Now that Election 2014 has come and gone, and Bloomberg’s Everytown initiative suffered losses in nearly every arena, forcing him to waste $50 million on an effort Americans obviously oppose, it’s time to ask some questions about our rights.
Among the sea of rejection for the gun control mission, however, there were tiny spots of stupid that gave small victories to the gun grabbers.
Washington state (as if you hadn’t heard Gunsense drones crowing about it) has passed Initiative Measure 594 – a gun control measure that would require every person wishing to purchase a firearm – even those doing so via private sales – to get government permission to do so.
This, in essence, has banned private sales. When you insert a government transaction, done through an FFL, into a private transaction, said sale ceases to be private.
Was the initiative about safety? Anyone who has been following the gun rights debate for any length of time knows that safety has nothing to do with it. Criminals, for the most part, do not get guns through legal channels.
Basic economics indicate that as long as there is a demand, there will be a supply, and when you close off legal supply channels, the black market flourishes.
So it’s not about safety. So why is it that Washingtonians were so eager to cede their basic rights to government infringement, even though this measure has no hope of stopping crime?
Why hand over your rights so easily?
Make no mistake, these are rights.
The right to keep and bear arms is a natural right that stems from the right to life and the right to defend your life. Why allow petty elected tyrants to control what tool you use to do it?
What about the right to property? Why would you allow the government to intrude on your right to dispose of your property as you see fit? If it rightfully belongs to you, why would you allow any government to control to whom you sell it?
And lastly, why would Washingtonians subject their natural rights to a vote in the first place?
They decided this despite the fact that no loud, screeching, uninformed majority should ever be allowed to decide the fate of our natural rights with a push of a button.
That is not a decision any majority should be allowed to make. And yet Washingtonians not only allowed the right to keep and bear arms and the right to property to be limited by their fellow state residents, but also allowed those rights to be put on the chopping block in the first place.
Rights exist. They are not and should not be up for discussion, debate, or a vote.
As I look at the massive amount of “change” our country has endured since I was a child, I’m not feeling a lot of “hope”. I had long wondered how our country had gone from one of fierce independence, strong work ethic and Judeo-Chrisitian values to one where living on the dole is viewed as an entitlement to some people, and it comes with a free obola-phone. The fierce independence and looking after yourself and your family has become “let the government do it”, “wait for the police” and “there ought to be a law”. We are to have been a country ruled by law, not mobs. And we have moved so far away from that. “How could this happen?” A friend of mine on Facebook asked that the other day. This column was already percolating in my brain when he did. I may have some insight into it.
You know the old saying there is nothing really new under the sun? Well, many of the things we see in America now have been done before, and succeeded brilliantly for those that implemented the policies.
Let’s do a little compare and contrast, shall we?
There is a traveling exhibit from the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education called “nazi Propaganda”. No, I didn’t mean to capitalize nazi. There was an exhibit of artifacts and a lecture series that explored different aspects of the Propaganda.
“Propaganda is a truly terrible weapon in the hands of an expert”~~adolph hitler 1924
hitler had one of the best at propaganda Joseph Gerbils (Goebbels, yes, I enjoyed doing that too), who said that “Any man who still has a residue of honor will be very careful not to become a journalist”. That’s pretty rich coming from a one time journalist.
When hitler came to power in 1933, Germany had a very well developed communications system. There were 4,700 daily and weekly newspapers, a total circulation of 25 million. Of these 81% were locally owned, although there were some national ones that had even attained international recognition. When the nazis came to power in 1933, they owned less than 3% of the 4,700 papers. Through the elimination of the multi-party system the nazis gained control of the newspapers that had been run by those parties. The nazis used the press and radio to create fears of a communist uprising and then the populace was willing enough to accept limits and the curtailing of their liberties.
The nazis had a great ally in Julius Streicher who produced Der Strumer, a virulently antisemitic “newspaper” and I use that term loosely here. Mostly it ran articles on how the Jews were to blame for everything wrong, and they wanted to start a war while the rest of the world wanted peace. They ran horrible cartoons by “Fips” designed to isolate and dehumanize Jews. It ran from 1923 to 1945 and during the Weimer Republic was the receipient of many lawsuits by politicians and Jewish groups. It did not stop them though, and when hitler came along, it thrived. The nazi regeime also embraced the new technology of radio and television. They already had a thriving movie culture. With the creation of the people’s radio, hitler’s speeches could be broadcast everywhere, factories, homes and even the streets, and they were. The cheap mass produced radios had very few stations available on the dial, quite the shocker that, eh?
