Column for July 26, 2007

Kiss your gun rights goodbye?

When you think of the word evil, you may conjure up images of hideous looking creatures out of some mythological movie. Maybe you think of some hideous witch or a devil with a pitchfork. Not me. When I think of evil, I think of well intentioned people in suits who wish to take a vote on a piece of legislation to stifle the masses. There are several such bills before the state legislature right now.

Because I choose to be active in writing and other forms of media, I get to speak with people who are known to be fountains of information. Sometimes I simply read information that is freely available to all, yet is rarely reported.

Grass Roots North Carolina (grnc.org) is a group to which I belong. It has one primary mission, which is to educate the public about our right to keep and bear arms and deal with legislation at the state level. Often, I get emails from them telling me about the latest attempt to curb your freedoms to procure, own, or use firearms for sport or self defense.

North Carolina House Bill 1287 is one that I find most insidious. That bill would register anyone who is denied a pistol purchase permit by the local sheriff into a database run by the State Bureau of Investigations. In theory, that database record would be purged after 8 years. That means that for eight years, any sheriff who does a background check on you will know that you were denied a purchase permit.

In North Carolina, county sheriffs can deny you a purchase permit at will with no reason given or for any motivation, with or without a criminal history check. The denial will appear in all subsequent records check on the individual in question.

Here is the horrific part. The database would be shared with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives at the federal level. Of course, state laws for purging data do not apply to federal agencies. That means that if Steve Bizzell decides that he wants to deny you a pistol permit in Johnston County, you will now have an FBI record. That record will follow you all over the country forever.

At the federal level, the McCarthy Bill (HR 2640) will ensure that your right to keep and bear arms will be decided by a doctor, not by the Constitution. Allegedly, the bill would put any mental health records into a the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS. Don't ask me why it isn't NICBCS, but then you wouldn't be able to pronounce the acronym like the name of a New York basketball team). If you had a bad day and were feeling depressed so you visited the Johnston County Mental Health Services office, you would now be entered into a criminal database.

It is bad enough that this is already checked by the sheriff during a background check for obtaining a concealed carry weapons permit. People in this county have already been denied these permits because they hit a bad, temporary patch in life and are now branded; precluded from ever being able to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

The 2nd Amendment was never about hunting. It was and is about being able to throw off tyranny. Those who adopted the Constitution knew the tyranny that could be placed upon citizens by decree. They also knew what it meant to throw off that same tyranny.

It is happening again. Our freedoms are being restricted. A governing body prefers unarmed subjects. Disarming the public was a popular tactic of despots of the 20th Century. As this nation becomes more and more socialistic, we are seeing the same liberties being squashed as they did. And, in this more technologically modern age, we are seeing an Orwellian approach to tracking everyone and everything by Big Brother. Sadly, even alleged gun rights groups like the NRA are too obtuse to oppose Big Brother and protect your privacy and gun rights. That is just one reason why I refuse to have an NRA membership.

If you have ever wanted to purchase a handgun for leisure or for self defense, you may want to do it before bills like these become law and some gun rights lobby groups continue to sell out your freedoms. You may also want to join "no compromise" gun rights organizations such as Gun Owners of America and Grass Roots North Carolina. Bit by bit, your freedoms, whether you chose to exercise them or not, are being eroded.