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Townhall

by Bob Barr

For all the Left’s ongoing hoopla about the dire necessity for “common sense gun control,” nothing currently being proposed makes any more sense than measures already tried and failed. The American public has seen and heard it all before, and is even less interested in buying into it today than in years past.

But the Left keeps trying. Their latest gambit is to attack ammunition purchases.

Earlier this month, Democrats in the Florida legislature filed a bill they call “Jamie’s Law,” named after a victim in the 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The legislation would subject all purchases of ammunition to background checks.

When making this same proposal nearly three years earlier in the U. S. Senate, leading gun-control advocate Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut called the lack of background checks on ammunition sales a “ludicrous loophole” that allows would-be killers to amass “arsenals of ammunition.”

Even for the typical anti-gun nonsense spouted by Democrats, Blumenthal’s hyperventilating is extreme; but then again, so is the proposal, whether as federal or state law.

The basic premise of the legislation is that it would prevent people who are already prohibited by law from purchasing or possessing firearms, from buying ammunition. Really.

The only situation in which Jaime’s Law might be considered even remotely applicable would be in stopping an individual from purchasing ammunition for a firearm they acquired illegally. It does not take a firearms expert or criminology PhD to know that finding ammunition is far easier even than for a criminal to get their hands on an illegal firearm

For the sake of argument, though, let us take Democrats at their word and assume there is an actual need for this proposed law. For instance, a “prohibited” person erroneously passes the first background check to purchase a firearm, and (for reasons that defy logic) later goes back to buy ammunition, subjecting himself to a second background check that hypothetically would prevent that purchase. What this scenario — which serves as the sole justification for Jamie’s Law — clearly suggests is that the background check system itself is the problem, not that more background checks are needed.

The suggestion is not entirely off-base (though the proposed solution is). Failures of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) allowed the killers in both the 2015 Charleston, South Carolina, and the 2017 Sutherland Springs, Texas, church shootings to obtain firearms they should have been prevented from purchasing.

The obvious – dare I say, “common sense” — solution to tragedies such as these, however, lies with better and more consistent enforcement of the existing background check system on firearms, notwithstanding that the system even as currently configured has worked remarkably, but not perfectly, well for over two decades.

Creating a whole new background check criteria and database for purchasing rounds of ammunition is wholly unnecessary and would be phenomenally costly and disruptive to the industry and to lawful firearms owners — which, of course, may be exactly what Blumenthal and his fellow gun-control advocates in the Florida legislature want.

Ironically, albeit predictably to anyone with even a passing familiarity with government data systems, proposals such as Jamie’s Law would wind up reducing the effectiveness of federal background checks, and placing citizens in greater danger, by overwhelming NICS with requests. Ammunition purchases by nature are exponentially more common than sales of firearms, and there simply is no way NICS could handle such volume, meaning more purchases would be approved by default (as required by law now).

In addition to making NICS less effective, an ammunition check procedure would come at a significant cost to law-abiding citizens who could no longer easily pick up ammunition for a trip to the range or before a hunt.

Jamie’s Law is a solution in search of a problem. Fortunately, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis understands both the constitutional and practical consequences of such a proposal, and never would sign such legislation even if it were to somehow make it through the Florida legislature. Still, if history of the gun control movement is our guide, this and other counterproductive and unconstitutional measures will continue to have life breathed into them by gun control advocates in the Sunshine State and elsewhere.

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.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

The indictment charging former Trump adviser Steve Bannon with contempt of Congress has all the trappings of a legitimate government proceeding. All the linguistic fluff aside, however, it is nothing more than a partisan abuse of power hatched by congressional Democrats and abetted by President Joe Biden and his Justice Department.

The authority according to which the House of Representatives charged Mr. Bannon with contempt derives from H. Res. 503. This resolution passed the House on June 30 and established a 13-member “Select Committee” to inquire into the January 6, 2021 turmoil in and around the U. S. Capitol Building.

That Bannon was a prime target of the inquiry became clear shortly after the committee organized itself and got down to the business of trying to link Trump, Bannon and others close to him to the Jan. 6 events on Capitol Hill. In September, Bannon was subpoenaed to appear before the committee and to produce documents. Following his refusal, the committee voted to hold him in contempt, a step the full House quickly rubber-stamped. The contempt resolution then was transmitted to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.

