The greatest current threat to gun rights?

orlando-shooting-about-terror-not-gun-controlGun rights are constantly under attack. Anytime a shooting happens, gun control groups and anti-gun legislators spring into action in an effort to condemn our Second Amendment rights.

As soon as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died, Barack Obama tried to install a new Justice – Merrick Garland – who likely would have been a disaster for our gun rights.

Gun grabbers use any strategy they can, including lies and obfuscation to opportunistically push their agenda, and some gun owners and organizations are only too happy to compromise away our rights – either out of fear of losing even more, a desire to appease the clamoring hordes, or a simple lack of understanding of our gun rights and our Constitution.

With all the threats out there, what do you think is the biggest one? These are hard choices, but intentionally so. Maybe once we figure out what you all believe is the biggest threat and why, we can figure out how to address it. Together.

Provide as much or as little by way of explanation for your choice in the comments, but do comment and let us know the reason for your choice.

 

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Doing the blood dance

We’ve seen it time and time again – politicians doing a ritual dance in the blood of victims in order to promote a political agenda and using tragedy to advance their schemes.

We saw it when Cindy Sheehan used the blood of her hero son Casey, who was killed in Iraq, to advance her anti-war agenda and launch her political career.

We saw it recently when both political parties saw it fit to use the Gold Star family of Army CPT Humayan Khan as a means to promote their candidates in a national election.

It happens every time a psychotic murderer goes on a rampage. The cries for more laws that would do nothing to stop any future carnage grow louder and louder, and those whose only purpose is to advance a political agenda mislead, lie, and use grieving families as tools to advance their odious goals.

What I find unconscionable is how brazen these liars have become.

Last month Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and Arizona Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) introduced the nauseatingly-named Help End Assault Rifle Tragedies (HEART) Act. And if the name isn’t enough to make you want to regurgitate last week’s lunch, wait until you read what this noxious piece of… legislation aims to do.

S.3171 and H.R.5739 would “prohibit the transfer, loan, or other disposition of a machinegun or semiautomatic assault weapon to an individual under 16 years of age.”

So, essentially, it will end youth shooting sports. It will prevent young people from learning and training with semi-automatic rifles. It will kill off programs that teach responsible gun use and ownership, focus, and accountability to thousands of young people.

Worse yet, they’re using lies and misleading grieving families into becoming props for their abhorrent ends!

“Right now we live in a country where a suspected terrorist can go online to Instagram and buy and find an assault weapon that could be handed to a child at a gun range for shooting practice,” he said. “There is no other nation in the world where that is allowed to happen.”

WUT the hell?
WUT the hell?

Yeah, get this straight! You can buy guns on Instagram! And terrorism! And children!

That incoherent rant came out of Markey’s maw when he introduced this travesty on July 12th. Because we can’t pass up the opportunity to somehow work terrorism into a pack of lies to help pass an odious bill that will do nothing but destroy programs that teach thousands of kids competition, sportsmanship, and responsible gun ownership.

And worse yet, the two slimy fascists also tricked a grieving family into being poster children for their agenda!

The children of Charles Vacca, a firearms instructor, who died in 2014 when a 9-year-old learning to shoot an Uzi at an Arizona gun range shot him, have been roped into pushing the political agenda of Markey and Gallegos. This bill would ban the use of common semi-automatic rifles by young people under the age of 16. I’m fairly sure this is not what their father – an Army veteran and range instructor – would have wanted.

But this is how the gun grabbers operate.

They take advantage of tragedy. They try to tempt, cajole, and mislead grieving families of victims of tragic accidents with promises of definitive steps that they claim will increase safety and reduce tragedies such as the ones that took the lives of their loved ones. They promise their loved ones’ names will live forever in legislation which they promise will reduce future tragedies. They use their grief to their advantage. They promise a lot.

And they lie.

What the HEART Act will do is prevent the next generation of shooters from competing in their sport of choice.

