Starvin Larry

With the new Senate majority set to take their seats in January, the potential to repeal Obamacare is now within reach. The key to making that happen is the National Rifle Association.

Why should they? Association management only pursues what it calls the “single issue,” political votes directly impacting the right to keep and bear arms, and steers clear of other issues, even those important to a largely conservative membership. And there are many members who find that approach not only defensible, but desirable.

Besides, NRA made a point of claiming responsibility for putting the pressure on to amend the legislation to prevent “disclosure or collection of any information relating to” firearms and ammunition. With that concern sidelined, what’s left for gun owners to worry about?

Plenty, as NRA itself admits, alerting members to “Watch your guns around Obamacare,” which in turn links to a Townhall article by Intellectual Conservative editor Rachel Alexander that in turn cited an Executive Order that clarifies doctors are not prohibited from asking patients about guns.

“If doctors have a patient with PTSD or mental illness, and they fail to ask the patient about their firearms, or report them to law enforcement, they could be on the hook later,” Alexander explains. “It encourages them to err on the side of snooping into their patients’ guns. This is especially troubling considered the definition of mental illness keeps expanding.

“Under Obamacare, federal agencies like the ATF can still pore over health records and determine who has mental issues or PTSD,” Alexander warns. “There is nothing in Obamacare that prohibits another federal agency from compiling a database of gun owners.”

A group already caught in the net is one the political establishment pays “thank you for your service” lip service to, but actually repays by stripping rights without due process: Veterans. Using “justifications” such as “PTSD,” tens of thousands have been added to the “prohibited persons” National Instant Check System database without adjudication, and that in itself raises further concerns.

Even if laws require going beyond a doctor’s say-so and bringing persons suspected of mental disorders before a judge, they are still being denied due process if they can have fundamental rights denied them and be incarcerated without a jury trial. That they may not have committed a “crime” is not the issue. Civil rights and a proper application of Constitutional principles should demand a presumption of “innocence” with all protections in place. And those protections must include an equally-accessible and navigable pathway to restoration of rights when evidence shows disabilities no longer exist.

Having established that, even with supposed “protections” in place, Obamacare is still “anti-gun” and a proper concern for gun rights groups to seek repeal of, the question becomes “How?” Even with the new majority, Republicans will still find themselves 13 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.

That’s where NRA could come in – if Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and ILA Executive Director Chris Cox wanted it to, or could be persuaded to follow through on. NRA political grades are a powerful tool the politicians in all but incontestable “blue states” vie for, and there are so-called “pro-gun Democrats” in states like Montana who are dependent on them to retain their seats. Even those currently rated lower than an “A” would have powerful incentives not to go into their next election with a markedly lower rating than their challenger. It may even take only one or two “defections” to act like a crack in the dam, convincing balkers that their political fortunes are best served by opposing an administration centerpiece that Americans are increasingly rejecting, with approval at “a new numerical low” providing additional cover for crossing party lines.

The question now becomes whether gun owners in general and NRA members in particular want this to happen. Because unless a sufficient number are informed and insistent to the point of taking real action to demand repeal of the anti-gun Obamacare mandate, nothing will change.

But it might not work? Does that mean America’s gun owners should make failure a certainty by not even lifting a finger to try?

http://www.examiner.com/article/if-gun-owners-demanded-it-nra-could-lead-repeal-of-obamacare?CID=examiner_alerts_article