By: Ted Nugent
President Obama often claims that he respects the Second Amendment and the shooting sports. No, he doesn’t. This ACORN doesn’t fall far from the tree.
The president lied when he said that he shoots skeet “all the time” at Camp David. Truth is, at the time of his statement he had rarely, if ever, shot any clay pigeons. He probably has not busted a bird since.
Through yet another abusive executive order, the president essentially killed the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) last week by now making it illegal to import obsolete and antique U.S. military semi-automatic rifles such as the M1 Garand from countries like South Korea.
These antique guns the president outlawed for no good reason whatsoever were used in World War II and the Korean War by the U.S. military and then sold off to countries like South Korea, which now consider the guns to be obsolete. So they have sold them back to America through the CMP, which then sells these vintage and historical guns to law-abiding Americans who must comply with myriad federal and local gun laws before being able to purchase such a collectable CMP rifle.
The M1 rifle functions no differently than your typical deer rifle or duck gun. Moreover, in my research I have not found a single instance in which an M1 Garand has ever been used in a crime. Conversely, these antique guns are sought after by law-abiding collectors and are used in shooting competitions.
Contrary to how the president or his talking heads will try and spin it, M1 rifles and the other guns the CMP has sold to law-abiding citizens are big and bulky rifles and are not the kind of gun that savages in Chicago and New Orleans use to kill each other on a daily basis.
Interestingly, according to the FBI, membership in violent street gangs has risen 40 percent since the president took office in early 2009. Instead of focusing his efforts on eliminating the violent savages who belong to street gangs, the president focuses his efforts on punishing the good guys.
Regardless of how counterproductive, in an effort to do “something” about “gun violence,” through the stroke of a pen the president killed a 110 year-old legal program that permitted law-abiding citizens to enjoy these antique guns.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I suspect his executive order will give the NRA another 250,000 or more members and cause legal gun owners to purchase the remaining M1 rifles on the shelves of gun stores post haste.
Killing the CMP is bankrupt symbolism over substance in a feeble effort to appease his anti-gun base and to show Americans of all political stripes that he holds fervent anti-gun beliefs and a disdain for law-abiding Americans who have not and will not commit a gun-related crime.
Punishing the good guys and ignoring criminals is no way to run a republic.