“The ultimate authority … resides in the people alone. … [T]he advantage of being armed … forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any…” —James Madison (1788)

In 1992, Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist, James Carville, distributed a memo to staffers to focus on the economy as a means of diverting attention for President George H.W. Bush’s high public approval after Desert Storm. In that memo, Carville wrote, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

After the bloody Islamist attack in Orlando, Barack Obama ordered the FBI to cover up the motivation for the assault by sanitizing references to Islam in the assailant’s 911 call. This occurred as part of a much larger administration-wide effort to remove references to Islam deemed “disrespectful,” no matter how accurate, and divert the blame for the attack on “guns.”

Predictably, within hours of the Orlando attack, Obama directed attention away from “Islamist terror” and instead toward the “gun problem” and the need for more “common sense” gun control.

Only in BO’s alternate universe can an Islamic terrorist, who is a registered Democrat voter and outspoken supporter of Hillary Clinton, murder 49 homosexuals while yelling “Allahu Akbar”* and, according to Obama, Republicans and the NRA are at fault.

Demonstrating their mastery of mainstream media propaganda, Senate Democrats took Obama’s gun control lead and diverted national attention from terrorism to the FBI’s so-called “no fly” list.

For the record, conservative members of Congress objected to the fact that many people who have absolutely no connection with terrorism have found themselves on terror watch lists, without due process or ready recourse for having their names removed. But knowing that Democrats would twist this issue into a successful MSM sound bite — “Republicans want terrorists to have guns” — the Senate had to take up the issue again in order to resolve concerns about due process.

Meanwhile, the threat of Islamic terror attacks in the U.S. is growing unabated.

Being a presidential election year, I note the remarkable parallel between Obama’s efforts to obfuscate the nature of the Orlando terror attack in order to provide Clinton political cover ahead of her 2016 campaign, and Clinton’s efforts to obfuscate the nature of the Benghazi attack in order to provide Obama cover ahead of his 2012 re-election bid.

Regarding how most grassroots liberals interpret issues, in the inimitable words of Ronald Reagan, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

But there is nothing benign about how Democrat antagonists misinterpret our Constitution and the inalienable rights it enshrines, especially the Second Amendment that ensures the defense of all other rights.

At one of his faux “town hall” meetings advocating gun control, Obama was asked about his efforts to undermine the Second Amendment: “Why do you and Hillary want to control and restrict and limit gun manufacturers, gun owners and the responsible use of guns and ammunition instead of holding the bad guys accountable for their actions? Chicago, your hometown, a city that has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, a city that for decades has been and still is under Democrat control, yet a city that has an outrageous murder rate, why don’t we round up these thugs, these drug dealers, these gang members, and hold them accountable for their actions, or allow the good people in Chicago access to firearms in order to defend themselves?”

Obama responded, “Uh, the notion that I, or Hillary, or Democrats or whoever you want to choose, are hell bent on taking away folks’ guns, is just not true. … I’m about to leave office. There have been more guns sold since I have been president than anytime in U.S. history. … At no point have I ever, ever proposed confiscating guns from responsible gun owners. So, it’s just not true. … It is suggested that we’re trying to wipe away gun rights and impose tyranny and martial law. … There is a way for us to have common sense gun laws. There is a way to make sure lawful gun owners are able to use them for sporting, hunting, protecting yourself…”

Let’s take that reply apart.

Obama insists that he, Clinton and other Democrats are not “hell bent on taking away folks’ guns,” and that any assertion to the contrary “is just not true.”

Of course that is true. The greatest challenge to the Socialist Democrat agenda is the ability of citizens to defend Liberty against government usurpations. And that is precisely why Obama can say, “There have been more guns sold since I have been president than anytime in U.S. history.”

He insists, “At no point have I ever, ever proposed confiscating guns from responsible gun owners. So, it’s just not true.” Well, not in those exact words…

He dismisses claims that “we’re trying to wipe away gun rights and impose tyranny and martial law,” but that is correct only in the sense that nobody believes the next step after gun confiscation is “martial law.” Without the means to defend Liberty, there would be no need to declare martial law.

And as for the Left’s “common sense gun laws” rhetoric, they errantly insist that the Second Amendment is about the right to have firearms suitable “for sporting, hunting and protecting yourself…”

No, as disconcerting as this might be for all those poor, misguided, civically challenged souls who believe that Liberty is the gift of government, the Second Amendment is actually about the defense of Liberty and Rule of Law from government intrusion.

Everyone reading these words must commit to educate our “liberal friends” who “know so much that isn’t so” about “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” and the bloody history that has accompanied the loss of that right.

And while you’re at it, be sure to thoroughly debunk the “assault weapons” and “weapons of war” rhetoric.

First, the FBI’s own statistics indicate that there are more people murdered in altercations that involve no weapons than altercations that involve some sort of long gun — of which a tiny percentage are so-called “assault weapons.”

Second, if you are not associated with the violent thug, drug or gang subcultures, who commit the vast majority of crimes in America, your chances of being shot or killed by an assailant with a gun are almost as low as murder rates in Western Europe where gun ownership is outlawed. In other words, the vast majority of homicides in our country, including those with a firearm, are associated with thug, drug and gang violence — perpetrators Obama and company do not hold accountable.

Notably, they do not hold them accountable because one of the Left’s most dependable constituencies are those generations of Americans who have been enslaved by Democrats on urban poverty plantations.

In this year’s presidential and congressional campaigns, Republicans should constantly remind Democrats, “It’s the terrorists, stupid!”

Finally, one of the most significant things you can do to promote Liberty and the Second Amendment is to support our efforts. Since we launched The Patriot Post 20 years ago, we have grown to become the Web’s most influential grassroots journal of Liberty. We rely completely on the voluntary financial support of Patriots — people like YOU. Please support our 2016 Independence Day Campaign.

**For the record, all Islamist terror attacks in the West have been perpetrated by a global network of Islamofascist groups and individuals under the banner, “Allahu Akbar.” These include the al-Qa'ida network (the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack), and their contemporary manifestations, ISIL and the Islamic State. Point of clarification: “Allahu Akbar” translates “Allah is the Greatest.” The DemoMSM propaganda machine often reports the translation as something quiet different: “god is great.” As properly translated, Allahu Akbar claims only the god of Islam is great, and has been the violent warring cry of jihadi terrorists for generations, in their centuries-long effort to conquer infidels and establish a worldwide caliphate. Under those words, countless victims of Islamic supremacists – men, women and children – have been slaughtered. As such, it perilously dangerous to erroneously refer to contemporary Islamic terrorists in the West as “lone wolves,” because they are connected to worldwide jihad by way of the Qur'an, the foundational fabric linking all Islamist violence.

Pro Deo et Constitutione — Libertas aut Mors
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis