The government is going to use drones to spy on gun owners!

April, 2014.

Pro-gun activist types are always paranoid about the government (or any authority, really) and about being "spied on."

Now, one extremist site, Off Grid Survival (which, of course, is in the business of selling things to survivalist types) insists that the government, specifically the ATF, is trying to buy up drones to "spy" on gun owners.

They base this fevered assertion on a single promotional video put out by a manufacturer of drones, called Shadowhawk, which simulates a law enforcement usage of a drone to monitor an illegal gun sale.  Extrapolating from this to a ridiculous degree, the web site somehow makes the leap in logic that this video is evidence that the government is doing this.

Even more fantastic, this same survivalist site then goes yet another step further.  They cite a statement from the attorney general, where he states that the ATF has considered using drones but that only the FBI has done so already.  Naturally this means the ATF has already done so, right? 

Of course, there is no actual evidence of any of this, but we wouldn't want facts to color their judgement...

Just another wacko pro-gun conspiracy theory!

President Obama is conspiring to ban ALL ammo!

May, 2015

The latest hate thrown down on, of course, President Obama (as usual), by the brain-addled leaders of the NRA is (drum roll please) the banning of ALL ammo for everyone in the U.S.

Not satisfied with the usual paranoid line that all guns are going to be banned, this month the NRA has projected that delusion to ammunition.

Previously, pro-gun conspiracy theorists had claimed that Obama was going to buy up all the ammunition to keep it out of civilian hands, and that this government buy up of ammo was going to be joined by martial law (and take your guns away, too!).

Now, according to the nut jobs at the nation's biggest gun lobby, they don't just want to buy it up, but ban it altogether.

According to an article at MediaMatters,the argument is based on the movement to ban lead from our environment, mostly due to hunter's bullets, which have been responsible for a dangerous increase in lead intake by scavengers such as the endangered California Condor.

In the May issue of the NRA's magazine, America's 1st Freedom, LaPierre wrote, "President Barack Obama is setting the table to ban your ammunition -- all of it," and claimed that "the remaining two years of Obama's term pose the greatest threat ever to the Second Amendment and our freedom."

LaPierre imagined a ludicrous scheme where "two fatal turns of events" would lead the EPA to ban all lead ammunition and, subsequently, the Obama administration to ban all non-lead ammunition. According to LaPierre, "The president's bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are partnering with private enviro-radicals to ban lead projectiles -- including all hunting bullets -- as hazardous."

Despite the fact that the EPA has given no indication that it is preparing regulations on lead ammunition, LaPierre insisted that the agency is still seeking a ban.

Of course, there's no shortage of non-lead bullets to go around.

And the argument is also due to a failed attempt at stronger regulation of AR-15 bullets that can (and do) pierce the protective vests of law enforcement:

The ATF announced its intent to try and ban a particular type of AR-15 ammunition known as M855, or "green tip," in February. Citing concerns for the safety of law enforcement officers, the ATF said the move was necessary because the round contains a steel penetrator, which makes it more powerful than other types of ammunition used in the AR-15.

If Obama "can set a precedent by banning AR-15 ammunition," LaPierre wrote, "he is well on his way to banning any and all of the ammo his anti-freedom heart desires."

But the proposed ban was withdrawn.

But, hey, it's easier to whip up a frenzy in the pro-gun, paranoid minds of NRA followers if you exaggerate and irrationally extrapolate these minor examples into an all-out ban, right?  That's the only way the NRA can get memberships.


Just another wacko pro-gun conspiracy theory!

The Sandy Hook shooting was "scripted" and never really happened!

February, 2014.

A self-professed "school shooting expert," Wolfgang Halbig, has decided that the shooting at Sandy

Pro-gun conspiracy wacko Wolfgang Halbig (source)

Hook Elementary in Newton, CT, was a scripted event and no one was actually killed.  According to an article:

“..I suspect, in my professional opinion as a consultant and doing this a long, long time, I think it’s a scripted event that took place. I think it was in planning for maybe two, two and a half years,” Halbig said recently in an explosive interview with American Free Press.