The German propaganda machine was also at work in the US and Britain believe it or not. In many news stories of the time the writing was done in such a was as to create fear among Americans and the British and leave them wanting to just get it over with and give in. Interestingly to me anyway, most of these stores came from the AP. Germany also forbid it’s citizens from getting any news from sources outside of Germany. But with the great radio shows on, why would they want to? I mean who could turn down hitler speeches and home making tips all in one broadcast? Besides, listening to the BBC was considered very treasonous, and punishable by prison time.
Propaganda was used to sell the majority who hadn’t voted for hitler (was it racist back then to demand voter ID?) that there would be this national community, it’s just that a few people wouldn’t be part of it. Germans by in large it seems, ate that National Community Hope & Change stuff up. It was necessary to convince them not to intervene when they saw their neighbors of many years being hauled off and their belongings taken away. The ghettos were posted with signs warning of health dangers, that was meant to discourage non-Jews from entering and seeing conditions for themselves. With the lack of sanitation, people starving and lack of medical care, that was somewhat true, but not why the nazis posted the ghettos. Films were staged in the ghettos to show the German people that the Jews bred and carried diseases. The goal with that would be to decrease any sympathy the Christians might have felt and any desire to help the Jews. The Jews were also portrayed as not caring about anyone but themselves. Films were also staged to convince the world that the Jews were being treated very humanely, and just in the camps for “re-education” to the nazi way of the thinking and life. Nothing to see here folks, move along.
Part of the goal of the propaganda was not so much to enlist ordinary Germans in killing the Jews, but to convince them not to intervene on the Jews behalf. After all, they weren’t REALLY human were they?
So, why is this relevant today? People would recognize the dangerous conditions and do something about it before it ever got this far again, right? No set of Americans would sit idly by while one segment of the population was marginalized and attacked by leadership would they?
How about people who believe the Constitution should remain the law of the land, and not ruling by pen and cell phone?
Would the government ever paint such people as “the enemy”?
The Media Research Center put together a lovely list of some of the worst attacks by the mainstream “media” on ordinary American Citizen. Curiously, the “media” was very supportive of Occupy Wallstreet.
So, while in Germany many of the newspapers MAY have been forced to regurgitate the party poop, in America it seems we see this kind of reporting, not because of being forced into it, but because the media itself is on board with the ideology of the current regime.
Anyone remember Candy Crowley from CNN a “moderator” (chuckle, chuckle, snort) helping the President out during the debate against Mitt Romney? Or who can forget the classic of CNN making it appear a semi-automatic rifle is a automatic by the way they talked during the “report”.
Speaking of ideology, when the media constantly calls a semi-automatic rifle an “assault rifle” and report on someone shot breaking into a house as a “gun shot victim” because the home owner shot him? Does that not seem to be allowing their ideology to drive the story, to influence people that haven’t a clue about guns? To convince people that the ability to defend themselves and their families from any kind of a threat is not something they should want.
I discovered the first time I went to Ireland and listened to the news on the radio as I was driving that the way I heard stories on the radio in Ireland was vastly different than the way they were presented at home.
Why would the media do this? Lie to citizens, target certain individuals (think Sarah Palin or Phil Robertson) certain businesses (Chik-fil-A or Hobby Lobby) try to isolate them, polarize and demonize them?
Some pretty good answers can be found in the film Grinding Down America. You can watch it on YouTube, but you have to find the different sections. Or, if you don’t mind the Spanish subtitles, the movie is in English, and it is well worth watching.
So, my first villain in “How could this happen”, is the media. And unlike Germany, the mainstream media in America is part of the problem, not the watchdog.
I mean seriously, if they can’t even report a story involving a gun correct AFTER it has happened, why do we even listen to them give a weather FORECAST?
Just create the indifferenceAllow none to show sympathy
How many times do we hear gun grabbers accuse us of itching for that next kill, being bloodthirsty, hoping we get to use our firearms to kill others?
I suppose it’s part of their public affairs tactic – make the enemy seem as unpalatable and unsympathetic as possible. Most of them don’t understand the difference between murder and killing – and if they do understand the difference, they have a tendency to gloss over it in order to paint the adversary as a monster.
As in English there are two different words: “retzichah” for murder, and “harigah” for killing.