What the HEART Act will do is prohibit young people from learning critical gun safety skills.

What the HEART Act will do is toss focused, disciplined, talented, well-trained kids like Shyanne Roberts, whom two years ago I called “The Future of Gun Rights in America” out of their competitions.

What the HEART Act will do is make Olympic gold medalists like West Virginia’s Ginny Thrasher, who just won the first gold for the United States in Rio, obsolete, much to the glee of gun grabbing, classless swine, who have taken to the Internet in an attempt to ridicule, ostracize, and demean Thrasher and the United States in order to condemn our rights and freedoms.

Jerks like this Brian Santa Maria, whose biggest accomplishment seems to be managing a Curves in California, would be only too happy to surrender the pride of the United States to quivering cowards like himself who would rather see us disarmed, unskilled, and subservient to petty tyrants.

What this reprehensible, fraud-ridden legislation will do is destroy youth shooting sports in the United States.

shyanneAnd this is exactly what a new organization called Youth Shooters of America and the Zelman Partisans want to prevent.

These types of legislative proposals pose a danger not just to Shyanne’s ability to compete, but also to other young people’s ability to learn gun safety, and hone discipline, skill, focus, and personal responsibility.

Education, not bans, will help prevent these tragic accidents. By banning the use of these firearms by young people, these legisleeches will do nothing but make them taboo and increase curiosity and accidents.

And by lying to grieving families and exploiting their anguish for political gain, these opportunistic swine are confirming themselves to be nothing but indecent, mercenary charlatans, who care about little else other than promoting their agenda.

Luckily, the Senate and House versions of this lunacy haven’t gotten any traction, and are currently languishing in subcommittee. The House version has six co-sponsors, and the Senate version has one – Dick Blumenthal – the same Dick who has repeatedly lied about his military service.

But as ridiculous as the majority of the current gun control proposals pending in the 114th Congress are, they may be more dangerous than we imagine.

They may not pass, but they change the landscape ever so subtly. They express concerns about “gun violence.” They push for funding for “gun violence research.” They have cutesy names like “Gun Show Loophole Closing Act,” express support for special “months” to be designated “gun violence” months, and they name odious, dangerous, tyrannical legislation after victims of crime and negligence.

Words matter. Language matters. How we describe our freedoms matters. When you allow change the ideological landscape to change, you are losing the battle for our rights.

And we cannot allow this to happen.

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Wearing Your Heart On Your Sleeve, Or Your Chest

Are you familiar with the old saying “So and so wears their heart on their sleeve”? It is supposed it originated when in the Middle Ages knights who fought at tournaments wore a token of their lady on their sleeves. Today if you make your feelings obvious to everybody you wear your heart on your sleeve.

That can be a bad thing, I’ll admit, it makes it easier for folks to know what you are thinking. But in this situation I’m thinking of now, it can be a good thing!

Have you ever wondered what you could do to help let people know about The Zelman Partisans? The no compromise, no surrender Jewish and friends Second Amendment rights group? Have you had trouble working that into a conversation? Say! How about the incredible weather, the price of corn futures and let me tell you about this great group I found! The one group that actually talked to Ted Nugent when he was accused of anti-semitism. The group that is having a contest for a historic Israeli Mauser, you have told your friends about that, right? Too much of a segue?

I have a far easier way for you to help TZP and a great conversation starter!

Others have listed their favorite items from the TZP store and products, I want to tell you about mine because it has been so helpful for me.

My favorite TZP gear is the items from the Queensboro store. I mean I really, really like Queensboro. They make it easy for me to look better. So here are a few of my favorite things (cue Julie Andrews here)

Warm weather choices
Warm weather choices

For summer, we have a buttercream yellow sleeveless polo and a peachy pink sleeveless polo. They are very professional looking. I can wear them either with jeans, capri pants for a slightly dressier look or slacks to look even nicer. There are also Tee shirts, the kiwi color is a very feminine cut with cute cap sleeves and the hunter green is a regular Tee shirt style. I’m sorry the pretty hunter green didn’t show up well, blame the photographer, me.

