Big government versus your civil rights

February 25, 8:22 AMAustin Gun Rights ExaminerHoward Nemerov

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In the last article, we compared President Obama’s anti-civil rights rhetoric to the reality that the history of gun control is also the history of Black oppression. Therefore if Obama and the Democrat Congress truly support the values espoused on their party’s web site, they should support the civil right of self-defense. But this ignores an important reality in our nation’s capital.

During the 2008 campaign, Obama received $42,547,156 from lawyers/law firms (the most of any candidate). Overall, 79.0% went to Democrat candidates and 20.9% to Republicans.

One of Obama’s biggest corporate donors is the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Meagher and Flom, LLP, who contributed $505,774 to Obama’s presidential campaign, and a total of $1,699,345 to all candidates (3rd highest law firm total). By comparison, the entire “gun rights” lobby spend $1,898,904 during the election cycle. Skadden, Arps represents the inventors of a “firearm safety system,” patent number 6499243, which adds a biometric activator that links a gun to one owner. The “Summary of the Invention” section of the patent application notes:

The safety system further makes use of a person’s fingerprint data, which is a unique personal property that is highly suitable for tracking and control. [Emphasis added]

Sidley Austin LLP contributed $565,788 to Obama, and $1,415,394 to all candidates (5^th highest law firm total ). Sidley Austin represents the inventors of the “Gun identification kit,” patent number 7380706. This invention provides a way for every gun to have a spent cartidge case made available for entry into a ballistic fingerprint database. Of course, such a database is useful only if all firearms are entered into it:

Because the vast majority of publicly owned firearms have not been used in the commission of a crime, they will not show up in [such a] database. It would therefore be desirable to provide a means for increasing the number of firearms for which…information and data is available.

The inventors’ solution to this? Pass a law mandating that every gun is registered
(serial number matched with shell casing and owner data on permanent file) of course:

One means of populating [such a] database would be to mandate that ballistic information be obtained and entered into the database for all firearms.

If the federal government enacts either one of these gun owner licensing/registration schemes, patent holders stand to make millions, if not billions.

Lawyers contributed $230,498,349 during the 2008 election cycle. Since, at this juncture, the Democrat party appears to be more in favor of larger government, lawyers have spent a majority (73% between 1990 and 2008) of their campaign contributions on Democrats, including $176,220,197 (76%) for the 2008 election.

A brief history lesson demonstrates the above perspective is neither naïve nor simplistic. The securities and investment industry contributed $150,836,802 during the 2007-8 election cycle, which was split fairly equitably between Democrats and Republicans (57% to 43%, respectively.) Open Secrets defines this industry as:

Stockbrokers, brokerage houses and bond dealers give the bulk of campaign dollars in this politically influential industry, which also includes commodities dealers and exchanges, investment banking houses, stock exchanges and venture capital firms. [Emphasis added]

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 spent $700 billion of our tax dollars to “purchase distressed assets, especially mortgage-backed securities, and make capital injections into banks.” Both parties supported the bill. Spending $150 million to receive $700 billion? In business, that’s called Return on Investment, which is defined as: “the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments.” In this case, spending money on politicians for two years was far more efficient than restructuring the company to more effectively invest its clients’ money, re-examine which investment instruments carry unacceptable risk, ferret out and terminate dishonest and incompetent employees, etc. While companies who poured millions into campaign contributions receive billions “stimulus” money, most Americans, who couldn’t afford to play the Washington money game, see their tax dollars used for payback.

Another way to “ban” guns is to make you so poor that you can’t afford them, but wealthy companies awash in bailout money can afford personal security details.

Big government is about increasing control of society, from financial markets to lifestyle choices. Unlike any other country on this planet, armed citizens stand as the constitutionally mandated check and balance to governmental control. But it appears that the present government in Washington, with the financial support of Big Business, is headed toward a consolidation of wealth and power for the few.

For in-depth analysis of anti-rights politicians, see chapter 4 in Four Hundred Years of Gun Control: Why Isn’t It Working?, which deconstructs the gun control agenda and motivates more people to support our civil right of self-defense.