It is obvious that not all killing is murder, for the Bible itself imposes the death penalty for certain crimes! Jewish Law also says that if one sees person A about to murder person B, one is allowed to save B with lethal force—if necessary.
Some killing is justice, allowed by law – both in Jewish law and in United States statutes – and frankly, I know of no one who would claim defensive actions that result in death and outright murder are one and the same.
Of course, that doesn’t stop those who labor to relieve us of our basic rights as human beings from glossing over the difference.
A Twitter user (or more likely a brainless bot) by the moniker of @usgunviolence6 (if this is the sixth account this liar uses, I wonder whether the other five accounts were deleted by Twitter) makes it a mission to post every incident of what it calls “gun violence” it can possibly find on the Internet. It doesn’t matter whether the incident was a case of self defense, negligence or outright murder. It doesn’t differentiate, and by glossing over the nature of the incident, it attempts to ignore certain details.
The above link wasn’t just a random murder committed against Mr. Jess. Dean Randolph Jess was an escaped inmate – a monster who raped a child. Twice. Not that it matters to “US Gun Violence.” It simply posts the link and attempts to paint it as just another person killed in the United States by a gun.
Let’s ignore for a second the fact that this… thing… does a full body, naked dance in the blood of every innocent who is shot in order to promote its repulsive, anti-freedom agenda.
The dishonest attempt to paint the death of an escaped rapist as just another “US gun death” is beyond the pale, but nonetheless par for the course for those who seek to destroy the Second Amendment.
Lack of honor is their trademark, emphasized by the fact that they constantly accuse gun owners of waiting impatiently to fire their weapons at someone. They don’t understand how much agony, how much courage it takes to end another’s life. They weep for the criminals, and excoriate those who dare take responsibility for their own safety and the safety of others as bloodthirsty savages.
Barbara Waters GriffinI just wouldn’t feel any safer with a gun toting “can’t wait to shoot someone” person in a store with 50 more gun toting ” can’t wait to shoot someone ” people than I would with 1 criminal……….because either way there will be innocent people shot….
This is the kind of sick, hysterical attitude gun grabbers have toward their fellow Americans. They like to portray them as toothless rednecks who want to shoot someone just for the hell of it.
The truth is far from it.
Even police officers who kill someone in the line of duty have visceral reactions to having to take a life.
Although every experience is different, officers who take a life often experience severe bouts of depression, alcoholism, marital problems, sleepless nights and feelings of being alone in the aftermath.
A fear of admitting a weakness often results in more severe problems for the officer.
“It’s not something anyone should have to go through,” Garrison said. “The emotion of it never ends. It changes who you are.”
Regular gun owners go through the same range of emotions. A year ago, Gareth Long fatally shot a home invader who was breaking into his house in the middle of the night. Not only did Long warn the intruder he was armed, but he begged – BEGGED the bastard not to make him shoot him. The invader approached the family anyway, and Mr. Long was forced to take the steps necessary to protect him and his family.
“It wasn’t just one life taken that night — there were three lives taken that night,” Gareth Long said. “It was his life and our lives. It will never be the same for us, ever again.”
Worse yet, the drug addled vermin who entered his home was high on drugs, and the nephew of the local mayor, so the Longs had to face the town’s wrath, as well as a police and grand jury investigation.
Think it was easy? Think this is something every gun owner hopes for? “It was the worst experience I’ve ever had,” Gareth Long said.
In 1954 a pilot named William Bonnell shot and killed a teenage thug who attempted to hijack a plane full of innocent people. Raymond Kuchenmeister was 6’5” tall and weighed over 250 pounds. He was by all standards a large man, who, according to reports, had to be removed from the airplane by four men and some baggage-moving equipment. He was a threatening presence – intimidating and aggressive both due to his size and the stolen gun he was brandishing.
William Bonnell shot this “kid.” He legally carried a gun (because in those days, that’s what pilots did), and he chose to use that gun to save the lives of the passengers on his plane.
William Bonnell was indelibly changed by what he had to do. He was so affected by this tragedy, he never fired that gun again, and could barely complete his flight that day. He was an expert marksman, but he never again picked up a firearm. The overwhelming decision he had to make that day saved lives, but had a profound effect on his own emotional well-being. I had spoken with Bill Bonnell’s son at the time I wrote this story, who gave me a complete picture of what his father was like.
Bill Bonnell was the only pilot available to make the scheduled flight that day, so even though he was obviously shaken by earlier events, he was forced to make the return flight from Cleveland to Fort Worth.
