NRA Conspiracy Theories Lurk Beneath Joseph Farah's Claim That Obama “Wants To Foment Armed Rebellion”

Taking National Rifle Association conspiracy theories to the next level, WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah is suggesting that President Obama might be spurring gun sales so that he can later confiscate those weapons after the occurrence of “civil strife” or “armed rebellion.” According to Farah, Obama will do this because his “real goal -- the objective he has in common with all true leftists and socialists -- is to create chaos.”

I have always believed Obama's real goal - the objective he has in common with all true leftists and socialists - is to create chaos. As a former leftist, I understand the paradigm. It's classic Cloward-Pivens [sic] strategy. Obama seeks “to heighten the contradictions of capitalism,” as they say. He does a lot of crazy things to further that objective - to prove, if you will, that America is incapable of self-government, that smart people like him and Michelle are needed to guide our every move.

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Maybe he wants to create civil strife. Maybe he wants to foment armed rebellion. Maybe he realizes that would provide him cover to take sweeping and repressive actions that effectively subvert the Constitution. 

In Farah's disillusioned reality, Obama is planning to end private firearm ownership while acting as the driving force behind gun sales. As Farah puts it, “There's a lot of irony here to digest.”

At the heart of Farah's rambling diatribe are a number of wild-eyed Obama schemes dreamed up by the NRA, including a “massive Obama conspiracy” to confiscate privately owned firearms, the United Nations Small Arms Treaty, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives failed Operation Fast and Furious.

Farah's view on Obama and guns is rooted in his belief that that “the goal of people like Obama is, quite clearly, to ban private ownership of firearms.” This idea germinates from the NRA, which announced in September 2011 a “massive Obama conspiracy” to end private firearm ownership in America. According to NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre:

We see the president's strategy crystal clear: get re-elected, and with no other re-elections to worry about, get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms freedom. Erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights and exorcise it from the U.S. Constitution. That's their agenda. 

In fact, Obama has thus far expanded where guns can be carried, signing legislation allowing firearms in national parks and on Amtrak trains.

Farah cites two bread and butter NRA conspiracies as evidence of Obama's supposed devious plot to foment violence. The first is that the Obama administration will work in concert with the United Nations to disarm Americans. According to Farah, Obama “is supporting the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty that requires member states unable to disarm their populaces to be placed under the jurisdiction of the U.N. Office of Disarmament Affairs.”

For years, the NRA has claimed that the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) -- the real goal of which is to prevent the diversion of weapons to human rights abusers -- will be used to attack gun ownership in the United States. LaPierre even wrote an entire book on the topic where he suggested that "any U.N. firearms treaty that becomes law in the U.S. could become a platform for the imposition of extremist gun control, with U.N. bureaucrats, not U.S. voters, making the decisions."

But this claim has no basis in reality. The latest draft of the ATT affirms “the sovereign right” of countries to regulate firearms “pursuant to its own legal or constitutional system.” The Department of State has also indicated that it will oppose any treaty that contains “restrictions on civilian possession or trade of firearms otherwise permitted by law or protected by the U.S. Constitution.”

Secondly, Farah claims that Operation Fast and Furious -- a failed attempt by the ATF to crack down on gun trafficking to Mexico -- was “an operation designed with one thing in mind -- to provide cover for the banning of gun sales.” According to Farah, “If Obama could conceive of such an illegal and stealthy plot, why wouldn't he also stealthily take actions to increase the number of guns in the hands of Americans to make the case that there are just too many guns in the hands of Americans?”

The idea that Fast and Furious was designed as cover for further gun restrictions was also created by the NRA. As LaPierre put it, “This was about putting these guns down there in Mexico and then when they found them at crime scenes going, 'Aha, we need more gun laws in the United States.'”

But an independent investigation into Operation Fast and Furious by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General soundly debunked this theory. According to the Inspector General's report, there is “no evidence that the agents responsible for the cases had improper motives or were trying to accomplish anything other than dismantling a dangerous firearms trafficking organization,” and that there is “no evidence that ATF Phoenix initiated the investigation in order to facilitate efforts to obtain long gun legislation.”

In the end, Farah's conclusion falls perfectly in line with NRA's use of fearmongering to push gun sales. According to Farah, “I personally recommend all law-abiding Americans purchase guns and learn how to use them for their own safety, the security of their communities and the liberty of the nation.”