The NRA Fights Back!
Grab a cup. This is a long one.
Gun Owners have a lot of truthful slogans which might amuse you. Some of these come to mind amid the news that the NRA has elected to pull out of holding its multi-multi-million dollar 2007 convention in Columbus, Ohio in response to the city council’s silly PC political statement of banning guns.
Do you think there’s a connection?
Do you think rational, competent managers would ban the symbols of a liberty advocacy group and still expect them to feel welcome? In fact, do they even speak for the honest values of their constituents? Probably not, since Ohio is a right to carry state, and officials want to ban that.
The papers are filled with tears from the crying towel of liberals who just don’t get it: the NRA is not an extremist group as intentionally mislabeled, it is a liberty advocacy group, the things liberals used to be for, and it is one of the oldest in the nation, if not the very oldest civil rights group.
Still, the Columbus City Council cries foul, unable to see how they bite the hand that feeds them: commerce and liberty.
Ohio is a right-to-carry state, which means that the People have elected to permit law-abiding to carry weapons. There are no bad weapons, only bad people who use them. And why shouldn’t people carry? The law-abiding don’t commit crimes. A rational city council would have nothing to fear from law-abiding citizens. Only irrational, unwell public servants fear the public when they should fear criminals.
It’s about time honest citizens elected to fight back, to correct the children, to stop being overly tolerant, to stop being so-called even-handed, and to stop letting adolescent officials put their fingers in the eye of voters. Here, the NRA sets the example.
One of those slogans is: Fight Crime: Shoot Back. Finally, somebody elects to answer stupid notions instead of permitting officials to believe they’re right and chip away at the liberties of the honest. Shooting back could be literal in time of violent crime or it could be figurative, as in walking away – walking away from Columbus, that is.
Another you might see posted on the bedroom window facing the alley: We Don’t Dial 9-1-1 – we reach for .357! This saying means that we know that we’re on our own, as the Supreme Court recently held in Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, June 27th, 2005 and as lower courts have held umpteen times. (Another concept the officials cannot understand; we are on our own because, in America, police have no mandate to protect individuals.)
Try this one: Forget the dog – beware of Owner. See above.
Here’s one I like: Gun Control Advocates: does your wife know you won’t protect her? This one means that if you are against guns, you must obviously understand that you have stated a priori that when the time comes, you will be unwilling to protect your loved ones because you’re against force. People who disarm the honest obviously are against use of force period when it comes to being a victim, themselves included. They even impose it on others, no matter how we protest. Ergo, they won’t stand up for you, their loved ones, because they refuse to prepare now for that possibility.
And then there’s this one: If you’re found here at night, you’ll be found here in the morning.
All due notice, I’d say.
But officials like the Columbus City Council are not in touch with our realities. In making such adolescent, idealistic pronouncements, they do not realize the essence of what they are saying. Like adolescents who mouth off years before any maturity finally sets in, the City Council didn’t think, and put the consequence on the back of the NRA instead of making the connection between a rational response and their teenage rhetoric.
The Columbus City Council owns the consequence of the NRA’s pulling out of any deal. Grow up. Anything else – blaming anybody else – is to state publicly that they didn’t realize what they were doing.
The bottom line is this: what message does a community want to send to criminals?
When they ban guns, they are saying that they want to tie the hands of the law abiding. When they ban a so-called assault weapon, they are saying they know nothing about long guns, since even the experts cannot define what an assault weapon is. Can you?
Here we have another example of adolescence and irrationality from U.S. Newswire’s report of the Brady Bunch:
COLUMBUS, July 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Michael Barnes, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, issued the following statement today on the announcement by National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre that the group will pull out of its commitment to meet in Columbus in 2007:
"Columbus police officers said they didn't want to face military-style semiautomatic assault weapons on the streets, and the city's elected leaders wisely listened to law enforcement and passed sensible restrictions on these weapons. What the NRA's leader said to the people of Columbus this morning is 'let us set public policy, or we won't visit your city.' That must never be the agreement in a civilized democracy.
"We urge Mayor Coleman and the City Council to stand tough for public safety, and we urge the people of Columbus to support their elected officials in this matter. Columbus residents should be proud of their leaders. They are proving the city will stand with the police and won't back down from bullies."
The problem with their blindness is that they’re not stopping gun violence, because such pronouncements don’t reach the criminal, and send only the message of who is unarmed.
And besides, a poll of law enforcement suggests otherwise, as in The 17th Annual National Survey Of Police Chiefs And Sheriffs.
Banning weapons applies only to the law-abiding and does not reach crime. For instance, an assault weapon per se does not exist, because it cannot be defined by its design, mechanism, appearance or caliber. Go ahead, try it.
Is an assault weapon long? Is it black? Is it a rifle or a handgun? Is it a matter of shape, size or attachments, or is it more of what we say it is? Even reports of a definition such as being capable of rapid fire do not define a weapon: they define the hand that holds it. Any weapon can fire about as fast as the hand can manage, and true automatic weapons -- the kind that rapid fire for as long as the trigger is depressed (machine guns) -- have been banned since 1934.
Does that ban stop the violence?
