“A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves … and include … all men capable of bearing arms. … The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle.” –Richard Lee (1787)

The Obama/Feinstein legislative assault on defensive weapons was formally introduced into the Senate this week, albeit without the bold registration requirements that Feinstein originally proposed – registration being necessary in order to eventually legislate confiscation.

Some political observers are suggesting the “assault weapons” ban is DOA, but don’t believe it. Obama is going to pump a LOT of political capital into this legislation because the ban is central to the NeoCom agenda – you can’t subjugate the people when they are armed. The gun confiscators have no intention of relinquishing momentum they shamefully constructed on the caskets of children – using a genuine tragedy as fuel for an emotionally driven campaign to advance a politically disingenuous gun-control agenda.

Feinstein reiterated that her objective is to remove all guns from circulation. “Will it only be ‘assault weapons’? No, most likely there will be a package put together.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee immediately launched hearings on Obama/Feinstein, in an effort to squeeze whatever political value was left in the Sandy Hook tragedy.

To win the legislative battle, they are using a two-vector approach.

First, obfuscation. As Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder said back in 1995 when he was Assistant AG under Clinton, “What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns. … We need to do this every day of the week and just really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.” They are redefining the Second Amendment as being codified to protect “the traditions of hunting and sport shooting,” in order to divert attention from the real reason our Founders codified the right to keep and bear arms: To support and defend our Constitution, and the Liberty it enshrines, as the last defense against statist politicos and tyrants. Additionally, Obama is attempting to insert a “divide and conquer” wedge between “hunters and sportsmen” and Patriots who understand 2A is about defending Liberty. But Obama does not realize most “hunters and sportsmen” are also defenders of Liberty.

The Second vector is vilification. They are framing the contest as one between the evil NRA and the noble objective of “keeping our children safe.” Obama claims, “If there’s even one thing we can do to keep our children safe…we got an obligation to take that step.” Feinstein proclaimed, “The NRA is venal. The NRA has become an institution of gun manufacturers.” Her House lap dog, Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), was even more vicious, smearing the NRA and its members as “enablers of mass murder.”

Obama, the master of obfuscation, argued this week that it’s difficult to amend the Second Amendment by executive order or legislative action because of our hunting traditions. “If you grew up and your dad gave you a hunting rifle when you were 10, and you went out and spent the day with him and your uncles, and that became part of your family’s traditions, you can see why you’d be pretty protective of that.”

What Obama missed with this obfuscation is the fact that of the 80 million gun owners in America, only 16 percent of them are hunters, according to the latest data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. What really gives Obama heartburn is that more than 60 million gun owners fall into the category of “armed Patriots.”

The Obama/Feinstein propagandists are also actively replacing references to “gun control,” which originate with the Left’s “Gun Control Act of 1968,” with more palatable phrasing such as “gun safety measures” and “limiting criminal access” to guns.

Biden now says, “I don’t view it as gun control. I view it as gun safety.” Blood-spattered Chicago Mayor and former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel noted, “It’s not about gun control. It’s about criminal access. That changes the debate.” (Emanuel, of all people, ought to be an expert in matters of “criminal access.”)

On the vilification front, picking up on Obama’s condemnation of the NRA for “ginning up fear for higher revenues,” Sen. Dick Durbin, in the Senate hearings, attempted to marginalize anyone who thinks the Second Amendment is about something more than “hunting and sport shooting.” He lamented that some of his constituents in Illinois told him, “It’s not just about hunting, it’s not just about sports, it’s not just about shooting targets, it’s not just about defending ourselves from criminals … we need the firepower and the ability to protect ourselves from our government, from our government…”

Can you imagine that? Some Americans think Obama and his NeoCom cadres are intent on “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” into a nation under authoritarian government with oppressive and dictatorial powers. Who could imagine that Obama wants to subordinate Rule of Law to the rule of men? Where would they find an idea like that, and the strange notion that the Second Amendment is all about defending against such transformations?

Even the Communist Party USA, which issued a strong statement in support of Obama/Feinstein, concurred with Obama: “There is no basis for claiming the Second Amendment was intended to permit unregulated personal acquisition of firearms … for ‘protection,’ including ‘protection from the government.’”

Obama, Durbin, Emanuel – what is it about these guys from the “Land of Lincoln”?

Of course, as is the case with all legislative mandates saddled on the people, the royal members of the Senate and House are exempt from the Obama/Feinstein legislation.

Despite the Left’s best efforts to keep the Newtown emotions alive, many Americans have returned to rational reasoning when considering the causal factors for these very rare and terrible mass murders.

Even the shamelessly liberal New York Times noted that in Obama’s hometown of Chicago, with the strictest gun laws in the nation, and no gun retailers or event shooting ranges (except for public streets), Feinstein’s so-called “assault weapons” ban would have done nothing to prevent more than “500 homicides last year and at least 40 killings already in 2013.” As we’ve noted, more Americans were killed in Chicago last year than in the war zones of Afghanistan.

