Liar or Just Plain Stupid?

Remember those little picture puzzles with the caption that read, "How many things that are wrong can you find in this picture?" Well, let's see how many things wrong we can point out with former president Barak Obama's speech in Brazil last week.

Let's begin with the old-fashioned notion that it is considered wrong (not to mention insulting to American citizens) for a former president to travel abroad and talk-down his country. Of course that's something that Obama has been doing even before he was elected and many, many times after his election. So this latest Brazil trip is nothing new for him.

Secondly he spoke of gun violence in the U.S. and how "our gun laws in the United States don't make much sense," insinuating that our gun laws are not tough enough to stop gun murders. Tougher laws mean less gun murder. Okay, like which country? Well, not Brazil. Brazil is a country with tough gun laws and yet, still has a notoriously high gun murder rate. He couldn't have picked a worse place to make such a dumb argument.

But after that is when it really gets bad. And here we need to ask, is Obama stupid, or pretending to be stupid, or just a liar? Another rabid leftist who is so trapped in his progressive ideology that truth must be discarded at all costs.

You figure it out, it's way too complicated for me. Check out the following quote from his speech that is completely, utterly, 100% wrong.

"Anybody can buy any weapon any time. You know, without much, if any, regulation, they can buy it over the Internet, they can buy machine guns."

Okay, the fact is we have loads of regulations. Loads. There are about 300 federal and state gun laws that regulate the sale and acquisition of firearms in the United States, including major federal restrictions on who may purchase firearms.

The first category of persons who may not purchase firearms under federal law is based on age. Persons under 21 years of age may not purchase handguns from a gun dealer, and persons under 18 years of age may not purchase rifles or shotguns.

The second category of persons who may not purchase firearms under federal law are referred to as "prohibited persons." This category includes, among others: felons, those convicted of domestic violence, unlawful users of controlled substances, illegal aliens, those subject to certain restraining orders, those adjudicated as mental defectives or committed to mental institutions, fugitives, and veterans with dishonorable discharges.

The third major category includes non-U.S. citizens. And by the way, various state and local laws prohibit persons from purchasing firearms unless a special permit or license is issued by that state. No, Mr. former President, not "anybody" can buy a weapon, let alone a machine gun.

The buying and selling of new machine guns, which are capable of firing more than one bullet per trigger pull, has been banned since 1986 as the result of an amendment in the Firearms Owners' Protection Act. Under federal law, machine guns made after 1986 may not be purchased by civilians.

Machine guns that were made before 1986 were grandfathered in and can still be purchased, but they are heavily regulated and require an additional license and fees. Besides all that, many local jurisdictions ban the possession of machine guns period.

There are many states and local city laws that prohibit entire categories of firearms from being purchased, either by their features or by name. For example, AR-15-style rifles may not be purchased in Connecticut and any firearm not on a specified list (most models of handguns introduced in the past few years) may not be purchased in California.

And as far as Internet gun sales are concerned, although some firearms can be paid for over the Internet, they are not delivered directly to the buyer. The firearm is sent to a gun dealer who under law must hold a federal firearms license. After that an FBI background check is then conducted before the firearm is transferred to the buyer. He never mentioned any of this stuff. So . .. stupid or liar, which one?

Summing up I think we can pretty much agree that Barak Obama is not a stupid person.

This speech fits right in with his track record on truth telling. And one other thing. Can't somebody stop this guy from going to foreign countries and bad-mouthing America?

Enough already.

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JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. He's been a JWR contributor since 1999.