Sanders Goes all in for Destroying Gun Manufacturers

Embracing gun control has always been a toxic issue for Democrats.  It has played well deep in their darkests bases, like New York City and the District of Columbia, where ignorance about guns and gun law is pervasive and cherished.  On the national stage, they have been careful to approach it sideways, with code words like "gun safety" and "common sense".   In 1994, when Bill Clinton pushed it the hardest on the national stage, the Democrats suffered one of their most emphatic defeats; the Republican revolution of 1994.  President Clinton even acknowledged that his gun control push was a major reason for the Democrat loss of the House.

Democrats shied away from gun control for the next 20 years.  Then, safely reelected in 2012, President Obama made another major push, in 2013.  Again, Democrats suffered stunning defeats, losing the Senate and losing so many seats in the House that Republicans have majorities that they had not achieved in 85 years.

On the primary trail, and fighting for ever smaller numbers of ideologically rigid primary voters, Hillary and O'Malley are pushing for more gun control.  Sanders shows that he cannot withstand the pressure, even as he gains ground.  He has come out for a gun control bill designed to destroy gun manufacturers in the United States.  From politico.com:

Sanders had said repeatedly that he was open to “changes” in the liability protection law. His official change of heart came just hours after his Senate staff met with activists from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. It also came a day after he met with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office. While it’s unclear whether the question of gun control came up in that meeting, Obama has urged people to be “single-issue voters” on guns, and in an op-ed in The New York Times, Obama said he would not support even Democrats who don’t share his positions on guns, including industry liability.

In explaining his 2005 vote for the liability shield, known as the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, Sanders has pointed to the fact that his predominantly rural home state of Vermont has few gun restrictions. In what he called a “complicated vote,” the Democratic presidential candidate said he was trying to protect mom-and-pop gun dealers in his state from getting sued and having to shut down because a customer used the gun in a crime.

Bernie Sanders demonstrates, above, that he can read, and that he understands the issues in the bill. It was passed because the disarmists in the United States had a plan to destroy gun manufacturers as a way to disarm the public. Sue the manufacturers with frivolous lawsuits, using tax money. Sure, the lawsuits would lose. But they did not cost the politicians pushing them; they were paid for with tax dollars. The activist tort lawyers would get paid; but the manufacturers would have to pay millions of dollars to defense lawyers, over, and over, and over again. Eventually, they would be bankrupted.

Second Amendment supporters saw through the deception, and sponsored the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act to prevent this end run around the Second Amendment.
The problem for the Democrats is that even the modest support for gun control that existed in 1994 has been reversed as more and more citizens become informed on the issue.  For the first time since 1958, a majority of people believe that protecting the right to bear arms is more important than restricting access to arms.  Without tight control over the major media, as existed for "progressive" ideologues from 1972 to 1994, simply lying about what a bill does no longer works.

Hillary repeatedly says that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act grants immunity from prosecution for gun manufacturers. It does no such thing. Gun manufacturers are subject to all the criminal prosecutions any other manufacturer is. What they have is immunity from lawsuit for their products being misused by third parties, just like all other manufacturers have. The difference is that the protection was put into law because of an open conspiracy of disarmists to file frivolous lawsuits to destroy gun manufacturers. The lawsuits did not even use the plaintiffs own money; they mostly used tax dollars.

The problem for the Democrat primary contenders is that they will not be able to walk this back after the primary is over. Digital recording and the Internet have created long and accurate electronic memories for the voters .

This is the first time such a vitriolic attack on the Second Amendment has been done in a Presidential cycle. Not even George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, or Barack Obama campaigned for President on Gun Control as a major issue.

This does not bode well for the eventual Democrat candidate.

Definition of  disarmist

©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
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