In earlier, more “normal” times, that would be where the matter would remain.

For example, of the five criminal contempt citations referred by the House to the Department of Justice since 2008, none resulted in grand juries returning indictments. In fact, the most recent examples of criminal contempt of Congress cases actually being successfully prosecuted took place in the 1970s as part of the Watergate scandal.

One reason for the dearth of criminal prosecutions for contempt of Congress is the obvious: only rarely will an attorney general belonging to a political party different from the House majority voting for such prosecution actually present the matter to a grand jury.

Another reason is that in most such disputes cooler heads prevail, with the Congress relying on the far less-heavy handed civil contempt power at its disposal to obtain information it needs; that is, if actually obtaining information is its real goal, as opposed to punishing an individual not of the majority’s liking.

In this current episode, with the Executive Branch and the House majority in Democrat Party hands, history, comity and evidence count for little.

Legally, however, the questions surrounding and underpinning the propriety of the contempt action against Bannon are more problematic for the Democrats than they might at first blush appear.

Start with the language written into H. Res. 503.

The resolution repeatedly refers to the “domestic terrorist” attack perpetrated by “insurrectionists” on and leading up to Jan. 6. By framing the purposes and functions of the committee in this way, the Congress is proposing to investigate acts that are neither defined in nor made criminal under federal law; there simply is no such crime as “domestic terrorism.” Even if there were, trying to shoe-horn the vandalism that took place on Jan. 6 into the subject matter of legitimate congressional legislative power would be a stretch to say the least.

Importantly, federal caselaw, including opinions by the Supreme Court of the United States, requires that for a criminal contempt of Congress to withstand legal challenge, the subject matter underlying the contempt must fall within the legitimate legislative jurisdiction of the House (or, Senate, as the case may be). Use of a congressional subpoena to gather information that is not based on any existing federal crime or linked reasonably to any legislation, appears to fail this threshold test.

The Democrats who drafted H. Res. 503 appear to have made a half-hearted stab at linking the formation of the select committee (and giving it subpoena power) to some sort of legislative function. After seven pages of incendiary verbiage about “insurrection” and “domestic terrorism” (acts not charged against a single of the nearly 700 individuals arrested for activities relating to the Jan. 6 disturbances), the resolution declares three “corrective measures” that possibly could result from the committee’s work.

This rhetorical fig leaf, however, should never be permitted to serve as the basis for convicting an American citizen for simply refusing to aid the Democrat Party in a vendetta against a former president.

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.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

In one breath, liberals call local police “racists” and demand their departments be defunded, and in the very next they rush to federal law enforcement agencies for help at the slightest hint of trouble. This is the whipsaw effect of how the Left views law enforcement – local cops bad, federal cops good. It is a perspective totally at odds with the framework on which our federal Republic was constructed.

Consider our public schools.

Leftists for years have fought tooth and nail to remove resource officers from schools, claiming their presence is “detrimental to the welfare of our children, leading to the increased criminalization of youth for child-like behaviors” (ACLU of Washington). And yet, as The Intercept reports, last month school district officials in Maryland’s Prince George’s County reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for help with monitoring the social media accounts of students, in hopes of curbing an outbreak of violence in two area high schools.

The Deep State’s abuses of national security powers in our post-9/11 world are numerous and well-known, from the Bush Administration’s unconstitutional directive to cell phone carriers to conduct warrantless surveillance of customers’ phones, to the continued use of the USA PATRIOT Act for investigations having nothing to do with national security. This mindset now has filtered down to community school board meetings.

Even in the face of severe criticism, for the Biden administration, it’s “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” Attorney General Merrick Garland refuses to rescind his recent directive that the FBI and United States Attorneys across the country develop plans to address disruptions at local school board meetings.

No serious debate today can be had that using federal law enforcement’s powers and resources to monitor local school board meetings or the social media activity of students fits within any reasonable or historically permissible definition of “federal jurisdiction.” It is a recipe for a terribly unappetizing constitutional banquet – federal law enforcement agencies with a history of abuse and a systemic lack of accountability, secretly surveilling the protected rights of students and parents, in defense of the “woke” agenda favored by many public-school administrators and teachers.

