From the east coast to the Pacific Northwest, the past week once again confirmed that Democrat political leaders prefer to address the serious problem of gun crime in America as a political rather than a law enforcement and mental health problem.
In Washington state, Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee signed a law outlawing the sale of AR-style rifles. Inslee wrongly but sanctimoniously stated that such “weapons of war” have as their “only purpose” murdering people. Conveniently ignored by the Governor is the fact that the AR is the most popular rifle in the country, used regularly by millions of law-abiding citizens for competition, hunting, and self-defense.
In the nearby, and also Democrat-led state of Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis lamented that he was not yet legislatively empowered to outlaw the same rifle, but pompously declared that by forcing citizens in the state to wait three days before being permitted to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to purchase a firearm, he was making it “safe” for them to go to the grocery store.
Last week also, on Capitol Hill testimony by the Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) made clear that today’s ATF remains more concerned with finding ways to limit the lawful ownership of firearms and accessories, than in meeting its avowed mission “to protect communities from violent criminals, criminal organizations, [and] acts of terrorism.”
For example, during his April 26th appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, ATF Director Steve Dettlebach was asked how the agency intended in the future to enforce the agency’s new, self-dictated regulation on so-called arm or “stabilizing” braces, which as of May 31st will become illegal to possess. Such questions made perfect sense considering that ATF had previously and quite publicly flip-flopped when asked whether attaching a brace to a pistol transformed it into a regulated “short barrel rifle.”
Pistol stabilizing braces had been developed in 2012 primarily to help disabled shooters fire a pistol accurately with one arm. When ATF was asked whether the pistols thus outfitted would be considered by the government to still be lawful to possess without a federal permit, ATF said they would be considered pistols and not short-barrel rifles.
Notwithstanding this record of inconsistency and the failure to articulate any meaningful reason why a stabilizing brace has suddenly been deemed so dangerous as to outlaw, the Biden Administration now has made it a priority to criminalize the mere possession of such a pistol; and Dettlebach refused to provide clarity as to exactly how it will enforce such a confusing edict.
Nearly 200 Members of Congress have lent their name as cosponsors to a measure, H. J. Res. 44, that would prevent the ATF’s self-made rule on stabilizing pistol braces from taking effect, but the Biden Administration remains committed to doing everything it can through executive actions including ATF rulemaking, to limit the ability of law-abiding citizens, including disabled veterans, to own and use firearms.
ATF, and its parent agency the U.S. Department of Justice, has employed regulatory legerdemain in other recent moves to limit firearms accessories. In 2019, for example, when the Congress failed to pass legislation making “bump stocks” illegal, rule makers at ATF simply revised the definition of a “machine gun” to include a bump stock (which is a piece of molded plastic polymer). That clever, but ridiculous maneuver was struck down in January by a federal appeals court; a ruling the Biden Administration is appealing.
ATF has existed in some form since the late 19th Century, and in fact counts many highly trained firearms experts among its personnel and who can, and do assist law enforcement agencies at all levels in solving many serious crimes involving guns. The agency’s ballistics and firearms identification technology is cutting-edge.
However, when ATF allows itself to be used as a vehicle to further political agendas targeting exercise of Americans’ Second Amendment rights, it loses the confidence of the American people and the firearms industry it regulates.
Similarly, if Blue-State governors such as Inslee and Polis focused on improving law enforcement and mental health facilities in their states, rather than restricting the ability of law-abiding citizens to possess firearms for self-defense and other lawful purposes, communities in those and other states would be far safer.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
The battle over whether, how, and when to raise the national debt ceiling rages on Capitol Hill and at the White House. While political leaders tussle over the “Big Picture” balance between debt and spending, we must ensure that none of the key elements of our defense budget suffer collateral damage in the confusion.
Considering today’s threatening global environment in which we are sending billions of dollars in military munitions to Ukraine in a proxy war with Russia, and as we face an increasing bellicose China in regions from the Taiwan Strait to west Africa, it is more important than ever that no key components of our defense strategy be overlooked or short-changed.
The ongoing and complex budget/debt battle creates the “perfect storm” in which defense doves and special interest groups might be able to chip away at certain defense programs. They must not be allowed to succeed, especially when it comes to such often overlooked factors as military logistics and supply lines.
