You, too, can be part of a 'hate group'

July 7, 9:40 AMSt. Louis Gun Rights ExaminerKurt Hofmann

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     Oleg Volk photo

I've written before about the recent focus on "hate groups," and how the existence of these admittedly unsavory organizations is being used as justification for the curtailment of rights, including gun rights.  I have also written about proposed legislation in both houses of Congress that would empower the Attorney General (radically anti-gun Attorney General Eric Holder, at the moment) to unilaterally designate a prospective gun buyer as a "suspected terrorist," without a conviction (or even a trial), without an indictment (or even a hearing), without an arrest (or even a formal accusation).

Congressman (and former federal judge--impeached for corruption) Alcee Hastings (D-FL) has decided it would be a good idea to, in a manner of speaking, combine those two concepts, with an amendment he added to the defense appropriations bill, H.R. 2647.

Granted, the stated purpose of Hastings' amendment is reasonable enough--the idea is to exclude neo-Nazis and similar reprehensible types from military service.  It does, after all, make sense to avoid giving such people military training, not to mention access to weapons.

One of the problems is that I don't really see why such legislation is needed--the military already has the ability (and the motivation) to avoid recruiting such people, or to discharge them, if they discover such affiliations after recruitment.  As long as 15 years ago, when I was in the Army, there was an Army-wide (perhaps Armed Forces-wide, but I don't know about that) directive for all of us to be examined, while stripped down to our underwear, for tattoos that would indicate allegiance to such groups, with the finding of such tattoos grounds for discharge.  What, then, is the need for this?

Another problem is that, like the gun purchase ban bills, this would give the Attorney General unilateral power to determine who the "hate groups" are--that's an awful lot of power for one official--an unelected official, to boot.  As Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) said on the House floor:

"While the amendment seeks to keep gang members and members of violent groups out of the military, the amendment by its language is much more broad. Specifically, it confers upon the Attorney General the ability to categorize groups as hate groups, and this sounds an alarm for many of us because of the recent shocking and offensive report released by the Department of Homeland Security which labeled, arguably, a majority of Americans as "extremists," warned Franks.

"I take extreme offense that the federal government -- through a report issued under the authority of a Cabinet-level official -- would dare to categorize people who are "dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition or abortion or immigration" as "right-wing extremists" and it begs the question of whether the Attorney General, under Mr. Hastings' Amendment, can look to the Napolitano report to decide who is an extremist, or can make the same categorization of the majority of Americans as extremists who may then be kept from joining the military, or who may be discharged," said Rep. Franks.

Finally, this would very likely go well beyond military recruitment and retention.  Once the Attorney General has designated a politically incorrect group as being a "hate group," unfit for military service, how long will it take for the government to find other restrictions to impose on them?

The amendment was added to H.R. 2647 (which then passed in the House, and has moved on to the Senate) as one of a large number of amendments considered en bloc (and passed).