Being the target of a federal investigation is no casual matter. The mere possibility that your presence at a school board meeting may be monitored by police and the FBI has a decided chilling effect on such activities; as does the fact that social media posts are being monitored by the Department of Homeland Security. In addition to this chilling effect, the legal resources needed to defend oneself in any resulting federal investigations can easily drain the finances of all but the most well-off families.

Working-class families in Prince George’s County, who are most likely to be swept up in Homeland Security’s most recent dragnet, do not stand a chance. Nevertheless, the irony of using the full weight of the federal government to pursue targets least able to defend themselves, appears no longer relevant to the “woke” liberals behind this madness.

Making the situation even more irksome is that school officials are pursuing this sledgehammer-to-kill-a-mosquito plan because they find themselves in a situation of their own making, after years of removing resource officers from schools even as they turned a blind eye to troublemakers for fear of “labeling” the students as “troublemakers” or being branded “racist” themselves.

The trend of leaning on federal agencies for local issues did not start under Joe Biden, but his Administration, with the active support of Attorney General Garland, has taken it to a new and dangerous level.

This scenario playing out in public schools and school boards across the country is not occurring in a vacuum. Rather, it reflects a broad national phenomenon decades in the making, of a citizenry increasingly comfortable calling on the government to solve every problem and to meet every need. In this environment, where the “default” is to call on Uncle Sam, it is not only appropriate to bring in federal law enforcement to address problems within community school districts, it is the preferred solution.

When the Left sees everything from racism to bullying to global warming as a national emergency, there is no activity in which citizens engage that can be considered safe from the heavy hand of federal power.

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.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Last week was especially bad for President Joe Biden’s plan to force all Americans to be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. How the administration responds to the setbacks will reveal whether we have a president who actually believes in and will abide by the rule of law, or one who considers himself above such a bothersome technicality.

On September 9, Biden angrily lectured the American people about the COVID-19 pandemic, laying out plans for vaccination mandates to include all civilian and military federal employees and contractors, and for anyone working for a private company with 100 or more employees.

Biden’s plan was indeed bold. As it turns out, it was too bold. On Friday, a federal appeals court in New Orleans, answering one of some two dozen pending federal court challenges to Biden’s COVID mandates, told him to go back to the drawing board.

Biden’s plan hit another snag last week. The Army general in charge of Oklahoma’s National Guard issued an order declaring that no troops under his command will be required to be COVID vaccinated; this in direct defiance of a mandate issued in August by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The November 12 opinion by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dealt with the November 5 “Emergency Temporary Standard” issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) purporting to implement the 100 employee mandate portion of Biden’s September edict. (The court had issued a preliminary stay of the mandate on November 6.)

Despite Biden’s declaring that this mandate was among those he deemed essential to save the country from the continued ravages of COVID-19, the appeals court disagreed with him in every respect. It determined that OSHA had failed to meet a single requirement needed to be able to enforce the regulatory mandate, even had the agency possessed the legal power to do so, which the court said it did not.

The appeals court could not have been more clear in dousing Biden’s far-reaching plan with cold water; at one point deriding the OSHA plan as an unlawful  “sledgehammer.”

When that court issued its November 6 temporary order staying the OSHA regulations, the administration puffed up its chest and publicly urged American citizens and businesses to ignore the court and carry out the administration’s wishes regardless. It remains to be seen whether the administration will be as brash in urging citizens and businesses to violate last Friday’s far more detailed, crystal-clear order.

While the Fifth Circuit’s November 12 opinion did contain a lifeline for the administration, in that its stay of the OSHA mandate holds only until the court considers the underlying relief for a permanent injunction sought against the government, it likely will be extremely difficult for the administration to find a way around this opinion.

Not only did the three-judge Fifth Circuit panel provide legal and factual grounds defeating every argument on which OSHA based its “emergency” regulations, the judges explicitly told the agency it was to “take no steps to implement or enforce the Mandate.” This directive appears to be a warning to the administration not to make further public statements urging that the court’s orders be ignored.

