And we were told there was no "slippery slope"..

'BRADY II' UNPRECEDENTED VIOLATION OF PRIVACY
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By Samuel Francis

September 24 - No doubt it's a pure coincidence that on the same day this
week that peddlers of the abolition of the right to own guns staged a mass
tearjerk at the Reflecting Pool by laying out 38,000 pairs of shoes to
symbolize the victims of "gun violence," a crackpot in Beijing used an
AK-47 to pop off no fewer than eight people.

Communist China is not exactly soft on tolerating private ownership of
anything, let alone guns, and the Beijing massacre ought to suggest that 
even totalitarian restrictions on firearms will not stop lunatics from
plying their trade.  When lunatics impose gun control, only lunatics will
have guns.

As for the 38,000 pairs of shoes, it's too bad Imelda Marcos wasn't on hand.
As it happened, Imelda wasn't there, but Sarah Brady was.

Not only was Mrs. Brady, wife of President Reagan's wounded press secretary
and now professional crusader against guns, present at the shoe-in but also,
by what I'm sure is just another pure coincidence, she happened to publish
a column in the Washington Post the morning after announcing "the next step"
on the gun gestapo's long march toward the abolition of privately owned
firearms.  The tearjerk and the shoes, you see, were not really an exhibition 
of genuine concern for the victims of crime but just another stage-prop to
push the gun gestapo's political agenda.

Mrs. Brady, however, is a bit late.  I told you a couple of weeks ago what
the "next step" in the gun ban plan would be, and Mrs. Brady confirms that
I was right.  The "next step" is "Brady II," which Mrs. Brady bills, as is
her wont, as such a measly, moderate, minimal measure that only real lunatics
would oppose it.  She tells us a good deal about what Brady II won't do, but 
very little about what it will.

"It simply requires that those who buy handguns know how to handle them,
how to store them, and understand their responsibilities as gun owners,"
she writes.

Well, how exactly will Brady II do that Sarah?  She never says.  I'll tell
you how.

Under Brady II, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms - the same boys
who brought us Waco last year - would have authority to enter the private 
homes of citizens to inspect their "arsenals."

The "arsenals" are gun collections that consist of more than 20 firearms,
including .22 rifles and shotruns.  You'd have to have a license from the
federal government as well as permission from local law enforcement to own
that many guns, and the BATF would have the power to barge into your home
three times a year to make sure you were obeying the law with regard to
record - keeping and "security."

Moreover, Brady II requires federal registration of handguns as well as the
licensing and fingerprinting of their law-abiding owners as well as a
safety training course from the police.

For the first time in American history, in other words, the federal govern-
ment would be legally authorized to enter private homes to "make sure"
citizens never convicted of any crime are obeying the law!  It makes
Communist China look pretty good, and it isn't even directed at the criminals
about whom Mrs. Brady preaches so much.

Brady II is aimed squarely and only at law-abiding gunowners - at citizens
who buy and use their guns legally, who buy them for personal protection,
for sporting purposes or as collectors.  It is a commonplace that most
criminals don't get their guns from legal sources; they steal them or buy 
them on the street, so Brady II wouldn't affect criminals at all.  Its
transparent purpose is to punish the law-abiding, to slash at a constitu-
tionally guaranteed right that enables the innocent to protect themselves 
from the real criminals whom the gun gestapo refuses to punish.

Moral frauds like Sarah Brady care nothing for those criminals or their
victims.  When has she ever worked for any measure that would control real
crime instead of punishing the innocent?  When has she ever crusaded for
restricting or abolishing parole, for more prison space, for court reform,
punishment, for mandatory sentencing, for truth in sentencing or any other
measure for which those seriously concerned about crime have worked?

All she has ever worked for is restricting the rights of ordinary Americans,
and because a lunatic on the loose accidentally wounded her husband 13 years
ago, those Americans are supposed to surrender their guns and their rights
so she can rehearse her moral posturing and the demagogues of the gun gestapo
can tighten their grip on their own power.

[end]
