NWV News - Legal group files federal lawsuit against Obama and his gun initiative

LEGAL GROUP FILES FEDERAL LAWSUIT AGAINST OBAMA AND HIS GUN INITIATIVE

By NWV News Writer Jim Kouri
Posted 1:00 AM Eastern
January 22, 2013
© 2013 NewsWithViews.com

A public-interest group dedicated to upholding the U.S. Constitution announced on Wednesday that it is suing the Obama White House task force that led to the gun control proposals offered by the Commander in Chief during a televised speech on Wednesday.

The lawsuit is based on the legal argument that the White House group conducted meetings with lobbyists without sufficient public notice that is legally required.

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Florida by Larry Klayman of FreedomWatch, seeks to eliminate the task force and prevent any of its recommendations from becoming law, according to the group.

"Do not be fooled by a belief that leftists hate guns," wrote Stanislav Mishin in Pravda regarding gun control in the United States. "What they hate is guns in the hands of those who are not marching in lock step [with] their ideology."

On Wednesday on live television, President Barack Obama dramatically unveiled his plan for new gun control policies that include assault weapons bans, more thorough background checks of gun buyers, limited ammunition magazines, and government access to mental health records of potential gun buyers. However, more than one law enforcement officer told NewsWithViews that the gist of Obama's plan was begun long ago: Arm Mexican drug cartels (Operation Fast and Furious) while disarming law-abiding American citizens.

"In just one afternoon, the man who is suspected of green lighting the smuggling of guns into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels -- known as Operation Fast and Furious -- has 'outed' himself as the king of the gun grabbers. He's also implementing the strategy of his former chief of staff, Rahm Emanual, by not allowing 'a good crisis to go to waste,'" said police detective Jose Santos.

Obama's proposals are allegedly the result of a rushed review process by a committees chaired and moderated by Vice President Joe Biden, that addressed law enforcement, dangerous firearms and ammunition, school and campus security, and keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill.

The 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act stipulates that presidential task forces that include non-federal government officials must hold meetings in public and publish notices of those meetings in the Federal Register 15 days ahead of time.

“President Obama and Vice President Biden have thumbed their nose at the law and instead been holding closed door meetings with special interest lobbyists on both sides of the issue,” FreedomWatch founder Larry Klayman said in a written statement. “The American people, whose rights to gun ownership stem from colonial times and are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, are being illegally shut out of the process.”

Klayman's lawsuit alleges that outsiders have been part of the formulation of the Obama administration's gun policy, which was set up after the shooting spree in Newtown, Conn., and meetings were chaired by Vice President Joe Biden.

The FreedomWatch suit cites "national media reports that state lobbyists from the video-game production industry, from Walmart and from other private companies...fully participated in non-public meetings of the [task force] as if they were members of the [task force], and, in fact, were members of the [task force]."

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According to FreedomWatch, the White House had no comment on the lawsuit, but had previously told the Obama-friendly Politico web site that there are "no non-government participants" in the group developing the gun policy proposals. Some press reports have described outsiders as being part of the task force, but the White House says it has simply been consulting outsiders in developing the policy—not giving outsiders a direct role in making the recommendations.

However, in a TV interview aired Dec. 30, 2012, the president used just those words. "I will put forward a very specific proposal based on the recommendations that Joe Biden's task force is putting together as we speak," Obama told NBC's "Meet The Press."