The point is that for persons who took an oath to defend the entire Constitution including the Bill of Rights, those persons now have a Democrat political edge in criminalizing a type of weapon whose character and very definition are debatable and subjective, and that means that the alleged offense is ambiguous.
Translation: selectably enforceable. That means that an innocent person can be made criminal not by any act of his, but by the stroke of a pen (or the illness of an official).
It, in effect, gives a weapon to another irresponsible person: an arrogant official.
Not good. This sort of abuse has to be taken out of the hands of misguided persons such as certain city councils through recall or unseating at the polls. Silly officials are the last persons to have such weapons that tie the hands of the law-abiding.
But the NRA did something exemplary and more immediate in response: a great beginning; they chose not to become a victim: they fought back, not by firing a shot, not with violence, but they fought with their feet (and checkbooks) in the adult answer to an adolescent insult: they walked.
Cool heads.
Columbus’ City Council didn’t learn much from those Ohio businesses who banned guns from their places of business, including restaurants and banks: when they posted no-guns signage, they rang the dinner bell for armed robbers. Robberies increased. Some learned, and they now welcome right-to-carry patrons. Suddenly they can discern the law-abiding from the criminal.
Why can’t officials tap into reality for just a little while? While they’re in session?
I hope that the NRA’s moving on to another major city is the start of something big. Indifference about a civil right reflects a very poor understanding of governance and duties of office. The Council is stupid enough to buy into the pap that criminals will be affected by yet another ban, a ban that can’t even identify the corpus (subject) of the law.
Here’s another slogan: It’s better to be judged by twelve than to be carried by six. Translation for the impaired seated in Columbus: write what stupid laws you want, but you wrongfully tie my hands when I have to choose between the practical protection of my family and arrest.
This is why Liberals are saying in essence that they will not protect their loved ones, when other fathers and husbands will.
Which value do you want elected officials to share with your community?
When Councils make such bans, they don’t realize what they are saying, too: we cannot reach the criminals, but we can reach you, and it gives us the feeling of doing something instead of feeling powerless. You can feel powerless, instead, so your hands are tied so you have to choose between protecting yourself or family and being a criminal. As councilmembers, we think this helps.
It does not.
__________________________
John Longenecker is author of The Battle We Fight - Battling Potomac Fever To Recapture Our Homes And Communities. His website is www.NationwideConcealedCarry.com
This Week’s Talkradio Guest Appearance:
Scott St. James, KTRS/550
Thursday, July 21st
09:20 a.m. Central Time.
and
The Mancow Morning Show
WKQX FM-101, Chicago
Friday, July 22nd, 9:10 Central Time.
Gun Owners have a lot of truthful slogans which might amuse you. Some of these come to mind amid the news that the NRA has elected to pull out of holding its multi-multi-million dollar 2007 convention in Columbus, Ohio in response to the city council’s silly PC political statement of banning guns.
Do you think there’s a connection?
Do you think rational, competent managers would ban the symbols of a liberty advocacy group and still expect them to feel welcome? In fact, do they even speak for the honest values of their constituents? Probably not, since Ohio is a right to carry state, and officials want to ban that.
The papers are filled with tears from the crying towel of liberals who just don’t get it: the NRA is not an extremist group as intentionally mislabeled, it is a liberty advocacy group, the things liberals used to be for, and it is one of the oldest in the nation, if not the very oldest civil rights group.
Still, the Columbus City Council cries foul, unable to see how they bite the hand that feeds them: commerce and liberty.
Ohio is a right-to-carry state, which means that the People have elected to permit law-abiding to carry weapons. There are no bad weapons, only bad people who use them. And why shouldn’t people carry? The law-abiding don’t commit crimes. A rational city council would have nothing to fear from law-abiding citizens. Only irrational, unwell public servants fear the public when they should fear criminals.
It’s about time honest citizens elected to fight back, to correct the children, to stop being overly tolerant, to stop being so-called even-handed, and to stop letting adolescent officials put their fingers in the eye of voters. Here, the NRA sets the example.
One of those slogans is: Fight Crime: Shoot Back. Finally, somebody elects to answer stupid notions instead of permitting officials to believe they’re right and chip away at the liberties of the honest. Shooting back could be literal in time of violent crime or it could be figurative, as in walking away – walking away from Columbus, that is.
Another you might see posted on the bedroom window facing the alley: We Don’t Dial 9-1-1 – we reach for .357! This saying means that we know that we’re on our own, as the Supreme Court recently held in Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, June 27th, 2005 and as lower courts have held umpteen times. (Another concept the officials cannot understand; we are on our own because, in America, police have no mandate to protect individuals.)
Try this one: Forget the dog – beware of Owner. See above.
Here’s one I like: Gun Control Advocates: does your wife know you won’t protect her? This one means that if you are against guns, you must obviously understand that you have stated a priori that when the time comes, you will be unwilling to protect your loved ones because you’re against force. People who disarm the honest obviously are against use of force period when it comes to being a victim, themselves included. They even impose it on others, no matter how we protest. Ergo, they won’t stand up for you, their loved ones, because they refuse to prepare now for that possibility.
