Tyranny is alive and well in the State of Washington.
No, it’s not the typical form of tyranny employed by some of history’s most notorious despots like Stalin and Hitler. It is much more insidious than that. It is the covert tyranny being fostered upon us, cleverly disguised as the will of the people, by a merry band of west coast billionaires who are using their fat checkbooks in an attempt to create a utopian state in which the Second Amendment will be grossly infringed by extreme and unconstitutional gun control measures.
Their variant of this modern day tyranny takes the form of a citizen’s Initiative to the People of Washington State known as I-1639. If approved by the voters on Election Day this November, it will severely restrict our ability to keep and bear arms, contrary to the Constitutions of the State of Washington and the United States of America.
And in the final analysis, the Liberty First Foundation wants you to know that these proposed laws and regulations won’t make anyone safer, but they will create an unnecessary governmental boondoggle of legal compliance for honest, law abiding citizens.
Among some of the crazy rediculous attributes of this proposed legislation are:
- Classifying all semi-automatic rifles as “assault weapons”! An emotional term created by the authors of this initiative which is deliberately misleading, intended to stigmatize gun owners and strike fear into the hearts of voters who know little or nothing at all about firearms.
- It forces those who want to buy or borrow a semi-automatic rifle to seek the permission from the local Police Chief or Sheriff only after undergoing a government run safety course first and every 5 years thereafter.
- It requires law enforcement officials to keep detailed registration records, including the serial number, make and model of every semi-automatic rifle that is sold or lent with their authorization, as well as information about the buyer……but only if you were over 21 years of age to begin with! Those who are between 18-21 years of age are flatly prohibited from possessing one.
- Semi-automatic rifle owners would be subject to continuing reverification of their eligibility to possess firearms. According to the initiative, the verification must take place “on an annual or more frequent basis.” So your medical records are no longer private and confidential.
- Once a person becomes eligible to purchase a semi-automatic rifle, he or she, still has to wait 10 business days before they can take possession of it and if background check records are incomplete, local officials can place a 30-day hold on the sale that can be renewed indefinitely by a court. And then there is the $25.00 fee one must pay to buy, sell or loan a rifle, with permission of course!
- Safe storage is another concern. If somebody steals your lawfully possessed semi-automatic rifle and they use it to break the law, you could be charged with the felony crime of Community Endangerment!
The senseless and needless bureaucracy created by this initiative is nothing more than an outrageous governmental overreach into the privacy and liberty of hard working, law abiding American citizens. It is simply magical thinking to believe that somehow we will be miraculously safer as a result of this “big government” program. Clearly, it’s illustrative of the short-sighted mantra of the gun grabbing politicians which can be summed up as follows; “We have to do something, even if it’s wrong!”
And this proposed legislation is very, very wrong! There is not one other enumerated right protected by the Constitution where a law abiding American citizen has to pay a $25.00 fee and prove he is worthy before he or she is allowed to exercise it! Can you imagine having to call the Sheriff to ask his permission to go to church on Sunday or post a comment on Facebook?
So, just who are these wealthy billionaires and moneyed do-gooders who seek to suppress our constitutional rights? They are the Bloombergs, Ballmers, Allens, and the Hanauers. They have contributed a combined $4.3 million dollars to the committees called Safe Schools Safe Communities, and the Alliance for Gun Responsibility. The Alliance is organized into 3 separate parts, one of which is their Foundation, an IRS approved 501 (c) (3) charitable group. And, when they channel their contributions through the Foundation, they give themselves a giant income tax deduction as they trample on our Second Amendment rights!
Let’s take a closer look at Nick and his wife, Leslie Hanauer. He is a venture capitalist and each of them has contributed $613,018.00 to I-1639. They reside in Washington, but in 2016 Nick interfered with and meddled in the governmental affairs of Maine, where he contributed $125,000 in support of Question 3 which failed, and of Nevada, where he contributed $275,000 in support of Question 1, which passed by a slim margin but was not implement for technical reasons. In all three states the language, goals and objectives of these initiatives was similar; background checks, transfer taxes and gun registrations.
According to Ballotpedia.org, Mr. Hanauer serves as director of the Democracy Alliance, a network of progressive donors that aims to achieve progressive reforms in public policy. He also co-authored a book entitled The Gardens of Democracy, which argues that “fundamental American assumptions about citizenship, society, economics, and government need updating for the 21st century.”
He also operates a personal website which can be found at nickhanauer.com. There you will find a blog appropriately named Civic Skunk Works. Don’t bother to look any farther unless you enjoy the skunky stench of liberal progressive policy ideas. But his website does open a small window into his psyche which allows the reader to plainly see how he views life in America. Undoubtedly, he would prefer to live in a place where the Constitution would be malleable and could be reshaped to fit his progressive ideals, and not in a place where individual rights and liberties are guaranteed and government is restricted from intervening into the private lives of its citizens.
Some in the media have referred to these Bad Boy Billionaires as philanthropists, but I prefer to recognize them for what they really are; unelected political radicals in subversion of our state and federal constitutions, roving throughout the country and acting like hitmen with an open contract on the killing of the Second Amendment!
They are gleefully taking unfair advantage of the citizen initiative process which is found in the Constitutions of 26 states throughout the nation. These so-called civic-minded community leaders and their well-funded grassroots organizations, with names that sound welcoming and nonthreatening, are attempting to trick the citizens of Washington and other states into voting for laws that they could not pass through the normal legislative process.
Their message and slick marketing is nothing more than beguiling propaganda intended to fool voters into becoming their own tyrants, when in reality, their message is nothing more than empty promises and platitudes. Self-tyranny is a new phenomenon. It is an extraordinary and remarkable condition that can only be explained by understanding that a significant portion of the electorate is totally and completely unaware of the founding documents of this country, in particular, the Bill of Rights. Without recognizing the disingenuous and subliminal implications of these initiatives, people are inclined to vote for the so called “common-sense gun laws” because if they don’t, they may feel like they don’t have any common sense, and nobody wants to admit that!
Washingtonians must be made aware that I-1639 does nothing to address crime. Rather, it is a conglomeration of incremental provisions that, inch by inch and step by step, are intended to disarm the population over time! If safer schools was truly the objective of I-1639, the money contributed to the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, could have been much better spent by donating it to Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. There, it would have gone a long way towards providing the funds for metal detectors, school resource officers and video surveillance systems!
Additionally, I-1639 also demonstrates that the well-healed intellectual elites in Washington State and around the nation will persistently attempt to use their wealth to nullify the Second Amendment while searching for another a tax deduction!
Today, we have more information available to us than ever before, yet the questions regarding life, death and suffering go largely unanswered. Unquestionably, while there is good and evil in this world, one thing remains abundantly clear. No law, no waiting period or background check can stop evil. But they can stop the good people of America from defending themselves and their families.
Please Vote No on I-1639! It’s bad for Washington and bad for America! Repeated sharing of this essay will make more people aware of the farce that’s about to be perpetrated upon them! We cannot let the wealthy treat us like serfs!
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