Sturm: The Trump tower that Obama built
Ancient Talmudic wisdom teaches that
whoever destroys a soul destroys an entire world. So it’s understandable
that in unveiling heightened gun-control measures last week before an
audience of shooting victims’ relatives, President Obama shed tears.
Inspired by the San Bernardino massacre to take unilateral action he
admits “will save few lives” (nor would they have prevented any recent
mass shooting), the president urged Americans to Think Again about
“common-sense” gun reforms.
Obama’s
executive actions bypass bipartisan congressional majorities and 58
percent of voters who say “the government should only do what the
president and Congress agree on,” according to last week’s Rasmussen
poll.
“We are the only advanced
country on Earth that sees this kind of mass violence,” Obama frequently
laments, a claim judged false by Politifact and the Washington Post who
called his language “slippery.”
In
fact, the U.S. ranks 11th in per capita fatalities from mass public
shootings — behind European countries with stricter gun control laws
such as France, Switzerland, Norway and Belgium — according to a Crime
Prevention Research Center analysis of the period from 2009 through
2015. Meanwhile, total U.S. homicides are at historic lows.
Turns out, Obama is a better salesman for guns than gun control, the
New York Times noted. During Obama’s tenure, gun ownership has nearly
doubled, with women and concealed-carry owners representing the
fastest-growing segments. Even as the stock market suffered its worst
yearly start ever, shares of firearm manufacturers soared.
At his CNN town hall meeting, Obama faced gun-rights defenders,
including rape victim Kimberly Corban. “I have been unspeakably
victimized once already, and I refuse to let that happen again,” Corban
explained in asking Obama to understand that restrictions make it harder
for her to possess a gun, “making my kids and I less safe.”
While Obama was repeating his “if you like your guns you can keep them”
mantra, presidential frontrunner Donald Trump drew deafening applause
in Vermont after saying, “You know what a gun-free zone is to a sicko?
That’s bait!”
Even in Bernie Sanders
country, people wonder why after a shooting spree lawmakers reflexively
seek to limit the gun rights of law-abiding citizens, making them
vulnerable to criminals who account for the vast majority of gun
violence.
America’s killing fields
aren’t in suburbia; they’re urban centers blighted by societal decay,
gang warfare and beleaguered law enforcement. The perpetrators aren’t
mentally ill loners; they’re mostly criminals killing criminals.
If addressing gun violence is such an urgent priority, why have weapons
convictions declined 6 percent since last year and 35 percent since
peaking in 2006? Why is Obama releasing dangerous gun felons and
hardcore Guantanamo Bay jihadists? Why insist on resettling Syrian
refugees whom the FBI says it can’t vet and Islamic radicals intend to
infiltrate?
Why does Obama sanction
“sanctuary city” policies that ignore immigration laws by releasing
criminal, illegal immigrants into unsuspecting populaces? Between 2010
and 2014, 121 released illegal immigrants proceeded to commit murder —
that’s two souls lost per month.
Obama’s gun fiats came amid an ominous 2016 debut: escalating Middle
Eastern conflict, a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, mass sexual
assaults by Arab refugees in Germany, a hydrogen bomb test in North
Korea, sanctions-violating ballistic missile facilities in Iran,
captured footage exposing ISIS’s “jihadi university” and an
ISIS-inspired terrorist ambushing a Philadelphia policeman with a stolen
gun.
Seemingly indifferent to these
life-imperiling events, Obama intends to override the will of the
people — as with his 2014 executive order to grant amnesty to 5 million
illegal immigrants, and the Iran deal, granting them $150 billion to
fund terrorism and build ballistic missiles — setting dangerous
precedents for our constitutional system.
Testifying before Congress about accumulating separation of powers
violations — over-reaches for which the Supreme Court unanimously
rebuked the White House 12 times — constitutional law professor and
Obama-voter Jonathan Turley said Obama is “becoming the very danger the
Constitution was designed to avoid — the concentration of power in any
single branch.” Turley insists the President “can’t say the solution to
gridlock is you simply have to resolve it on my terms.”
By forcing his agenda on Americans, Obama is building a Trump Tower of
insecurity and distrust, an edifice Trump unapologetically promises to
destroy to “make America great again.” He’s tapping into Americans’
“dissatisfaction with government,” which tops Gallup’s latest list of
voter concerns, with gun control barely rating.
That such an unlikely and flawed candidate is contending for the
presidency speaks to America’s state of disunion. It’s tear-inducing
considering Obama ascended to the White House with this plea for
national unity:
“There’s not a
liberal America and a conservative America …There’s not a black America
and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the
United State of America.”
Think Again
— since elections are designed to punish failures and reward success,
may 2016 reveal a statesman capable of delivering the legitimate
government Americans deserve.
Melanie Sturm lives in Aspen. She reminds readers to Think Again. You might change your mind. She welcomes comments at melanie@thinkagainusa.com.
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