Can there be peace between our people?
Or You see what kind of shit we gun nuts have to put up with?
Remember those birds I mentioned yesterday? They that kept flying into the window? Yeah, those birds. It never once occurred to me to walk outside and say ‘Hey birds, knock it off. That’s your reflection and you’re just hurting yourself.” Followed by me giving a lengthy explanation to the birds about wavefronts and refraction and what not. You know why that didn’t occur to me? Because they don’t get it. And they never will. They will continue to fly into the window, pointlessly attacking their imagined opposition.
This brings me to Mike Vanderboegh’s merry band of keyboard commandos. Mostly, I’ve been ignoring these guys and not engaging them for the same reason I did not engage the bird. It’s pointless. The trend is the same:
1 Crazy talk about shooting the bastards
2 followed by attacking those folks who think maybe shooting the bastards is a bit much
3 ending with righteous indignation about how those of us who may disagree with them are, well, pick your favorite insulting term.
After, it gets repeated elsewhere. Second verse, same as the first. I would try to engage them and point out that maybe scaring the white people isn’t the best policy decision. That their efforts are better spent being politically active instead of engaging in mental masturbation all over their keyboards. Or, as Sebastian said: If 3% of gun owners were as involved in political activism as they supposedly are at preparing for civil war, we’d be an unstoppable political force.
But, like reasoning with the birds, it’s a fruitless endeavor. It will waste my time and probably annoy the birds. After all, these are guys who accuse other bloggers of cowardice for not drawing a clear line in the sand, while pointing out their own lines have been crossed while they do nothing but engage in a New World Order induced circle jerk. But other gun bloggers do engage them (most recently here, here, and here).
And that’s the other rub. In addition to a complete unwillingness to think that maybe their strategies aren’t helpful, a lot of these guys are complete assholes. I mean, zero attempt at convincing someone of their point without inflammatory rhetoric. One of the comments made recently in an offline discussion was that some of the gun bloggers were part of the three percenters these guys were counting. And they were even turning us crazy gun nuts off.
So, can there be peace between our people? Not until they stop acting like douchebags. Until then, I’ll continue my policy of not engaging them.
I mean, at least the birds aren’t douchebags.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Update: And to be clear, Mike has been personable to in our few online exchanges. I’m not calling him a douchebag. Rather, the inevitable stream of other commenters who tend to show up.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Two big posts on back-to-back days. Impressive!
December 5th, 2008 at 11:09 am
“I mean, at least the birds aren’t douchebags.”
I take it you’ve never had to deal w/ a flock of hungry seagulls while trying to eat a sandwich.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Right.
Because there’s no inflammatory rhetoric here.
No, sir.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Yes, there is. reap, sew. etc.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
If you want to do some good at a protest, show up in a suit. If there is anything worse for the cause than showing up in camo and screaming obscenities, I don’t know what it is.
On the other hand, I don’t think anyone on either side is convinceable, any more than they were during the religious wars of the 16th century.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Here’s a thought: just STFU already. As I said over at Mike’s place yesterday, y’all bloggers have to find something to fill that blank screen every day. How about kittens? Or brownie recipes?
Mike’s now infamous LTE would have hardly seen the light of day had Sebastian not chosen to make a stink about it. Had to have been a slow day at Brillianter’s and then Linoge’s, so they jumped in with their unneeded two cents. Sebastian couldn’t help himself, so I kinda give him a pass. Now you.
You (and others) might say that it gives the antis an excuse to act. My response is that it’s merely an excuse; they’re gonna act anyway, as soon as they think they can get away with it. The ever-popular white people elected a documented anti-gun candidate who has nominated an equally anti-gun Attorney General. So much for not scaring the white people. You might cite the Heller decision. I see lower courts either rejecting Heller outright or interpreting it as narrowly as possible. And if you take a gander over at the Obama website, under the Crime header, you’ll notice that they’re dancing around Heller, yet still committed to further infringements.
From everything I’ve seen so far, between hi-cap magazines and microstamping, it’s going to be something of a miracle for me to get to the other side of the Obama Administration without being made an outlaw of some kind. I’m not asking for this, they’re doing it to me. OK, fine. I’m not asking for anyone’s permission or approval, and I’m still not. You make your choice on how to respond, and I’ll make mine.
You wanna call me some overweight slob laden with all manner of tacti-cool accessories? Knock yourself out.
Lastly, if you want to point out the douche-baggery of the SNBI crowd, which is a valid criticism BTW, it would help if you didn’t engage in it yourself.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
‘Here’s a thought: just STFU already.’
Well, that was pretty much what I was saying I’d do in this post.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Ah yes. Only one side in the dispute is acting like douchebags.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
David, both sides have their failings. We’re guilty of it too, evidence by my post here which was out of frustration. All of us should realize we’re on the same team and fighting amongst ourselves is doing more harm than good.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
The founders of this country had the guts to DIE for it.
I’m not sure their descendants even have the courage to TALK about dieing for it.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Sebastian couldn’t help himself, so I kinda give him a pass. Now you.
Why do I get a pass?
December 5th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
On my calendar, there are 47 days left until the Obama-nation begins officially.
That’s plenty of time for everyone concerned here to look something up and be guided by what they find.
That something is the definition of “element of a crime”
Under “element of a crime” look up “substantial step”
Once you’ve seen what both of those definitions mean to the average prosecutor, then you’ll know whether your actions constitute that “substantial step”. You don’t even have to know the exact crime involved, there are quite a few which make armed revolt against the government a felonious action. The “substantial step” is what the prosecutors look for as to whether Probable Cause exists to believe that a crime was committed. If the “substantial step” isn’t there, all is covered by the freedoms of the First Amendment. The First Amendment stops and the felony begins at the point of that “substantial step”.
That’s all that will matter. Is the accumulation of arms a “substantial step”? Is training for battle a “substantial step”? Is publishing a novel depicting armed revolt a “substantial step”? These are hard questions to answer, but answer them you must, and within 47 days, to boot.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I’m gonna guess talking about your plans for revolution on the internet might be considered a “substantial step”. Another reason why it’s absurd.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
isn’t “your side”, the side with NRA trying to derail Heller, more keyboard commando firing off letters to folks who don’t give a shit now that they’re elected and leaned on by the party?
What do YOU in all your pragmatic wisdom recommend? The pragpounders over at SIN shout down marches and demonstrations, probably due to the fact that they know damn well gun owners can’t be bothered to actually show some balls and stand up. What’s wrong with calling off and losing a few bucks to stand up for basic human rights?
Perhaps the big problem is gun owners are still very much the rag tag band of folks barely held together that fought the revolution. We don’t have anywhere near the organization that the anti-rights crowd does, specifically BECAUSE that’s WHAT THEY ARE. A top down, follow orders without thinking bunch of statist goons and useful idiots. They pick the battles, they define the terms, they control the discussion in the media.
The 3% type gave us the 2nd after all the pragpounding pleas petered out. Until the prags can define the debate in the court of public opinion, define the terms, and go on the offensive to turn back the tide instead of just sitting back and claiming some type of moral supremacy they have no greater claim to the best interests then the 3%ers.
Instead of the in fighting, name calling, and ammunition you want to give the antis figure out a way to go on the offensive. Don’t say elect people because that doesn’t work when the repugs run incrementalist banners like McSame. Get the “A game” going and engage people one on one instead of forums and places where the herd mentality clouds the mind.
Quit projecting and claiming 3%ers are blood thirsty revolutionaries instead of seeing them as the people who have the conviction to stand up when the legislative dance of give and take (on something that was supposed to have no give OR take) fails and they’re left standing alone. They’re NOT the aggressors, or the enablers of the aggressors. THEY ARE THE VICTIMS. If not you either think they’re cowards or you sit trying to figure out why they haven’t started yet. How many gun laws do we have? You think they’re NOT trying to change things peacefully while knowing a day WILL come if they can’t play within the broken system that has come time and time again through history when people stand up and say enough.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I lost a lot of respect for NRA over that. But there was a reason. Not one I agreed with but it was there.
As for the rest, you win by legislation. Not by screaming shall not be infringed.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2008/12/lines-and-lies-in-sand-or-sensible.html
Lines, and Lies, in the Sand, or, A Sensible Request Rejected
A fellow named Dock had a sensible request over at Snowflake’s house, which you can find at http://www.snowflakesinhell.com/2008/12/04/the-line-in-the-sand/#comment-34695.
It went like this:
Dock Said,
December 4th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
“Instead of fracturing our community, is there any way that we can instead try to mend fences with the 3 percenters? I know, I know, they’re (insert bad thing here) and they are intractable and everything else. Fine. Someone has to wear the big boy pants and be smart enough to realize that we can no longer afford internal warfare of any kind. The modern political reality has robbed us of this luxury. Sebastian, I admire your cool head and your ability to see the big picture – it’s a large part of why I started my own new blog. Will *you* be the one to try to mend fences? Just a thought.”
To which a prag named Chris replied:
chris Said,
December 4th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
“Dock, that would be kinda like getting Islam to tame the terrorist groups among them… not impossible, but it would be easier to loudly let everyone know that these wackjobs do not represent the rest of the shooting community.”