Sleeve Length Variety
Sleeve Length Variety

Tee shirts are always great, I have the three different lengths, the cap sleeve, the regular Tee shirt and the red is a long sleeve, for slightly cooler mornings or evenings. Also great as we move into fall!

Polo Shirts
Polo Shirts

Speaking of seasonal transitions, there are the most wonderful three quarter length sleeve polos! I have red and spring green. These really are very nice. Believe me when I say they are even suitable for interviewing politicians in foreign countries! And you will look nice and professional.

Cool Weather
Cool Weather

As we swing into fall and cooler weather we have you covered there too. I know, it’s a pretty miniscule joke. But we have lovely sweatshirts like the royal blue ladies cut that is adorable with a little cotton turtleneck shirt under it, and the pink zippy sweatshirt that has seen many races in cool weather and the two sweaters in gray and cerulean blue that when paired with slacks or even a skirt give a very put together appearance.

Baseball Cap
Baseball Cap

And last, but certainly not least if my hunter green and khaki baseball cap. This looks great with or without a ponytail hanging out the back. I wore it during Ethnic Festival. It was required. Well, sort of. It was required I have my hair covered. Most of the ladies wore a bandana, but our commissioner knowing where my heart lies had absolutely no problem with my wearing my TZP logo baseball cap. Considering that part of what I did was hand out the food orders, walk the grounds on various errands and occasionally interact with representatives from other countries a lot of people saw the logo.

I wear TZP logo wear almost anyplace I go. I’ve worn it to take my Mom to her doctor’s appointments. More than one doctor has said “Excuse me, I’m not staring at your chest, but I’m trying to read your shirt”. It’s so easy to smile back and reply “Awesome shirt isn’t it? It’s the Zelman Partisans, a Jewish and friends Second Amendment rights group”. “What do they do? Oh just LET ME TELL YOU!” And then I can tell them a bit about each of us and that we all write from different angles and cover a huge variety of topics. Most of the people I’ve talked to were very excited to find out there was such a group and where they could find us on the internet.

So if you’ve ever wondered how to start a conversation and tell people about TZP, let the Queen help you. No, not me, or the one in England, Queensboro. You too can get clothing from there and dress like a King or Queen. The quality of the items is EXCELLENT! I haven’t had colors fade and I line dry clothes, stitching is nice and everything holds up very well. The prices for the clothes I’ve purchased have been very reasonable. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Sizes for the things I have seem to run true to the charts as well.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, but sometimes on my chest too.

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Two ‘Must Reads’ on the Hebron Massacre of 1929

HebronView-lg

Guest Post (via Israellycool.com):

Hebron 1929 – My Grandfather Never Forgot
by Rachel Steinmetz

“Hebron. The media loves to talk about Hebron. Just this afternoon, as I strolled through Manhattan, Hebron flashed before my eyes. The fire engine red news ticker on the Fox News building displayed an urgent story about Hebron. Something about settlers, building permits, casualty counts. I quickly turned the corner. Hours away from the 87th anniversary of the 1929 massacre and ethnic cleansing of the ancient Jewish community of Hebron, faux controversy over building permits for Jews seemed pretty grotesque.”

“The stories of Arabs storming Jewish homes while police casually watched has been written many times over and I won’t elaborate on the details, but the barbaric savagery which left 67 murdered and dozens injured is beyond belief. Over a couple of days, the Hebron community was wiped out and Jews in Jerusalem, Safed, Tel Aviv, Haifa and moshavim were attacked, maimed, raped, robbed, looted and murdered in a variety of creative ways. The casualty list is a lengthy one.”

Read the rest here.

Then, read this account; the “Megillat Chevron” by survivor Ahron Bernzweig.