And then there’s this one: If you’re found here at night, you’ll be found here in the morning.
All due notice, I’d say.
But officials like the Columbus City Council are not in touch with our realities. In making such adolescent, idealistic pronouncements, they do not realize the essence of what they are saying. Like adolescents who mouth off years before any maturity finally sets in, the City Council didn’t think, and put the consequence on the back of the NRA instead of making the connection between a rational response and their teenage rhetoric.
The Columbus City Council owns the consequence of the NRA’s pulling out of any deal. Grow up. Anything else – blaming anybody else – is to state publicly that they didn’t realize what they were doing.
The bottom line is this: what message does a community want to send to criminals?
When they ban guns, they are saying that they want to tie the hands of the law abiding. When they ban a so-called assault weapon, they are saying they know nothing about long guns, since even the experts cannot define what an assault weapon is. Can you?
Here we have another example of adolescence and irrationality from U.S. Newswire’s report of the Brady Bunch:
COLUMBUS, July 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Michael Barnes, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, issued the following statement today on the announcement by National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre that the group will pull out of its commitment to meet in Columbus in 2007:
"Columbus police officers said they didn't want to face military-style semiautomatic assault weapons on the streets, and the city's elected leaders wisely listened to law enforcement and passed sensible restrictions on these weapons. What the NRA's leader said to the people of Columbus this morning is 'let us set public policy, or we won't visit your city.' That must never be the agreement in a civilized democracy.
"We urge Mayor Coleman and the City Council to stand tough for public safety, and we urge the people of Columbus to support their elected officials in this matter. Columbus residents should be proud of their leaders. They are proving the city will stand with the police and won't back down from bullies."
The problem with their blindness is that they’re not stopping gun violence, because such pronouncements don’t reach the criminal, and send only the message of who is unarmed.
And besides, a poll of law enforcement suggests otherwise, as in The 17th Annual National Survey Of Police Chiefs And Sheriffs.
Banning weapons applies only to the law-abiding and does not reach crime. For instance, an assault weapon per se does not exist, because it cannot be defined by its design, mechanism, appearance or caliber. Go ahead, try it.
Is an assault weapon long? Is it black? Is it a rifle or a handgun? Is it a matter of shape, size or attachments, or is it more of what we say it is? Even reports of a definition such as being capable of rapid fire do not define a weapon: they define the hand that holds it. Any weapon can fire about as fast as the hand can manage, and true automatic weapons -- the kind that rapid fire for as long as the trigger is depressed (machine guns) -- have been banned since 1934.
Does that ban stop the violence?
The point is that for persons who took an oath to defend the entire Constitution including the Bill of Rights, those persons now have a Democrat political edge in criminalizing a type of weapon whose character and very definition are debatable and subjective, and that means that the alleged offense is ambiguous.
Translation: selectably enforceable. That means that an innocent person can be made criminal not by any act of his, but by the stroke of a pen (or the illness of an official).
It, in effect, gives a weapon to another irresponsible person: an arrogant official.
Not good. This sort of abuse has to be taken out of the hands of misguided persons such as certain city councils through recall or unseating at the polls. Silly officials are the last persons to have such weapons that tie the hands of the law-abiding.
But the NRA did something exemplary and more immediate in response: a great beginning; they chose not to become a victim: they fought back, not by firing a shot, not with violence, but they fought with their feet (and checkbooks) in the adult answer to an adolescent insult: they walked.
Cool heads.
Columbus’ City Council didn’t learn much from those Ohio businesses who banned guns from their places of business, including restaurants and banks: when they posted no-guns signage, they rang the dinner bell for armed robbers. Robberies increased. Some learned, and they now welcome right-to-carry patrons. Suddenly they can discern the law-abiding from the criminal.
Why can’t officials tap into reality for just a little while? While they’re in session?
I hope that the NRA’s moving on to another major city is the start of something big. Indifference about a civil right reflects a very poor understanding of governance and duties of office. The Council is stupid enough to buy into the pap that criminals will be affected by yet another ban, a ban that can’t even identify the corpus (subject) of the law.
Here’s another slogan: It’s better to be judged by twelve than to be carried by six. Translation for the impaired seated in Columbus: write what stupid laws you want, but you wrongfully tie my hands when I have to choose between the practical protection of my family and arrest.
This is why Liberals are saying in essence that they will not protect their loved ones, when other fathers and husbands will.
Which value do you want elected officials to share with your community?
When Councils make such bans, they don’t realize what they are saying, too: we cannot reach the criminals, but we can reach you, and it gives us the feeling of doing something instead of feeling powerless. You can feel powerless, instead, so your hands are tied so you have to choose between protecting yourself or family and being a criminal. As councilmembers, we think this helps.
It does not.
__________________________
John Longenecker is author of The Battle We Fight - Battling Potomac Fever To Recapture Our Homes And Communities. His website is www.NationwideConcealedCarry.com
This Week’s Talkradio Guest Appearance:
Scott St. James, KTRS/550
Thursday, July 21st
09:20 a.m. Central Time.
and
The Mancow Morning Show
WKQX FM-101, Chicago
Friday, July 22nd, 9:10 Central Time.
<< Home