Now wasn’t that a nice slap, comparing us with Jihadists? But, Dock, ever hopeful, replied thusly,
Dock Said,
December 4th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
“Easier, sure. But is it better? I’m not so sure. It is a worthy task. Perhaps it is wrong of me to call anyone to that duty, because it really is a tough one.”
Tough indeed, for Sebastian promptly shot it down.
Sebastian Said,
December 4th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
“I don’t honestly see any way to do that when they think we’re cowards who just want to surrender, and we have different ideas about effective tactics that makes us believe they are a liability to the movement. I mean, I doubt they really even see guys like me as on their side, and I don’t really seem them as on mine. So I’m not sure there’s a fence to be mended to be honest.”
Dock, I appreciate your trying. I believe it was Sebastian who started this current folderol by calling me a “lunatic” after the Madison letter. I had a similar dustup with Chris Knox, responding to names that he called, and we ended up making a fragile peace, along the lines of understanding that if he was to play the good cop advocating our Second Amendment rights, it might be useful to have a bad cop around to play off of.
Martin Luther King and the other advocates of non-violent change were unable to interest the federal government in enforcing their own laws until the Birmingham Riots of 1963, and the formation of the Deacons for Defense and Justice by black veterans who not only had weapons but knew how to use them, raised the very real prospect of armed conflict.
For his part, Sebastion has finally answered the $64,000 question, at least in part. Sez he:
“The demand to know what we’d do if the line is drawn behind us is rather like someone asking a chess player what he’d do to avoid being check mated if his opponent checks his king. They will be the first, no doubt, to say it’s a cowardly cop out. But it’s how I feel about it. There are circumstances where I would agree violent resistance is the only choice. But we are not now, in this country, anywhere close to those circumstances. I find the rather delighted glee with which with some boast of forcing circumstances on others to be utterly repulsive. If believing that makes me a coward, so be it, but I won’t stand with a group that preaches and prepares for civil war while numerous non-violent options lay unused on the table. If they pass a new assault weapons ban? We’ll fight it in the courts. If they ban private sales? There’s legislative, judicial action, and civil disobedience at our disposal. Confiscation? Heller should take that off the table, and even if not, there’s fifth amendment challenges that can be made. Registration? We already have it with every 4473 you fill out.”
A court fight takes how long to reach the Supreme Court? And how many Obamanoids will appointed by then? Sebastian must know, and accept, that we will have to forfeit the banned weapons long before it comes to final judgment. And what are we to do then when the decision is against us? It is a fait accompli. Funny how he just gives them registration at the end. I’ll tell you this, if they start picking up all the 4473s the Three Percenters will be in a race with them to see how many we can destroy before they get to them. We’ll burn them in huge bonfires and dare the feds to do anything about it.
What will it take for the Sebastians, and the Ahabs, the SayUncles and the Linoge’s to understand? This is not the country you grew up in. The old verities no longer apply. The tried and true political maneuvers are going to have to be rethought, and refought — like the Sons of Liberty, not the Kiwanis Club.
When Sebastian moans this:
“If 3% of gun owners were as involved in political activism as they supposedly are at preparing for civil war, we’d be an unstoppable political force. There would be no need to argue about where the line is, because it would be political suicide for any politician to get anywhere near it.”
Not only is he wrongly assuming that all of us Three Percenters have not been fully engaged politically for lo, these many years, he is wishing for a land that has disappeared.
Look around you, people. Wake up and smell the kindling burning for the ghastly pyres of a future Waco. For it is coming, unless we convince the gun confiscationists that this is as far as they go without violence. Thus, it would behoove the so-called “pragmatists” of the gun world to use us as Martin Luther King did Stokely Carmichael. Instead of calling us belittling names and trying to discredit us, you should be saying, “Look, Senator, these people have a point and they’re angrier than we are. We wouldn’t go that far, BUT THEY WILL, and you’d better have the good sense God gave a goose and back off the seizure of control over the private sale of arms. And for your own sake, don’t try to ban another previously legal class of weapons. These people will fight, and they’ve already said that after your first shots at them they’ll take the fight to YOU. Not just the ATF and the FBI, but to YOU. Senator, I beg you, is it worth it?”
The gun confiscationists are not going to stop without a reason. We have backed up too fast, too easily, for 70 plus years. We Three Percenters will now provide them with a reason. It is up you pragmatists to convince them of it. Thus, it is in the pragmatists’ interest to acknowledge our position, not to denigrate it or to call us names. Sebastian has said that he, too, has his own “line in the sand.” If he and his fellow pragmatists do not take this opportunity we have given them, that “line in the sand” is just a lie in the sand.
I am willing to work with anybody to prevent this country from descending into civil war. I am willing to do anything short of compromising my principles, and those of the Founders’ Republic, to do so.
Dock, you made a convincing plea. I’m sorry it didn’t work. Maybe when things get worse they will change their minds. For things WILL get worse. In the meantime, the Three Percent will continue to prepare for the test to come.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Mike, both sides have folks that take it too far. And that includes the pragmatist side.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Mike actually proposes a viable strategy. I think the non-wackjobs would do well to think about using it.
After all, I don’t think adding 3% to the non-wackjob number is going to be enough to win this thru legislative means.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Dock is right. You guys better learn to work together one way or another. Unity of purpose goes a long way to getting things done. Name calling and discord play right into the hand of the other side. Makes all involved a “Useful Idiot”.
Chuck Shumer is laughing at you all.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Sebastian: To think that you wouldn’t chime in at the latest round of Let’s Say Icky Things About Fellow Gun Owners With Whom We Disagree would be to ignore human nature, especially since you’re the one who brought attention to the Infamous Vanderboegh Letter to begin with. If nothing else, you have, for the most part, avoided gratuitous insults, unlike both Mostly Genius and Linoge.
I’m not asking that you agree with me or Mike. Please don’t demand the same, alright? What I would ask is that you include us in your activism the same as Doctor King did when he pointed out that the folks arrayed against the Civil Rights Movement could either deal with him or those crazy guys over there with all the guns. No, for those of you with limited cognitive skills, I am not equating 2A advocacy with the Civil Rights effort, merely drawing a metaphorical analogy.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
and THAT is the problem, you give in here and there enough and guess what you got in the end. Nothing. The antis are waging the long term war of 1000 cuts.
The only difference between prags and fudds is the guns they don’t want thrown into the furnace. You’ll each sell someone out in a heartbeat for that empty promise of this latest step being “enough.” You say you know that it won’t affect crime but yet you’re right there willing to give in time and time again because the alternative would be worse. Care to guess what the next step is? You got it that “worse” alternative, and by that time you’ve let the media frame the debate and the sheep have had all the big lies repeated enough to buy them and demand that step. Prags have done as much damage as the antis have by letting things get to the point of only having a choice between the means of death and how long it will take. You’re battered wives and you keep taking it thinking this time will be enough.
Quit playing the game “they” use on us. Divide and conquer. Realize that they don’t care how long the march is as long as they can get you to agree to take a step they have won another victory. Quit trumpeting Heller as a great victory for rights. It wasn’t, it was barely a victory. It was an acknowledgment of what they knew to be true at the time of Miller, that “the people” means everyone, beyond that it has more of the same baby steps to removal as any other infringement. Loopholes left and right that will do nothing to criminals. How is THAT a victory?
A house divided cannot stand. Those in the 3% and leaning that way can sure as hell see who’s doing the dividing.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
You are absolutely right, because they are the ones fracturing the firearm community, playing into the stereotypes pushed by the anti-rights folks, and generally trying their damnest to distance themselves from the rest of the American people and their support.
See, we can agree on something.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Yeah, we gun owners have had it really bad in the past eight years: Heller, expansion of CCW to yet more states, no AWB continuation, firearms carry in (some) national parks…
Yep, those 1,000 cuts from the anti-gunners are really starting to hurt.
I hold no brief for the NRA — mostly, I think they’re a bunch of compromising pussies — but the so-called “3-Percenters” (more like the .3-Percenters) are just being silly.
1.) You don’t give your enemy ammunition to use against you. Hell, even I get nervous at some of the crap these people talk, and I’m as well-armed and as angry as any or most of these folks. What the general public must think (and with the media fanning their fear) is anyone’s guess.
2.) You don’t tell them where your personal line in the sand is. That’s just warning them. Let them find out for themselves where your line is.
3.) If you think the Obama Gun Confiscating Task Force is going to come to your front door (instead of arresting you at work or in the supermarket), you’re sadly mistaken. You think we’re the only ones who learned lessons from Waco and Ruby Ridge?
Here’s the plain fact: the government (state, local, Federal, whatever) does not have the manpower to enforce wholesale gun confiscation, even if we can assume that 100% of LE and the Armed Forces would follow orders.
Our gun rights will be taken away by law, and by regulation. That’s the battleground, and that’s where we need to fight our hardest. Baying about shooting cops or whatever is such a stupid tactic, it’s hard for me to think that the 3-Percenters are NOT a plant by the antis, and it’s even harder for me to think that we’d fall for so obvious a ploy.