The “situation in the region” is not “complex” at all.  Some people just want you dead. Anywhere.  Anytime.  DEAD.

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Failure

TZP recently received a link to a story of victim disarmers in Rhode Island.

Despite increased public support, R.I. lawmakers fail to restrict guns
This legislative session was no better than the previous two in terms of legislation passed to increase gun safety and reduce gun violence. But the tide seems to be turning in efforts to break the stranglehold the National Rifle Association has over our legislature: The Rhode Island Coalition against Gun Violence commissioned a poll this session that showed that a high percentage of Rhode Islanders agreed with the legislation it supported.

The initially horrifying aspect of that screed is that it appears in The Jewish Voice. I will never understand the concept of Jews clamoring for their own disarmament

Yet some do. Our correspondent noted when sending the link:

There’s currently a push behind the scenes at the RI State Capitol by Liberal Progressives in the RI Jewish community (JCC and JCRC) speaking out against gun violence and going after pro-Second Amendment politicians in RI. Certain Rabbis in some Jewish Congregations are even encouraging members to sign “common sense gun legislation,” and anti-Second Amendment pledges to send to their respective RI State Representatives. They’re trying to either force Reps. to change their stance on gun control or vote them out of office.

In the wake of Heller, McDonald, not to mention the Holocaust, fools Like David H. Leach whine that legislators have “failed” to violate an enumerated right of defense. What other rights are TJC and Leach hoping to see violated? Will we see headlines like these?

  • I. Despite increased public support, R.I. lawmakers fail to restrict the Press
    Despite increased public support, R.I. lawmakers fail to restrict Jews
  • III. Despite increased public support, R.I. lawmakers fail to restrict homeowners
  • IV. Despite increased public support, R.I. lawmakers fail to restrict probable cause
  • V. Despite increased public support, R.I. lawmakers fail to restrict due process
  • VI. Despite increased public support, R.I. lawmakers fail to endlessly delay trials
  • VII. Despite increased public support, R.I. lawmakers fail to restrict trial by jury
  • VIII> Despite increased public support, R.I. lawmakers fail to eliminate bail
  • IX.Despite increased public support, R.I. lawmakers fail to restrict unenumerated rights
  • X. Despite increased public support, R.I. lawmakers fail to seize powers from the people

-sigh- Sadly, I’ve seen far too many headlines that pretty much do that. But I digress.

The goods news is that The Zelman Partisans aren’t the only Jews and fellow travelers who do get it. Our correspondent continues:

My friends (pro Second Amendment, pro Constitution Jews) and I will be organizing a “push back” beginning in September. Any help you could provide will be helpful and greatly appreciated.

TZP is preparing to support them in their effort. If you are in Rhode Island, or the region, please do your part locally. Contact Representatives and Senators, pro and con RKBA. Let the ones who protect our rights know you have their backs. Let the victiom disarming scum know you’re watching and will fight their disgusting efforts.

Don’t let the Bagel-brains destroy our rights.


Ed. note: This commentary appeared first on TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!

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Denial: So much more than an Egyptian river

A reader sent this link to Instagram, where someone has posted his own version of Aaron Zelman’s famous Star of David “gun owner” image.

Aaron may not have known what a meme was, but he created an indelible one. We just added our own sticker version to the store, and as far as we’re concerned, the more this meme gets around, the better.

But it’s the comments on the Instagram page that are notable — and chilling.

The poster repeatedly has to defend himself against accusations of everything from plain bad taste to absurd overstatement.

One comment in particular, from sierraechotangohotel (Seth), a self-identified proud American Jew, reminds us of the famous dictum that the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history. He writes, in part:

Just remember there is in no way shape or format any iota of comparison of the current state of firearms laws to the holocaust! I am a proud Jewish American and I just don’t understand what makes you think these two subjects are in any way comparable. If we lived in Venezuela where they are currently crushing firearms and making its citizens register it’s ammunition, I might understand then but we live in the greatest country this world has to offer!

