Thirteen former military commanders and other “elites” have signed a letter to the House of Representatives demanding “universal background checks” for all gun sales in the United States. The baker’s dozen of constitutionally illiterate military advisers and former “combat leaders” are putting their weight behind HR 8 – a bill that violates your right to dispose of your own property as you see fit, as well as makes tools of self-defense much more inaccessible to We the People.

“A prohibited person with dangerous intent can easily buy a gun over the internet or in a parking lot with no questions asked,” the military advisers wrote to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer.“For those of us with extensive firearms training, who have seen the damage inflicted by a powerful weapon in the wrong hands, this is simply unfathomable,” they wrote.

“For those of us with extensive firearms training…”

Ya know, I remember pretty vividly an MRX in Hohenfels, Germany, during which I had to show a rather chunky Air Force Colonel how to lock his bolt to the rear on his rifle, so forgive me if I’m not impressed by the claims of people like Wesley Clark and Mark Hertling who signed on to a letter generated by Gabrielle Giffords’ gun control organization, urging legislators to relieve you of your rights.

“Each of us has, at some point in our lives, made the choice to risk our lives for our fellow citizens and place ourselves in harm’s way. We were trained, we were coached, and we were prepared for the dangers that we chose to face,” says the “Veterans’ Coalition” to Shred the Constitution – retired senior officers who flog their credibility as people who risk their lives to defend our nation, but who seem to have forgotten that they also took an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic – the same Constitution that says the people’s right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Translation: Don’t you know who I am? Look at my uniform!

Yeah, I know who you are, Mark Hertling. I remember when you allowed a CNN reporter to use your alleged “expertise” with firearms like a teenager with a happy sock to promote the “EEEEEEEVIL GUNZ” message, while you drooled about the “full semi-automatic” AR-15, whatever the hell that is, and told us how loud and scary those weapons of war are, while pretending to be oh-so rocked by the recoil.

Yeah, we know who you are, Wesley Clark – the statist weasel who said “disloyal Americans” should be tossed in “internment camps.” So forgive us if we’re wholly unsurprised that you want to take a large, steaming dump on our Second Amendment rights as well.

And forgive me if I don’t put a whole lot of faith in the gun control wet dreams of Stanley McChrystal, who allowed his staff to run their cock holsters about the Commander-in-Chief and the Vice President in front of a Rolling Stone reporter. One of the first things we teach officers when they receive their training on dealing with the media is that THERE IS NOTHING OFF THE RECORD – a pretty simple concept that should be obvious to any snot-nosed butter bar lieutenant, let alone a general officer commanding our forces in Afghanistan, so as far as I’m concerned, McChrystal’s judgment about gun control or any other issue that affects the rights of Americans is questionable at the very least.

The other authoritarian shit goblins on the list include:

General Peter W. Chiarelli, USA (Ret.), General Michael Hayden, USAF (Ret.), Admiral Thad Allen, USCG (Ret.), Lieutenant General Russel L. Honoré, USA (Ret.), Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy, USA (Ret.), and other high-ranking retired officers.

The presence of these retired officers on the list shows that they either have no understanding of gun control policy, or don’t give a damn about the Constitution they swore to defend, and for my own sanity, I hope it’s the former, because that would make them uninformed as opposed to traitorous.

Fact is that HR-8 is a tyrannical gun grab by the Democrats, who want to control every transaction you make. Want to loan a gun to a pal for the range? You’d better go through an FFL and pay them for the service. Want to gift that rifle to your grandson? You’ll need to pay a gun store to make that transfer for you. And if you are aged 18-20, you can certainly serve in the military, but are banned from exercising your right to keep and bear arms.

In other words, you can support and defend the Constitution of the United States in the US military, you can die on the battlefield for your nation, but you can’t exercise those same rights you swore to protect until you turn 21.

And since there’s no limit on the transfer fees that can be charged for purchasing a firearm, poor people – those who live in not-so-nice neighborhoods without gates and armed guards (unlike many of these retired generals and admirals), and who are most in need of tools of self defense – will be disproportionately affected.

This is what these generals and admirals want for you. They want to bar you from selling your private property to another person of your choosing without paying a potentially exorbitant fee. They want you to be unable to transfer your property to your family member. They want you to be prohibited from loaning your property to a neighbor or even leaving it with them while you deploy overseas with the military unless you pay a gun store to make the transfer for you. And they think that placing these unreasonable limits on innocent Americans will somehow stop violence.

Fact is it won’t. Most guns used in crime are obtained illegally. Criminals intent on committing acts of violence won’t be deterred by the fact that they can’t make a legal firearm purchase. This is not an effort to reduce violence. It’s an effort to relieve Americans of their Second Amendment rights or at the very least make them more difficult to assert and exercise.

And these military elites – supposedly the nation’s leaders and military experts – are using their military service as a shield to protect themselves from the fact that they’re betraying the American people and working to compromise their fundamental rights, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Featured photo courtesy of Pixabay (licensed, cropped)