Gun Laws & Legislation

Who Are The Real Extremists?

NRA ILA Contributor
Font Size:

NRA is often vilified by the gun-ban community and its supporters in the mainstream, legacy media as an “extremist” organization because of its steadfast defense of our Right to Keep and Bear Arms. A simple look into the anti-gun agenda, however, will show that proponents of restriction on a right protected by the U.S. Constitution are the true extremists.

In Oregon, we see just how extreme the anti-gun legislative agenda has become, thanks to state Senator Rob Wagner (D-19) and his proposal, Senate Bill 501.

SB 501, which Wagner proudly touts as having been drafted with the help of high school students, seeks to enact a number of draconian restrictions on Oregon’s law-abiding gun owners. Among the restrictions are standard anti-gun proposals like permits for all gun owners, waiting periods, mandatory storage, and penalties for failing to report lost or stolen firearms. The deadline for reporting a lost or stolen firearm has been arbitrarily set at 24 hours.

But when you turn over the responsibility of creating new laws to children, you can expect some real doozies, and SB 501 delivers in spades.

This truly extreme bill, should it become law, would establish magazine capacity limits and ammunition restrictions that only a child with little knowledge of the practical, lawful use of firearms could envisage.

Magazine capacity would be set at five rounds, which would be the lowest standard in the nation, and there is no grandfather clause. Perhaps the author is unaware that even the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, certainly not the friendliest court to the Second Amendment, found a seven round magazine limit unconstitutional.

If you own a magazine that holds six or more rounds, which is the vast majority of them, you must get rid of it in one of the manners prescribed by the legislation.

So much for self-defense and property rights.

The ammunition restrictions are even more extreme.

SB 501 sets a limit for purchasing ammunition at 20 rounds in any 30-day period. You read that right; 20 rounds.

Law-abiding gun owners commonly purchase ammunition in large quantities to save money. Not to mention the fact that most law-abiding gun owners own more than one firearm. Should SB 501 become law, you would be expected to not only be less frugal, but to portion out your ammunition purchases to a monthly trip every time you want to restock ammunition for a particular gun.

At 20-rounds per trip, however, the term “restock” is used very loosely.

The only exception for ammunition limits is for ammunition purchased and used at a range. As most gun owners know, range ammunition is usually there for convenience, and carries a premium price. Again, no more frugality for bringing your own ammunition.

To make matters worse, the law isn’t clear as to what it means when it offers the exception for “ammunition purchased and used at a target shooting range.” Are you required to use all the ammunition you purchase? Are you in violation of the law if you decide you have spent enough time at the range before you exhaust the more expensive ammunition you purchased, and go home with a few rounds? Is the range responsible for monitoring every visitor to ensure they expend every last round that has been purchased?

Then there are those who hunt birds and other small game. They regularly go through far more than 20 rounds on a hunting trip, especially one that covers several days. If they have not stockpiled ammunition with monthly purchases of 20 rounds, they are, presumably, simply out of luck once they run out. Oregon may become a bastion for out-of-state hunters, as they will not be affected by purchase limits, and in-state hunters will likely become frustrated and hunt less.

Competitive shooters? You better plan a few years in advance before you consider entering a competition.

The most egregious aspect of the ammunition limits, however, is that the more you shoot, the safer and more proficient you become. This legislation, sold as “gun-safety” bill, could actually make law-abiding gun owners less safe, as they will undoubtedly practice less. Especially those who do most of their practicing in a lawful, safe manner, but not at a “target shooting range” sanctioned by the gun control crowd.

Beyond the legislative extremism of SB 501, anti-gun extremists seem to wish that we would abandon the concept of self-defense altogether. Chicago police reported that a 19-year-old man with a firearm accosted a woman while she was at a bus stop. The woman struggled with her assailant, drew her own firearm, and shot him in the struggle.

While most would consider it completely justified for a woman, who had a permit to carry her concealed firearm, to use lethal force when facing an armed, violent attack, Think Progress editor Zack Ford didn’t see it that way.Ford fired off a tweet in response to the incident, shaming the victim when he wrote, “That’s not how justice works. The penalty for theft is not death, nor do we want it to be.”

What Ford ignores is the fact that the violent attacker was armed with his own firearm and he wasn’t simply attempting to commit theft. He was, in fact, committing aggravated assault and armed robbery (among other crimes).

Ford seems to think that a crime victim confronted with an armed assailant must believe that she is in no real danger of being harmed unless the assailant affirmatively announces such an intent. Fortunately, American self-defense law doesn’t work that way. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes put it “Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.” Or in this case; gun.

So, we ask you, who really are the extremists in the debate over firearms? Those who defend rights protected by the U.S. Constitution? Or, is it the people who propose legislation that would eviscerate those rights and try to shame crime victims for defending their lives?

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel