Hawkins: Congressional Term Limits a Grave Threat to Second Amendment Freedom

The Associated Press
The Associated Press
AWR Hawkins

With President Trump and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) voicing support for Congressional term limits it is important to remember that enacting such artificial limits plays into the hands of the gun control lobby.

It does this by taking away the one consistent check on the behavior of office holders, namely, the voters.

Consider Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a moderate at best who spends the first four years of a Senatorial term voting anyway he chooses, constituents be damned, but is forced to shape up and act conservative during the final two years of a given term in order to win voter support in re-election. Take away the requirement to face voters at the end of a given term and someone like McCain will give you six years of voting any way they choose because they have six years with the knowledge that they do not have to answer to voters afterward.

Or think about this way: What, other the prospect of being voting out of office, constrained so many red state Democrats to oppose the post-Sandy Hook gun controls pushed by President Obama, VP Joe Biden, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV)? Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT), Mark Begich (D-AK), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), and Mark Pryor (D-AR), all voted against the gun control package and all four were red state Democrats.

No less a red state Democrat than Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) voted against the gun control package as well.

What would possibly constrain such Democrat officeholders to stand up to the pressure of the gun control lobby if we removed the obligation to face voters every six years?

Yet President Trump is voicing support for term limits and Rep. Mark Meadows says he is “100 percent on board” with efforts to put the artificial limits in place:

It is worth pointing out that our Founders would have put term limits in place if doing so had been of paramount importance to them. But they did not put such limits in place.

It will be to freedom’s peril, particularly as it relates to gun rights, if we decide to enact the limits our Founder Fathers eschewed.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

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