Buy more guns, buy more ammo, recruit more people into the ranks of the gun owners.
Write to your Congressman (politely, not with dumb-ass threats), write to the President (yeah, especially the new one), and keep our cause alive in the hearts and minds of everyone.
These are going to be a tough few years for us — as bad or worse than the Clinton Dark Times — and we do ourselves no good by sounding like the Kos Kiddies in camo.
December 6th, 2008 at 3:42 am
Well, well, look who ventured out of the woodwork, the venerable compromiser from the Roof. I’m going to dispense with the verbiage and get down to the $64,000 question for you:
What will you do when they move the “legal” line behind you Mr. South African? Oh, wait, I know. You didn’t fight for your country, so you won’t fight for this one, right?
I mean, you retire from blogging just as the political situation is coming to a critical point in the election so you can see to your economic affairs, now you parachute back in electronically to throw trimmer insults?
Oh, yeah. When they pass the next law, you’ll back up. That’s all you’ve ever done.
You sure your name isn’t Kip?*
MBV
(Afrikaans for chicken)
December 6th, 2008 at 11:53 am
“You didn’t fight for your country, so you won’t fight for this one, right?”
No… two years (and some extra time) in the South African Army doesn’t count for anything.
“You sure your name isn’t Kip?*”
Oh yeah… playground insults are always so effective in a rational discussion. (And it’s “Kiep”, not “Kip”, by the way.)
Oh, wait… I forgot that the term “rational discussion” is a foreign concept to the .3-percenters.
I love this “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” nonsense from the .3-percenters. Fine: I’m against you. Not in principle, actually, but just in the childish, moronic way that you draw attention to yourselves. Typical, from people who’ve never actually had to fight a war against an oppressive state.
Pathetic bunch of losers.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
“As for the rest, you win by legislation.”
I have most of a century of actual history that says that is utterly transparent bullshit.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
“2.) You don’t tell them where your personal line in the sand is. That’s just warning them. Let them find out for themselves where your line is.”
That, right there ladies & gentlemen, is the final degeneration of Kim du Toit.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
“No… two years (and some extra time) in the South African Army doesn’t count for anything.”
It doesn’t count for shit here, Kim.
You’re all done.
December 6th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
What Billy said (laughing like he just owned you, which he did) plus, the $64,000 question again. Forget the insults, yours and mine. Answer the question:
What will you do when they declare your property forfeit and you a criminal if you hold onto it?
Answer it, big boy. What Will You DO?
And if you won’t answer it, isn’t it time to look for ANOTHER country to run to?
Vanderboegh
December 6th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
not the tone of a man with a willingness to work with anybody
December 6th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Kim has earned the derision. He has been so spineless over the years, and sneered his own derision at good principled men, that he deserves a slap in the face for dropping in here and loosing more of the same himself.
I’m sincere about working with people, but du Toit is uninterested in that by his own statement. Such people should not call me, or my friends, names and expect that we will simply smile. As for Du Toit, he has disqualified himself by his previous actions from the list of folks I’d trust with anything.
December 6th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
“What will you do when they declare your property forfeit and you a criminal if you hold onto it?
“Answer it, big boy. What Will You DO?”
All these ifs and challenges, but I have no need to show everyone what a big dick I have, unlike Beck (who has never done ANYTHING actually, you know, physical — in any country — but has vented his spleen in many) and Vanderboegh (of whom I know nothing, and wish to know even less).
But IF all that comes to pass, I’ll reply in the manner I deem apropriate. It won’t be to run away — sorry to burst your bubble — but it will be on a battleground of my own choice. I’d be curious, however, to see how many of these .3-Percenter Brave Boys actually live up to their boasts and manly-manly chest-thumping.
So I’ll just carry on quietly, getting more people to buy guns and teaching them how to use them (that would be the Nation of Riflemen), and encouraging them to buy more ammo (like with National Ammo Day).
Like I said: I prefer actions (NoR and Ammo Day) over words and bombast(the .3-Percenters).
Talk is cheap. I’m not interested in talk, anymore. Especially with this bunch of Camo-Barbie Commandos, whose speciality seems to be boasts and insult.
Sorry about all the crap on your back porch, Uncle. I’ve said my piece, and won’t comment further.
December 6th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Who said a damn thing about 8 years?
Yeah, it’s always been about legislation. Big deal there’s been a turn around lately. You don’t think that can change in a heartbeat?
We have high ranking .gov folks saying we’ll be under martial law with the next big terrorist attack, and you think that government won’t use that to start seizing? You seem to be under the impression that things will go on as they always have here. Just look at the number of laws, how they’re making more criminals (and more things reasons to never be ALLOWED to own a gun), consolidating more and more power at the federal level. Biden was talking about Obomba being tested, we’ve got a report saying within 5 years we’ll have an nuke, bio, or chemical attack.
We’ve got how many dealers now, remember those last 8 years when Bush kept up the shut down Clinton started. Now we have a guy with nothing but an anti-gun agenda surrounding himself with all of Clinton’s goons.
We’ve been surrounded, outgunned, divided. The anti-rights folks own the future minds and emotion, and the propagandists. Meanwhile the prags just want to go on throwing people under the bus because they don’t agree with the same song and dance that put us where we are.
Who gives a damn about the line in the sand? You think it makes one bit of difference either way? Do you honestly think that the government will 1)pay attention 2) give a damn and stop 3)think those who haven’t said where their’s is don’t have one?
Instead of all the concessions and ground you have given the antis you should have drawn the line years ago. You give them their power to push further restrictions. YOU let them define “reasonable” because you do think there IS a reasonable. You fell for their shit hook line and sinker. REAL common sense says there will always be people who break the law and yet you let them go after objects instead of criminals in order to appease the antis temporarily.
Linoge. You’re an idiot. You’re the ones giving them ground and calling out the folks pointing to the facts that no matter how many damn laws they pass it won’t do anything besides whittle away the preexisting rights we have. You give them and they take more each time. Instead of starting pissing contests on who’s the best gun rights supporter why don’t you spend some time trying to gain back the ground that prags have given away? Why don’t you go look at the laws that haven’t done one Goddamned thing in preventing crime and try to repeal them? Quit campaigning for divisive asshat of the year and stand up and lead the unified charge to start rolling back bullshit laws if you want to really do something practical.
You can’t because thanks to prags we’ve got to constantly fight to hold what little ground we have. If we were in anything close to the deluded position painted by KdT we could start going on a real offensive and gaining ground back.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
I think Uncle said it best (not in the post but in the comments), that both sides need to learn to cooperate with and value each other for the unique attributes we bring to the table.
For some political activism is their area of strength. For others, guarding the halls of liberty is their forte.
Who are we to say that one or the other is unnecessary or a ‘worthless burdern we need to unload’?
The name-calling and derogatory terminology aimed at individuals has been rampant on both sides of the argument. It is my conviction this needs to stop immediately.
During the next few years if the worst-case scenario comes to fruition, or even if it is only half as bad as we think it will be, the one thing we in the gun rights community will need is EACH OTHER.
And yes, that means Vanderboegh, Uncle, Sebastian, Codrea, Linoge, Ahab, Billy–every bloody last one of us.
So, let’s learn from each other and value each other as vital members of the community.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Morgan
The Liberty Sphere
December 6th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Just… cannot… resist….
Why would I ever want to steal you of your precious title – it is all you really have!
December 6th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
On a more serious note, what have we evil prags gotten ourselves (and you insurrectionists, though it must pain you to admit it) in the past few years?
Hm. One dead assault weapon ban.
Concealed carry rights recognized in almost every state in the union.
The Second Amendment identified and enshrined as an individual right.
The ability to carry our firearms into national and federal parks.
And those are just the items I can think of off the top of my head – I am quite certain there are more.
And guess how we accomplished these things? It was not by threatening violence. It was not by shooting jackbooted thugs. It was not by scaring the American populace. It was by working inside the system, and following the rules laid out by the Constitution.
Now what have the divisive, destructive, and generally dumb-ass insurrectionists accomplished in their time? Let me see: playing into the stereotypes built up by the Brady Bunch and their kin, scaring the American public into buying into those stereotypes, attacking their fellow firearm owners and Second Amendment advocates simply because they are not bleeding morons and do not publish their “lines in the sand” for the world to see, threatening violence simply because they happen to be annoyed at how things are going, generally failing to fulfill any promises they have made in the past concerning lines in the sand and nonsense like “kill[ing] anyone who tried to further restrict our God-given liberty”, etc. etc. ad naseum.
Righto. It is us prags who are the not-helpful ones here. Yup. Sure thing.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
The Suid Afrikaan Kip comes in insulting, and does does wish to be insulted in return. Poor lad.
The “pragmatists’” principle criticism of the Three Percenters is that they announce loudly where their marker is on resistance to tyranny. This is upsetting to some because we “scare the white people,” and at the same time have warned the “pragmatists” that the physical laws of the universe they predicate their plan are changing in a fundamental way. Some do not wish to have to deal with the new reality.
