Obama Plans To Muzzle Gun-Related Speech

[mmckee1952]

Obama Plans To Muzzle Gun-Related Speech

Posted by Bob Owens

The foreign-raised President of the United States—who never set foot on the U.S. mainland until he was an adult—has proven throughout his rogue administration that he has no respect at all for the Constitution. He’s proving it yet again with a dual attack on both the First and Second Amendments, with an attempt to twist ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) regulations to ban online speech about firearms, claiming that information posted online is “exporting” data.

Even as news reports have been highlighting the gun control provisions of the Administration’s “Unified Agenda” of regulatory objectives (see accompanying story), the Obama State Department has been quietly moving ahead with a proposal that could censor online speech related to firearms. This latest regulatory assault, published in the June 3 issue of the Federal Register, is as much an affront to the First Amendment as it is to the Second. Your action is urgently needed to ensure that online blogs, videos, and web forums devoted to the technical aspects of firearms and ammunition do not become subject to prior review by State Department bureaucrats before they can be published…

…With the new proposal published on June 3, the State Department claims to be “clarifying” the rules concerning “technical data” posted online or otherwise “released” into the “public domain.” To the contrary, however, the proposal would institute a massive new prior restraint on free speech. This is because all such releases would require the “authorization” of the government before they occurred. The cumbersome and time-consuming process of obtaining such authorizations, moreover, would make online communication about certain technical aspects of firearms and ammunition essentially impossible.

Penalties for violations are severe and for each violation could include up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. Civil penalties can also be assessed. Each unauthorized “export,” including to subsequent countries or foreign nationals, is also treated as a separate violation.

Gunsmiths, manufacturers, reloaders, and do-it-yourselfers could all find themselves muzzled under the rule and unable to distribute or obtain the information they rely on to conduct these activities. Prior restraints of the sort contemplated by this regulation are among the most disfavored regulations of speech under First Amendment case law.

But then, when did the U.S. Constitution ever deter Barack Obama from using whatever means are at his disposal to exert his will over the American people and suppress firearm ownership throughout the nation?

Read More: http://bearingarms.com/constitution-oba ... n=baupdate

My Thoughts: IMPORTANT: Obama's administration via the State Department is moving forward with an executive action that will not only trample our 1st Amendment rights but also our 2nd Amendment rights. If allowed to go through, all gun related blogs, video producers and gun forums would be subject to stiff fines and prison time for discussing the technical aspects of firearms and ammunition without first seeking approval from the State Department before publishing. This is not a joke, I wish it were. The NRA just sent out an alert today as well. ACT NOW. CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES.

[FiremanBob]

I hope the NRA is willing to fund test cases up through the SCOTUS, because there is nothing Congress can do about it that will not be vetoed by the Traitor-in-Chief. Unless an opportunity arises to put the prevention in as an amendment to some bill that (s)he cannot possibly veto.

[Nat]

His mouth is what needs to be muzzled........

[flyingron]

THe proposed rules don't say anything about guns. It's an updating of the existing ITAR rules. The bigger issue to the common man isn't the crap the NRA is whipping up the membership with, but the use of ITAR (even as it stands) to squash down on ENCRYPTION/PRIVACY technology development/dissemination. Writing your congresscritters isn't going to have any impact on this. The law has been enacted for years. You can file your complaints by going to regulations.gov and entering 1400–AD70 in the search engine and making them there.