Clearly, “guns” are not the problem, and what the Left calls “sensible gun control policy,” is not a solution. The real Obama/Feinstein objective is to, first and foremost, remove defensive weapons from circulation, because the purpose of those weapons is, first and foremost, to defend Liberty.

Unfortunately, too many Republican Senators and their counterparts in the House, are either unable or unwilling to articulate that the Second Amendment IS about the defense of Liberty, and the defensive weapons targeted by Obama/Feinstein are, primarily, for that purpose. Further, most conservative columnists and commentators seem equally unable or unwilling to articulate the same. Perhaps they all need to get outside the Beltway for a little fresh air.

It’s LIBERTY stupid!

For the record, if you think that so called “assault weapons” are not properly called defensive weapons, then I bring your attention to a General Service Administration request for bid issued this week, to supply the Department of Homeland Security with 7,000 5.56x45mm NATO weapons. These weapons look like the much-maligned AR-15, except that the DHS request is for “select fire” weapons – machine guns. That notwithstanding, the very weapons the Left classifies as “assault” are classified by DHS as “Personal Defense Weapons,” which are “suitable for personal defense use in close quarters.”

On that note, New York State Senator Greg Ball, Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said, “Now, even the Department of Homeland Security even agrees that these modern firearms, made illegal by Governor Cuomo, are suitable for self defense.”

Obama/Feinstein will not go down without a fight, and Obama may inject a lot more political capital into this legislation. Meanwhile, a group of senators, including Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Mark Kirk (R-IL), are working quietly with Democrat leaders to do an end run around Obama/Feinstein, and propose meaningful legislation such as more comprehensive background checks on gun purchases. But caveat emptor! If legislation for “universal background checks” does not retain the current background check provision that all information from those checks is purged once an approval or denial has been issued, retaining that information constitutes federal gun registration. And the only purpose for registration is confiscation.

However, should Obama/Feinstein pass, enforcement may be a problem. While Feinstein has paraded a few police chiefs in front of the Senate to argue for gun control, more than 200 sheriffs across the nation have already publicly pledged they will not enforce any such measures, and thousands more have given private assurances.

I am reminded of Thomas Jefferson’s quote from Cesare Beccaria (1774): “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms … disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

The Patriot spirit of resistance exhibited by these sheriffs, and this open letter supporting the Second Amendment signed by more than a thousand Green Berets, also remind me of Jefferson’s words, “What country can preserve its liberties, if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”

And a final note on the Second Amendment debate: Again endeavoring to frame 2A as “hunting and sport shooting,” Obama attempted to outdo Joe Biden in the “Non Compos Mentis” department this week.

In an interview with his adoring sycophants for the New Republic magazine, he was asked if he has ever fired a gun. Obama responded, “Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time.” Predictably, he added, “I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations.” (Gosh, the Second Amendment must be about “traditions of hunting”! After all, Obama is a revered “constitutional scholar,” according to, well, Obama.)

Needless to say, your Patriot Team had a good laugh when he let that one fly.

My friend, Tennessee GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn, asked: “If he is a skeet shooter, why have we not heard of this? Why have we not seen photos? Why hasn’t he referenced this at any point in time?” She has challenged Obama to a skeet-shooting competition. But Obama will likely faint from the recoil of the first shot. Maybe he could counter with a “beer summit.”

Pressed for the truth, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney replied, “He does go to Camp David with some regularity, but I’m not sure how often he’s done that.” But make no mistake, Carney insisted, Obama “has a strong record of support for Second Amendment rights.”

Perhaps Obama misunderstood the question and thought “shooting” was in reference to the golf course or billiards or a ping-pong table. Clearly Obama, when he’s not tele-prompted, is accomplished at shooting the bull and shooting himself in the foot. There are even some celebrated photos of him shooting the bird – and I don’t mean “clay pigeons.”

However, I suspect that Barack “Skeeter” Obama has spent much more with super-soakers than he has killing clay targets.

Obama also told New Republic that he would never teach his daughters to shoot because it’s just too dangerous. (You can bet, however, that his daughters’ Secret Service detail knows how to shoot.) Ironically, he said this while at the same time offering up other people’s daughters to serve in combat. Obama’s risk aversion didn’t stop there, however: “I’m a big football fan, but I have to tell you if I had a son, I’d have to think long and hard before I let him play football.”

I suspect that if Obama had boys, like father like son, they’d be too busy soaking up socialist doctrine to take up sport shooting or football – just as Obama was, for most of his formative years, soaking up the teachings of his radical Communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis.

(NOTE: Our staff compiled a couple of excellent resources under the Second Amendment section of our reference pages, one with 2A commentary and the other with 2A quotes. I also encourage you to visit the 2A section of our YouTube Channel. There you will find an outstanding video supporting 2A from a Chinese-American gun owner who was present at Tiananmen Square.)