profusely assisted by politicians, are co-conspirators in mass murder and the selling out of the soul of America ...
... and they are using the U.S. Constitution, a guiding document to benefit this country, against this country to do so.
Gun control ... gun laws ... state regulations ... federal regulations ... new or existing laws ... This cause célèbre, which has become, if you will, a "cause ad nauseam" or even a legislative "cause mortis", has been a cause of concern and divisiveness for some time now. Most people might say that the big gun debate gained its first major push following the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981. In that attempt, Reagan's Press Secretary James Brady was seriously injured by the gunfire, leaving him paralyzed and in a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. (Reagan also suffered a punctured lung in the attempt.) It resulted in the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Action, or simply "the Brady bill", which went into effect in 1994 and established the national background check system. You would be correct about the big gun debate getting its first big push, in terms of gaining massive public and legislative attention. Perhaps you would only go back to the 1990's in this country, when debates heated up following the Ruby Ridge and Waco (Branch Davidian) sieges in 1992 and 1993, respectively. A shooting at an elementary school schoolyard in California in early 1989, led to the passage of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994. Or maybe you would say that it has been only as of late that the threat of the government coming for your guns has been at its most precarious and is as its highest level this year. Groups like the National Rifle Association certainly push that idea ... everysingleyear they push that idea, that is. Let us look back even further than the Reagan assassination attempt. The Gun Control Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson almost fifty years ago this month, following the assassinations of his predecessor President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the five years prior. This law dealt with regulating the interstate commerce of firearms and who were prohibited from getting firearms. Even further back, following the mob killing in Chicago known as The St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, the National Firearms Act was enacted in 1934 during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first term in office, and it put the regulation of machine guns, rifles, and sawed-off shotguns under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco (ATF). So, that's going back almost eighty-five years, a long time in this country for gun legislation. Now, here is an easy question: Is the presence of a government or legislation absolutely necessary for the sentiment of the government is coming for your guns to exist? Of course not. In fact, THEY'RE COMING FOR YOUR GUNS! goes all the way back to the eighteenth century, during the very beginnings of this nation. It began, not with weapons themselves, but with gun powder. King George III imposed a gun powder embargo on the colonies in order to lessen their defensive abilities. The colonists only had what they brought over with them plus small amounts being made here. If you have the weapon and you even have the ammunition, but do not have sufficient firepower, then you will be easier to defeat. It was the state of Kentucky that can be placed at the beginning of interpreting the Second Amendment as simply an individual's right to bear arms when it passed laws to restrain carrying concealed weapons in the late 1700's. The Bluegrass State's legislative body's desire for public safety led, ironically, to the first movement in this country of interpreting the Second Amendment in a solely personal manner. The case of Bliss v. Commonwealth gave fuel to that interpretation's fire nearly 200 years ago. Ethan Aubrey Bliss was charged and convicted in 1822 of having violated the state's concealed weapon law by carrying a sword cane (a cane with a sword inside of it). Kentucky's own State Constitution stated that "the right of the citizens to bear arms in [defense] of themselves and the state, shall not be questioned". (Notice the inclusion of the phrase "and the state" in the wording.) Bliss' conviction was overturned in the state's High Court and the concealed weapon law was ruled unconstitutional and, thus, invalid. The National Rifle Association would not be formed for nearly another half-century after this decision, and even then, it was for the sole purpose increased rifle marksmanship ... a far cry from today. Beginning on the second of this month, one day after the Las Vegas massacre, I posed the following question: Do [politicians] have a magic number (of deaths and injuries), whether the most at one shooting or a grand total, that needs to be met for [them] to protect us? Allow me to pose a similar question to all those who bang the war drums of THEY'RE COMING FOR YOUR GUNS! ...
WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY'RE WAITING FOR?
No, seriously, what do you think they're waiting for? This nation has been around for more than 240 years and guns have been with us the entire time. Native Americans, British soldiers, and our fellow citizens (during the Civil War) can all vouch for the second part. States have had their own governing bodies and courts, the nation has had a Congress and a Supreme Court, and laws have been made since the late 1700's. While King George III might have preferred disarming the entire nation, our government, in all its forms, did not come for people's guns in the 1700's, the 1800's, the 1900's, or in the 2000's. This fervor is nothing more than fear-based, the flames of which are fanned by vociferous profiteers. If the National Rifle Association, and others to be sure, say "they're coming for our guns", then they must be coming for our guns. If a politician does not stand firmly with the NRA or other death-for-profit groups, then that politician must be coming for our guns. Mention the term "gun control" and all hell breaks loose. Controlling something means to influence or to determine. Somehow, the image of an evil villain or overlord is instantly invoked. If gun control means that weapons of war are kept out of regular citizens' hands and that all firearms are kept out of the hands of the mentally challenged, then the "coming for" argument is rendered null and void. The ideas of "kept out of" (denied access) and "coming for" (seizing what you own) are not the same thing. No one likes to admit to being duped. I don't .. you don't ... no one does. However, all of those who have bought any firearms because they believe that the government is coming for them have been, very sad to say, duped, and will continue to be duped. The truth is that gun control is not gun seizure. The lie is THEY'RE COMING FOR YOUR GUNS! Terry