The November 11 order by the commander of the Oklahoma National Guard rejecting the Defense Secretary’s COVID mandate for all troops presents the administration with a completely different predicament than that faced now by OSHA, and sets up what may prove to be a serious challenge to the power Uncle Sam legally can exercise over the National Guard units of an individual state. Regardless of how this particular problem is resolved, for now it further undercuts the mandate-heavy approach preferred by this president

As things stand now, the Biden administration lacks even a rubber mallet with which to enforce many of its beloved COVID-19 mandates. It will be interesting to see what legal rabbits it pulls out of its hat in the coming days.

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.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

The COVID pandemic is over.

Thanks to the work of President Donald Trump, a vaccine is widely available to anyone who wants it. And, coming from that research, a new pill from Pfizer that cuts the risk of death and hospitalization by 90 percent in individuals who contract COVID, is in front of the Food and Drug Administration for approval.

Those who want to protect themselves from COVID can do so easily, and those who chose not to take advantage of the vaccine or the pill (when it is approved) are in any event are unlikely to die from the sickness. By all goals and measures set at the beginning of the pandemic, this is moment for which we have waited.

The return to “normalcy” can begin right now; except, that is, for Dr. Anthony Fauci and his band of merry Biden Administration fearmongers standing in our way.

Democrats know that as soon as the pandemic is over, the COVID power party will end, and all those “emergency” powers they have enjoyed for two years will run dry. For a political party that invested so much of its identity into using COVID to moralize, mandate, and manipulate, the end of the pandemic is a worst-case scenario.

It is not that they do not believe the pandemic is over. They just cannot afford to let it end.

The powers enjoyed for nearly two years wielded by numerous mayors, city councils, governors, and a bevy of unelected health department bureaucrats have produced a rush of political adrenaline, the likes of which have not been seen since the post-9/11 rush of anti-terrorism measures.

As anyone who has worked even briefly in government knows all too well, once government achieves any degree of power, it becomes almost impossible to wrest it away from the hands of bureaucrats exercising it. Power truly is addictive, and the Democrats’ new blueprint already is being readied for the next engineered emergency.

The COVID pandemic provided an endless supply of excuses for Big Brothers of all stripes to concoct new ways to impose their idea of “order” on our lives. Now that they have had a taste of what is possible under “emergency” conditions, there is no way they will willingly go back to the old, and constitutional mode of governing the country.

Instead, “COVID” will morph into the next “public health crisis” – which, as I have written, can incorporate anything from racism to global warming to gun crime. Each such “emergency” will offer justification for Washington and for governors from Massachusetts to Oregon to continue exercising leverage powers authority that already has been abused far beyond any notion of the legitimate exercise of power under our Constitution; and, of course, spend ever greater amounts of deficit dollars.

There are but few ways to slow, much less stop this trend from becoming a permanent roadmap for how cities, states, and federal governments operate.

Most important, we need to start electing the right people. We need to find and elect true conservatives; not faux populists who only oppose broad emergency powers because it is not in furtherance of their emergency. Genuine, limited government conservatives recognize and understand the danger in capricious use of sweeping government edicts and mandates, particularly those that violate the separation of state and the private sector, as well as those violating fundamental principles of federalism.

We also must use the judicial system – federal and state courts – to bring sound and constitutionally based legal challenges to instances of government overreach. Importantly, this method of righting the ship of state should not be viewed as the first option, but rather a tool to be used in those instances where the polityical fails have failed to self-correct. Turning to the courts to solve every new or recurrent problem disrupts the carefully crafted tripartite system of governing, and eventually plays right into the hands of the Left.

Finally, we must demand that those individuals already in office, both elective and appointed, do their jobs and not let them off the hook when they fail to heed our demands.

None of this is new or rocket science. However, in today’s environment, where the government has tasted unlimited, “emergency” power and will fight tooth-and-nail to keep it, every means at our disposal must be turned to the goal of defeating such an occurrence. As they say, failure is not an option.

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.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Zurich, Switzerland is a major international financial center sitting at the northern tip of its namesake lake. Beginning in 1987 and continuing until 1992, however, this beautiful Swiss city was home to “Needle Park,” an experiment in illicit drug usage that went horribly wrong, and with consequences that plagued the city for years thereafter.