His "proof?"  He cites how medical helicopters were never requested (never mind that there weren't any injured victims, only dead ones), that medical examiners finished "within 11 minutes" (of course, when little bodies are blown apart with assault weapons and no one is moving or breathing, it's a little hard to get it wrong), port-o-potties were on-site within three hours (what? they can't be efficient with getting places to pee??), he questioned how someone with Asperger's could have the ability to carry the guns and ammo (clearly he doesn't understand that people with Asperger's don't usually have significant physical handicaps), no one would share details with him such as which environmental organization did the crime scene cleanup (if someone was accusing you of a conspiracy theory, would you?).

Finally, after all his poking around and harassing, he got a visit from state investigators who wondered what he was up to and told him to knock it off. Naturally, to a pro-gun conspiracy theorist, this is an obvious sign of a cover-up and not, you know, law enforcement actually investigating why someone is prying into crime details.

Never mind the fact that an entire town has been traumatized by the loss of loved ones and all the children who went to the school witnessed the shooting, and the fact that a coverup of this magnitude would require that the entire town take part in it along with a wide range of city services, school administration, and a number of state and federal agencies.

The simple fact that mass shootings take place nearly every week in America escapes this loony.  But then, we wouldn't want to actually put the blame where it belongs:  on yet another demented gun nut with mental problems in a society that is all-too-willing to arm him.

Just another wacko pro-gun conspiracy theory!

Obamacare is going to create a "stealth gun registry!"

October, 2013.

We can all count on ultra-conservative blowhard Rush Limbaugh to push ridiculous, over-the-top conspiracy theories. Now he's got another.

According to him, Obamacare may be creating a "stealth" gun registration program.

Here's how his fevered mind works:  A U.S. company is being used to build Healthcare.gov. That company is associated with another company in Canada, which had once been tasked with creating the Canadian gun registration program.  Never mind that the Canadian company was dropped before they completed their effort, but that's evidence enough for this pundit to send out to all his listeners.

See and listen here.

Limbaugh referred to an article onBreitbart.com that claims a Canadian company, CGI, has a U.S. subsidiary, CGI Federal, that was paid $93.7 million to build HealthCare.gov. 

CGI was also once contracted to build a nationwide gun registry for the Canadian government. 

However, CGI's contract for the gun registry was canceled in 2007 because it was "significantly over budget" and a more conservative government took over the country.
According to MediaMatters.org, Limbaugh suggested their might be an anti-gun conspiracy in this report (audio below). 

"Here's a group that tried to put together a gun registry in Canada," said Limbaugh. "Oh yeah, we love those kinds of people. Gun registry, oh yeah, that's the kind of people we need." 

"While we're working on health care they can be, in a stealth way, establishing one of those here maybe, just ruminating, you know," added the radio host.

Just another wacko pro-gun conspiracy theory!

Recent IRS and government surveillance scandals prove that Obama is a tyrant and wants to take our guns away!

May, 2013.

According to (surprise, surprise!) conspiracy-theory king Alex Jones and Infowars.com, recent scandals involving IRS investigation of conservative anti-tax groups, the Benghazi attacks, and the seven-year-long government mining of civilian internet and phone data are proof that the government can't be trusted and is, in fact, a tyranny, worthy of being overthrown by armed Americans and "shot dead."

According to Jones:

The illusion of trustworthy government has been destroyed. 

Now the illusion of trustworthy government has been completely shattered. If the IRS would selectively intimidate and threaten Constitutional groups it didn’t like, what else is the government capable of? 

All of a sudden those of us who warned everybody about gun confiscation, FEMA camps and false flags don’t seem so outlandish anymore. Now almost everyone realizes the government is capable of ANYTHING. Especially the Obama administration, which respects no laws and no limits to its power. (Drone strikes, secret kill lists, the continued running of secret military prisons, bypassing Congress with executive orders, and so on.) 