I’ve got news for everybody, WE don’t want to live in this Brave New World coming. But we refuse to blind ourselves to the threat posed by this new reality, for if we ignore it we will wait until too late to be able to defeat it.
This is not about the sexually-obsessed du Toit’s “big dick” syndrome, nor is it about chest-thumping. It is about how to defeat the approaching tyranny.
Their is in du Toit’s critique much of the “mugwump,” the political creature who straddles a fence having their mug on one side and their wumps on the other.
My derision of du Toit is well-earned by him, but I am willing to work with anybody else. Heck, if you pragmatists are smart, you don’t even have to worth WITH us Three Percenters, just USE our existence as validations for your political arguments aginst no more gun control. You don’t have to like us, or call us nice names or even, like Churchill and the Devil, say mention us on the floor of the House of Commons. But USE our example as a cautionary tale before it is too late.
For it is certain we will be forced to face the muzzle of a federal gun if one more law is passed. Maybe you after us. But you just as certainly as us.
December 6th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
In the days Kim played army, my friends and family fought in Rhodesia and Angola, with occasional excursions elsewhere. No time off for playing bass in the band. Not racist either as the Scouts were both black and white.
He ran away from one home and now has nowhere to run.
One of my Scout friends has a prestigious game farm in RSA and Kim had to kill his blog for financial reasons…
Take that how you will
December 6th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
“We might as well hang together, gentlemen, because we will surely all hang separately…” (paraphrased) and attributed to Ben Franklin.
My .02
December 6th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Might add, for the PERMANENT RECORD.
Some of my family that served in Angola were US Forces.
I’m no internet commando, I’m nobody special at all, I just have principles I refuse to have compromised and I will use force to defend them. Extension of the “Castle Doctrine” perhaps?
December 6th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
“…I have no need to show everyone what a big dick I have…”
It’s not about what you had, Kim. It’s about what you’ve got left.
You don’t impress me.
December 6th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
“On a more serious note, what have we evil prags gotten ourselves (and you insurrectionists, though it must pain you to admit it) in the past few years?”
{whack}
You don’t know what you’re talking about and I can prove it.
Now; go right ahead and step in it. I’ll walk you through it.
December 6th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
The one thing which seems to run as a common theme through the rather smug writings of those called ‘prags’, is an erroneous assumption which leads them to build a misplaced sense of accomplishment on a crooked foundation. The comment made in many of their posts is, in sum, that they and only they have had the political savvy and acumen to have lobbied, visited and written to representatives, emailed faxed and written to elected officials, invited non-shooters to participate in various firearm based activities, encouraged them to join gun clubs and so on. They are the only ones – rather Obama-esque in assuming the mantle of pride.
Yet…
I wonder – whence comes this rather bizarre and logic-defying notion? I have known a number of the so-called three per centers for a lot of years, and most of us have indeed been doing all of these noble and high minded gestures mentioned by prags, since at least the 70s. So far I have not seen that many great breakthroughs in the gun rights arena resulting from those years of effort.
Likewise – I am not aware of how Messr. Linoge determines that it is only the effort of his own elitist group which has availed the handful of supposed ‘gains’ which he mentions? Is he certain that neither I, nor any of my acquaintances, made calls or visits or wrote letters, which were quite as monumentally moving as his own? Further, it is difficult for those of us with less prophetic insight, to call the items which he mentions ‘gains’, since they have not added anything at all to the original rights acknowledged by the Second Amendment. The logic used in his appraisal is disturbingly akin to that used by typically corrupt governmental bodies, who say,
“Look – we WERE going to spend ten billion dollars on our projects, but instead we only spent eight billion – so we SAVED the taxpayers two billion dollars!”
Saying that a reversal of governmental abuses of a few rights is somehow a gain, and attributable to select individuals known only to the aforementioned gentleman, would seem to take any discussion of fact here into the realm of fantasy at best, or delirium at worst.
December 6th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
I chipped in money on Kim’s kid’s competition firearm. He can say whatever the hell he wants about me. And when we disagreed and he kicked me off his forums, he offered the money back and I refused.
You can ask him.
I’m an a**h*le, but I’m upfront about it. And I don’t bite off what I don’t want to chew.
December 6th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
So far I have not seen that many great breakthroughs in the gun rights arena resulting from those years of effort.
How many states could you legally carry in, by any means, in 1970? How many Democratic politicians were running far away from the gun issue in 1970? What was the overwhelmingly accepted interpretation of the Second Amendment by the federal judiciary and the legal academy? How many gun shows did you attend in 1970 where you could walk out with your purchase from a dealer?
1968 was the year we lost the most. Since then gun owners have been much better organized and involved, and though we’ve seen some setbacks, I think we’ve done pretty well.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Sebastian, you say: “1968 was the year we lost the most. Since then gun owners have been much better organized and involved, and though we’ve seen some setbacks, I think we’ve done pretty well.”
That’s been 40 years….quite a long time in anyone’s book. If you add the programming away from constitutional perspectives in the public school system of the generations (two of them) that have followed those who came of age in the late 60’s and early to mid 70’s, it’s not too hard to imagine why we (as gun owners and passionate Constitutionalists) have not done better.
My question, respectfully, is this: How long should it take for all of us to have the question of our rights “well settled” as a matter of law? The enumerated rights within the Constitution are not “living things” that can be interpreted at whim.
Shall we age and die, hoping the next generation is more successful in gaining the recognition of their God given rights?
When do we say ‘enough’ and say, “not one step backward”?
I really want to know.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
“Concealed carry rights recognized in almost every state in the union.” – Linoge
Why is having to beg permission from a government bureaucrat for a CCW license before exercising an unalienable individual liberty every human being is born with a Good Thing?
“The Second Amendment identified and enshrined as an individual right.” – Linoge
If you’re referrng to the Heller decision then I suggest you actually read it. While five of the Nine Nazgul used the term “individual right,” Scalia’s weaselspeak clearly identified a mere privilege subject to arbitrary restriction or revocation by the government. If SCOTUS had done what Linoge asserted, NFA-34, GCA-68, et al. would have been struck down and the BATFE disbanded. Instead, courts have affirmed existing gun control laws citing the pusillanimous twaddle in the Heller decision; some “individual right.”
The last time I checked, Washington, D.C. officials were still denying Heller a license for his semiauto pistol. Linoge, why should anyone need a license to exercise an “individual right”? Why are thousands of Americans rotting in state and federal prisons simply for having peacefully possessed a firearm in violation of anti-gun statutes if the Second Amendment is now “identified and enshrined as an individual right”? Try to mention the Constitution or that “individual right” stuff to a jury and watch what the prosecutor and judge do.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Sigh. Clueless.
Not at issue in the case. Again, clueless.
Still clueless. Heller got his license for his revolver, that was at issue. I think he’s filed a case for a semi auto since.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
anticipated, but still amusing Linoge. As Clayton said, you assume that you were the only ones working towards those goals. You assume 3%ers just sit at the computer gun at the ready for the eventual dynamic entry.
Just because they shake their rattle, or puff themselves up, or more appropriately give a warning unlike the others displayed by animals, they speak or write. They use the one thing that sets them apart from animals and prey to warn the people who would harm them. Do you condemn the rattle snake for signaling danger when an attacker gets too close? If not what the hell is your beef? Are you worried that they’re giving away something secret to the gun grabbers? If you’re so concerned about stereotypes then focus your effort on showing how stupid they are. Go find some Doctors, maybe that wonderful father from Assachusetts who let his 8yr old fire off an uzi. Maybe some cops, that one who shot his son while drinking and cleaning his gun poolside. How about those shining examples of non-cousin humpin’ SNBI gun owners.
The antis are guerrillas and will use whatever tactic they can to achieve their goals of subjecting us to their views of civilized society where you will be nothing more then prey.
And Sebastian. The guy who has the “oh please don’t use “Fudd” it’s too divisive post. Do I even have to state the irony here?
All of our time would be much better spent finding common ground figuring out multiple fronts of attack, perhaps based on what all of the groups in the community bring to the table. Hell, we’d be even better off if we could present some unified front and start connecting to other rights groups and finding common ground as well. In the end gun rights are the canary in the mine and all the people dealing with other fronts of attack could use some help.
Heck, just look at all the folks buying guns lately. You think ALL of them voted for McCain? There are folks who never owned a gun before buying them now. You think that’s only because of possibly monetary gains?
Prags need to stop giving ground away. 3% could tone down. Fudds could realize that hunting isn’t mentioned in the 2nd. We don’t win without everyone on board doing their part. The revolution wasn’t won by people just sitting around writing letters, There were people organizing at the same time. There were people fed up and pissed off who didn’t know how to lead but got involved once leadership showed up.
Act like leaders and organize a real movement the way it’s always been done, from the ground up and move on because 4 years a whole helluva lot of damage can be done.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
What a mess. I actually think it’s helpful to have it out, although it’s certainly painful at the time.
Both sides have a point. The “Insurrectionists” are right to consider that there are lines which must not be crossed. There are certain things that would cause me to openly defy the government and take up arms against those who would seek to stop me. Not something comparatively piddly like a new AWB or higher-but-bearable taxes, but there are things.
