Unforeseen Contingencies

"We" at Unforeseen Contingencies are celebrating!  Manchin-Toomey has been defeated in the Senate, and Feinstein's "assault weapons" (sic) ban and the Lautenberg amendment banning high capacity magazines were crushed.  The votes on each amendment are available here.  S. 649 has been withdrawn by Harry Reid, who threatens he'll bring it back later.

Manchin-Toomey would have made legal a national firearms registry, a prerequisite for firearm confiscation.  The bill explicitly mandated  federal background checks for almost all transfers of firearms, and forbade only the Attorney General, and no one else from using the data generated to establish a national registry.  This would have changed American law, which currently bans establishment of a registry, period.

There were other serious problems with Manchin-Toomey, and the bill was a shameful sellout by two despicable blackguards, Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin.  It would be interesting to know what they were promised for selling their souls to Chuck Schumer, but I suppose we'll never know.  Happily, both are now humiliated, as are Feinstein, Schumer, Lautenberg, and their ignominious ilk.

For an explanation of what was wrong with Manchin-Toomey, see these two pieces by law professor David Kopel in Volokh Conspiracy and National Review Online.

In the run up to the vote, there was a bit of drama as one pro-Second Amendment organization, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, suddenly endorsed Manchin-Toomey.  The head of the group, Alan Gottlieb, insisted that Manchin-Toomey was a great bill for gunowners (hard to believe since Schumer was behind it, and Bloomberg and his legal team behind him).  Gottlieb ended up retracting his sellout and has humiliated and discredited himself.  This Sipsey Street post and this one and this one tell the story.

Speaking of humiliation, in the wake of this crushing defeat of his gun control agenda, Barack Obama gave possibly the most embarrassing and unPresidential Presidential address ever given.  It was a bitter, hate-filled rant against his political opponents, calling us "liars."  That's a viciously dishonest charge, as Kopel's analyses show.  Standing next to him, Joe Biden looked like he was crying.  It's fine to mock them, but remember that these two are very dangerous.   They are unfit for any public office, yet have almost four years ahead of them to try to wreak vengeance on those of us. Well, that's four years for us to give these totalitarian scoundrels hell.  I hope they enjoy it.

This is a matter of the highest importance.  Obama really is trying to transform America into a progressive utopia, and that would necessarily be a totalitarian socialist state.  This is a battle over who is the highest authority, the individual or the state and the elites who run it.  It is crucial that Obama's side disarm their opposition; you cannot dictate to an armed freeman.  Obama's side just lost an important round.  Let's keep that going.