Now the Second Amendment makes total sense. Why do we even have a Second Amendment? The honest, blatant answer is so that as a last-ditch firewall against a tyrannical takeover, the American people can march on Washington with rifles in hand and shoot all the criminals dead. That is the essence of the Second Amendment — a last-ditch failsafe for liberty.  

The only real way to keep government in line, after all, is to make sure those who hold office know that if they become outright traitors to America and refuse to abide by the limits of government described in the Constitution, they might be shot dead by citizens who take their country back by force. (I’m not calling for such an action, by the way. I’m only explaining the historical context of the Second Amendment and what it really means.) 

When citizens are well armed and have the power to do such a thing, that power should never actually be needed because the government fears the people and thus stays within the limits of power. But when the people are disarmed, the government fears nothing and so expands out of control, functioning as a rogue, tyrannical cabal of mobsters and criminals. Read your history books if you don’t believe me. This is the repeated story of government’s rise and fall throughout history. 

Ultimately, this is why the Obama administration wants to take your guns away: Not to make the children safer but to make the citizens defenseless against government tyranny. And yes, that tyranny exists right now. The debate is over. The gun grabbers lost and the Second Amendment won.

Yes, because of a couple of trumped-up "scandals," the government is "capable of anything" and "might be shot dead by citizens" (oh, but he's only saying this in an historical context, right?).  Words matter, Mr. Jones, and insurrectionist talk like this is not only unpatriotic, but treasonous.  But I'm sure his paranoid audience is lapping it up.

Just another wacko pro-gun conspiracy theory! 

The "Zionist government" is going to stage mass terrorist acts as an excuse to "set up innocent American patriots and gun-owners!"

April, 2013.

In a long and rambling post, David Chase Taylor, a "Truther.org" commentator, makes the assertion that the government is planning a massive "false flag" terror attack against its own people, destroying landmarks, and even start another civil war, in order to create an excuse to take away everyone's guns.

According to this (more wacko than usual) pro-gun conspiracy, the militia group that planned to commit acts of terror in Atlanta, the Hutaree, is actually a government-controlled group which will be used for future terrorist acts.  Furthermore, Alex Jones (a popular conspiracy theorist in his own right who is no stranger to this blog) is promoting this act of terror by our government and is a "Zionist" conspiracist.  According to Taylor:

Based on the evidence and events surrounding the 2011 mock trial of the Hutaree Terror Militia and alleged STRATFOR tool and Zionist operative Alex Jones’ rabid defense of the right-wing ultra-Christian militia group, it now appears that the Hutaree Militia is in fact a U.S. government funded and operated domestic terror group that will commit future acts of terror within the United States in a calculated attempt to further demonize, disparage and ultimately set-up innocent American patriots and gun-owners.

Yes, that's right, this conspiracy theorist, in the space of one long sentence, has managed to mash together the government, the Hutaree militia, Jews, and even (in the ultimate irony) conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in a government-run conspiracy theory to disenfranchise (gasp!) "innocent American patriots and gun owners."

Wow.  

Oh, but it gets much better.  In his ramblings, he manages to use as "evidence" of this conspiracy everything from the Boston bombings to "Family Guy" episodes.  He even uses a recent move by an NBA team as "evidence."

And just for good measure, he rolls out an Alex Jones assertion that the Oklahoma City bombing was also staged by the government, and that (in Taylor's mind) means they will do so again.

He goes on to argue that the goal of the "Zionist government" is to destroy landmarks, like the Hoover Dam, in order to create a new civil war and somehow make gun owners want to rise up against their government, so that the government can then remove all guns:

The goal of the Zionists who control America is to get America to destroy herself the same way that Russia was destroyed under Stalin. This is done by dividing and then collapse society upon itself by baiting the gun-owning American public into a violent revolution against their own police and military while the Zionist terrorists sit off-shore and pull the strings. In order to accomplish this, they must pain the U.S. government as the aggressor.

