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AOC Displays Her Stunning Ignorance of Federal Firearms Laws…Again…Still
By Larry Keane
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ignorance is showing again. Her latest gaffe is proclaiming “guns are not allowed in the District of Columbia…” in a CNN interview with Chris Cuomo, brother, of course, to Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, also no stranger to gun control causes.
That might come as a shock to those gun owners living in the District of Columbia. It might also come as a shock to the only federal firearms licensee – DC Security Associates. For that matter, someone might want to explain that to the police department itself, which became the sole licensee for a brief period of time.
If You’re a Lawmaker, Know the Laws
Still, that confusion doesn’t make Rep. Ocasio-Cortez correct, not by a long shot. The District of Columbia’s attempt to deny guns inside the District failed miserably. That resulted in the landmark Heller decision, which affirmed the Second Amendment is an individual right and local authorities cannot ban entire classes of commonly-owned firearms.
Before the case, Washington, D.C. had banned the possession of handguns. In subsequent litigation, the federal courts have ordered that the District must issue licenses to carry firearms to qualified, law-abiding citizens.
That put an end to DC’s ban on handguns. In fact, more than 4,000 people have obtained concealed carry permits from the D.C. police department, which requires hours of classroom instruction and range certification. Over half of those in the last fiscal year were for residents who live outside the District, according to a Washington Post report.
That might end the discussion on whether it’s lawful to exercise fundamental rights in the federal enclave where the nation’s elected representatives meet. It didn’t put an end to Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s ignorance of the law, however.
Clutching Pearls
The congresswoman was making her wildly incorrect remark when she was explaining why she didn’t attend President Joe Biden’s inauguration. She said she didn’t feel safe since fellow members of Congress were asserting their right to keep and bear arms. This is where she might have been confused.Firearm possession within the Capitol Hill complex is forbidden for everyone except Members of Congress and law enforcement. While Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is throwing up metal detectors and having U.S. Representatives get wanded down every time they go into the House chamber to cast their votes, this notion that Members of Congress can’t have guns in the Capitol is bunk.
The last time this came up was in 2015, when Congressman Ken Buck (R-Colo.) took all appropriate steps to hang an American-flag themed Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR) in his Capitol Hill office. It was unloaded, the bolt removed and disabled with a trigger lock. Gun control politicians clutched their pearls and shrieked that such an abomination couldn’t be tolerated. Except that it can.
“Members of Congress may maintain firearms within the confines of their office,” explained Kimberly Schneider, a spokesperson for Capitol Hill police, “and they and any employee or agent of any member of Congress may transport within the Capitol Grounds firearms unloaded and securely wrapped.”
The same rule also explains that no one “shall carry any firearm inside the chamber or on the floor of either House, in any lobby or cloakroom adjacent thereto, in the galleries of either House or in the Marble Room of the Senate or Rayburn Room of the House unless assigned or approved by the two Sergeants of Arms for maintenance of adequate security.”
Just so we’re keeping it easy to understand…guns are legal in Washington, D.C. and Members of Congress can have guns in their office. Rules adopted by the House of Representatives forbids them on the floor of the House chamber, in the respective lobbies and cloakroom or designated rooms.
Blinded by Bias
This isn’t the first-time Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s ignorance of federal firearm laws has been on full display. She infamously accused fellow Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) of wanting to lend firearms to “people unsupervised who can’t pass a background check.” In the same tweet, she accused any friends of Rep. Crenshaw to “have likely abused their spouse or have a violent criminal record, & you may not know it.”If Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez took time to understand the Constitution she’s sworn to defend, or the laws she purports to understand and advance, she would know that it’s a felony to knowingly transfer a firearm to a prohibited individual. This includes domestic abusers.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s comments in which she bungled gun laws and Constitutional rights started with her saying that she didn’t feel safe and claimed many other Members of Congress agreed with her. She didn’t offer any other names or even attempt at putting a number on it. She did willingly ignore that a concern for safety is exactly why more than 8.4 million people purchased a firearm for the first time last year, among the 21 million background checks for a gun sale.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has sponsored 29 bills and amendments. None of her bills have passed the House of Representatives, controlled by her fellow Democrats. Only two of her amendments have passed, one by voice vote and one by recorded vote. A courtesy she might want to consider on behalf of the people she’s elected to represent would be to understand the laws before she attempts to destroy them.