Three decades after Switzerland’s heroin debacle, a new generation of “woke” mayors, prosecutors and governors in the United States is hoping to create Americanized versions of Needle Park.

Advocates of “Safe Injection Facilities,” or “SIFs,” apparently believe that drug addicts are actually being helped if they are provided with needles and other necessary drug paraphernalia and offered a safe place to “shoot up.” In this Bizarro World, facilitating drug use will lessen drug use.

History is less kind and has shown us that encouraging public use of illicit and highly addictive controlled substances such as heroin and methamphetamine is not such a good idea, especially when, as now in many major American cities, violent crime rates are on the upswing, law enforcement presence is declining and the homeless population is increasing.

Undaunted by such reality, the soon-to-be-ex-Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, is proposing to carve out at least two areas in the Big Apple, including one in Harlem on Manhattan’s upper west side, where drug users would be permitted to openly inject drugs of their choosing without fear of arrest or harassment by public officials. This move comes on the heels of legislation signed last month by Gov. Kathy Hochul decriminalizing possession or sale of disposable hypodermic needles used by drug dealers and users.

Those who favor legalization of controlled substances such as heroin and methamphetamine, and who also support government action facilitating the use of the substances, have urged actions such as that whichNew York is now attempting going back to the 1970s. It was this so-called “harm reduction” philosophy that led to Zurich’s notorious Needle Park (which actually increased drug overdoses and HIV cases).

Democrat-run cities in the United States, including San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Philadelphia and, of course, New York, have toyed with the concept of SIFs for years, but at least to this point federal prosecutors and courts have been less than consistently sympathetic to such efforts.

For example, while a federal district court judge in Philadelphia issued an opinion in late 2019 that would have allowed a SIF known as “Safehouse” to operate in the City of Brotherly Love, early this year an appellate court panel reversed that opinion. In its ruling, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that the proposed SIF would violate the federal “crack house law,” a 1986 law making it illegal to operate a facility that engages in or facilitates the use or distribution of any controlled substance.

While that 1986 “crack house law” was passed with the strong support of then-Sen. Joe Biden, for those who now are advocating for a radical shift in public drug policy, President Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland is seen as a potential lifeline.

When de Blasio announced his latest free drug-use zone proposal last month, for example, he happily noted that “[w]e have a new administration in Washington” with “the kind of potential cooperation we needed.”

Using public money to establish and maintain areas or facilities where drug users are provided a safe haven to inject themselves with substances such as heroin remains a dream actively pursued by de Blasio and his leftist colleagues in other “deep blue” cities.

Many of these drug zone advocates view the establishment of such areas as the logical next step to the Obama administration’s policy of not prosecuting the vast majority marijuana-related offenses. This hardly is or should be the case.

Using public money to facilitate illicit drug usage has never reduced harm to individuals or to society, and the appalling results of such efforts are well-documented. Sadly, however, our country’s new cadre of woke political officials appear bent on ignoring that history as they rush to go down the same, needle-strewn path that caused great harm to Zurich three decades ago.

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.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

In recent years, the Left has let no incident, no matter how trivial, pass without turning it into a vehicle with which to virtue signal their outrage. Six years ago, it was horror over the shooting of a lion in Zimbabwe. Two years later, it was President Trump’s statement about a demonstration in Charlottesville. Today, it is a Southwest Airlines pilot’s use of an anti-Joe Biden slogan.

Brandon Brown seems to be everywhere these days, a previously unknown NASCAR driver who has become the poster boy for progressive outrage. Last month, when NBC reporter Kelli Stavast interviewed Brown immediately after his first victory at Talladega, she exclaimed that the background crowd was chanting “Let’s go Brandon!” instead of the clearly discernible “[Expletive] Joe Biden.”

Thus, a star was born.

Stavast’s transparent switcheroo quickly made the phrase a commentary on the Mainstream Media’s habit of intentionally distorting objective reality to favor Democrats. Then, as it quickly spread in conservative circles, “Let’s go Brandon” became harmless, if slightly immature internet gag with which to mock Biden.

