Sacramento, Calif, Feb. 28, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) had sharp words for President Donald Trump today, responding to the president’s increasing efforts to pass new gun control laws.
Trump expressed a strong preference for the confiscation of firearms without due process, and a willingness to set aside priority legislation to protect law-abiding American gun owners, like carry reciprocity. “Or, Mike, take the firearms first, and then go to court,” President Trump said in response to statements by Vice President Mike Pence. “It takes so long to go to court to get the due process procedures, I like taking the guns early. Take the guns first, go through due process second.”
But civil rights advocates said that such a confiscation scheme would be unconstitutional. “The Constitution was expressly designed to prevent the government from acting in a way that puts its interests first and the fundamental rights of people second,” said FPC Legislative Advocate and Spokesperson Craig DeLuz. “The government doesn’t get to go around taking away peoples’ rights and property, and then going to court to present its case if it feels like it.”
FPC has consistently opposed “no fly, no buy” legislation that would prohibit people from accessing and exercising their constitutional rights based on secret government watch lists.
“We wonder if President Trump would like a policy of ‘impeachment first, due process second’,” remarked FPC Legislative Advocate Philip Watson. “Constitutional rules and safeguards are there for a reason—even, and especially, when they are inconvenient to the government and its policy preferences.”
“The dangerous anti-gun, anti-due process garbage coming out of D.C. is why we fight for individual liberty and constitutional principles rather than parties or candidates,” said FPC Grassroots Director Richard Thomson. “President Trump and Congress need to stop talking about passing more burdensome gun control laws and start working to pass common-sense legislation to protect and advance the right to keep and bear arms.”
“The fundamental, individual human right to keep and bear arms for self-defense is not up for debate,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “We reject the idea that law-abiding gun owners must suffer for the depraved acts of evil and insane people that a massive federal government and Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel failed to stop in the first place.
“The bottom line is that no amount of gun control can overcome a persistently and unacceptably incompetent government that fails to do its job. As Supreme Court Justice Alito recently warned, the government is clearly ‘more concerned about disarming the people than about keeping them safe,’” Combs concluded.
In a recent statement, FPC said that if Republicans enact gun control, “they will have shown the voters that neither major political party cares about their rights or the Constitution—and that the only real, civil option left is a new constitutional amendment.”
Trump is also pushing for FPC-opposed legislation that would raise the federal gun buying age to 21.
Firearms Policy Coalition (www.firearmspolicy.org) is a 501(c)4 grassroots nonprofit organization. FPC’s mission is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially the fundamental, individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
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