During the presidential campaign of 2009, we were told that voters wanted change.  The National Rifle Association, the leading defender of Second Amendment freedom in the nation, ran ads in West Virginia and nationally about the potential dangers Barrack Obama's presidency posed to the right to keep and bear arms.    Critics chided the NRA and gun owners who were fearful as "clouding the issue."  The troubled economy was the issue of the campaign and the collapsing stock market drowned out any and all other matters.

Voters wanted change--well here it comes.    In recent days two major revelations have come to the surface in what can only be described as a low-key, under the radar effort to slowly erode gun owners’ rights in the United States.  One commentator described the effort as the "termite approach" to subverting gun ownership before gun owners knew what was happening. 

One of those events happened just a few days ago when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, a man with a record of anti-gun aggression in his career, addressed a reporter who asked about the Obama Administration's plans to push for reestablishing the Clinton era ban on the sale of "assault weapons."   The reporter's question surrounded the current violence taking place along the U.S./Mexican border.

"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun related changes that we would like to make and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons,"  said Holder.  "I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico at a minimum."

The Clinton era ban spelled out a number of guns that were banned for sale in the United States.   The list was a hodge podge of various guns with no real rhyme or reason--largely based on their looks.    An attorney who argued the DC vs. Heller case before the US Supreme Court told me on West Virginia Outdoors last year the list was literally written after the crafters of the bill looked in a picture book of guns and decide which guns to include in the bill based solely upon their looks.    Many of those firearms were the exact same caliber of ammunition and identical action as the firearms a lot of us use for hunting and sport shooting--the only difference was the stock.    The truly higher performance weapons, machine guns or fully automatic weapons, have been unavailable to US consumers since the 1930's.  

Furthermore, statistics showed that during the ten-years of the Clinton Assault Weapons Ban, the U.S. crime rate didn't drop any great degree.

Amazingly, following Holder's comments, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, not one who is known for her defense of firearm ownership, made a remark that is very much in-line with gun rights groups.

"On that score, I think we need to enforce the laws we have right now," said Pelosi. 

Perhaps Pelosi recalls the ballot box beating endured by many of her colleagues who backed liberal gun control measures in the late 1990's.

However, before we celebrate an epiphany of clarity for the House Speaker, there is another shoe waiting to drop.   It's U.S. House Resolution 45.  The bill was introduced on January 6, the first day Congress returned.  Congressman Bobby Rush (D-Illinois) wasted no time reflecting what the new agenda of the Democrat led Congress would be with the legislation entitled, "The Blair-Holt Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009."   

The description of the bill is sinister enough. 

"To provide for the implementation of a system of licensing for purchasers of certain firearms and for a record of sale system for those firearms, and for other purposes."

However, the devil is always in the details.   The details of this legislation read like something from Germany in the late 1930's.

"Amends the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act to prohibit a person from possessing a firearm unless that person has been issued a firearm license under this Act or a state system certified under this Act and such license has not been invalidated or revoked. Prescribes license application, issuance, and renewal requirements."

"Prohibits transferring or receiving a qualifying firearm unless the recipient presents a valid firearms license, the license is verified, and the dealer records a tracking authorization number. Prescribes firearms transfer reporting and record keeping requirements. Directs the Attorney General to establish and maintain a federal record of sale system."

You can read the extensive legislation HERE. 

Among the highlights are requirements to purchases a gun license, requiring you give all of your personal information, including a picture and thumbprint to be recorded in government files forever.   Should you ever sell the gun--to anybody--the purchase must go through a licensed firearm dealer with a fee.   There's also a provision that would require you to store the firearm in a government approved manner away from children--and allowing government inspection of your home to make sure you've made the proper accommodations.    The failure to adhere to these new clauses on gun ownership includes stiff penalties, which subsequently negate your firearm ownership rights.  

I've long been critical of governmental action on firearms ownership.  It's a stand that occasionally is unpopular among some friends. 

"Come on Chris, there's no way that's going to happen."  "That's never going to happen here."  "The government can't just confiscate all guns."   Those are just a few of the comments I've endured when trying to have a conversation about the matter.  

So be it.  Folks in Australia probably felt the same way.  So did the in the late 1930's.

The defense of the Second Amendment is fundamental to the freedoms we enjoy in the United States.    The second amendment is part of the Constitution.  It was wisely placed there by the Founding Fathers as the way to defend the rest of the rights granted in that document.   The Supreme Court issued a wise decision in the DC v. Heller case last year that backed up that right of individual firearms ownership.   It not only grants all of us the freedom to own a firearm, it also grants the freedom to NOT own one--the decision is up to each individual if they have not been convicted of a crime or been judged mentally unstable.   

Gun control is the slickest of slippery slopes.  It's a gradual erosion of freedom.   I was once told in a high school civics class, the masses would not stand for an all out confiscation of firearms, although recent apathy makes me wonder.  Generally you disarm a population with small bits at a time.  The freedoms die the death of a thousand cuts--but the goal of those cutting is the same.    HR 45 isn't getting a lot of press coverage.  You only see snippets about it across the internet and through forwarded e-mail.    The longer it goes unnoticed, the more perilous its effect.