Upon learning that Kuchenmeister died en route to the hospital, Bill Bonnell returned to Cleveland and contacted the teenager’s family.The family of Raymond Kuchenmeister planned no funeral service, and had apparently all but disavowed him, so William Bonnell – a father himself, a pilot, and a hero who was forced to do the unthinkable – paid for a funeral service and the burial for a disturbed youth who nearly killed him, his crew, and the men, women and children aboard his plane.
He didn’t consider himself a hero. This was an incident that had changed him – profoundly so – and he didn’t speak of it much to anyone. Those who knew him, those who were on that plane July 6, 1954, friends and family knew how deeply Bill Bonnell cared – how profoundly he was affected by what he had to do – he was a hero. But he was a hero who never got over having to shoot a man at close range – a teenager who was threatening to kill a plane full of innocent people.
These are the types of people gun grabbers refer to as “extremists” and “gun touchers,” and accuse them of being excited about the prospect of killing another human being.
Remember what they think of you. Remember you are the enemy to them – faceless, soulless, and barely even human. Remember they will paint you as monsters in order to promote their agenda, without actually giving any thought to what is in your heart.
I know I sound despondent, but I think what I really am is realistic.
I hate the term ‘anti-semitism’. As you may know, it was coined and popularized by the German agitator and writer, Wilhelm Marr, in 1879. He did so as a way to put a more genteel face on the venerated practice of Jew-hatred, in order that it might gain wider acceptance. It worked marvelously.
The issue I have with the term is its very greasiness and breadth. It encompasses everything from the off-color joke or the social snub, to bashing the brains of a child out on a block wall, or the mass graves of Babi Yar, and everything in between.
Jew hatred is as old as Jews, themselves. It has been seen nearly everywhere where Jews have lived, and strangely even in places where they are not.
Thankfully, since the Jacob Frank trial, REAL Jew-hatred, has been pretty rare in America. Even in Europe, after the overreach of the Nordic Supermen, and their supportive clergy, the worst of it had been tamped down… for a while.
Still, since the Holocaust, Jewish organizations have complained loudly about what, outside of the Mideast, has been fairly mild insult. Decades of complaint and fund-raising has been made on the thinnest of excuses. So much so, that they risk self-parody.
Today things are rapidly changing. But, for the worse.
A subset of the adherents of Islam is pursuing their plans with renewed fervor. They increasingly have the means and motivation to strike anywhere in the world.
Governments and their crony-capitalist sponsors, mortified at the impending collapse of their Ponzi Schemes, are becoming far more intrusive, brazen, and violent.
The victims of the latter group, impoverished, or worse, are seeing that the ‘civics class’ version of prospering through hard work and following the rules is leading to a dead-end.
All free, peace-loving men and women are today in increasing, and very real, peril.
The acceptance of the claim that Jews are conspiratorial malefactors is gaining traction again. The ‘Buford Furrows’, ‘Khmelnitsky’s’, and ‘Nosairs’ have always been among us, but they are breeding, now. Metaphorically, and actually. As always, the Jew is the natural scapegoat. It’s a tradition.
As the proverbial “Canary in the Coal Mine”, there is today, an increasing risk of physical harm to obvious Jews, and to synagogues and Jewish social facilities.
In Manhattan, the Met, in an operatic production of “The Death of Klinghoffer”,celebrates the violent hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, and the terrorists’ murder an old Jew in a wheelchair, throwing him and his chair into the Mediterranean . Invoking “art”, the Met’s General Manager, Peter Gelb intones moral equivalence between the old Jew and his killers, while sequestering all protestors far away in a media-free “Free Speech Zone” ghetto. Incitement grows.
In Europe, Jewish leadership advises keeping a low profile. No kippot. No “Jewish” jewelry. No pro-Israel sentiments on cars, homes. Slip in to shul the back way. Go to the grocery store in groups. Otherwise gangs of violent “Asians” will beat the snot out of you, or worse. Their governments beg the public to clamp their eyes shut and deny the growing reality.
Recently, in a south Florida residential area, an old chossid walked to shul on a Saturday morning, and was gunned down. The police claimed it must be a pan-handling robbery gone wrong. The family pointed out that observant Jews do not carry wallets and money on Shabbat, and that it was common knowledge to the non-Jews in the area, from prior pan-handling approaches. No, he was killed because… well… you know.
