Obama Gives Himself Armed Protection for Life
H.R. 6620, the “Former Presidents Protection Act of 2012” was written by Republican Trey Gowdy (SC-4, NRA Grade A), and passed with virtually no discussion or opposition. Two anti-rights representatives, John Conyers (MI-14) and Robert Scott (VA-3), co-sponsored along with pro-rights Lamar Smith (TX-21).
(NOTE: Directions for retrieving bill details from Library of Congress at bottom. Search results are temporary, making internal article links impossible.)
Rep. Gowdy’s Communications Director, Josh Dix, noted that this bill was introduced before the Sandy Hook shooting, though Obama signed it yesterday. It provides a uniform set of protection standards for former presidents. Under legislation passed during the Clinton administration, lifetime Secret Service protection was changed to ten years, beginning with George W. Bush—not anti-gun Clinton, who signed this into law—who now gets protection for life, as does Obama and future presidents. The rationale was that when there’s an emerging threat, it would have been more costly to move resources to protect ex-presidents beyond their ten-year coverage. The Secret Service decided it would be more economical to maintain protection, rather than operating on an emergency ad hoc basis. The bill doesn’t allocate additional taxes; the Treasury Department must still operate within what they’re allocated every year. (Of course, there’s nothing stopping a future Congress from increasing Treasury’s allocation.)
The bill itself is relatively short, amending two clauses in U.S. Code Title 18, Part II, Chapter 203, Section 3056 (Powers, authorities, and duties of United States Secret Service). Subsection (a)(3) now reads:
Former Presidents and their spouses for their lifetimes, except that protection of a spouse shall terminate in the event of remarriage unless the former President did not serve as President prior to January 1, 1997, in which case, former Presidents and their spouses for a period of not more than ten years from the date a former President leaves office, except that—
(A)protection of a spouse shall terminate in the event of remarriage or the divorce from, or death of a former President; and
(B)should the death of a President occur while in office or within one year after leaving office, the spouse shall receive protection for one year from the time of such death:
Provided, That the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to direct the Secret Service to provide temporary protection for any of these individuals at any time if the Secretary of Homeland Security or designee determines that information or conditions warrant such protection.
Subsection (a)(4) now reads:
Children of a former President who are under 16 years of age for a period not to exceed ten years or upon the child becoming 16 years of age, whichever comes first.
In a follow-up conversation, Mr. Dix noted Rep. Gowdy’s appearance on “Lou Dobbs on Fox Business” where he rips Obama’s plan to “shred the Second Amendment.”
How to Find Bill Details: Go to Library of Congress’ Thomas, click on “Try the Advanced Search”, select Congress 112 at top. In “Enter Search” box select “Bill Number” from dropdown window, then enter H.R. 6620 in search box to right. Click on “Search” button and you will go to the “Bill Summary & Status” page, which contains links to co-sponsors, bill text, congressional actions, and other information.
While our children have to go to “gun free” schools where they can be the targets of any psycho.
Perfect. That’s the true spirit of a Republic.
Radical revolutionaries go postal when it comes to protecting “regular” citizens. As to themselves, not so much – http://adinakutnicki.com/2013/01/11/of-mice-men-a-u-s-marine-rebukes-sen-feinsteins-washingtons-proposed-violations-to-the-second-amendment-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
But patriots are fed up, and they aren’t gonna take it anymore.
And? Prior to Bush II former Presidents got lifetime protection. Now its back. Not sure how or why this is news.
I was wondering why also!
I also, am wondering why?
Maybe because we have a president along with most of the Dumbocraps that seek to destroy the 2nd amendment for the people
When the powerful are allowed to protect themselves from us, but we are not allowed to protect ourselves from them, we’ve crossed a line.
The only quesion is…how long are we going to put up with it?
Why didn’t he just declare a radius of one mile around him a gun-free zone?
Nah…everybody can just make like natives of ancient Hawaii…when the reigning monarch walked among the populace, subjects were required to bow their faces to the ground and not look at the face of any Royal, upon punishment by death.
Kindasorta of like ‘eye candy,’ except for the dirt.
Does the bill also provide funding for hookers for the Secret Service agents?
You know, when he leaves office the insufferable “O” will stay home all day and bask in his own reflection in his Nobel Peace Prize. The agents need to have some distractions.
What size magazines do they use to protect Former Presidents and their families? That’s the size I need.
I believe it was a tenet of some feudal societies that the peasants were forbidden the weapons the nobility possessed.
Correct. It was also a tenet of the later Western Roman Empire that only the government’s forces, i.e the legions, be armed. It ended badly, for Rome;
The result, of course, was the collapse of the Empire (with help from excessive taxation and a bloated bureaucracy), and the rise of feudalism. In which the peasants were also kept disarmed- mainly to protect their lord, and his tax collectors, from them.
Medieval feudal societies were simply carrying forward Imperial Roman policies. The only exception was Britain, where first under the Saxons and then the Normans (after 1066), the liege-lords relied on their own tenants to act as their armed forces, this system extending right up to the King.
The result was the British yeoman, a small farmer who owned his land rather than being a serf, with his longbow and two dozen arrows, half broadheads for bringing down other foot soldiers or horses, the other half “piles” or “bodkin” points, with hardened, very sharp tips no wider than the diameter of the arrow’s shaft, specifically designed to penetrate mail armor. Only the nobility wore such armor. They were also generally the only ones who rode horses. (The yeoman’s plow was pulled by an ox.)