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/aoc-displays-stunning-ignorance-of-federal-firearms-laws-again-still/
NOTE: It isn't just AOC. It seems that Dem lawmakers who know the law are an overwhelming minority. We are constantly bombarded with soundbytes about the "gunshow loophole" - which does not exist. Usually, when that purported loophole is mentioned, Dems are trying to prohibit the transfer of any weapon between any two people who are not federally licensed dealers. Lawmakers either don't know the law, or they are purposely trying to confuse voters on the issue.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 29 2021, @06:10AM (7 children)
I've respect AOC because she's one of the few politicians in DC that are actually honest with their views, instead of just repeating focus group poll results. But do you really think people taking issue with her has anything to do with her race or sex? If she was a white guy, saying the exact same stuff, she'd be getting the exact same reaction. Because while I respect her honesty and integrity, she's also more than a little unhinged and regularly either extremely hyperbolic or simply out of touch with reality.
From suggesting people effectively make lists of Trump supporters so they can be punished for their "complicity" in the future (which doesn't sound at all fascist...), to claiming that "Unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week.." That statement doesn't even make any logical sense. If any meaningful number of people were working 2 jobs for 60+ hours a week (which they aren't) it would result in *increased* unemployment, because one person would be doing the job of several. By contrast tons of people working 5 hours a week, because they're unable to find anymore work, is the sort of scenario that would result in "fake" low employment numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Friday January 29 2021, @09:42AM (3 children)
The conditions that lead to the low unemployment (desperation to get a job, any job, just some fucking job)
are exactly the same conditions that lead to people working 60+ hours a week and working multiple jobs (desperation to get more job, any job, just some fucking more job).
If you see one of the latter states, and suspect that it was arrived at because of the (parenthesised) conditions that would naturally cause it - which is not a great leap - then you'd be led to expect the other of the latter states too. They are correlated, and they are correlated because they are co-caused.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 29 2021, @01:48PM (2 children)
Spoken very much like somebody who's lived a privileged life in privileged times.
Let me explain the basics of employment and economics. Let's start with what unemployment is. Unemployment is when somebody wants to find a job, but cannot. So, for instance, a housewife does not count as unemployed. They have no 'job' in the traditional sense, but also are not looking for one. And they are thus not counted as unemployed. Unemployment is somebody desperately looking for "a job, any job, just some fucking job" but there's simply nobody hiring. This can be catastrophic and lead to things like people not even being able to feed themselves. Thanks to a booming economy for what I expect has been nearly all of your life, this situation has not meaningfully existed (for any significant period of time) in the US. If people want to work, they can find a job. And this is a *very* good thing.
The conditions that lead to low unemployment are a healthy economy and labor market. The conditions that lead to high unemployment are economic decline and poor labor conditions. High unemployment is an awful thing. And low unemployment is an extremely good thing. And this is a truism along the lines of 'having a safe home is good', 'having an unsafe home is bad'. Thinking that high unemployment is some desirable thing is simply for lack of any understanding, whatsoever, of what that means - in large part because it's obviously never mattered to you, one way or the other.
If you're in a society where even speaking of working multiple jobs, let alone for overtime, is even *remotely possible* for any meaningful chunk of the population - you have the exact opposite of high unemployment.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday January 30 2021, @05:22PM (1 child)
>points east< right now you're wrong
>points down< 30 years ago, you'd be wrong
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 30 2021, @05:44PM
And the one country and system I've lived within is the exact one that AOC was babbling nonsensically about. You may have some defense, she does not.
Though on your defense, which country in this world defines their national unemployment rate in any other way? I don't believe you and would love to be proven wrong, as always.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday January 29 2021, @03:29PM (1 child)
Yes.
When the President of the United States of America said "Take the guns first, go through due process second" they didn't bat an eye.
When the President of the United States said "I Like Taking The Guns Early" they tried to pretend Kamala Harris said it. [factcheck.org]
Now the Cofvefe crowd is going to be all outraged because AOC said 'District of Columbia' when she clearly meant the Capitol?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 29 2021, @08:40PM
Yes.
They are addicted to hatred and require an enemy to focus on so they do not have to address their own hypocrisy. We used to mock Republicans as crazy, but drumpf and qanon have made many republicans actually insane, not living in reality.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday January 30 2021, @09:50PM
The best thing for someone like AOC to do would be to go out and meet some of her enemies. I'm not talking about her frenemies on wall street, but maybe the proud boys or someone like that. And not just yell at them, but listen to them. She could learn a lot, and if she just learned that she still has things to learn from people she thinks are beneath her that alone would help her a lot.
If she wants to be politically effective, she's going to have to learn something about compromise and coalition. It's a general rule that you can't grow a coalition big enough to do much of anything without it including some people you are profoundly uncomfortable with, for one reason or another. In her position, she'll either have to make bedfellows with the corporatists in her own party, e.g. Nancy Pelosi, or reach across the aisle instead. With the corporatists she can probably look forward to a nice consulting gig after her term expires, and that's what she seems to be going for. But that's not the path that would have allowed her any real chance to get anything done on her agenda...
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?