With just a little more than two weeks to go before the oral arguments in DC v. Heller, it looks like the anti-gunners are getting frantic.
First up, and this could just be a coincidence, but the ATF has raided Cavalry Arms to “seize everything.” Nobody’s quite sure why the raid took place; with everything from allegations of money laundering (which has what to do with the ATF?) to a disgruntled employee being cited (see any of the linked words..). I, for one, can’t help but think it’s strictly political. For one, and again, it could be a coincidence, but it took place just one day from the fifteenth anniversary of the Waco Siege. The ATF referred to the Waco raid under the codename “Showtime” (hence the title of this post), presumably because they wanted to make a public spectacle from their display of force.
Like Waco, the ATF went out of their way to make this raid into a total media circus. Instead of quietly recording serial numbers and such as they tossed everything in boxes, they dragged all of Cav Arms’ inventory outside to show off in front of the TV cameras. Hell, they even brought their own circus tents:
To make it even more dramatic, agents spoon-fed the media scare words like “assault weapons” and such as if they were illegal. The agents also joined in with their media accomplices to feign surprise at how many firearms were recovered. What else did they expect to pull out of a firearms manufacturer?!
And on a more comical note, Sebastian and Bitter delve into the desperation of the so-called American Hunters and Shooters Association. AHSA, if you’ve never heard of them, are a proverbial who’s who of the gun ban movement hiding behind the Realtree camo of a hunters rights group. It seems to me that they’re terrified that SCOTUS will recognize an individual right in DC v. Heller (where they tried to split the proverbial baby by submitting an amicus claiming gun bans don’t violate the right to own them because DC isn’t a State or something), and are lashing out in an attempt to remain relevant.
Even though they really don’t have any members, and really don’t do much of anything, they’re sending out e-mails and blogging over at Daily Kos trying to sell themselves as the real pro-gun grassroots movement. Not to mention trying to paint the bizarre picture that the NRA is anti-gun. Never mind the fact that AHSA members have never met a gun ban they didn’t like. Or that they’re running around calling anyone who owns a gun for anything but hunting “extremists” and “whackos.” They want you to believe it is only them who support the Second Amendment because they might let you keep a single-shot “hunting” rifle. As if the Second Amendment says anything about hunting..
But, yea, expect all sorts of PSH from the anti-gun groups (and government agencies) over the next two weeks as they try to sway the Supreme Court and the court of public opinion away from an individual right. In fact, I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if the US Solicitor General brings up the Cav Arms raid as an example of all the spooky looking guns which might be “on the streets” otherwise. As ridiculous as that sounds, the argument in their brief was based on the idea that ruling the BoR means what it says would somehow cause the apocalypse.