Update, Manchin-Toomey isn’t as bad as we feared,it’s much much worse #2ndamendment #tcot #tlot #gunrights

The most through critique of the bill is presented by GAO’s legal counsel below. I thought to excerpt from it but–if the author is even remotely correct there are so many problems that it’s difficult to know where to begin. Problems – Gun Owners of America http://gunowners.org/congress04082013.htm Also see: Schumer-Toomey-Manchin Gun Control Legislation: Bad Law on Federal Gun Registry http://blog.heritage.org/2013/04/11/schumer-toomey-manchin-gun-control-legislation-bad-law-on-federal-gun-registry/ ……..”

The STM bill fuzzes up the law prohibiting a federal gun registry. First, the legislation says that nothing in the legislation shall be construed to allow establishment of a federal firearms registry. In addition, it says that the Attorney General may not consolidate or centralize records of firearms acquisition and disposition maintained by licensed importers, manufacturers, and dealers, and by buyers and sellers at gun shows (and makes it a crime for him to do so). But then, the STM bill takes those protections away by using the all-powerful word “notwithstanding”—”notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Attorney General may implement this subsection with regulations.” The courts may construe the “notwithstanding” to allow Attorney General Eric Holder to issue regulations that could begin to create a federal registry of firearms, because the law says he can implement the subsection without regard to the protections against a registry elsewhere in the legislation. The courts view the word “notwithstanding” as very powerful. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in 1989 in Crowley Caribbean Transport v. U.S. in reference to the phrase “notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter” that “a clearer statement of intent is difficult to imagine” to push aside other laws. The same court indicated in 1991 in Liberty Maritime Corporation v. U.S. that a grant of authority to a department head to be exercised “notwithstanding” any other law generally grants the broadest possible discretion to the department head. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1992 in Conoco, Inc. v. Skinner took a somewhat different approach, in which the judges themselves divine the congressional intent whether to let the word “notwithstanding” in a law override other conflicting provisions of the same law.

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Americans for Prosperity & Heritage attack Boehner’s counteroffer #tcot #twisters #RINO

Conservative groups lash out at GOP’s ‘fiscal cliff’ counteroffer – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/270761-conservative-group-unhappy-with-gop-fiscal-cliff-counteroffer …“Republicans were reelected in the House to stop Pres. Obama’s agenda, not figure out creative ways to fund it,” Dan Holler, communications director for Heritage Action for America, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, told The Hill in an email. And Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group partially funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, said the GOP offer “left conservatives wanting.” “The President’s proposal and Speaker Boehner’s counteroffer fail to seriously deal with the reality of the problems facing the nation,” Americans for Prosperity president Tim Phillips said in a statement. “Conservatives are looking for a leader to fight against tax increases, to push back against wasteful government spending, and address the fiscal challenges in a bold way. Sadly this plan leaves conservatives wanting.”……. …..”Speaker Boehner’s counteroffer today offers disappointingly small spending reductions,” AFP’s policy director James Valvo continued in the statement. “After immediately giving in to higher taxes following the election, the Speaker has now followed up by pulling the best parts of the House budget off the table. The only way to solve the nation’s fiscal woes is to reform the runaway entitlement programs and government spending. It is disturbing that this proposal may give up the entire FY2013 spending reductions agreed to in the BCA.”…..