You’ve got to wonder, don’t you, how many people in early 20th-century Germany, including Jews, thought their own country was the “greatest the world has to offer.” After all, it was a grand center of civilization and had been for centuries. It was the land of Goethe and Beethoven and Schiller. Of Schopenhauer and Kant and E.T.A. Hoffman and entire hordes of Bachs. Men of the mind. Men of the arts. Thriving in Germany’s orderly civil society.

What could possibly go wrong?

Except we all know what did go wrong — and how quickly.

(“Gun control” was an integral part of what enabled things to go bad. That and … that big Egyptian river.)

Still, Seth has a point. Nobody’s crushing firearms in America. Yet. Or at least it’s not being done widely. No one — well, hardly anyone — plans to register ammunition. Not here in the greatest country this world has to offer.

But what about Venezuela? They’re busily crushing guns there, terrified of violence in the streets. Never mind that most criminals in that desperate country are buying their firearms from equally desperate or simply corrupt police. Never mind that the problem isn’t so much guns as an economy in ruins beyond anything we prosperous first-worlders can imagine.

Venezuela was once the most prosperous — one could say the greatest — country in South America. It’s got some of the world’s biggest oil reserves. It had a long, noble tradition. So how long did it take for Venezuela to go from greatness to such hell that people can’t even buy toilet paper? Seventeen years. From the ascension of Hugo Chavez, who vigorously began implementing utopian Socialist plans in 1999 (to the applause of the world’s celebrities) to the muddle of his hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro. Seventeen little years.

Slightly less time than it took Hitler to go from demonization to destruction of Germany’s Jews. Slightly longer than it took for Germany to go from pre-WWI prosperity to hyperinflation to the Holocaust to bombed-out ruins.

Still, we’ve got nothing to worry about, right? As Seth says, there’s not a thing to be concerned about until the firearms are being crushed en masse and ammo being actively registered.

And by that impeccable logic, the Jews in Germany were perfectly sensible to stay put and stay happy until the boxcars started rumbling down the tracks.

TZP_gun_owner-sticker

—–

Get those stickers here. Share them with friends.

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Poll: The Next 2A Supreme Court Case

AK-74There have been several Supreme Court events pertaining to the Second Amendment during the past year.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-2 vote that domestic abusers convicted of misdemeanors can be barred from owning firearms.

The Court also refused to hear a challenge to the Connecticut “assault” weapons ban that outlaws many popular semi-automatic rifles, in effect allowing the ban to stand.

This year the Court also overturned a Massachusetts decision that determined that stun guns were not covered by the Second Amendment, siding instead with a woman who said she carried one as protection against an abusive former boyfriend.

In recent years, we’ve also seen Supreme Court victories such as Heller and MacDonald, so the Court’s Second Amendment record has been somewhat mixed.

Given what we know, which Second Amendment case would you like to see the Supreme Court take on next? Do you trust it to impartially rule on any gun-related issue?

 

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More Cool Stuff

We’ve added some more nice things to the Store. In Cool Gear you’ll now find this classy little item.

Classic Victorinox design and function. Knife, screwdriver/emory board, scissors, and toothpick; with a nice, if understated, Star of David. Perfect for your keychain. And only $23.95, plus shipping.

Get yours today. (Just leave one for me.)

And while we’re on the subject of cool stuff, make sure you’re entered to win:

Win This Historic Israeli Freedom Tool
 

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The Lesson of Yankel Rosenbaum

Yankel

Twenty-five years ago, following a tragic automobile accident, there was a pogrom in New York City.  It was arguably led by Al Sharpton, and repeatedly excused at the highest levels of New York political elites. During the three days of full-out rioting, an Australian rabbinic student, Yankel Rosenbaum, was viciously murdered for the unpardonable crime of being a Jew. The perpetrators even pulled a non-Jewish, Italian man from his car and savagely beat him, thinking him a Jew.