Over the past few years many rabbis have communicated with their counterparts in foreign lands around the globe and, for once, see the problems for what they are. They have watched their counterparts murdered, their community members attacked, and worse.
All indications are that the thin veneer of society may be peeling up in a neighborhood near you.
So, I take great joy in a recent, yet still very much underground, trend: discretely armed Jews, skilled in weapons and tactics, in synagogues and community centers!
Not only is this happening without objection from the rabbis; they are taking the lead. They are seeking out certain people, (often Israeli or American veterans) and are now BLUNTLY ASKING them for help.
Moreover, to avoid carrying on Shabbat, etc., they even are arranging for guns (even shotguns!) to be readily at hand in their facilities.
Paralleling this change, I am seeing a move away from relying on police and their delayed/lackadaisical response, clipboards, and chalk outlines. As the saying goes; when seconds count, they are only minutes away.
Compared to the attitude held by these same synagogues, and their leadership, only a few years ago, this change in attitude is a huge, healthy, and most welcome development.
It is my hope that this same trend is quietly, but quickly, growing in other religious and social communities, especially in the urban areas. If it is not, it is not too late to encourage it. But, if you wait, it may soon be.
You know what they say about elections. “No matter who you vote for, the government gets elected.” Or “If voting could change anything, it would be illegal.”
It’s also been said that elections are advance auctions of stolen goods and (unlike the legitimate acts of self defense and justice described by Ilana and by commenter Tahn) that voting is a form of violence because it’s trying to force our will on others.
So true. I try not to think of elections as anything more than a team contest, sort of like the Super Bowl or the World Series, but for people with less talent. This month I care very much, though. Mostly I care in the same way I might care about who wins the SuperBowl. It might be dramatic or suspenseful to see if the R’s beat the D’s for the Senate as most oddsmakers are saying, but life and freedom probably won’t depend on whether Joni Ernst grabs that Senate seat from Iowa (though I like her) or Mary Landrieu has to go into a runoff election in Louisiana (though I’d like to see that political biotch driven back into the bayous, never to be seen again).
The thing I really care about this month has nothing to do with politicians and everything to do with common people and our rights. I’m talking about initiative 594 in Washington state. Even for people who don’t live in or near Washington this is a big one.
Since you’re reading gunblogs I suppose you already know that I-594 is the anti-gunners’ dream this year. Under the pretense of being ‘only’ a universal background check bill (common sense, you know!), it would criminalize nearly all transfers of firearms, including the most helpful, innocent, and momentary. Loan a gun to a friend in need? Felony. Instructor hands a gun to student and student hands it back? TWO felonies. So on so on so on.
Because this is just about the only victim disarmament measure on the ballot anywhere in the U.S. this year, the Billionaire Brigade has poured money into it by the millions. Of course Washington state has quite a few homegrown anti-gun billionaires like Microsofties Bill Gates and Paul Allen, plus Nick Hanauer (a Jew who ought to come here and read some of the posts by Ilana and Y.B. if he thinks leaving people helpless is what Judaism is about), but naturally Bloomberg is in for his million, too.
The pro-gunners are way out spent and, according to every poll, also outnumbered. The NRA came in late with its anti-594 money and Washington’s biggest homegrown (supposedly) pro-gun activist, Alan Gottlieb, proved his true intentions once again by getting another measure on the ballot (I-591) that appears to protect rights but in fact doesn’t “give” anybody anything they don’t already have and sets the stage for later federal UBCs. So another million or so that could have been spent to fight 594 got diverted into supporting 591.
The big reason the fight against 594 matters even to people who live elsewhere is that if Washingtonians can kick 594 to the curb, it’ll be the best sign ever that bigoted billionaires should spend their money on something other than disarming the common people. On the other hand, if 594 wins, it’ll just encourage them to keep hammering at us and our rights.
The polls all say 594 is not only going to win but win big. They may be wrong. They’ve been dead wrong about gun rights in Washington before. (For a blue state, it has decent gun laws.) They’ve been polling registered voters, not likely voters. I’ve also got to wonder how much of the polling covered only the Puget Sound urban area (already leaning anti-gun and the place where the billionaires have been pouring all their ad money). If the pollsters have missed a lot of likely rural and eastside (that is east of the Cascades) votors, they’ll be dead wrong.
So this year I’m watching and caring and I’d even say if you live in Washington state get the heck out and vote against that awful thing.
