Gun Laws & Legislation

Wayne LaPierre: Stop Obama’s Lawlessness

Wayne LaPierre Executive Vice President, NRA
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I was recently in deep discussion about the serial scandals of the Obama administration: refusal to stem the flood of illegal aliens pouring across our porous borders; get-out-of-jail-free pass release of more than 36,000 illegal aliens with criminal convictions; legal challenges to state laws designed to prevent voter fraud and the flagrant cover-up of the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) war on the political free speech of American citizens.

And don’t forget Operation “Fast and Furious,” under which U.S. government agents actively aided and abetted a felonious guns-to-Mexico smuggling operation that resulted in murders and assassinations of Mexican nationals and the tragic murder of Brian Terry, an acclaimed  U.S. Border Patrol agent.

The common thread in all of these scandals is a rogue U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) headed by President Barack Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder. He is the chief enabler of Obama’s fast-track dissolution of justice in America and of our national fabric. For his obstruction in “Fast and Furious,” Attorney General Holder earned the distinction of becoming the only sitting cabinet officer ever to be found in civil and criminal contempt of Congress.

The bottom line in these scandals is that our liberties cannot long survive a regime that destroys the rule of law. The truth is, there is no justice in America when the U.S. Department of Justice becomes a political operative of the White House, and turns its back on its duty to enforce the law.

The lawless core of Obama’s administration erodes our national values, our constitution and our culture through his go-it-alone schemes to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.”

In truth, the legacy that President Obama’s agenda will leave on history is the poisoning of the tree of liberty.

Holder, who recently bragged about being an “activist attorney general,” said, “The responsibility of the attorney general is to change things. …”

What about his duty to uphold the constitution and to fairly and impartially carry out laws enacted by Congress?

A headline on Townhall.com speaks to Holder’s activism and obstructionism: “Eric Holder to State Attorneys General: You Don’t Have to Enforce Laws You Disagree With.”

And so it is with federal gun laws—at least when it comes to violent armed predators. Under Holder’s tenure, the number of prosecutions of armed, violent criminals has dropped dramatically. In fact, the most violent cities in America like Chicago (whose mayors demand more gun control) are on the very bottom of federal enforcement of our nation’s gun laws.

A July 23, 2014, Washington Times headline defined Holder’s non-enforcement malfeasance against bad guys with guns: “Eric Holder has viewed gun prosecutions as a local, not federal matter.”

Holder has consistently opposed earmarked funds for the aggressive prosecution of armed violent felons as “fundamentally wrong,” labeling such successful crime-fighting efforts as “Project Exile” as a “cookie-cutter” approach.

Yet Holder is a fanatic when it comes to demanding new gun laws that affect only the law-abiding—you and me—laws like universal gun owner background checks that are, in fact, national registration, or his recent call for the discredited notion of requiring gun owners to wear radio control “smart technology” ankle bracelets to activate handguns.

If you think he’s soft on punishing armed violent criminals, try this for contempt of the rule of law. Holder’s Justice Department has instructed U.S. attorneys general to withhold evidence that would require stricter sentences for drug dealers. For that order, he was upbraided by federal judges sitting on the the U.S. Sentencing Commission, who are in the process of recommending new federal sentencing guidelines subject to congressional approval.

The harshest rebuke for Holder’s unilateral action came from 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William Pryor, who called Holder’s order an “unprecedented instruction.”  Judge Pryor said the action “disrespected our statutory role ‘as an independent commission in the judicial branch’ to establish sentencing policies and practices. …”

And then there is DOJ’s failure to enforce immigration laws, and its complicity in the Homeland Security Department’s release from detention of convicted criminal aliens who were scheduled for deportation. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, 36,007 convicted criminal aliens were freed from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in 2013. In that massive release, individual criminal aliens had multiple convictions—totalling 88,000 in all. Thousands of those convictions included homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping, aggravated assault, drugs and weapons.

And that brings up the Holder DOJ obsession with erasing state voter ID laws, which Holder falsely claims are designed to suppress votes. Those allegations ignore the obvious fact that you have to have verifiable identification to enter any Justice Department facility, the White House, Obama public functions, the Congress, to borrow a library book, to board an airliner, to cash a check, get a job and drive a car—but not to vote?

With same-day registration, no requirement for a valid, dated photo ID for voters is an invitation to fraud and corruption of our electoral process.

Yet under the Obama administration’s proposed universal check to transfer a firearm, you would be treated as guilty of a crime until you prove your innocence to purchase, give or loan a firearm to a friend or family member. Obama and Holder would make it a felony not to submit to a rigorous grilling for anyone transferring any firearm anywhere in the nation including any now-legal private circumstances.

Then there is the IRS scandal where conservative groups were denied tax-exempt status to organize to influence public opinion or were treated to years of harassing inquiries—all beyond the scope of lawful conduct on the part of politicized bureaucrats. The DOJ has been slow-walking a phony “criminal” investigation under which none of the victims of government intimidation have been interviewed. Further, DOJ leaked that no criminal charges would be filed against IRS employees.

Holder’s Justice Department is not the shield of justice, it has become the shield for Obama’s political transgressions.

There is only one way you can stop this lawlessness: Vote this November 4. We must elect an Obama/Holder-proof U.S. House and an Obama/Holder-proof U.S Senate. Without these protections, the ultimate destruction of the rule of law could be complete, and with that, all of our rights are in grave danger.

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Wayne’s column appears in the NRA publications American RiflemanAmerican Hunter and America’s First FreedomClick here to get a discounted NRA Annual Membership for only $25 a year complete with your choice of magazine delivered to your door.

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