Way to work in the "communism" comparison!

I'll say it again:  Wow.  This is one, crazy, convoluted and fevered brain to come up with this stuff.

Just another wacko pro-gun conspiracy theory! 

President Obama is having the government buy up all the ammo to keep it out of the hands of gun owners!

May, 2013.


Last August, one pro-gun conspiracy theory had announced that the U.S. government was stockpiling ammo to declare martial law and shoot gun owners.

Now, in a sad derivative of that original conspiracy theory, at least four GOP lawmakers,  Sen. James Inhofe and Rep. Frank Lucas, from Oklahoma, Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California, and Rep Jim Jordan of Ohio, are suggesting that President Obama and various departments are stockpiling ammo again.  But instead of wanting to wage war on gun owners, now they want to do it to drive up ammo costs and keep gun owners from buying the ammo, and have gone so far in their lunacy to introduce a bill against the supposed practice.

From an article:

The Hill reports:

Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe and Rep. Frank Lucas have introduced a bill that would prohibit every government agency — except the military — from buying more ammunition each month, than the monthly average it purchased from 2001 to 2009. 

The lawmakers say the Obama administration is buying up exceedingly high levels of ammunition in an attempt to limit the number of bullets the American public have access to on the open marketplace.

Inhofe argued that Obama has been “adamant about curbing law-abiding Americans’ access and opportunities to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” and that “One way the Obama Administration is able to do this is by limiting what’s available in the market with federal agencies purchasing unnecessary stockpiles of ammunition.” 

On Tuesday, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, had a similar conversation with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council on Sandy Rios’ radio show, noting that he’s been “buying my kids ammo instead of saving bonds.” 

“That’s part of the concern is that this is another way for the president to keep Americans from having ammo by having the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies buy it all up,” Perkins said. “Yep,” replied Jordan. 

Others, including Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, and Fox Business’s Lou Dobbs, have had related concerns about the government “arming up.” 

Similar versions of this theory have been floating around the right for some time.  

Politifact Texas found it to be “mostly false” when a chain email suggested last year that the DHS was preparing for “massive civil unrest” by stockpiling ammo.

Of course, they have zero evidence that the government is actually doing this.  But they wouldn't want facts to stand in the way of their paranoia.

In fact, even the NRA (no stranger to putting out conspiracy theories of their own!) has debunked the previous version of this conspiracy theory.  From another article:

Last fall, the NRA issued a statement saying the claim was being pushed in an “Internet rumor mill” and was designed to “stir up fear.” The “more incendiary authors,” the group said, “suggest that these government agencies are preparing for a war with the American people.” 

Just another wacko pro-gun conspiracy theory!

ADDENDUM (5/15/13): Here is the snopes.com debunking of this conspiracy theory: http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/ssabullets.asp

The Government wants background checks in order to create a genocide of gun owners in America!

April 11, 2013.

According to GOP Congressman Jeff Duncan, from South Carolina, expanding background checks beyond what is already in place for federally licensed dealers would create some sort of national registry (which is already unconstitutional and hasn't been proposed), and would lead to a massive genocide of gun owners by the government.

The 2nd Amendment is (or should be) equal to the 1st Amendment and the 4th Amendment and all of the others. Ask yourselves why it is under attack? Ask yourselves about a National gun registry database and how that might be used and why it is so wanted by progressives. 

Read about the Rwandan genocide, the Hutu and Tutsi tribes. Read that all Tutsi tribe members were required to register their address with the Hutu government and that this database was used to locate Tutsi for slaughter at the hands of the Hutu. Since the government had the names and addresses of nearly all Tutsis living in Rwanda (remember, each Rwandan had an identity card that labeled them Tutsi, Hutu, or Twa) the killers could go door to door, slaughtering the Tutsis.

Naturally, Duncan could site no evidence whatsoever that this the U.S. government is planning a registry of gun owners or a genocide.

Just another wacko pro-gun conspiracy theory! 

