An Open Letter to President Obama

Dear Mr. President,

Rather than shifting the dialogue and blame, as you seem so often prone to do, to firearms, why don’t you concentrate on your constitutional duty to protect us by controlling who enters this country, and addressing the source of terrorism? It was under your administration that this ISIS-following woman from Saudi Arabia who helped kill 14 of our public servants was “screened” and admitted to this country. YOU let her in. And she may well have radicalized her husband. And after having failed at screening a single isolated case, you want us to believe you can effectively screen tens of thousands of Syrian refugees? You won’t enforce the border laws where who knows how many others have entered, and are preparing to kill us. Enough with the smoke and mirrors, and yelling “squirrel.” We’re no longer so easily distracted or fooled, and now it truly is a life or death issue.

Perhaps if you did your job more effectively, so that we wouldn’t feel the need to defend ourselves rather than rely on immigration control and police, there wouldn’t be such a clamor for weapons to defend ourselves, which, by the way, we are fully entitled to by the 2nd Amendment. And that includes conditions in the inner cities, where your liberal policies have failed. Clearly, the strictest gun control measures in the country – in Chicago & California – have not been effective in stopping some of the worst bloodshed in the country. These terrorists obtained their weapons legally, and what laws that you suggest would have stopped that? Or would stop them from obtaining them illegally? Or their bombs? But denying them entry to the country would stop them. Why don’t you just stick to your job rather than selling snake oil?

One would think that such facts and anti-correlations (strictest gun control & worst bloodshed) might give such a supposedly intelligent and open-minded person as yourself pause. Here are some more. According to an expert at FSU, 1% of the US population (3 million) every year use firearms in self-defense. Most of the time simply brandishing a weapon is enough to deter an attacker, and rarely even when a weapon is used is the attacker hit or killed. The estimate is that 40% of those incidents (1.2 million) saved the life of the defender – far more lives saved than lost to firearms every year from “mass shootings.”  Even if the figure is conservatively 1% instead of 40%, lives saved greatly outweigh lives lost.

And contrary to your narrative, experts report that the actual number of “mass shootings” (at least 4 victims) per year has not gone up – the media coverage and politicization have. No doubt similar to the number of shootings of “innocent,” unarmed Black men by police, which narrative you also seem to go along with, to the detriment of the safety of the citizenry (especially Blacks) and our public defenders. And similar to your narrative of how well the war on terror is going – again contrary to the facts. You are also weakening our military’s ability to defend our country in an increasingly dangerous world – many of those dangers having increased on your watch, and due to your miserable leadership. Do you ever question your own wisdom in the light of its effects in the world of reality? Or do you merely insulate yourself with advisors who whitewash intelligence to agree with your narrative, as whistleblowers have indicated?  At all levels -- international, national & local -- you seem to be making us more vulnerable and defenseless. Yes, you are leveling the playing field with the bad guys, if that is your intent.

One could seriously begin to question which you put first – facts & the lives and safety of the American people, or your political aggrandizement and ego. Why don’t you start focusing on the most basic rights and promises of the Declaration of Independence – “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” rather than the actions and inactions you are taking to deprive us of these, and inventing and injecting various other “rights” for your political benefit? The right to life (“life insurance”) comes before any supposed universal right to health insurance (e.g., Obamacare), and any universal rights to home ownership (Dodd-Frank sub-prime loans that resulted in the economic collapse), and any universal right to college education.  Yes, we are re-asserting and demanding those more basic rights, and we stand ready to fight for them -- even if you do not. And if your “fundamental transformation of America” entails changing those rights, as seems to be the case, you have a fight on your hands.

If you have any concerns at all for at least partially redeeming your legacy, you’d best make good use of your remaining year in office to begin to correct these matters. The American people have reached the limits to their patience and gullibility. Your political capital is in the red.