On the other hand, the “Pragmatists” are right to consider that the odds of ever actually having to take up arms, especially on a significant scale, appear to be minute at this point. If you were a bureaucrat with half a brain (and yes, some of them are very clever), you’re going to avoid another Ruby Ridge at all costs. It took multiple hurricanes and complete evacuation for the corrupt-as-anything New Orleans government to do any kind of wholesale confiscation. We have a lot more to fear by regulation, and legislators are a finger-trap: pull too hard and their response is to squeeze harder. Increasing the number of people familiar with firearms and deepening the knowledge and skill of those already familiar isn’t glorious but it is effective.
It’s good to be reminded of the stakes we face, and this dedication should be kept in mind, but we’re not at anything close to a revolutionary flashpoint. I’ve heard two of the attorneys for Heller speak, and neither one really seemed to care about guns at all: it was the hypocrisy in the unequal application of the Bill of Rights that motivated them. They certainly didn’t seem on the verge of giving a darn about possession of machine guns. Outrage over RKBA issues is pretty low, but general sympathy is something that can be tapped into if we don’t start holing up in militia compounds.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
How is that clueless? The recent park issue only allows those who have permission in the form of a CCW to carry. In Ohio I can open carry, BUT I can’t have a loaded weapon in my car unless I have permission (ccw)
How is that clueless?
Is SCOTUS and the gov’t had done what they should have in MILLER we wouldn’t have had the abominations we have. Hell, in congress would just stick to what they should instead of inventing new ways to gain more power we’d be a lot better off, and if we reminded them of that more often maybe they’ll start to get it.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
perhaps you’ve heard of shall issue?
December 6th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Something I always wanted to say, but never did at du Toit’s site because I figured it’d get censored:
du Toit, stop calling yourself an American. You aren’t. Your piece of paper doesn’t mean anything, any more than a Mexican anchor baby’s does. Being American is a matter of mental attitude _and_ of heritage (the second affects the first more than many realize). Going from immigrant to American takes about three generations. The ones off the boat never get it quite right.
The proof is in your repeated advocacy of statism, and repeated refusal to examine the flaws in said statism.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
and perhaps you can point out the other rights that require a fee to be paid and approval by the government before you can exercise them? I can’t carry a gun openly in parks the feds have no biz owning. I HAVE to have permission from the state in order to carry a gun concealed.
Perhaps you can explain why if the founders had intended for “reasonable restrictions” and “common sense gun laws” they didn’t just write that in like they did in the 3rd amdt?
As for KdT, the last attack is going too far. My grandparents came here in the 20’s, well at least my grandmother did. Gave up a sizable inheritance to do it.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
‘and perhaps you can point out the other rights that require a fee to be paid and approval by the government before you can exercise them?’
peaceable assembly. Next.
And, a permit is better than nothing. It may not make you feel warm and fuzzy but that’s the reality.
December 7th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Yes, but it’s not a RIGHT if you need permission. That’s the reality prags won’t address.
Well then, I’d be happy to fire off an email to the antis should you think that’s not something to confront. Maybe they can get a law passed that will require gun owners to pay a fee to get together. You don’t seem to have a problem with fees being charged on basic rights. Maybe you’d support the requirements for bloggers to have to register and file quarterly as lobbyists?
December 7th, 2008 at 12:37 am
There’s no right to carry concealed. There’s a right to be able to carry at least either openly or concealed, but if open carry is available then concealed carry ceases to be the only possible expression of the right to bear arms. If the state government wants to charge a fee for concealed carry where open carry is legal, they’re within their constitutional powers.
Besides, three words: time, place, manner. Two more handy, linked terms: “narrowly-tailored statute” and “compelling state interest.” If the First Amendment is subject to these then so is the Second.
December 7th, 2008 at 1:41 am
and that compelling state interest has stopped precisely zero criminals. As I said forbidden to carry openly, meaning one MUST, if he wished to carry there, on PUBLIC LANDS pay for the privilege unless of course the state wishes to waive licensing while on those lands. Something I highly doubt as the name of the game is control.
Compelling state interest huh? That could mean triple locked and disassembled anywhere besides your home or the range. Ammo stored in a government depository with no more than 10 rounds at home. The financial crisis is putting a hurt on things so a 1500% tax to help pay the bills. Maybe a required insurance policy for gun owners. You dont like THOSE compelling state interests?
December 7th, 2008 at 1:55 am
Tell it to the Supreme Court, Tom. They’re one of the most widely-respected institutions in America. If you can’t win them over, your odds of winning over the general populace are virtually non-existent. The good news is that the Supreme Court tends to be fairly reasonable and unwilling to let wholesale restrictions on protected rights occur. The bad news is that they also tend to rule on as narrow an issue as possible and to work very slowly, preferring to let popularly-elected legislatures deal with the problem if at all possible.
Frankly, if I’m not engaging in armed revolution in opposition to the legality of abortion and embryonic stem cell research, I’m sure as anything not going to do so just because there are non-prohibition restrictions of firearm ownership, and I don’t even have a family to look after. I’m also much more pro-RKBA than the general population. If you can’t even get people like me, Sebastian, and Ahab on board then any would-be revolution begins to look more like an authoritarian coup and any “civil disobedience” begins to look more like preening hissy fits.
December 7th, 2008 at 2:27 am
Someone said that the feds aren’t going to come to our front door to take our guns. That’s true, but what difference does that make? Hopefully smart patriots have a few rifles unpapered and stashed away. This whole issue of potential revolt isn’t about the guns anyway, it’s about why they want our guns. If I KNEW that our rights would be intact I probably wouldn’t care about guns. Unfortunately centralized power can never be trusted with our liberties and that’s why I own guns.
What is the great issue with the guys debating insurrection? Should we stifle them? Sure, most of them will tuck tail when the time comes to pull the trigger. Fortunately some patriots won’t, and it wouldn’t take many to restore the republic. All that said, don’t think your camo and your M1A will save you if this far in the game you’ve lacked the willingness to expend the effort to turn off the TV and PT, write your congressman, or read a book to solidify your position. These are issues of character and men without it will be dead weight on a battlefield. But if you are a man of character then you need to be linking up with like-minded folk and training and talking about tactics. Just temper it with an equally passionate peaceful effort. If nothing else it will allow you to maintain the high ground if you have to shoot someone.
Whatever the case may be this fight among us isn’t disheartening. In the event we do hit a flashpoint I’m confident those on here that are worth their salt on both sides will stand side by side on the firing line.
December 7th, 2008 at 3:16 am
“Sigh. Clueless.” – SayUncle
The fact I believe individual rights are “unalienable” (per the Declaration of Independence) and the RKBA “shall not be infringed” (per the Second Amendment, part of our supreme law of the land) doesn’t make me “clueless.” You really are a piece of work.
“perhaps you’ve heard of shall issue?” – SayUncle
“Shall issue” only to those people a government deigns to “allow” to possess and carry handguns. The Framers’ “shall not be infringed” was intended to prevent your odious “shall issue” permit scheme from ever being enacted in the USA.
“peaceable assembly. Next. And, a permit is better than nothing. It may not make you feel warm and fuzzy but that’s the reality.” – SayUncle
I’ve been peaceably assembling with groups of fellow Americans for decades; no permit yet. The fact some local governments impose such permits in violation of the First Amendment doesn’t make it just, moral or constitutional. Whether it’s the Sedition Acts of 1798 and 1918 or your beloved permits and licenses before people are “allowed” to exercise fundamental human liberties, the “reality” only occurred because enough unprincipled folks (you know the type) passively or actively condoned it.
No, abrogating any unalienable individual right never makes me “warm and fuzzy.” I’m just funny like that.
“There’s no right to carry concealed.” – Wolfwood
Really? That would come as news to Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, James Madison, et al. If it’s any comfort, Charles Schumer, Janet Reno, Dianne Feinstein, Barack Obama, et al. heartily agree with you.
“Tell it to the Supreme Court, Tom. They’re one of the most widely-respected institutions in America.” – Wolfwood
The institution which ruled black people could never become U.S. citizens (Dred Scott v. Sandford), innocent Americans can be imprisoned without charges for years in concentration camps (Korematsu v. U.S.), refused to enforce the First Amendment until the 1920s and has yet to genuinely enforce the Second is “widely-respected”? Not by anyone with a conscience and three or more functioning brain cells.
“I’m also much more pro-RKBA than the general population.” – Wolfwood
You will rarely lose money betting on the ignorance, stupidity, and docility of the general population. Charles Schumer routinely writes his constituents and claims to support the Second Amendment. His interpretation of the RKBA is as seriously flawed as that displayed by SayUncle & Company.
December 7th, 2008 at 3:37 am
“Idjit!”
“Poopyhead!”
“Moron!”
“Wanker!”
Man, I sure do loves me some flaming!
December 7th, 2008 at 9:48 am
That’s not what you said that I called clueless, now is it? Reading is fundamental.
‘I’ve been peaceably assembling with groups of fellow Americans for decades; no permit yet. ‘
Good. Try to have a parade then.
December 7th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Wolfwood counts on bureaucrats being sane.