Never content to let a jab at Biden remain just that, the Left has imbued this cheeky expression with all manner of sinister mysticism, just as they did for “learn to code” and the “OK” hand gesture before that.

The perception by the Left that there is an Alt-Right boogeyman behind every meme, and a KKK sympathizer hiding under every red “MAGA” hat, is approaching a clinical psychosis that induces bizarre behavior from the Left.

What, then, is to be done to the Southwest Airlines pilot, whose un-apropos attempt at humor while preparing to land a commercial airliner has caused such an internet ruckus? Is his unprofessional lapse in judgment grounds for a disciplinary demerit from his employer? Or must it be considered another “the-sky-is-falling” catastrophe that endangered lives and triggered racist fears among the passengers on board, and necessitated federal prosecution?

For today’s hyper-sensitive progressives, any words or actions that can be construed to be critical of President Biden, if uttered or undertaken by a real or a perceived conservative, are considered grist for the victimhood mill. Any such words or deeds must be considered “violent,” “dangerous,” or, worst of all, “racist,” and then twisted into a link back to January 6th.

For a group of people who have spent every hour of every day from November 8, 2016 to January 20, 2021 chirping about fascism residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (and at Mar-a-Lago), these thin-skinned progressives have drawn an incredibly fine line between free speech and speech that invites the scrutiny of law enforcement.

The sad truth revealed in all this is that progressives have become the most joyless, paranoid people in politics, if not in all their myriad endeavors. It seems impossible for them to take pleasure in anything, since everything is problematic if not potentially devastating. But while they have always been a humorless lot, their post-January 6th penchant for calling on federal law enforcement to punish their perceived tormentors, makes them highly dangerous as well.

Living amongst this extremely vindictive brood is becoming more dangerous each day, but not in the way progressives believe the refrain, “Let’s go, Brandon,” is dangerous. The danger posed by these many faux victims is very real — to our lives, to our liberty, and to our property.

In the public arena, they strive to control our school boards, lead city councils, run police departments, serve in Congress, and stack the courts with their kind. To them, the private sector must be similarly controlled, with mandatory training to expose “unconscious bias,” organized rooting out “white extremism,” and forced medical mandates; all with the caveat, comply or else.

A society controlled by adults having the temperament of toddlers but with access to the levers of real power, is the image that must remain foremost in our mind’s eye as we vote next year and again in 2024. These are elections that can ensure that our futures and those of our children, do not remain in the hands of people who have proved they cannot be trusted to trim the grass of our lawns, much less run our lives.

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.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

Supreme Court decisions upholding the right to abortion or defending press freedom draw kudos and huzzahs from the mainstream media. The mere possibility that the High Court might issue an opinion supporting the Second Amendment, however, throws that same media into conniption.

So it is with oral arguments scheduled before the Supreme Court this week regarding a closely watched firearms case — New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Considering the fervor with which the mainstream media is wringing its collective hands over this case, one would think the justices were preparing to place a rocket launcher into the hands of every man, woman and child in America.

One writer, Ian Millhisen, authored an opinion piece last week that described the pending case as one that “could gut America’s gun laws,” and mused that if a majority of the nine Supreme Court justices were to side with the citizen-plaintiffs in the case, it would usher in an era of “unlimited” gun rights.

Such hyperbole is typical of the manner by which the mainstream media and most Democrat policy makers have characterized the gun control debate ever since the High Court rendered a pair of decisions in 2008 and 2010 declaring the obvious – that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm, not some amorphous right enjoyed only by the citizenry in general.

Neither of those two decisions opened the floodgates to unfettered concealed-carry gun possession in cities and towns across America. In fact, neither decision even dealt with the right to possess a firearm outside the home, and the numerous restrictions on possession of a gun outside one’s home, especially in notoriously firearms-averse jurisdictions like New York, remain in place even now, 11 years later. This is why the case now before the Court is in fact an important supplement to those decisions.

The case to be argued this week presents squarely the question of whether officials in a state (in this case, New York) can arbitrarily deny a law-abiding citizen a permit to carry a concealed firearm for self-protection outside their home. Government officials in the Empire State are able to exercise such broad authority for no reason other than a 1911 state law, commonly known as the “Sullivan Act,” empowers them to do so.