While last week’s proposal by Speaker McCarthy to link debt ceiling relief to cuts in several of Biden’s favored spending programs will never be supported in toto by Democrats, budget cuts or caps for some programs may yet emerge as a price those on the other side of the aisle may be willing to accept in return for the overarching goal of increasing the debt ceiling. This is where the details matter.
Mid-air refueling capability for our fleet of aircraft rarely makes the evening news. Without it, however, combat readiness and effective warfighting capability come to a standstill, especially in the vast Pacific theater across which the United States and China face each other.
A battle already is brewing within the Air Force, and between competing major defense contractors, including Boeing and the European Union’s Airbus. Here is where Republican negotiators must be especially sensitive to and focused on ensuring that there is no gap in the development of a needed, next generation refueling aircraft.
This tanker dispute is not something new. A dozen years ago, Boeing’s KC-46 “Pegasus” refueling tanker/transport won a contract to produce some 56 of the planes, to replace the venerable but aging KC-135 “Stratotankers” also built by Boeing. In an exceptionally rare finding, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined in 2019 that the KC-46 program, while not perfect, was proceeding under cost.
Notwithstanding this benefit to American taxpayers, Boeing’s proposal to build the follow-on, next generation refueler, known as the “KC-Z,” has been met with pushback by European-based Airbus and some of its cheerleaders in the U.S. Congress and our own defense industry.
The “LMXT” tanker is designed by Airbus, in which France is a major partner and is an aircraft manufacturer with a significant commercial relationship with China.
Aside from these important political factors against outsourcing development and production of our next generation refueling tanker aircraft, there are other significant, practical reasons to stay with domestic producer Boeing.
For one thing, while the proposed LMXT is larger than Boeing’s proposed KC-Z, that size comes with significant drawbacks, including the inability to land on many shorter military runways that often are found in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Also of concern is the LMXT’s higher fuel consumption than the Boeing transport, and the fact that its larger footprint means fewer planes of any sort can be maintained on many airfields across the globe.
As a stopgap measure, some in the military acquisition sector are recommending that a temporary “bridge” tanker be built while the long-term decision is made to go with either the American-produced KC-Z or the European Union-based LMXT. Such a move would be costly and time-consuming, just when time truly is of the essence to make sure the United States is fully able to meet current and expected threats from China in far-flung regions across vast distances.
As Air Force Military Command chief General Mike Minihan has stated, the KC-46A currently meets all military needs and Air Force requirements for all aircraft in our nation’s inventory and in all theaters of operation. Building on it to build the next generation of tanker/transports rather than shifting to an entirely new and unproven, European-based tanker platform, is unnecessary and costly.
In a conflict with a major adversary, especially China, such delays and operational shortcomings could prove detrimental, if not disastrous.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
A report on criminal law published last month by the International Commission of Jurists in collaboration with the United Nations, could easily serve as a handbook for the looting, filth, and general lawlessness now infecting many U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.
Typical of virtually every report drafted by the United Nations and related international organizations, this one was long in the drafting, taking a full five years to compose. Also, like other U.N.-created reports, it has a ridiculously long and convoluted title: The 8 March Principles for a Human Rights-Based Approach to Criminal Law Proscribing Conduct Associated with Sex, Reproduction, Drug Use, HIV, Homelessness and Poverty. A shorter and more accurate title would be How To Destroy Civil Society By Abandoning the Rule of Law.
Central to the Report’s thesis is the notion that a society’s criminal laws must in every instance yield to and be secondary to “human rights.” In this approach, no criminal law should be permitted to “restrict the exercise of any human right” unless such a law is itself “consistent with other rights recognized under international human rights law.” To cement this circular thesis, the Report declares that if there might ever arise any question about the reach of a country’s criminal law, it must never be construed “to an accused person’s disadvantage.”
To further undercut any legal system that might still employ a criminal code, the Report asserts that “international law” trumps any system of “domestic law,” which would include, for example, our Constitution. And, borrowing a phrase employed often by liberals here in the United States to justify whatever “rights” they desire to paint with a constitutional patina, this latest U.N.-endorsed Report declares that the human rights code on which it is based must be considered a “living document.”
If the reader can wend his or her way through the repetitive declarations about the evils of criminal laws and the primacy of international “human rights,” they still have to seek the assistance of a dictionary to discern the meaning of such words and phrases as “heteronormative,” “non-exploitative surrogacy,” and “non-derogable,” inserted to disguise the Report’s vacuity.
