Image Source: (AP Images/Matt Rourke)
August 7, 2024
VP Harris Cements Antigun Animus with Gov. Walz Pick
Let’s be honest. There was no real hope of Vice President Kamala Harris moderating her radical, far-left gun control ideas. Her recent flip-flops on a series of progressive policy positions, including denying that she supports forced confiscation of Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs), are nothing but hollow talking points especially now that she’s adding Minnesota’s Gov. Tim Walz to the ticket as nominee to be her vice president.
Vice President Harris’ own record on gun control is apparent. She owns the gun control efforts foisted on America and the firearm industry over the past three-plus years. That includes the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “zero tolerance” policy that has seen firearm retailers shuttered because of minor clerical errors on record-keeping.
She continues to back an unconstitutional ban on MSRs and owns the Biden-Harris attacks on lawful firearm owners through the Executive Branch overreach when the administration published rules to redefine “frame or receivers,” the Interim Final Rule by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) to throttle firearm and ammunition exports that would decimate jobs and the ATF rule to redefine who is “engaged in the business” to bring about near-universal background checks and require nearly anyone privately transferring a firearm to obtain a federal firearms license. Let’s not forget that The White House’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention, staffed by former Everytown federal lobbyist Rob Wilcox, is “overseen by Vice President Harris” – making her the gun control “czar.”
Add to that list, she’s also the chief beneficiary of President Joe Biden’s proposal to upend the U.S. Supreme Court with his proposal to do away with lifetime appointments and instead limit terms to 18 years, which would wipe out the three most senior – and conservative justices who have ruled against unconstitutional gun control efforts.
Gun Control Governor
Gov. Walz will only amplify Vice President Harris’ gun control animus. In fact, just like Vice President Harris, Gov. Walz is a darling of radical antigun special interest groups. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety lauded him as “2023 State Level Gun Sense Lawmaker of the Year.” The award was also given to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who signed a law banning MSRs in his state and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who also signed gun control laws. That puts him firmly in the center of state executives hostile to the Second Amendment and lawful firearm ownership.
Gov. Walz signed laws in his state to require universal background checks that require private parties to facilitate firearm transfers through a firearm retailer with an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). He also signed a state “red flag” law, that allows state authorities to confiscate firearms from individuals without Due Process rights being protected.
When he signed the bills, he claimed, “This is not about the Second Amendment.”
At the same time he signed the bill, he went on the attack against the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. More specifically, he urged a ban on MSRs, disparaging them as “weapons of war” and saying they don’t have a place in America. That’s despite the fact the U.S. Supreme Court’s Heller decision said firearms in common use are protected. Common use means, as the Supreme Court has said, “typically possessed,” Given that there are over 28.1 million of these semiautomatic rifles – that operate the same way as Gov. Walz’s pheasant hunting shotgun – they are clearly typically possessed and commonly used for lawful purposes.
That’s not new. Anyone who observed Gov. Walz’s political career can see he embraced increasingly radical gun control ideas through his tenure in Congress and into his election and re-election as Minnesota’s governor. After earning an endorsement from Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action gun control group when he was first running in Minnesota’s governor’s race, he told The Minnesota Post, “Endorsements are not a pat on the back. They are much more kicks in the butt.”
He knew more would be expected and he eagerly delivered for gun control. In addition to signing the universal background check law and “red flag” law, he recently signed a law to ban binary triggers. He supported a measure to require firearms be locked in a private residence, something the Heller decision said is unconstitutional. That bill never made it to his desk. He also supported a measure to require mandatory reporting of lost or stolen firearms, which could punish firearm owners a second time for being the victim of a crime.
Getting “Weird”
Gov. Walz already made swipes at U.S. Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee to former President Donald Trump. He told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that Sen. Vance’s stance on Second Amendment rights is nothing more than an act.
“That’s what JD Vance’s stick is, talking about guns. I guarantee you he can’t shoot pheasants like I can,” Gov. Walz said, according to a report in The Hill.
Gov. Walz, though, is intentionally misleading when he asserts the Second Amendment is about hunting. Simply put, Gov. Walz is a “Fudd.” The Second Amendment protects the rights to keep and bear arms. That’s for all lawful purposes, not just for pheasant hunting. He was also the Vice President Harris advocate who opened the attack line that Republicans who want to preserve freedoms are “weird.”
“Don’t get sugarcoating this, these are weird ideas,” Fox News reported Gov. Walz saying about Republican proposals. This is the same governor who just days ago on a “White Dudes for Harris” video conference call said “one person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.”
Journalist Karol Markowitz posted on X in a reply, “Neighborliness killed members of my family.”
Socialist movements are notorious for disarming their populace. Nazi Germany, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Venezuela’s Dictator Hugo Chavez, along with Communist countries like the former Soviet Union, the Chinese Community Party, North Korea all pursued policies of disarming their people. They started as calls for “security.” They ended as human rights atrocities.
Gov. Walz recently called former President Trump and his supporters “fascist.” So much for turning down the overheated political rhetoric following the attempted assassination of former president and Republican presidential nominee.
Former President Trump’s team wasted no time in pointing out that Gov. Walz will fit in with the far-left radical policy agenda that Vice President Harris helped craft through her time in the Biden-Harris administration and now as candidate to sit in the Oval Office.
“It’s no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running-mate – Walz has spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, according to The National Review.
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