May I point out that Waco came AFTER Ruby Ridge? Just how sensible was THAT?
The next Waco is in the planning stage, if only in the back of some ATF agent’s head (Jody Keeku comes to mind). To expect anything else is whistling past the graveyard of history.
December 7th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
This complaint that the three percent have themselves backed up when the line has been moved previously is a bit confusing. Does it imply that you prags think we should have started shooting *sooner*? Or does it mean you think we should all be completely consistent with past behavior, refusing to learn from mistakes, and carry that right to the grave?
Look, all the III want from you prags is to actually believe that we are crazy, irrational, unstable, loose canons that could be set off anytime at some angels on the head of a pin provocation that only we can predict. Believe it, then tell it to *them*. Or don’t believe it, but pretend you do. Use us as pawns in your legislative chess games. We think that we’re the best weapon *you* have in your efforts to avoid it coming down to actual shooting. Claiming the line in the sand is in the hope that if they know where it is, they will not approach it. If they’re going to storm across it even in full knowledge of where it is, then your theories are shot all to hell anyway.
We don’t have to agree, or even like each other, but as Bob Seeger said, “I used her and she used me, and neither one cared.”
December 7th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Glad I checked back in since I truly could use a grin today… and I got it when reading that the SCOTUS was “respected”.
)
December 7th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
So the entire argument of the Mighty III is that we, the “prags” (I love that, it’s so reminiscent of soviet propaganda) should go to our elected representatives and tell them that gun owners are insane and unstable and may start shooting people – in the very same breath that we’re trying to convince them that gun owners are normal, sane folk with no intention of an armed uprising.
…
December 7th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
No Ahab, differentiate yourselves. Present yourselves as the “reasonable” and peaceful alternative, the only ones who can keep the small minority of crackpots in line. We’ll go along with the charade, at least until it stops mattering.
Be Sinn Fein.
December 7th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
You mean the same Sinn Fein that the English government wouldn’t allow into the peace talks until the IRA (in this example, the 3%ers) surrendered their weapons? The same Sinn Fein that was finally admitted to the peace talks because the IRA agreed to a cease fire? The essentially politically ineffective Sinn Fein?
Analogy fail.
The problem with that idea anyway is that the government (and the general pop) aren’t smart enough to see the difference between me and the 3%ers – they see “gun owner” and all they see are the negative stereotypes that you guys are altogether too happy to reinforce.
December 7th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
So essentially, the argument the “Three Percenters” want is that the “prags” should relay their threats of violence in an attempt to blackmail the populace and government into acquiescence? I would say that this reminds me of something else, but Kyle Bennett’s comment comparing “Three Percenters” to terrorists beat me to the punch.
I started out thinking that this division within the RKBA ranks was just a matter of differing opinions, but I’m increasingly thinking that 3%ers need to be thrown under the bus for being too much of a liability. I’m not down with blackmail or terrorism. Self-defense is one thing, but 3%er comments often seem perilously close to Timothy McVeigh territory.
Normal, reasonable people in America aren’t very engaged in politics beyond election for President. They respect the Supreme Court (laugh if you want, but they do), watch CNN, and don’t give money to political advocacy groups. You threaten violence if your rights are trampled upon, but the majority of people hear that and are likely to think that what this means is that you definitely need to be disarmed and possibly imprisoned. Your way leads to dead cops and your family killed or injured. The “prag” approach leads to widespread CCW permits, a sunset provision in the AWB, expansion of the Castle Doctrine, and the Heller decision.
This is a fight where we’re at a huge disadvantage. We need to pick our battles, win strategic victories, and expand our base by educating our neighbors firsthand. It could all very easily collapse if our opponents become powerful enough (and they’re one Supreme Court justice away from controlling all three branches of government) and get spooked. We’re already likely to see restrictions in the next few years. This is almost unavoidable; sunset provisions and park carry help lay the foundation for future victories after this initial downturn.
3%ers see the prags as bootlicking as scraping for the remnants of what should be vibrant rights, but to do otherwise is to vastly overestimate the political power the RKBA movement wields (and it includes people like me who would vote for an anti-gun, anti-abortion candidate over a pro-gun, pro-abortion candidate). When it’s a tie ball game and you’ve got fourth and four on the twenty-yard-line…kick the field goal.
December 7th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Ahab,
The reason you have so much trouble convincing the public that “gun owners” are all of purely peaceful intent is that there are obviously many who aren’t. So long as you refer to gun owners collectively, you ensure that the view of peaceful ones is “tainted” by the words and actions of the few. Once you admit publicly that some are “crazy”, your claims that you are different, that you are rational and peaceful, become credible. Hell, you could even have the NRA carry out a very public purge of us whackos to make it more convincing. I for one wouldn’t lose any sleep over being kicked out.
Further, the difference will be clung to by the public, because they don’t want to believe that millions of gun owners are a threat. It would give you enormous power, particularly if you position yourselves as all that stands between them and us. Convince them that you have a tenuous hold, and that by giving you a few “common sense” concessions that you can throw us a bone and keep us from barking too loudly. Then, like the “moderate” grabbers, you can – with the appropriate expressions of reluctance – keep demanding more and more once the camel’s nose is under the tent. Their tactics have been very effective, why not emulate some of them?
December 7th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Wolfwood, there’s no comparison of the III to terrorists, except that which already exists in the public perception and government propoganda. Except they don’t differentiate you from us. We can’t make that differntiation, only you can. You think you can convince them to allow the gun rights we both want, but can’t convince them of such a simple distinction? That doesn’t speak well for your political ambitions.
The absence of that distinction is exactly what you are complaining about, and the perception of there not being one long predated this recent idea of the III. Failing to make it is squarely on you, and will be your downfall, even if the rest of us all shut up starting today.
The analogy to Sinn Fein was just that, an analogy, not a model to be implemented in every detail. They were the political arm of a radical and violent movement, and they accomplished many of their goals because of that relationship, not in spite of it. You could be the political arm of a radical and so far non-violent movement, while holding out the promise of keeping that way. The bonus is that we don’t want violence, so you wouldn’t even be lying.
We won’t light off any car bombs or shoot up department stores, I promise.
Oh, and Wolfwood, you couldn’t throw us under the bus if you tried. You don’t get it, the premise of III is that we are starting out from under the bus.
December 7th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
And yet, it is precisely this that you want us to imply to our elected officials and people who watch CNN that you’re capable of doing – because there’s no difference whatsoever in the minds of the people whose opinions we need between shooting a cop and blowing up a school. None. Zilch. Zero.
December 7th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Kyle Bennett, you make our points, beautifully.
A great benefit to these discussions is the increased presence of this issue on the net. People can’t make a decision about an issue they are unaware of.
As to the debate being divisive? What’s wrong with that? If, of the undecided, the prags get 99.99%, then the 3%ers win. We win because each individual who sides with the 3%ers is one more person who will actually stand fast on principle, rather than compromise and fall back with the other 99.99%.
“One man with courage is a majority.” -Thomas Jefferson
December 7th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Again, Ahab, if you can’t even get the simple idea of that difference across, what makes you think you can convince them of anything? You’re saying that words cannot succeed? You’re pleading impotence as a reason to let you be responsible for our freedom? You’re granting them the high ground in order to convince us to let you be the general? You’re cowering under the covers in fear of public *opinion* and demanding we leave the hardball game of life and death politics up to you?
What game is it you think you are playing? Do you think showing your belly means you’ll be given a treat and a tummy rub?
December 7th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I think there’s a difference between “support us or the nutcases will start shooting things!” and incrementalism.
Essentially, the “prags” see “When guns are outlawed then only outlaws will have guns” coming back to bite us. RKBA folks interpret this as “Criminals are a threat.” Average folks, especially those led by the media, think “Well, let’s get on the stick, outlaw guns, and then arrest the outlaws.” You can quote what may (or may not) be logic all day long and it won’t do a bit of difference in those minds. They don’t see criminals as being scary so much as guns being scary. Walking around with a MOLON LABE shirt with an M-16 on it makes people nervous. They say to themselves “He looks like a militia member (or the Neo-Nazi (or Black Power, or whatever) terrorist from the Movie of the Week); if he likes this gun then clearly there’s something wrong with it.” I would bet money that if gangs started tazering each other then you’d see all sorts of legislation banning tazers and people nodding when you talk about “reasonable restrictions on tazers.” They’d do the same if it were even rubber-band guns.
You seem to think that anyone outside the RKBA movement knows about Ruby Ridge and Waco; they pretty much don’t. If they do, they know there was a standoff, and because people generally trust the government (at least, not to go around murdering people) they conclude that it was the victims who brought it on themselves.
This can be changed through education. What it can’t be done through is threat of force. Even getting all up in people’s faces won’t do it. This isn’t something that most people see as obviously unjust, like racial discrimination. Instead of trying to find a moderate to work through, they figure it’s best to nuke from orbit and just ban all guns (piecemeal or de facto if necessary).
In general, people are basically indifferent. Give them a good reason to ban guns and they will. Give them a good reason to protect RKBA and they’ll agree to certain things. Instead of trying to rescind the machine gun ban, the Heller team worked to lay another stone of a foundation. We are far, far behind where we need to be in terms of a sufficient legal framework, and that’s something that will take years, decades, or more.
