Editorial: We have met the enemy

and he is us

David A. Lombardo

I sift through a lot of news every day, as a conservative I tend to get a lot of anti-Obama stories, and honestly most of them are nonsense. Look, there are plenty of good, solid reasons to dislike this president and his minions but let's stick to reality. Sure, he loves to circumvent the Congress with executive orders running the country by Fiat instead of the democratic process. The problem is we notice his roughly 150 executive orders to date because they mostly fly in the face of conservatism. George W Bush issued 291 during his tenure which was eclipsed by Clinton's 364 and Reagan's 381. Truman issued 907, Hoover 968, Coolidge 1,203 and Franklin D Roosevelt 3,522.

Another popular criticism is Obama has taken the U.S. military to war without Congressional authorization. Okay, yeah that's true but the last congressionally declared war was World War II. It is a time honored tradition for presidents to take us to war without Congressional approval such as Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq to name a few. Note in Afghanistan and Iraq Congress granted GW Bush an authorization to do whatever was necessary - not an actual declaration of war.

Most recently, the 22^nd Amendment has come up with long standing proponents of doing away with presidential term limits once again trying to get it repealed. There's nothing new about this sentiment which has popped up on both sides of the aisle for decades. Even if Obama wanted to see it repealed he knows it's a fruitless cause. To repeal the 22^nd amendment, and allow any president to have a third term, would require two-thirds of the House and Senate, and three-quarters of the states to ratify; neither party controls that many votes not even in a Chicago election.

The current conspiracy is about the dearth of ammunition. Depending upon how conspiracy-theorist-oriented the individual is, the conventional wisdom ranges from the government has told ammunition manufacturers to stop selling to civilians as a back door way of implementing gun control to the Obama administration is buying all the ammo in preparation for a civil war with the intent of making Obama a dictator. Truth be told I had my own concerns about the shortage of ammunition so I started poking around and asking questions. Hornady summed the situation up best.

Hornady issued a formal statement saying, "The current political climate has caused extremely high demand on all shooting industry products including ours. Empty retail shelves, long backorders, and exaggerated price increases on online auction sites - all fueled by rumors and conjecture - have amplified concerns about the availability of ammunition and firearms-related items. If the information you hear doesn't originate from Hornady Manufacturing, don't believe it. Here are some of rumors we've heard, and questions we've received:

Have you stopped production, or has the government forced you to stop? - Not at all.

Did you stop selling bullets so you could only make loaded ammunition? -Absolutely not.   

Since we can't find your product you must be selling it all to the government. - Nope, less than 5% of our sales are to government entities.

Why can't you make more? - We've been steadily growing our production for a long time, especially the last five years. We are producing as much as we can; much more than last year, which was a lot more than the year before. No one wants to ship more during this time than we do.

The problem, according to the manufacturers I've talked to, is we're buying ammunition in record quantities. Last year you bought one box of ammo when you went to the store; this year you bought 10 to be prepared for something or other. Stop buying up every cartridge and reloading component that hits a store shelf and things will go back to normal.

Injunction against Illinois

public housing gun ban

The Second Amendment Foundation has won a permanent injunction against the Warren County, Illinois Housing Authority's ban on the possession of firearms by residents or guests. The case was filed more than a year ago in U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Rock Island Division. Ronald G. Winbigler, a resident of Costello Terrace in Monmouth, is a physically disabled former police officer who wanted to keep a handgun in his residence for personal protection; SAF filed the lawsuit on his behalf. "In the wake of our victory in McDonald v. City of Chicago, it was unconscionable that a public entity in Illinois would engage in this kind of discrimination against a citizen. The WCHA has removed the lease provisions, and agreed that they were unconstitutional," SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb, said. In an order signed by District Judge Sara Darrow, plaintiffs were awarded reasonable attorney's fees and costs. In her ruling, however, she did not make a constitutional declaration but only recognized that SAF and the WCHA had agreed in that issue.

Obama, Biden, McCarthy:  

Just first round on gun control

Speaking at a press conference in Mexico City, President Obama said he would continue working to expand background checks to cover firearms purchased in private transactions at gun shows and online. "Things happen somewhat slowly in Washington. But this was just the first round," Obama said. "I believe we'll eventually get that done. We'll keep on trying." Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden told a law enforcement group that he is planning a national tour to stump for expanded background checks. House gun-control advocate, U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) has said Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told her that the Senate will again take up the issue "before the end of the year." "Much ado has been made by gun-control advocates over the polling numbers for senators who provided key votes against the Manchin-Toomey amendment. At the risk of sounding academic, we would point out that polls do NOT actually measure public opinion, they record answers to questions at points in time and how questions are worded, and the manner in which the poll is conducted is key. The media often do not supply these details in their coverage and ignore results of other polls that contradict in whole or part the result that fit their preferred narrative," a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said.

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