St Louis Gun Rights Examiner

The news these days is dominated, of course, by Sunday's Congressional passage of, and today's presidential signature on, the massive health care reform bill. It is beyond the scope of this piece
to attempt a detailed analysis of the pros and cons of such
legislation, although National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea has discussed one threat it poses to gun rights, despite provisions intended to assuage gun owners' concerns (not to mention the problems inherent to playing fast and loose with Constitutionally delegated powers).

Today, though, we'll look at another potential effect of HCR becoming law. Those who support more and more restrictive gun laws, although disappointed with the Obama administration's apparent disinterest--so far--in
aggressively pursuing such restrictions, have generally been willing to
cut the president some slack, because he has had such a "full plate."

With a health care reform bill now signed into law, though, one of the biggest items on that plate is now gone. Does that mean the anti-gun
heat comes on now? Probably not immediately. The administration has
made pretty clear that the next big priority is immigration reform.

That should not be particularly reassuring to gun rights advocates. Turning tens of millions of heretofore illegal aliens into voting-eligible
citizens will go a long way to making this a nation of one party
rule--and that party has a long history of antipathy toward private gun
ownership. The Democrats have, it's true, somewhat disguised their
forcible citizen disarmament ambitions of late, but we must never
forget United States Senator Dianne Feinstein's chilling statement from
less than a year ago, "I'll pick the time and place" to pursue draconian gun laws.

President Obama, Vice President Biden, most of the Cabinet members, and many members of the dominant party in Congress all have long histories of
advocating vastly more restrictive burdens on private gun ownership.
Political realities have, so far during the Obama administration,
worked against them moving against gun owners. Those political
realities are now rapidly changing.

Expect trouble.

By the way, Missouri is among the states that may attempt to defy parts of the federal health care reform law.