There’s also the possibility that both 594 and 591 will pass and then the championship game of gun rights, or at least the NW Regionals of gun rights, will go into some long and probably pretty weird overtime.
Free people will keep their rights no matter what. The Billionaire Brigade and their useful idiots can’t vote them away, but we shouldn’t even give them the illusion that they can make a successful try.
“Tzedek, tzedek tirdof,” we are instructed in Deuteronomy 16, 18-20. Translated this means, “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” The repetition is for emphasis. (The biblical narrators were super hot writers.) This tells me that Jews are enjoined against pacifism.
Do you agree?
“Violence breeds only violence” is a pacifistic plum line one hears a lot. This particular New Age guff equates reasonable punishment with violence. While it can include violent methods, reasonable punishment is not the same as violence. When we follow an unprovoked act of aggression with a proportional act of retribution, and when we punish only the guilty—no collateral damage—then we are doing justice, not violence. We do justice not only for the purpose of vindicating those harmed or killed, but because justice, like liberty, is the foundation of a peaceful and orderly society. To ignore the imperative of justice is to be in revolt against the natural law; the law of reason, which precedes and transcends man-made law.
Besides, if man is said to have been created in the image of God, then refusing to defend this awesome representation of the Almighty on earth would seem somewhat sacrilegious, surely.
David B. Kopel’s deductive leap of logic sanctioning a certain war, which shall not be mentioned or discussed here, is wrong, in my opinion. However, “The Torah and Self-Defense,” in which Kopel “surveys the Torah’s teachings on the right and the duty to defend oneself and others,” is well-worth reading.
“There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury and ammo. Please use in that order.”
I listened to a radio show the other morning and the host was talking about how it seems like the mainstream media is downplaying the importance of this coming election. That is really won’t be all that important. This is not the case. It is very important. If it weren’t I don’t think we would be seeing the reports of touchscreen voting machines that seem to be changing Republican Votes to Democrat votes. Interestingly, there don’t seem to be reports of it going the other way which is sort of shooting a hole in the stock reply from officials it’s a “calibration error”.
So, my first bit of helpful advice for the upcoming ballot box trip, is carefully check your summary and make sure that the votes it shows are the ones you actually wanted to make.
Second tip. Who can you rely on to give you accurate suggestions when it comes to voting for pro-gun candidates? While what I’m going to say may sound like heresy, it’s not. Nor am I “attacking” the NRA. But when those little orange cards come to your house, or that handy voter guide is in the magazine, please, please, please do not let that be your only source of information.
While the TZP (The Zelman Partisans) are NOT making political endorsements, I do have a suggestion along those lines. I would suggest you go to Gunowners of America and check out their voter guide.
Why you ask? Well, let’s take this one race. In West Va. The NRA has endorsed Nick Rahall. They have given him an “A”. He is the incumbent. The endorsed him over Evan Jenkins, who has his own voting record. GOA gave Rahall a D- and gave his opponent Evan Jenkins an “A” rating.
That’s a pretty big difference. But also remember the NRA gave anti-gun Harry Reid a “A” rating and it cost Nevada and America a solid Second Amendment Senator, we could have had Sharon Angle.
I know there were some problems in Missouri when the NRA endorsed the late Ike Skelton who at the time had been voting WITH Nancy Pelosi 98% of the time. I’m not sure how that managed an A rating, but it did.
I can only guess at why they rate candidates the way they do. I’ve heard they prefer to endorse a candidate they think will win, so that their endorsement win level appears high. That probably explains their preference for endorsing incumbents. Another thing to consider is what kind of “gun legislation” does the NRA consider important. If you want state sovereignty gun legislation, know that the NRA does not. Missouri and Florida have both tried to pass a state version of a “Second Amendment Protection Act” only to see it sabotaged by the NRA. Wyoming has also had fights with the NRA on expanded background checks, but Wyoming has a very strong grassroots Second Amendment group, Wyoming Gun Owners, and it seems they win some of their fights. Wyoming does have a Firearms Freedom Act.
So am I trashing the NRA? No, but if I’m going to urge you to check other sources for voting guidelines, I should give you a few reasons for that statement. Yes, the NRA does some good things. I love the Eddie Eagle program. But if you are an activist that wants a version of a Firearms Freedom Act or a Second Amendment Protection Act, then understand the high grade that you see on the orange card may not actually mean what you think it means!