So, in answer to the question, “Can _it_ happen, here?” It HAS happened here. And, it almost certainly will happen again.

Why?

Fully a quarter-century later, the government of New York City’s Five Boroughs steadfastly refuse to allow their citizens tools for effective self defense.  Permission to have even a mundane, single-shot shotgun in your own home, is expensive, arduous, and complicated, in the extreme.  More effective tools are far harder to legally possess.  A handgun on your person?  Hell, the NYPD & Cyrus Vance will put you in jail and clean out your wallet for carrying a simple lock-blade knife like the one we offer here at Zelman Partisans!

The enemies of human liberty are always angling to keep the rest of us on the plantation, cane knives chopped blunt, dependent upon them, and their permission, for every human need.  To them, you, and your loved ones, are livestock.

Remember the lesson of Yankel Rosenbaum.

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We Are A Miracle

August 13, 2016 was the 9th of Av, or Tisha B’Av 5776. Since nothing is to mar the joy of Shabbat, it was observed on the 14th of August.

I realize, that’s yesterday, but I can’t let it go without sharing a couple things.

The first is something wonderful I got from my teammate, Y.B. a wonderful true story honoring the spirit and commitment of  Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam.

Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam
Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam

 Defiance on a Death March
The Klausenberger Rebbe z’tl on 9 Av

Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam became one of the youngest rebbes in Europe, leading thousands of followers in the town of Klausenburg, Romania, before World War II. His wife, eleven children and most of his followers were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

In the summer of 1944 the Russian Army moved west and pushed the Nazis further and further back across Poland into Germany. The Germans, in an effort to cover their crimes forced thousands of slave labourers on death marches across Poland. The Rebbe had previously spent time in Auschwitz and on a work detail in Warsaw, sifting through the rubble of the now vacant Warsaw ghetto on his hands and knees, forced to look for anything that might be of value for the Nazi war effort.

As the Russians moved closer the Rebbe along with 6000 other prisoners were forced to march for twenty miles a day, in the scorching Polish summer. The death camp of Dachau in Germany was to be their final destination of which just 2000 made it.

On the march, the prisoners were starved of food and water and any stragglers were shot immediately. On the day of Tisha B’Av (9th of the Jewish month of Av), Jews mourn the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem as well as many other disasters that have happened on this painful day. One of the signs of mourning of Tisha B’Av is that Jews remove their leather shoes (leather shoes being an inappropriate sign of comfort and luxury on this solemn day).

On this day and on this march, the Rebbe removed his shoes. Despite all that had happened to him, he refused to give up on the Jewish observances that made him who he was. The Nazis saw this as a sign of rebellion and decided to have some fun at the Rebbe’s expense. They made him march alongside the column on broken stones and gravel. They joked as his feet became bloodied and bruised.

At one point they thought he was trying to escape down the embankment so they shot him. He was hit in the arm and tumbled down the embankment. In an effort to stem the bleeding, he took bark and leaves from a tree and wrapped it around the wound. It was at that point in his life, when faced with such unimaginable pain, hatred and adversity that the Rebbe demonstrated forever that there is no depth from which the human spirit cannot rise.

It was at that point that he swore to God that should he survive he would build an institution based on the Jewish values of love, peace, equality and tolerance, all of the values the Nazis despised. He swore that he would build a hospital in the land of Israel that would epitomise everything the Nazis tried to destroy.

Today, that hospital is Laniado in Netanya.The hospital was built in 1974. After the maternity unit was opened, the Rebbe asked the nurses and staff to call him immediately when the first baby was born. A few days later he received the call with the good news. Upon hearing, the Rebbe said in a broken voice, ‘zeh ha nekama sheli’, ‘this is my revenge’. This is my revenge – life will defeat death, hope will defeat pain, compassion will overcome hatred.

May this Tisha B’Av be the last before our mourning is turned into joy and celebration.

And this one I have for you.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I seem to have some dust in my eye.

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