Alternatively, we could just shoot people who disagree with us and wage an intifada because we can’t be patient. The problem is that when you shoot the policeman (and father of four) who tries to confiscate your guns, the full power of the state will come down to incapacitate you in one way or another. 3%ers are picking battles in places where they’ll go down in vainglorious and soon-forgotten defeat, harming the very cause they seek to protect.
December 7th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
The funniest damn thing I’ve ever read by a prag (and remember, y’all were the ones to self-describe yourselves as “pragmatists) is that YOU are going to throw US under a bus! What a hoot. How do you suppose you’re going to do that exactly? Rat us out to the FBI and ATF? Write us a letter, like Hans Blix in Team America, to tell us how angry you are with us?
They feds don’t need your help, you know, they’re already on our case, looking for the first mistake. So what are you going to offer them other than just bare your neck like some lower level pack dog to let them know you’re not a threat? Really, give us an answer. How do you suppose you can “throw us under a bus”?
You do understand that when you’re talking about “throwing us under the bus” to the feds, you’re threatening us with federal prison or death, right?
“Howls of derisive laughter, Bruce.”
December 7th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Wormwood, if the father of four comes to confiscate our guns, it means the full power of the state is already in motion against us. Then, there is nothing more to lose.
There won’t be any shooting prior to it, and certainly not on mere “disagreement”, so you’ve got nothing to lose if you really think you can make your schemes work before that happens. Our noise will not make it happen any sooner than it would otherwise, at the very least because they couldn’t work any faster if they tried.
Heller isn’t a stone in the foundation, it’s a chalkline delineating where the foundation might go, some day, if you ever get the stones to build it. Let us be your stones, until you can get some of your own.
December 7th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
“And, a permit is better than nothing. It may not make you feel warm and fuzzy but that’s the reality.”
He didn’t ask you about that, Uncle. The essence of the question is what any of that has to do with rights.
December 7th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
so people who stand up for their rights are terrorists?
Quit the circle jerk and just say it. You want to muzzle their speech because you think it’ll hurt YOU. You don’t give two shits about their rights as long as YOU have yours.
They’re soooo radical that they’re busy fighting the laws instead of building car bombs and machine guns.
They’re soooo radical that they’re busy talking to you.
They’re soooo dangerous that you call them a “merry band of keyboard commandos.”
Notice that the word you WANT to read in there is “the” He says 3%. Period.
And just so nobody forgets…Heller was about fighting the government to allow him to REGISTER a gun. As you like to point out the court has narrow rulings. Heller means we now have to fight our way back FROM registration because as it stands we have a “right” to REGISTER a gun that they allow us to have under their laws.
December 7th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Uncle decides not to engage the realists because some of them are insulting, so he writes a post saying so. Invokes his racist sounding “don’t scare the white people,” and insults those who stand on principles. Am I the only one who thinks that is lame?
Washington State had shall-issue from the mid 60’s. But So What?
The only “compelling state interest” is preservation, protection and expansion of freedom and liberty. All other meaning is statist. Is it “government of the people, by the people and for the people” or not? Quoting terms used as justification to eliminate liberty does not make a good case. And the Supreme court is a “widely-respected institution?” Riiight.
Sebastion is flamed for refusing to draw a line in the sand. Personally I think both approaches are good. Some with no declared line and some with it clearly declared for the anti-rights crowd to see. Make sure it is a well chosen line. I’m too new to the issue to know my line, but I’m working on it. Sebastion also says those who stand on principles are not on his side. Am I not to conclude that rights of the people aren’t his side?
Pragmatism has given us 70+ years of gun control. But also a few roll-backs of the infringements. I have no problem with the “prags” working to roll back infringements, but what is the deal with their anger at those with principles?
December 7th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Oh, that is cute… Come here complaining about the name-calling and finger-pointing, only to indirectly backstab the “prags” for not having “principles”. Way to be an idiot, mate.
December 8th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Well, Legion, at least we’re comfortable with our own names.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
And with Linoge and me being renamed as demons, I think civility is pretty much gone.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
point out facts and WHAM, right back to name calling.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
linoge — I am an idiot, and professional-grade lame. My faults are legion. Whereas uncle might make an occasional lame post among many good posts. As far as the backstabbing goes, I was trying to use the two sides names for themselves. Which I put together in a way that you took insult too, my bad. But I most certainly will not use your name for the other side: “insurrectionist” because it is a bald-faced lie. They do not advocate insurrection. I think you do protest too much.
The topic at hand (not my lame side show) obviously raises great emotions. That is really what I don’t get. Why are the self-named pragmatists so angry at those who have declared a line in the sand? Uncle does not want to ’scare the common man’ (regular person, typical people?). Why not? Standing for liberty (pragmatic methods included) is not popular, so what? Uncle thinks “If you fuck with me bad enough, I’ll kill your ass” doesn’t scare typical people? (quote is from memory so sorry if I screwed it, Unc). Get a grip people. Us owning guns scares uncle’s white people. That is all it takes to scare them. Owning those EBRs scares ‘em. Owning wheelies scares them. Owning autochuckers scares them. And milsurps (oh god BAYONETS). And bambie zappers. Scatterguns too. Scares some to hysteria and shaking. Some of us own thousands of rounds and dozens of guns. Scares them. Some carry concealed or open. Scares them. Hunt=scare. Target Shoot=scare. Plink=scare. Tannerite=freakout. 50’s and self defense–No Way That Would Scare Them. They be scared Unc. I’ve tried to talk to some. They are just irrational-scared-of-the-objects-terrified.
You don’t want to scare Uncle’s White People? Get rid of your guns.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
That’s a pretty pragmatic position. I would venture the pragmatic solution is to convince them otherwise rather than to assume they will always be scared.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Wolfwood,
I apologize. My slight on your “name” wasn cheap and undeserved.
But aside from that, your post that I was responding to is full of lies.
December 8th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Sometimes the dumbness of all of this is staggering.
Pragmatists: You’re essentially begging the government to “Pretty please stop infringing on my inalienable rights.” Do you not see that this is how you lose? Have you not read any of your history? Ever? The ONLY way to shrink government is to tear it down. Do you know of any instance where government shrank and gave up a lot of power without doing that? There are thousands and thousands of control laws, and most of them are stupid. How many have you had thrown off the books? One? Two? In that way FAIL lies.
You don’t tell the congresspeople that if they go too far that we’ll shoot up malls, etc. Yo tell the Congress that we will start shooting THEM. That’s the ONLY way you can threaten a politician. Cause even if you vote them out, they can always run again or for another office.
I really don’t want to fight another civil war. But the left is not going to compromise. It’s getting to a point where co-existence is impossible. They want to take away our INALIENABLE rights and make everyone a subservient subject of the all-powerful state which always knows best in all areas of your affairs. Tell me how you compromise on that.
We do need to come together. The fudds (yeah i said it. so what?) are more than willing to throw ALL of us under the bus so they can keep playing mountain man, so the rest of us need to get our act together NOW. FDR II is less than 50 days from from being crowned- er, inaugurated. We don’t need to convince a majority of non-caring people that WE are fighting for ALL rights, not just the 2nd amendment. Even the smallest percentage is millions of people that would be hard to suppress. Hell the American Revolution never had a majority behind it.
First they came for the machine guns…
Then they came for the “Assault Weapons”…
Then they came for Sniper (Hunting) Rifles…
Then they came for the pistols…
Now all i got is a damn rock.
Shit.
December 8th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
OK, I think I’m beginning to get it.
1) There are these two (more actually) very different ways of working for our rights, but many (a few? some? all?) on both sides think the other side is not on there side. Personally I see benefits of both sides.
2) I understand that the part that involves name calling does not make friends. I get that part. But there is more than just the flame-fest induced hostilities. It seems that the two sides (really that is an oversimplification) think the other side hurts their side. I don’t agree. I see multiple strategies by people with different ideas. That is a good thing about a system of liberties.
3) I assume everybody agrees that starting with NFA34 the feds infringed. And it is not just guns, but all liberties are under attack. If some in the pragmatist camp think the NFA+ is just peachy, well then I guess I do see a problem. I have no doubt the No Compromise camp sees NFA (etc.) as an infringement.
4) What concerns me is that I see a history of “compromise” in which we give up rights and get nothing in return. The antis say “compromise” and give nothing. What could they give in return for the people giving up fundamental human rights? And we all know it is bigger then guns.
So here is how to work to similar ends without ever talking again:
1) Pragmatists work to reverse existing infringements. Stay away from “compromising” rights away. You think the system isn’t broken, so use it.
2) Stand by Principles type (We need a better name and III only is one branch) work to stop further infringement – No More Loss Of Rights. Stay away from Fort Sumter, e.i. to quote Mike – “No Fort Sumters”
3) When the Shit Hits The Fan, wish like hell that it had not gone down the tubes.
December 8th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
“their side”, not “there side” in 1) oops.