Our country is in a very pecarious postion, we can not afford to make mistakes. I think the GOA voting guide will be your best source for accurate guidence on the candidates.
Please, this coming Tuesday, utilize the ballot box, we do not ever want to be in a position to have to utilize the cartridge box.
As someone who is hardly new to liberty (I began writing a weekly newspaper column in 1998, in Canada), but who takes her cues about Aaron’s legacy from individuals who were closely associated with him, forgive me for asking: If The Zelman Partisans is open to any and all—and I like the idea of inclusiveness in this cause—what makes us Jewish? I’m agnostic on the matter, if curious on just how we stay true to the advertized motto of “Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.”
Reporter Lee Williams, aka The Gun Writer, has a regular column in the Sarasota, FL, Herald Tribune. He knew Aaron and was aware that JPFO had been handed off to the Second Amendment Foundation. So when he saw via Twitter that there was a new gun group in town following in Aaron’s footsteps, he jumped right in.
He opens:
Aaron Zelman was a titan within the gun-rights community.
The group he founded in 1989 — Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership — mimicked his bold, uncompromising personality and his truth-telling style.
Zelman and the JPFO called out anti-gun politicians, many of whom represented districts in the Northeast. He had a loud, powerful voice lawmakers learned to respect if not fear.
Some of Zelman’s tactics, though effective, could appear controversial to the uninitiated.
He once paired a picture of a saluting Adolf Hitler with the caption: “All those in favor of gun control raise your right hand.”
A classic, that.
Zelman never compromised in his support of the Second Amendment, or any other amendment, and his members loved him for it.
As TZP’s own Sheila Stokes-Begley noted in her interview with Williams, people have given us a tremendous response. People have been asking how they can join and have told us they want TZP logo tee-shirts, fridge magnets, and other swag. We’re workin’ on it, guys. With your help and support, a lot will soon be happening.
Williams got just one small detail wrong in his report (which is really pretty good these days). He’s right that we don’t yet have a button to allow people to join. But we do have a button for donations. Check it out: top right of the page. AND we already have our first two generous donors.
That’s pretty good for a site that been online only a few weeks. We’ll be putting those donations and our behind-the-scenes energies into building an organization that you can join and can be proud of — an organization that will carry out Aaron’s mission. And even if nobody left on earth can conduct Aaron’s mission in Aaron’s unique style, we’ll give you our best.
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A personal note: Kudos to my fellow TZP founders — Jo Ann for hosting and site building, Sheila for dynamic public relations, Nicki for more things than I can name but especially social media skills (JPFO lost a dynamo when it lost Nicki), and Brad for good humored moral support. Kudos to all the TZP bloggers, especially our two newest, the famous Ilana Mercer and the more-humble-than-he-needs to be newcomer, Y.B. ben Avraham. What a privilege and a delight it is to be in your company.
And BIG kudos and thanks to Lee Williams for giving us such a superb and honest media launch.
It’s Tuesday morning, and I ran across this video that I felt I needed to share with you. There’s not much left to say that Aaron Weiss didn’t say in this flawless 3-minute speech.
It’s eloquent and true. Those of us who volunteered to serve in the Armed Forces know why we did so – and it’s not for that generous $1800 per month you receive as a PFC.
I graduated Johns Hopkins with a degree in International Relations, and there was little doubt in my mind about what I wanted to do. I gave it some thought for a few months, but in the end I joined the Army.
I joined, because I understood what it’s like to live in a tyrannical state where rights matter about as little as human beings do.
I joined, because I wanted to defend the freedoms and opportunities this nation afforded me – freedoms the former USSR, Nazi Germany, and every other statist hellhole has destroyed.
I joined, because when I came to this country as a kid, I realized that I had opportunities here to live, achieve, and succeed that I would have never had as a Jew in the USSR.
And I was grateful. I was grateful enough to put on that uniform and swear an oath to defend our Constitution and those freedoms with my blood and my life.
Regardless of who resides in that White House at 20220, that oath and that promise remains the same. Politicians come and go. We may agree with them, nor not. But our oath and our promise remains: should any enemy threaten our country, our Constitution, or our people we will be there.
The young man in this video understands this. He served to protect those rights we hold dear. He continues to do so on a local level as a law enforcement officer. And he let those statist swine in New York know that he – as a veteran and law enforcement officer – will actively oppose their efforts to destroy everything he swore to protect…
…and do so by hypocritically using the deaths of children at Newtown to do it.
Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
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