[Ed: Reprinted with permission from GATDaily, this is an apt followup to Dr. Latebloomer’s pice on patriotic civil disobedience to laws outlawing possession of common firearms and accessories.]
On Thursday [January 10], to the surprise of no one, Dianne Feinstein, the one trick pony of California politics, introduced her new Assault Weapons Ban. This, while two different versions of background check legislation float to and fro.
The way things are going with threats of even more felony-level firearms restrictions, I’m wondering when we reach a point of “Peak Felony”? Remember how people used to talk about “Peak Oil”? Well this would be “Peak Felony” – when the maximum number of otherwise lawful citizens become overnight felons by legislation or felons by non-compliance.
I’m no lawyer, and I don’t play one on TV, but it seems to me that after a certain number of felonies, the threat of more just doesn’t seem to be a deterrent anymore. You know – kinda like with criminals?
I’m a physician. One felony conviction will lose me my license to practice. So if possession of one 30-round magazine accidentally in the State of New Jersey destroys my life and livelihood, will possessing twenty of them make me even MORE imprisoned and unemployable? What if for the sake of argument I also happened to own a bump stock or two? How about some “assault weapons” for good measure? How felonious can an overbearing government MAKE a mild mannered pediatrician? Just asking – that wasn’t a dare, really.
When everything to do with firearms is a felony, why care about one more? Why care about the law at all? Is the criminal penalty even a deterrent anymore when they’ve made a mockery of it all? The existing criminals don’t seem deterred, so will most freedom-loving citizens even bat an eye when the rubber really hits the road?
The manipulators in government CREATE felons out of thin air, and usually not just once. EVERY object that they don’t like becomes a felony – whether it’s a piece of a firearm or an accessory for a firearm or even defensive rounds to put into a firearm. The felonies rack up like the meter on a gas pump. Soon it’s hard to tell in which state (or county or city) you’re a normal citizen and in which ones you are a dangerous criminal. Don’t blink on the interstate. One wrong exit could have you white-knuckle driving through a prohibited city.
As if our justice system isn’t already overloaded with genuinely violent criminals and sociopaths as it is. Yeah, let’s also screw up the lives and futures of our actually PRODUCTIVE citizens – that’ll teach those people to stand up for the Constitution and resist incursions upon their rights!
If you add up the apparent millions of already non-compliant Americans – from the New York SAFE Act ignorers, to the state bump-stock deniers, to the magazine ban resisters from sea-to-shining-sea – how do you think that would affect the economy by prosecuting, imprisoning, and throwing out-of-work ALL of those millions of people? Not to mention the governmental costs of prosecution and appeals and imprisonment.
At some point you realize that in the real world it’s NEVER. GOING. TO. HAPPEN. At least not in any serious way. They might find a few hapless saps to use as “examples”, but they can afford neither the financials nor the optics of house-to-house searches and mass round-ups of non-compliant citizens.
While they are wasting millions of dollars to put peaceful citizens under the boot, they could be rounding up ACTUAL criminals. It’s insanity.
Are these laws just empty threats then? Are these felony-happy legislators just laughable-yet-impotent fanatics? Maybe. But that doesn’t make them less dangerous.
Because anytime legislators use the power of government and threat of force to strip citizens of their rights and make them overnight criminals, we are in dangerous territory. Letting these laws stand for a single day sets dangerous precedent. But we can only litigate and strike down one bad law at a time. Thank Gawd for two SCOTUS appointments.
So now DiFi is cranking her broken Victrola again. Yay, more overnight felons. How many more will it take until legislators wake up to the insanity? I guess until the only ones who have firearms are the ACTUAL felons. They’ll be the only ones running free and we’ll all be in jail for possessing glorified Pez dispensers.
I figure if I’m going to have my life and career ruined eventually anyway, I might as well keep the felony meter running. I’m thinking it’s time to learn how to spite-build another AR. Better get in before the rush.
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—’Dr. LateBloomer’ is the pen name of a female general pediatrician (MD, MPH, FAAP) who enjoys competitive shooting sports, including IDPA, USPSA and 3-Gun. Evil semi-automatic firearms are her favorites.