"Obamacare" is actually a ploy "for the BATF to take away your guns!"

November, 2012.

Larry Pratt, Executive Director of the extremist pro-gun group, Gun Owners of America, suggests that the Health Care for America Plan (or "Obamacare") is going to allow the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to “take away your guns.”  According to Pratt (click for sound recording as well):

There’s a big one that doesn’t get much attention as a gun measure but it is, and that’s Obamacare. Obamacare among its many unconstitutional aspects, I’m sorry Supreme Court, has made privacy something that only applies between consenting adults but not certainly our relationship with the government. It says that all of our medical records are available to be pawed through by bureaucrats somewhere in Washington, looking for a reason to disenfranchise gun owners, to say ‘oh you have a medical diagnosis that means you might be a danger to yourself or others so we’re going to come and knock on the door for the BATF to take away your guns.’

No surprise that Pratt wants dangerously mentally ill people armed, but since the National Instant Criminal Background Check System was signed into law by President Bush in November 30, 1998, well-before Obamacare was enacted, people who have been adjudicated as dangerously mentally ill or forcefully committed to a mental institution are ineligible for purchasing a gun, and there is also a provision against a general gun ownership database.  

Though mental health reporting is often woefully under-reported, between 1998 and the end of 2004 this mental health disqualification nonetheless prohibited at least 221,478 dangerously mentally-ill people from legally purchasing a firearm.

Of course, Pratt offers no evidence for this supposed conspiracy. 

UPDATE:  In January, 2013, Libertarian Senator Rand Paul echoed this conspiracy theory:

[Paul] warned that President Obama’s “going to use Obamacare apparently to have doctors informing on their patients to whether or not they have guns” and will put the information into “government databanks.” He added: “I’m very much opposed to this kind of information going into government databanks because I fear that the time will come when this data will be misused.”

Just another wacko pro-gun conspiracy theory!

The Government is buying up enough ammunition to declare martial law and take away your gun rights!

August, 2012. 

A couple of government agencies (the Social Security Administration and Homeland Security) made large but routine purchases of hollow-point ammunition.  Onepro-conspiracy theory website and radio show decided that this was evidence of a massive government preparation for coming civil unrest due to economic meltdown.  "It’s not outlandish to suggest that the Social Security Administration is purchasing the bullets as part of preparations for civil unrest," they wrote.  I disagree; it is very outlandish.

In response, another extremist website took it one step further, writing that preparations were underway by the government to declare martial law and take away everyone's gun rights!  From the article:

A few observers, however, see a much more ominous motivation behind the mass purchase of ammo. Some believe that the federal government is preparing for Martial law during which citizens would be deprived of the freedom to their firearms and during which curfews would be imposed nationwide.

But what would precipitate the implementation of such a broad based effort at preparation on the part of multiple agencies of the federal government at the present time? 

Several factors are possibly at play. Citizens as never before have been purchasing firearms and ammunition at an unprecedented level since 2008. Many believe that unelected forces that are not under the control of citizens are wielding undue influence over the federal government, even to the point of breaking the law and violating the time honored principles of the U.S. Constitution. And some believe that at some point, inevitably citizens who are dedicated to preserving liberty as encapsulated in the Constitution will rise up to depose the shadowy figures lurking in the background, and their puppets within the government, who have determined to impose on the United States a way of thinking and form of government that are foreign to every known principle espoused by the Founding Fathers.

Thankfully, the fact-checking site, Snopes.com, put this nonsense to rest.  While confirming that a government order had been placed, the hype about preparing for civil unrest was false.   The order, along with an order for paper targets, is for law enforcement training and qualifications.

Additionally, a fellow contributor at The Daily Journalist, Sylvia Longmire, who was a Special Agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, said that the same hollow point ammunition was regularly used by her department for target practice and qualifications. 

Just another wacko pro-gun conspiracy theory!

"Operation Fast and Furious" was an attempt to justify gun control by creating gun violence in Mexico!

June, 2012.

