I have seen any number of antis and fellow-travelers commenting on the massive increase in sales of guns and ammo over the last few months, asking why gun owners are so paranoid.

Here are some facts for them to chew on:

Fact: Obama the candidate said that he wanted to 'renew' the Clinton era ugly-gun ban, by which he meant pass a much stricter version which would prevent manufacturers from 'evading' the law. By 'evading' of course he was referring to the fact that when the AWB passed manufacturers complied with it by changing some purely cosmetic features. This is what happens when you base legislation on purely cosmetic features.

Fact: Obama the transitionist's website said that he wanted to 'renew' (see above) the AWB.

Fact: Obama the President has stated (as has his Attorney General and Secretary of State) that his administration wants to 'renew' the ban.

Now, pause for a question: Is it 'paranoia' to believe what your opponents say?Okay, back to facts.

Fact: The Obama administration and the President himself have repeatedly said that 90% of drug war guns collected in Mexico are traced to the US, even after that number was thoroughly debunked. What the ATF said was that 90% of the guns the Mexican authorities requested that the ATF trace, were from the US. The Mexican authorities only submitted about 20% of the recovered guns for tracing, since it was quite obvious in 4 out of 5 cases that the weapons could not have come from the US.

Now I would never accuse the President of being too stupid or incompetent to get the correct number, so his use of the incorrect (and inflammatory) number means that he is deliberately lying. What reason could he have *other* than to push a discredited gun ban agenda?

Fact: President Obama has said that he won't push for a renewal of the AWB, but will try to get the Senate to ratify the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials (CIFTA) treaty.

This sounds perfectly reasonable; after all who could be opposed to banning the illicit manufacture and trafficking of firearms? But the devil, as they say, is in the details.

If you read the treaty you will discover that a government license is required to manufacture or assemble firearms, ammunition and other related materials. Thus reloading and handloading are out the window. As is building your own rifle from components (which is currently perfectly legal since the Brady checks are required on a key component). Now what is that about "other related materials"? These are define as "any component, part, or replacement part of a firearm, or an accessory which can be attached to a firearm". So you would need a government license to attach scope rings to a firearm, to change scopes, to upgrade your trigger or to replace a broken part.

In fact, given that 'assembly' is prohibited, a strict reading of the treaty would require a government license to so much as *load* a semi-auto.

Then you have these "Ammunition Accountability" bills being pushed throughout the country. These bills would require registering each and every round of ammunition sold in the US. Do you have any idea how much that would cost? You would need a database and support staff capable of handling hundreds of millions of transactions per year. Every time I moved, I would have to inform the government of every single cartridge that I was bringing with me, and some government bureaucrat would have to enter the information. Oh and not so incidentally possession of 'unregistered ammunition' (i.e. pre-ban ammo) would be prohibited after a certain date. Unless, of course, you are a criminal. The Supreme Court has ruled that criminals and other 'prohibited persons' can not be required to register or punished if they fail to do so because that would constitute 'self-incrimination'.

So now can you see why gun owners might be the teensiest bit concerned about our G-d given unalienable personal, civil and human rights? And we haven't even talked about the 'gun show loophole' (i.e. the banning of all private sales) or any of the other items on the Brady agenda.