However, if the reader does emerge au courant from the Report’s initial 13 “Principles of Criminal Law,” he or she quickly discovers why the Report is likely in the future to be found on the desks of the many woke, George Soros-supported district attorneys and their compatriot mayors, such as those in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York, who coddle rather than punish lawbreakers.
The remaining eight “principles” in the Report are a laundry list of public policies designed to ensure a filthy and crime-ridden – but “equitable” –environment such as we are seeing infect many Democrat-led cities today. For example:
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“Custodial sentences” (jail) is to be used only “as a measure of last resort.”
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Abortion, or, as the Report terms the practice, “pregnancy loss,” must not be limited to any degree.
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“Consensual sex” cannot be criminalized, regardless of the age of the participants because an individual “below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent” who engages in some form of sex, might in fact “be consensual.” In such a libertine society, pederasty would be considered a “human right” and therefore beyond the reach of domestic criminal law.
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There would be no drug laws, even for minors under the age of 18.
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Prostitution, pimping, and houses of prostitution likewise could not be criminalized or restricted.
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Finally, if the above-enumerated “principles” and listing of legally permissible activities were insufficient to obliterate any remaining semblance of civil society, the international “jurists” authoring this Report conclude that no activity undertaken by an individual out of necessity could be prohibited, including panhandling, sleeping or bathing in public, or “urinating and defecating” in public places – all examples of protected “human rights.”
The society thus emerging would be filthy, chaotic, dangerous, and lawless . . . come to think of it, a bit like today’s San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
Growing up in such far-flung locations as Baghdad, Iraq, Lima, Peru, and Tehran, Iran, did not present me and my five siblings with what might be considered a typical, traditional childhood. We overcame the challenges with which we had to cope in those varied environments by employing skills learned from our parents.
Probably the most valuable tool in that oft-changing journey was the fact that we were permitted a great deal of freedom and flexibility within which to take risks, exercise judgment, experiment, make mistakes, and eventually, learn; all steps taken long before the advent of the internet and social media.
The political environments in which I grew from a third-grader at the only American school in Baghdad in the late 1950s to a senior in an international school in Tehran a decade later, were such that neither Muslim extremism nor violent drug cartels were factors with which we had to deal. Since then, of course, such dangers present themselves in ways that cannot be ignored for Americans living or raising families in many of the countries in which I roamed as a teenager.
However, the fundamental skills with which my parents armed me and which allowed me to not only survive but thrive in such diverse settings, are those that still today should be among the most basic that parents should be affording their children. Teaching children to gain, understand, and use knowledge equips them with the power to assess situations they face, assume and assess risks, make reasoned judgments, and undertake courses of conduct that will, more often than not, allow them to mature and achieve success as adults.
Unfortunately, in a culture now fixated on “non-traditional” lifestyles, regulatory edicts, and the internet world of social media groups, blogs, and “answers” for everything from potty training to drug abuse, parenting appears to have diminished significantly in quality, and with it the parameters for happy childhood severely circumscribed.
Parents, for example, are being investigated as child abusers or charged with unlawful neglect for doing nothing more than allowing their grade school children to walk home from school. Ph.D.-level counselors are recommending that white parents teach their toddler children about “white privilege.”
In this environment, is it any wonder that, according to a recent analysis by Caitlin Gibson in the Washington Post, the fun of a sleepover at a friend’s home has become a stressful and multi-faceted decision-making process for parents; one that often results in shielding the kids from such a “dangerous” activity? According to Gibson, there is even a hashtag, #NoSleepovers, along with “influencers” aplenty and online groups to help guide fearful parents through the decision-making process.
Parents so demonstrably afraid as to afford their children even that small degree of fun and freedom of spending a night at a friend’s home, or to trick-or-treat after dark without being directly monitored by their parents, robs the youngsters of some of the simple but important joys of being a child. Moreover, with parents so unsure of themselves that they have to consult online blogs and “influencers” before being able to even make such decisions about their kids, it indeed is no wonder that we have children growing into young adults who are themselves so fearful of the world around them they are hesitant to even apply for a driver’s license.
In the internet-driven world of today’s millennial parents, virtually everything is fodder for a Tweet or other social media posting, from “gender-reveal” parties before the baby is born, to posting an online picture of a toddler’s “first poop.”