So you see, in Britain, the average “man in the street” (or village square) always had a weapon that could stop his “betters” cold. The nobles of the rest of Europe didn’t like that idea. So, to fight each other, or the English, they hired professionals; mercenaries whose entire skill set was killing peasants, usually with crossbows. Most such came from Italy, with the Genoese considered to be the best.
They tried it on the English twice, at Crecy’ in 1346, and again at Agincourt in 1415, these battles being at “opposite ends” of the Hundred Years War.
The Continental nobility lost both times. And their mercenaries got slaughtered. You see, while the Welsh longbow is slightly less powerful than an arbalest (heavy, steel-armed crossbow with about a 200-pound “pull” versus the longbow’s 100 to 150-pound draw weight), the longbow has a higher rate of fire. A crossbowman can fire about two bolts a minute, if he’s good; it takes about 25 seconds to recock the arm between shots.
In the same amount of time, a longbow archer can “loose” twelve shafts; one every five seconds, timed-fire rate. All other things being equal, a force of trained archers with longbows will destroy an equal-sized force of arbalesters every time; by the time the crossbowmen have gotten their first shot off and are readying their second, more of them are dead than the KIAs they’ve inflicted on the opposing archers. In medieval terms, the longbow was a true “assault rifle”, being an intermediate-powered weapon capable of delivering the equivalent of fully-automatic fire.
In the end, the Continental nobles solved the problem by hiring English archers as mercenaries instead of crossbowmen from Italy or wherever. The idea of letting their own peasants have longbows was, of course, simply not to be contemplated. Because, as Edwin Tunis once put it;
You can generally tell what sort of leaders you are dealing with today by noting which set of medieval nobility they seek to emulate.
If they seek to emulate the later Roman Empire, that in itself is a warning.
clear ether
eon
Why would republicans pass this nonsense. More big imperial government.
Because republicrats and commiecrats are a two headed snake. There isn’t a damn bit of difference between them. And they both must be destroyed.
– beloved; why the worry?
The Republican party is a dead label, whored as a ruse for the one party, Demokrats. The Tea Party tried to revive it, but it’s too corrupt and toxic. Time for a new party.
I actually agree with this. Even if I don’t agree with everything the presidents do I believe they are all potential targets of crazies. I don’t want to see an ex-president assinated no matter how much I disagree with them.
wow….sensible. How did YOU get in here?
Such a witty comment. Wait…you are really techno, right? Or LE?
By the way, how did you get in here?
It’s not a matter of wanting to see others assassinated. It’s the fact that they want to dis-arm us, so that we can’t protect ourselves, while they spend millions surrounding themselves with armed body guards. That’s called hypocrisy…at best.
I do. This criminal,mass murdering, treasonous, regressive commiecrat koranimal needs to be eliminated. I would love to see the headline that the bastard is dead. Eliminated by a patriot.
@Warren Bonesteel – We are allowed, Jefferson said it is why we have the right to own and bare arms.
The last time I bared my arm (today, actually), a nurse stck a needle in it and gave me a flu shot.
Ohhh, you meant bear arms…as in to carry or to otherwise have a weapon on or about your person.
The concept pre-dates Jefferson by a few centuries, and we don’t do it because he said it was ok. What he and the other members of the Virginia Delegation did was to ensure that the right to own and carry firearms, which all reasonable men of the period considered to be self evident, was enshrined forever in the Bill of Rights.
Come on Obama be a leader and give up all the armed security you have. You don’t need all those guns.
Obama believes he is very special and must have armed protection but DENIES protection to law-abiding Americans who he clearly regards as worthless and eagerly seeks to render decent Americans defenseless prey for killer predators.
So, unless I am missing something (someone), W is the only ex-President without lifetime Secret Service protection?
Right!
It only covers DEMOCRAT PRESIDENTS.
Every president after Clinton would have been given 10 years Secret Service protection after leaving office. Title 18 was changed to basically revert to before the previous change, when every president got lifetime protection.
Make a review of Obama’s executive orders thus far. They’re VERY interesting reading, and are about the only insight into this loon’s mind you’re likely to get any time soon.
All former Presidents have become millionaires after leaving office by giving hundreds of paid speeches. It’s a lucrative business, in addition to the pension and benefits they receive from the day they leave office. Couldn’t they pay for their own security? They can well afford it.
You make way too much sense; Are you trying to get banned from posting comments?
Use oblique language; like established terms for logic and common sense to confuse them.
anyone else find it “funny” that our messiah might need protection from the proles?
I thought everyone loved him and re-electing him would usher in utopia.
you mean they lied?
That’s okay. He can’t stop us from praying for deliverance from his clutches courtesy of a massive coronary or a stroke.
Obama is not going to be another Jimmy Carter, hanging on for decades after his exit from the office he has so egregiously defamed, proving to the world what an utter loser he is.
One of his own stripe will do him. Betrayal and all that.
Bu, please, not while he is in office. Then, there would be nothing between us and Joe F*ing Biden in the Presidency.
Leave the divider in chief alone now and forever. The last thing anyone wants or needs is a total looser becoming a martyr to the countless victims of “evil old conservatives”.
Guns for me but not for thee.
He’s gonna need it. And he knows it.