So this happened in my former home state of California: the Los Angeles City Council voted to require companies who want to contract with the city to disclose any ties with the National Rifle Association.

Here are the details:

Prospective contractors now must disclose under affidavit any contracts or sponsorships they or their subsidiaries have with the NRA. The city has similar policies about companies involved in the construction of President Trump’s proposed border wall and over the historic investment in or profits from slavery.

The ordinance on the NRA was sought by Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, who cited several recent mass shootings in the U.S. At Tuesday’s meeting, he said the NRA has “been a road block to gun safety reform at every level of government now for several decades.”

Several gun safety groups who support the NRA ordinance gathered with O’Farrell outside City Hall before the vote.

Can you imagine what comes next?  Perhaps a database gun owners have to register in, like sex offenders?  Maybe impeding gun owners’ ability to get certain jobs or get into schools or clubs?

Naturally, the NRA is going to fight the ordinance which attempts to demonize hard-working people who are exercising their 2nd Amendment right.  NRA attorney Chuck Michel said, “Politicians are free to disagree with the NRA’s pro-freedom, firearm safety, and self-reliance message, but they aren’t free to censor it — as this would do when NRA supporters drop their NRA memberships for fear of losing their livelihood from being on this blacklist. This is modern day McCarthyism, and my clients are confident no judge will let it stand.”

The NRA disclosure law contains more than a dozen exemptions, including contracts involving the city’s pension funds and other investment agreements.

Still, attorneys for the NRA said they would file a lawsuit if the ordinance passed, according to a Feb. 4 letter sent to the city. In the letter, the NRA said the law violates the 1st Amendment and is “an unconstitutional effort to restrict and chill an individual’s right to associate and express their political beliefs.”

Exactly. The city of Los Angeles can be absolutely full of people who dislike firearms, but it can not attempt to harass those who own them.

Another telling moment for the self-described “peace, tolerance, and inclusivity” crowd.  They would love to take our rights away, but will be satisfied with harassment until we just give up.

They must not know us very well, because gun owners are some of the best Americans I know…  and they also are the most stubborn.

Image Credit: Mike Licht on Flickr

Hat Tip: PJ Media

 

About The Author

Mark was a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, and served as the national coordinator. He left the organization to work more broadly on expanding the self-governance movement beyond the partisan divide. Mark appears regularly on television in outlets as diverse as MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business and the BBC. He’s highly sought after for the tea party perspective from print and electronic media outlets, from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Examiner, Politico and the The Hill. Mark blogs at MarkMeckler.com, and his opinion editorials regularly run in many of the leading political newspapers both on and offline. Mark has a BA in English from San Diego State University and graduated with honors from University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1988. He practiced real estate and business law for almost a decade. For the last eleven years of his legal career he specialized in Internet advertising law. When not fighting for the future of our nation, Mark is an avid horseman, and lives in rural northern California with his wife Patty and two children.

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