Parents look to the internet for guidance prior to every meaningful decision on how to rear their children. Many of those same children turn to the internet for their interaction with the “outside” world. Every perceived “milestone” is posted to the world on Facebook or another social media platform. This concoction has led one researcher at the University of Michigan to express concern that our children are growing up with “multiple identities.”
Rather than turn to a well-qualified source such as Dr. Benjamin Spock for general guidance, parents today turn to the internet for instructions from internet “influencers.” At the same time they are paying less attention to what their children are actually doing, thereby increasing the possibility that another Audrey Hale or Connor Sturgeon will arise to commit another horrible act, as each did within just the last month in Nashville and Louisville.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
America clearly is in the throes of a cultural campaign for transgender rights, privileges, and immunities. It is a multi-faceted movement at once entertaining and dangerous.
The handwriting was on the wall six years ago, when the August 2017 National Geographic cover depicted a transgendered child and devoted its contents to the “Gender Revolution.” Now, in early 2023, we have Dylan Mulvaney, a well-known transgender “influencer,” as the new face of corporate giants Nike and Anheuser Busch. Soon we may see Mulvaney grace the cover of Popular Mechanics.
When that same biological male – Dylan Mulvaney – is hawking not only Bud Light and sports bras but Tampax tampons, the question legitimately needs to be asked, “just what is going on here?”
It is not only major corporations, including Nike, Proctor & Gamble, and Anheuser Busch that have jumped aboard the transgender bandwagon. Universities and now, the federal government and the judiciary are all in.
Just last week, President Biden decreed that any education institution receiving U.S. taxpayer dollars (which is most every school in the country) cannot stop biological males who “identify” as female from competing against biological females. Even the Supreme Court seems to be intimidated — refusing to consider putting the brake on the practice even after state legislation declares it unfair.
While videos of Dylan Mulvaney prancing around in a Nike bra or guzzling Bud Light in a bathtub full of soapsuds may seem comical on its face, with the feds now waiting in the wings to sue schools that consider it unfair for biological men to compete against biological women, the transgender glorification movement truly has transitioned into high gear.
The cultural shift, especially in corporate marketing, has been nothing short of seismic.
Where once Jack Daniels whiskey was presented as a sophisticated spirit, with ads depicting entertainment icon Frank Sinatra, the Tennessee-made alcoholic beverage now is branded by drag queens, in a timid genuflect to the LGBTQ+ movement.
Wheaties, the “Breakfast of Champions,” has been recognized by the Smithsonian Institution as an iconic American brand for its nearly century-long practice of placing pictures of outstanding athletes on its boxes, from baseball greats Lou Gehrig and Hank Aaron to Olympic gold medalists Mary Lou Retton and Allyson Felix.
The cereal, however, has been under pressure for several years to have transgendered athlete Chris Mosier grace one of its orange-themed boxes. The fact that General Mills, the cereal’s manufacturer, has resisted taking such a step for so long is surprising, but the company’s hesitancy likely will not last much longer considering the momentum behind the LGBTQ+ juggernaut.
One of the strangest kowtows to the LGBTQ+ campaign has been Hershey’s chocolate. During WWII, Hershey’s was one of a number of products that became closely identified with the American armed forces, especially the Army GI. Eight decades later, the universally recognized brown Hershey’s milk chocolate candy bar wrapper markets itself as a “HER-SHE’s” treat and advertises yet another biological male transgendered to female.
Not only are biological men who claim to be female allowed to compete against biological women in various sports from swimming to power lifting, they are being hailed as “Women of the Year” in other fields, including by such formerly mainstream and respected publications as USA Today.
With “Drag Queen Story Hours” being pushed on the youngest of school children, with the president and vice president of the United States gushing over Dylan Mulvaney, and with top-level corporate executives like Bud Light’s Alissa Heinerscheid extolling the Mulvaney ad campaign as the “future,” the transgender circus obviously has not yet run its course. But it will.
Signs of discord are already showing, with some of Mulvaney’s fellow transgender influencers considering him a “grifter.”
Sooner or later, the fun will end and violence will set in. In fact, it already has.
Although all the writings of transgendered 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who late last month murdered six victims at the Covenant School in Memphis, have not yet been made public, evidence suggests the hate in her heart centered on transgenderism. A “Trans Day of Vengeance” was scheduled right after Hale’s rampage.
Last week, female swimmer Riley Gaines was violently assaulted at San Francisco State University for daring to speak about the unfairness of male athletes competing against females.
The dark underbelly of the transgender movement is now emerging.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.