Between 2006 and 2011, the ATF’s Project Gunrunner attempted to track straw purchases and illegal gun trafficking to Mexican drug cartels.  Since a database of gun sales isn’t allowed in America, and loose gun regulation, particularly in the state of Arizona, makes it almost impossible to prevent large gun sales and trafficking, the ATF had to work with a patchwork of local regulations to monitor and track gun sales to illegal parties.  Around 2000 guns were sold and attempted to be monitored as part of the program, but only a few small-time illegal gun sellers were actually arrested.  As a result of internal disputes, many guns went untracked, though the ATF never intended for those guns to “walk” out of their control, as discovered by a six-month investigation by Fortune magazine.  One federal agent, Brian Terry, was killed with one of those guns, as well as an unknown number of Mexican citizens.  Only around 700 of those guns have since been recovered.

The project was clearly a failure, with tragic consequences, but the NRA came up with a more extreme conspiracy theory.  According to them, Operation Fast and Furious, led by President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, intentionally allowed thousands of guns to go into Mexico, hoping that the deaths of innocents would give more reason to pass stricter gun laws here in the United States and attack the Second Amendment.  This, despite the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that President Obama had any knowledge of the workings of the program, or any evidence that Holder was in control of the program, and despite the findings of Katherine Eban for a Fortune Magazine investigation that no guns were intentionally allowed to “walk” by the ATF.

Nonetheless, FOX News was quick to pick up the conspiracy and advertise it as news as well as GOP pundits like Rush Limbaugh, and certain conservative GOP politicians, such as Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Said Rep. Issa:

“The whole point, don't forget, the whole point of Fast and Furious was to create mayhem in Mexico among drug cartels with American-made weapons easily procured so that you and I would stand up in outrage and demand tighter gun laws.  It was deceitful. It was sneaky.  It was going against the will of the American people. It was liberalism on parade. It's who these people are.  They want tighter gun laws.  Folks, I want to make this as simple as I can.  They created crimes.  There's no other way to characterize this.  They created, they manufactured crime.  They enabled crimes.  They saw to it that American guns ended up in Mexican drug cartel hands.  And, of course, those people get the guns, they use them. When, in fact, it probably was difficult for the drug cartels to get the guns.  It probably was not easy for the drug cartels to get the guns.  Certainly not walking into gun stores in Phoenix and elsewhere, then crossing the border. 

“So they set that up.  They created crimes.  It would be no different than if they wanted to ban airplanes, to engineer a bunch of crashes.  I'm trying to think of a smart analogy to give you.  If this bunch wanted all airplanes grounded, sabotage a bunch so they crash, and the people of the country demand that all airplanes be grounded.  They wanted these guns that were used in these crimes to come from America.” 

After the Fortune magazine investigation by Katherine Eban, one blog post by the People for the American Way summarized it thusly:

Eban’s reporting unearthed absolutely no evidence that the tactic of “gun walking”, which Rep. Issa and his allies continue to put front and center, was ever actually in play. “The ATF's accusers seem untroubled by evidence that the policy they have pilloried didn't actually exist”.

Predicated upon erroneous and misleading information, the Fast and Furious ‘scandal’ is heavy on political intrigue, yet light on substance. 

Just to pound a nail in the coffin of this conspiracy theory, a report by Michael Horowitz, the Department of Justice inspector general, influenced by Eban's investigation, also found no evidence that knowledge of the ATF program ever reached the level of Holder, much less the President, prior to the end of the program, and that there was no conspiracy to reduce gun rights.

For over a year, it's been an article of faith on the right that Fast and Furious was a carefully constructed scheme directed by the White House to trash the Second Amendment and build support for more gun control laws. It wasn't. Neither the White House nor Eric Holder had any idea what was going on. It was just a local operation that was badly botched. This makes Fast and Furious officially yet another lunatic conservative conspiracy theory that has bitten the dust in the cold light of reality.

Just another wacko pro-gun conspiracy theory!