According to that long-standing and onerous law, if an otherwise law-abiding citizen in New York fails to convince the reviewing government official that he or she has a “special need” beyond the “needs” of citizens generally to protect themselves outside their home, that citizen is plum out of luck and denied this most basic right of self-defense.

No other right expressly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights is so arbitrarily encumbered.

Notwithstanding that the current case has nothing whatsoever to do with the many restrictions imposed on the type, quantity, and acquisition of firearms imposed already by laws at all levels of government, anti-gun activists and writers continue to sound the alarm that if at least five members of the current Supreme Court bench side with the two individual plaintiffs in the New York case, cities across the country will run red with blood. Hardly.

First-year law students know it is extremely rare for the Supreme Court of the United States to render any decision that goes beyond the “four corners” of a case presented to it; and even then, the Court is notorious for rendering decisions on the most narrow grounds possible. Moreover, trying to handicap in advance how so-called “conservative” justices will line up on any particular case is at best a crapshoot.

Thus, when all the dust settles late next spring, when the court likely will publish its opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, it is unlikely the sky will have fallen on the gun control Chicken Littles.

Hopefully, however, the court’s decision will at a minimum put a clear and definitive stop to state laws that permit government officials at their whim to pick winners and losers in the never-ending effort by American citizens to protect themselves from the violence that increasingly confronts them on the streets of cities in New York and beyond.

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.

Townhall

by Bob Barr

The American people are done hearing from Dr. Anthony Fauci. We do not need another word from him about the “science” of COVID-19, what America “must do” to defeat the pandemic, or anything else that this demonstrated liar and Deep State denizen has to say. That he continues to serve as the oracle of truth for America’s pandemic response, is beyond rational comprehension.

A popular aphorism reminds us that sometimes “the cure is worse than the disease.” If Fauci is considered the “cure” for the government’s response to COVID-19, that shoe fits perfectly. Fauci has been wrong about virtually every aspect of COVID-19, with dreadful economic, social, and public health consequences, yet he remains in the media throne.

Conveniently ignored by the Left, is the fact that Fauci was the one who, early on, created massive confusion about facemasks; first by berating Americans for attempting to secure personal protective gear in the pandemic’s early days, and later scolding the public for not wearing them, even if fully vaccinated and safe from serious cases.

Fauci has been perhaps the single biggest roadblock to moving American society back to normal, with his doomsday pronouncements like needing to cancel Christmas, or constantly warning another “wave” is just around the corner.

The Good Doctor seems to relish striking panic into the hearts of people who just want to know the facts in order to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. Fauci is, however, a shrewd operator. He understands perfectly that panic ensures his longevity as a Washington fixture.

President Donald Trump likely had no clue of the monster he unleashed in January 2020 when he appointed the then-largely unknown bureaucrat-doctor to the White House Coronavirus Task Force. And there he remained — a parasite feeding from the media spotlight as America’s “top expert,” all the while undermining at every turn both Trump’s and Vice President Pence’s efforts to get a handle on the developing pandemic.

Fauci’s not-so-subtle efforts undercutting Trump in an election year guaranteed he would land softly and prominently in the Biden Administration.

The truth, regardless of partisan politics, is that Fauci cannot be trusted on public health matters – by anyone. His priorities during COVID have always been not what is best for America, but what is best for building his reputation, and protecting the role he played in developing and furthering relationships with the Communist Chinese government (and military) on “gain of function” studies and other projects that potentially, if not actually, harm America’s national security interests.

Fauci knows the truth about his COVID shenanigans will be his downfall, and he is not about to let that happen.

The most recent revelations confirming that the National Institutes for Health was actively funding “gain of function” research in China – exactly what Fauci had denied publicly in a heated exchange with Sen. Rand Paul last July – is proof that not only should Fauci be blocked from offering any further input on COVID-19, but should himself be investigated for potential criminal misconduct, the least of which being lying to Congress.

Were the House of Representatives interested in exercising real oversight, as opposed to the showtime investigation of the January 6th Capitol Hill demonstrations, they would subpoena Fauci and others with knowledge of the role the Department of Health and Human Services and NIH played in the dangerous research with China that very well may have led to the “lab leak” scenario spawning COVID.