December 8th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Conservative gun owners are – in general – individualists who don’t want to cluster together. Hence the continual battle to get and keep members of the NRA, GOA, etc. They might join a local club to save money on ammo or to use the facilities but will drop that membership if something rubs them the wrong way.
Liberals, OTOH, are already assimilated as parts of THE BORG. They seem to thrive on equal parts of group-think and Kumbaya. They need the constant approval of their peers.
Is it any wonder that libs can assemble several thousand people for a demonstration while we gun-nuts are lucky to pull in a hundred? I think a million men peacefully assembled in front of the Capitol would be a great idea but there’s no way it’s going to happen unless they’re there to demonstrate FOR more gun control.
To expect anything other than what we’re getting is like expecting the sun to rise in the west.
December 8th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
An explanation of how we are “insurrectionists.”
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2008/12/we-are-expendable-or-giving-battle-but.html
December 8th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
At so the prags say. I meant how we are NOT insurrectionists.
December 8th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Chris: “And it is not just guns, but all liberties are under attack.”
That’s crucial. A big part of why I find moderates and pragmatists just about useless in all this is when they’re concrete-bound myopes, which a lot of them are. They’re happy to bang the table about “gun rights” and simply cannot or will not generalize the concept of rights as a principle.
Aside from arguments over political practice, etc., that is a big, big problem. I have always found it extremely unfortunate, at the least, that there has been an argument at all over “gun rights”. This is a higher-level error of logic with obvious practical implications. There are lots of lessons here for anyone interested. Principles matter. Integrity is more than a worn-out sock in your grandfather’s drawer. Any defective premise sufficiently extended with accurate logic will result in a simulation of insanity. Etc. Look around you.
There are almost countless reasons why it’s gone like this, but they won’t matter in the end.
December 8th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
I have a question for you, Mike. I am not one of your enemies: I mean this as earnestly as can be imparted without looking you in the eye while I ask you. And: I beg you to read it carefully, because that’s how I am choosing every single word. I think you may understand that I will refer to passive civil disobedience.
I understand the concept of “expendables”. You’re talking about a level of devotion that most people can’t muster in the abstract, nevermind practice.
What I would like to know is whether there is anything in your ethics — your system of values — that necessarily precludes your bringing that level of devotion to living for America if you wouldn’t have to die for it.
~~~~~
(Here’s a note that I want to lodge here while I’m thinking about it, and please Mike don’t let it distract you. I really want to know.
Anyway: if — quite abstractly — a stipulation to disobedience could be gained, then it is quite possible that “guns rights” would not be the best line to draw. The thing in itself brings all kinds of practical problems involving people getting shot, scaring whities, you name it. On the other hand, more general — principled — vectors necessarily imply more general practical political implications. Personally, I don’t have a problem with this: I say this government must now be starved into abject submission if not completely out of existence, which is my line. But if we want to talk about education; it would be some feat in pointing out even to people on “our” general side that logic is not just a parlor-game and that there are always benefits in working from the bottom, up. IOW: try getting gunners to stop paying the income tax. Very few can see the line.
Anybody who ever thought any of this would be easy was out of their mind. And it’s only going to get more difficult all the time. Remember that. That’s because it’s not just about guns.)
December 8th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
No way am I going to answer for Mike, but I suppose to answer truthfully and honsetly, lets define terms.
What do you mean by “America” Is it a geographical area falling under a centralized federal government? An idea embodied in the founding documents? Something else?
If it’s an IDEA then I’d have to say I think that’s exactly what he and 3% are doing. I think that’s what anyone standing up for their rights, and I mean specifically for SNBI in this case, is doing. I’d also have to say that to some extent the prags are doing the same, perhaps in a slower, more scenic route kind of way. Also as you know not everyone who wrote the damn thing was 100% in lockstep with the others, heated arguments and debate gave way to a broadest rights model that forced no one to do, say, pray, or own anything they didn’t want to.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
“If it’s an IDEA…”
Yes. It is, and if you could see that clearly then I think we can proceed.
“…then I’d have to say I think that’s exactly what he and 3% are doing. I think that’s what anyone standing up for their rights, and I mean specifically for SNBI in this case, is doing.”
As a matter of logic, I can see your point, but there is a serious distinction to be made between holding out until fighting back with violence becomes necessary, and stepping deliberately into courts and jails while it’s explained to an incredulous public why you did that, before any of it comes to shooting.
That’s a very big difference.
December 9th, 2008 at 12:55 am
See, that’s the thing. You can look back through history and see plenty of people who were pushed. I was looking at something the other day where a guy was at the end of his rope…here it is http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article740940.ece The guy snapped. Yes, it’s not 100% the same, but the case of the guy armoring up his dozer, or any number of cases. They had enough, the government moved that line enough to get them to go off. They worked inside the system as long as they could.
The 3% folks have declared where their personal lines are. They’re STILL “holding out” and fighting within the system until someone moves that line on them. Taking them at their word I have to believe that they will not be the cartoon version that people flaming away earlier said they are.
I’m not too sure if anyone even bothers to look at this post anymore since it’s been pretty quiet today. I’m not really on either side, kind of straddling the fence at the moment. The insanity of these days makes the 3% view, the inevitability of violence, seem like something that would be better if it were forced sooner as current technological and weapons system developments are rapidly getting to the point of guaranteed failure. Look at the growing use of robotic “soldiers” and the increasing removal of “oppressors” from the battlefield.
On the other hand the we’ve gotten a few sparks that could possibly reignite those grass fires in the minds of folks. If we can keep flicking the bic of liberty maybe things will get better in another generation or three.
Of course everything is fluid and open to outside forces. The gov has its nose in all kinds of stuff and has for a long time. Foreign folks might pull something that throws everything out the window at any time.
I DO know for sure that I’m on the right side of the larger issue, and see the points that the prag and 3% factions are putting forth. If either is 100% correct I don’t know, I don’t think so, and I don’t think anything will be settled only on the gun rights front as there are too many abuses by the government in nearly every aspect of life.
December 9th, 2008 at 1:15 am
The idea of America contained in our founding documents is what we are talking about. The freedoms we hold self-evident, endowed by our Creator and secured by the government we instituted for that purpose. I don’t doubt we are on the same page.
Do you fear the government? You should. The reason is because if you do not do what the government tells you to do, you will be killed. I mean everything from not paying taxes, to not registering your car, to refusing to pay a parking ticket. Refuse, then refuse again, and again through the chain of events that will follow. When they come to arrest you, refuse. The only way to avoid bloodshed is to allow yourself to be imprisoned. Not a viable option for restoring the Republic.
Our government has grown out of control. It all comes down to the arms, and the government knows it. Once we are disarmed, we have no hope of freedom. Resistance must occur while the means to resist exists. We hope for peace through reason, but we prepare for war because sometimes you can’t get people to see reason. You have to kill some of them to get them to understand that you are serious.
So, I am not going to say that alternate plans like civil disobedience by refusing to pay income tax won’t work, but I will say that you better have your arms loaded and ready, because there will ensue a chain of events that will end with you dead or in prison, at the hands of the government. The government that was initially instituted among men to secure our Rights.
December 9th, 2008 at 2:26 am
I wonder why there are no comments at the famous Mr Beck’s blog?
I guess it is so much easier to shit on other people’s blogs and keep your own perfection of thought unsullied by the chattering of the rabble, eh Riff?
December 9th, 2008 at 3:08 am
This is obviously an issue that needed to be aired out amongst us gunnies. Despite the name calling and trash talking (or perhaps because of it) I think this is one of the most interesting, and dare I say productive, blog posts that I’ve seen on the Web in a very long time.
December 9th, 2008 at 9:16 am
“I wonder why there are no comments at the famous Mr Beck’s blog?”
It’s mine. That’s why. It’s none of your goddamned business.
December 9th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Guns are *a* line, not *the* line. But they’re the last line, beyond that, there is no more way to draw lines. What the prags don’t realize is that drawing the line at gun confiscation is the *most* conservative, least reactionary, least radical place it can be drawn. Many people have other lines, and nothing in III precludes other lines. But gun confiscation is the fulcrum around which means, opportunity, and motive pivot. It’s where those three naturally intersect. Everything possible must be done not only to prevent it from getting there, but to have real freedom by other means.
December 9th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I just re-read this thread. I retract my previous comment that Uncle’s post was lame. Way to psych-ops us into a discussion Uncle. Oh sure, a lot of flames, but also a lot of reasoned content.
I previously said “…Us owning guns scares uncle’s white people. …”
To which Uncle replied “That’s a pretty pragmatic position. I would venture the pragmatic solution is to convince them otherwise rather than to assume they will always be scared.”
That is a rub. I don’t think most of them can be convinced. Hoplophobia and all. Sure some can be but not most. Remember people, the media is not on our side. (Where ‘our’ means people standing for liberty both pragmatic and line types) How can you pragmatically work with people who will always be scared without giving up your guns? In this case it does not bother me if the are scared by line in the sand talk, they are already scared.
“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” — Abraham Lincoln
December 9th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Chris, I think rampant hoplophobia is far less common than you think. Even less so if the press stops parroting every anti-gun misrepresentation out there.