Crosstalk: July 6, 2016

Congress is reconvening after the July 4th recess. There's mounting pressure that continues to unfold for Congress to pass gun control measures. Before the recess, Democrats held a 60's style 'sit-in' demonstration in the House chamber and they are planning more disruption. Representative Robin Kelly of Illinois was quoted as saying, 'The plan is to be as disruptive to Speaker Ryan as possible.'

Joining Jim to discuss the latest news regarding the push for gun control was Larry Pratt. Larry is executive director emeritus of Gun Owners of America, a national grassroots organization representing more than 1.5 million Americans dedicated to promoting their Second Amendment freedom to keep and bear arms. Larry published a book, 'Armed People Victorious', was editor of 'Safeguarding Liberty: The Constitution & Militias' and his latest book, 'On the Firing Line: Essays in the Defense of Liberty'.

This Crosstalk covered lots of ground as Jim and Larry looked at the return of gun control to the legislative debate. Some points that were analyzed included:

--In response to the FBI director's recommendation that they will not be bringing criminal charges to the Justice Department against Hillary Clinton, Larry said no one at Gun Owners of America is surprised. He feels it's disappointing because the FBI had a reputation of being somewhat independent of the political winds of the various administrations but it's clear that the FBI is a 'tool' of this administration.

--Regarding the 'sit-in', Larry noted that the Democrats know the Republicans don't understand the concept of 'offense'. The Democrats know they can put the Republicans on defense rather easily and that's what this stunt was designed to do. He feels that if the Democrats want gun votes, let's have a vote to do away with gun free zones where almost all public massacres occur. He also noted that we need to be going in the direction of holding gun free zone folks liable for the safety of concealed carry permit holders.

--Concerning the idea of Speaker Paul Ryan 'caving' on gun control is something Larry feels may be going on. He doesn't see the Republicans in rebellion against him or moving to replace him if he doesn't have a vote.

--What about the halting of gun sales to those on the no-fly list? Larry pointed out that typically we have the right to face our accusers but not with a 'no-buy' list. There's no transparency at all and no due process. He feels Speaker Ryan could easily take action in the House to take money away from the maintenance of some list unless there's due process.

--We're led to believe the AR-15 is an assault rifle. Is it? Larry described the operation of the selector switch that changes the operation of the rifle. In semi-automatic mode, only one bullet comes out for each pull of the trigger. There's also a 3 bullet mode as well as a fully automatic mode. This latter mode keeps bullets firing as long as the trigger is left pulled. Larry believes that to call the semi-automatic, one shot, one pull operation a machine gun is either ignorant or worse.

There's much more to take in on this program including a question and answer session with Crosstalk listeners.