Despite the repeated assurances given by Trump and the GOP that they are dedicated to protecting our rights as they grapple with finding ways to “end gun violence,” their actions continue to demonstrate otherwise as they embrace one Constitution-killing idea after another.
Beginning with Sen. John Cornyn’s Fix NICS Act — so unpopular it was secretly added as a rider to the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill in March 2018 — our benevolent overlords in Washington have been busy working on a host of anti-liberty legislation to use as tools to dismantle the Second Amendment.
Federalized red flag laws, enhanced background checks, and pre-crime legislation such as Marco Rubio’s Threat Assessment, Prevention, and Safety (TAPS) Act — a law that requires a personal threat assessment on EVERYONE to single out future gun violence threats — are only a few of the “sensible” gun control ideas working their way through the GOP pipeline.
We’ve also seen how our other rights are likely to suffer in Big Brother’s zeal to deny liberty in the name of safety.
A few months ago, Donald Trump proposed the creation of the Health Advanced Research Projects Agency (HARPA), an agency that would literally spy on people in their homes using technology like Amazon Echo and Google Home to collect data used to identify individuals who exhibit characteristics of mental illness that could lead to violent behavior. Trump also introduced an idea recently to create a phone app that would be tied to the NICS system and used to conduct background checks on private gun sales.
Not content with denying the constitutional rights of adults, Washington is preparing to target the rights of children . . . with or without parental involvement.
Sen. John Cornyn — Oops! He did it again! — has introduced “a bill to help prevent mass shootings.” Known as the Restoring, Enhancing, Strengthening, and Promoting Our Nation’s Safety Efforts (RESPONSE) Act, Cornyn’s bill will expand resources for mental health treatment, facilitate the creation of “behavioral intervention teams” to monitor students exhibiting disturbing behavior, and offer new tools for law enforcement.
How will the government identify this so-called disturbed behavior?
Under Cornyn’s legislation, nearly every federally funded school in the US would be required to use software to spy on students’ online activities, including email and internet searches, in order to flag “violent” or alarming content.
While expressing her concerns with Cornyn’s bill, National PTA president Leslie Boggs expressed her willingness to work with him to create something that ensures “students’ online activities are not over-monitored.”
Well, so long as it’s just a small violation of the Bill of Rights, I guess it’ll be OK. After all, it’s for the children.
David Leach is the owner of The Strident Conservative.
His daily radio commentary is distributed by the Salem Radio Network and is heard on stations across America.
Follow the Strident Conservative on Twitter and Facebook.
Subscribe to receive podcasts of radio commentaries: iTunes | Stitcher | Tune In | RSS
