The United States Constitution was written on just four
sheets of parchment. Compare that to a
single bill today submitted by Congress that exceeds 2,000 pages. And I’ll bet the Founders read every single word
on every single page of that most precious of founding documents. Not only that, but they understood exactly
what they wrote! Today, we can’t even
get our legislators to be willing to make these huge bills available for us to
try to read, much less read them themselves.
Gary DeMar summed it up pretty well in an American Vision
article
“The
Constitution of the United
States was written on four sheets of
parchment. If you count the Preamble and all 27 Amendments (remember there were
originally only ten), it comes out to 20 typed pages. If you don’t count the
signatures and amendments, you’ll have a document of 11 typed pages. No
single Amendment is a full page. Many are only a single sentence in
length. The First Amendment covers a multitude of freedoms: religion,
press, assembly, speech, and the right to petition the government. It does it
with only 45 words. Those original four sheets, about 4500 words, were good
enough to serve as a document to govern a nation.”
They give the excuse that the bills are too confusing for
them to read. They wrote them, didn’t
they?! And now they don’t want to read
their own writing because it’s too confusing?
If that’s the case, then maybe they should take a lesson from the
Founding Fathers and learn how to write things that are shorter and easier to
read. If they didn’t write these bills,
then who did!? Our Second Amendment
which preserves our right to defend ourselves is only twenty-six words yet
speaks volumes. Come on – how hard is it
to write something as simple, yet as explicit as that?
So what does this mean to us as gun owners? Take one of the latest in gargantuan bills,
the recent Affordable Health Care for America Act passed by Congress, and
somehow allowed to stand by the Supreme Court.
In this monstrosity of a bill any number of amendments could spell gun
control under the guise of “looking out for our health” and ensuring that we
live in “safe environments” in our own homes.
Some say there is the possibility of further registration of every
single entry of our medical records into national databases. It takes only a little common sense for one
to realize that buried in a bill that is over 2,000 pages long can be hidden
any number of liberty killing amendments.
How about the prospect of turning you into a felon if you don’t buy the
healthcare prescribed for you by law?
You do remember that felons can’t own guns, right? At the very least, this represents further
control of the American people by a government that is growing out of
control.
Here is what Gun Owners of America has to say about this
bill:
“This bill
will...most likely result in all of your gun-related health data being dumped
into a government database that was created in the stimulus bill. This includes
any firearms-related information your doctor has gleaned... or any
determination of PTSD, or something similar, that can preclude you from owning
firearms."
The bill will also
create special "wellness" programs in section 112 which would allow
the government to offer lower premiums to employers who bribe their employees
to live healthier lifestyles -- and nothing within the bill would prohibit
rabidly anti-gun HHS Secretary Sebelius from decreeing that "no guns"
is somehow healthier.”
Hurt yourself reloading?
Need special glasses for shooting?
Have an accident at the range? My
suggestion is to find another explanation for those things to your doctor. The health care bill above is but one
example. There have been several pieces of legislation considered in the past few
years alone that have been so huge as to be unreadable and un-comprehended by
the average citizen. Next thing you
know, it will be determined that firing a gun produces too much carbon dioxide,
and you will face more taxes when buying guns and ammunition if cap and trade
is ever passed.
Now, more than ever, it is crucial that gun owners (and all
citizens) get involved and educate themselves on every single bill that our law
makers try to push through. ANY bill can
have the potential of containing anti-gun content and or amendments. We must be paying attention every step of the
way if we are to have a say in how these laws are passed.
I know – this represents time out from lives, families and
friends. But our future as a country
depends on our willingness to sacrifice a little in order to help secure our
future as a nation. With the voluminous
amounts of text in these bills, and the hundreds of amendments being slipped
in, an innocent looking and sounding bill can turn into a gun owner’s (or
everyone’s for that matter) worst nightmare in a single moment. We must take an active role in our own
governance and make sure our elected officials hear our needs and demands. In this very important election year - Please
– get off the bench and get into the game.
