Anti-gun Congresswoman Wants Americans
to Sell Their Liberty, Children's Futures
By Kurt Hofmann, April 8th 2015
JPFO writer contributor, © 2014.
Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
United States Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) has never met a draconian restriction on guns she didn't like, except in the sense that she would prefer that such proposals go further than they often do. This is the case with even her own legislation, such as the bill she recently announced that she would soon be introducing, "Support Assault Firearm Elimination and Reduction for our Streets (SAFER) Act," which she also introduced in January, 2013, hoping to exploit public horror and outrage over the Sandy Hook Elementary atrocity.
Although "Elimination and Reduction" of these so-called "Assault Firearm[s]" sounds like a ban,
it's not--as much as she would prefer that it were. From The Hill, quoting her own her press release (which managed to mess up the title of the bill, calling it the "Support Firearm Elimination and Education of our Streets Act"--how these guns are causing the streets to be uneducated is not explained):
Though DeLauro is in favor of stronger guns laws that would completely ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition [magazines, presumably], she emphasized this bill would not force gun owners to turn in their firearms.
The legislation would provide up to $2,000 in tax credits for gun owners who voluntarily hand over assault weapons to their local police departments.
That being the case--that it's not a ban--and is indeed entirely voluntary, some might wonder if gun rights advocates should find the legislation terribly objectionable. The short answer is "yes," and not only because it demonizes the very firearms that in the hands of private citizens are most necessary to the security of a free state.
While a "tax credit" might sound like a good deal for the taxpayers, this is anything but. What she is proposing is that the tax revenue plundered from the people be used to compensate the people who value wealth more than the means to defend life and liberty.
And sure--some might argue that a tax credit for some is not a new tax burden on the rest, but the legislation does not provide for any reductions elsewhere in the budget to compensate for the "$2000 refundable tax credit," for each of the voluntarily disarmed (and that's before we even get into the administrative costs of this boondoggle).
Compensation for that newly created shortfall has to come from somewhere, and, knowing Congress, that "somewhere" is very likely our grandchildren, and their children, and their children--and that's if we're sufficiently "lucky" to die off ourselves before the out-of-control deficit spending chickens come home to roost.
And come home to roost they some day most assuredly will. Our nation's friendly creditors are not going to eternally continue to offer us a bottomless credit card, and indeed, when the suspension of disbelief in our ability to ever pay off the debt is no longer sustainable for even the most incurable optimists, Americans will face a darkness like we have never known.
In that time of rioting, looting, starvation, and disease--all on a scale too massive for most Americans to even imagine, it will be up to private citizens to secure their lives and liberty--and their families'. And if DeLauro has her way, those private citizens will have handed the best means of providing that security over--for two-thousand now valueless dollars.
If DeLauro wants to buy your "assault weapon," tell her it can only be paid for in blood--and she can't afford it.
A former paratrooper, Kurt Hofmann was paralyzed in a car accident in 2002. The helplessness inherent to confinement to a wheelchair prompted him to explore armed self-defense, only to discover that Illinois denies that right, inspiring him to become active in gun rights advocacy. He also writes the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner column. Kurt Hofmann Archive.
