NRA Freaks Out After Obama Moves To Keep Guns Out of the Hands of Convicted Felons

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As expected, the National Rifle Association freaked out today after the Obama administration announced that they are going “to keep the most dangerous firearms out of the wrong hands and ban almost all re-imports of military surplus firearms to private entities.”

“Requiring background checks for corporations and trusts does not keep firearms out of the hands of criminals,” NRA spokesperson Andrew Arulanandam said in a statement released on Buzzfeed. “Prohibiting the re-importation of firearms into the U.S. that were manufactured 50 or more years ago does not keep firearms out of the hands of criminals.”

He huffed and he puffed, “This administration should get serious about prosecuting violent criminals who misuse guns and stop focusing its efforts on law-abiding gun owners.”

Yeah, wow. Sure sounds like Obama is tyrant of the highest order. Obama is taking aim at law-abiding gun owners — if by “law-abiding gun owners” you mean convicted felons and domestic abusers, which may be the same thing in Republican world.

The ATF rule would require those who register a gun to a corporation to undergo a background check, thereby closing a loophole that permits convicted felons, domestic abusers and others who are not supposed to own guns to buy them.

This loophole rule applies to convicted felons and domestic abusers. So Arulanandam is saying that the NRA does not support helping the ATF (law enforcement, by the way) keep the most dangerous weapons, like machine guns and short-barreled shotguns, out of the hands of convicted felons and domestic abusers — also known as people who are not allowed to own dangerous weapons for a reason.

Some facts:

• Current law places special restrictions on many of the most dangerous weapons, such as machine guns and short-barreled shotguns. These weapons must be registered, and in order to lawfully possess them, a prospective buyer must undergo a fingerprint-based background check.

• However, felons, domestic abusers, and others prohibited from having guns can easily evade the required background check and gain access to machine guns or other particularly dangerous weapons by registering the weapon to a trust or corporation. At present, when the weapon is registered to a trust or corporation, no background check is run. ATF reports that last year alone, it received more than 39,000 requests for transfers of these restricted firearms to trusts or corporations.

• Today, ATF is issuing a new proposed regulation to close this loophole. The proposed rule requires individuals associated with trusts or corporations that acquire these types of weapons to undergo background checks, just as these individuals would if the weapons were registered to them individually. By closing this loophole, the regulation will ensure that machine guns and other particularly dangerous weapons do not end up in the wrong hands.

The tyrannical Obama administration is not only trying to keep convicted felons from weapons of mass destruction, they are also banning almost all re-imports of military surplus firearms to private entities. This will help (nothing will solve, this is a matter of degree) keep military-grade firearms out of classrooms. Oh my god. He is so mean. Every private citizen who isn’t trained to use them needs military surplus firearms, because — OBAMA.

The NRA has had plenty of time to prepare for the Worst Thing in the World; aka, a modicum of responsibility for gun owners, who are really only free if they are allowed to do whatever they want with no oversight (whereas women are not free to exercise their Constitutional freedom because these same conservatives find some constitutional freedoms to be worthless).

The Obama administration announced what they were going to do on January 16, 2013. They told us then that they would act as they far as they could without Congress, by using 23 executive actions. Twenty-two of them have already been implemented. Today they followed up by closing another loophole.

In NRA/Republican speak, keeping weapons out of convicted felons hands = focusing on “law-abiding gun owners”. Keeping it mainstream, NRA.

Sarah Jones

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