If serious effort were to be expended in this regard, criminal referrals to the Justice Department might very well result, which of course is why no one in this administration or on the Democrat side of the congressional aisles will touch that can of worms.

So, the status quo will remain, at least until perhaps an unrelated revelation such as the “Puppygate” dog-torturing scandal forces Fauci out, or until the GOP regains a majority in the House of Representatives in next year’s midterm election.

However, even if the Republicans regain the majority, they might decide not to follow through and seriously investigate Fauci’s skulduggery. Such a GOP cop-out would bring coy smiles to the faces of leaders in Beijing, secure in the knowledge that their Man in Washington again avoided accountability.

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.

Daily Caller

by Bob Barr

In the name of COVID, American citizens in 2021 are being subjected to a form of perverse religious persecution by elected officials and unelected regulatory bureaucrats. This is ironic, considering that the United States was founded on the principle that government is not empowered to dictate or negate, directly or indirectly, an individual’s religious beliefs.

Now, centuries after our nation’s founding, government leaders and bureaucrats at the state and federal levels are punishing those who assert a religious objection to receiving a COVID vaccination.

This intolerance is but the latest in a seemingly endless series of measures by government to use the COVID pandemic as a hammer to control virtually every segment of our society, from education to healthcare, and from the military to the entire commercial sector.

A country that produced such advocates of religious freedom and tolerance as George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin now chafes under the intolerance and exercise of arbitrary power by the likes of President Joe Biden and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who recently declared categorically that “there are not religious exemptions” for people being vaccinated against COVID.

In September, Biden confirmed by executive order what many citizens had feared for months he would do. He decreed that COVID vaccinations would be required for all federal employees, including members of the armed forces, but also for all individuals working for private companies with 100 or more employees. OSHA – the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — will be Uncle Sam’s primary vaccine enforcer. (OSHA is a regulatory nanny agency signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1971.)

OSHA was ready to go to work even before Biden’s Sept. 9 order, having declared last summer that COVID-19 is a “workplace hazard,” thereby making it an enforceable mandate on American businesses.

Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are working feverishly to pass legislation that would greatly increase the level of fines OSHA could levy on businesses failing to meet Biden’s private sector vaccine mandate.

A number of companies already are jumping into Biden’s mandate line and forcing employees to get vaccinated or be terminated.

Even though both the U.S. military and private companies offer “religious exemptions,” in practice these are a sham.

United Airlines, among the first major air carriers to salute Biden’s vaccine order, allowed the few of its employees who sought a religious exemption to do so, but then placed them on indefinite leave without pay.

Another large employer, Washington state, empowers its bureaucrats to be the ultimate arbiters of whether an employee’s claim of religious objection to being vaccinated will be allowed. Washington State University’s head football coach, Nick Rolovich, for example, was fired from his multi-million dollar job by the university’s athletic director, who summarily denied the coach’s requested religious exemption.

Similar fates have befallen employees at other businesses. One longtime employee at Trader Joe’s was grudgingly granted a religious exemption, but then fired anyway on a pretext.

Members of our armed forces wanting to assert a religious reason for noncompliance are being forced to take legal action to do so. The Navy, however, appears uninterested in allowing any meaningful opportunity for its members to assert such an exemption. Reportedly Navy SEALs, among the most elite of our military units, are being told that a religious exemption may be sought, but even if granted, requesting individuals will be terminated from the service.

Many of these cases already are being challenged in the courts, a costly and time-consuming process for most employees, and especially for members of the military. While some judges are granting temporary reprieves for employees asserting their right to religious exemptions, others are not. The latter includes Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, who last week refused to grant a stay to Maine healthcare workers claiming their religious beliefs precluded them from meeting their state government’s mandate.

Even if the full U.S. Supreme Court decides to step in and protect many thousands if not millions of American citizens from being arbitrarily and summarily punished for their religious beliefs, the fact that so many individuals already are being placed in such predicament illustrates the damage already done to the foundation of religious freedom and tolerance that once undergirded our constitutional Republic.

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.