A little free advice for Alan Gottlieb: "People who live in grass houses shouldn't throw lawnmowers."

"People who live in grass houses shouldn't throw lawnmowers." -- Officer Judy, Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, 1968.

Dear Alan,

You are by now doubtless wondering how you got yourself in this descending cycle of self-discredit over I-594. Having observed you up close and from afar for more than a decade now I know you to be an intelligent, if somewhat arrogant, man. So I offer this advice to you in the hope that your brain might yet -- possibly -- overrule your bruised ego. I begin by reminding you of something I said in my speech last month on the grounds of your state capitol. You will find the text here. Forgive me for repeating myself, but you evidently did not pay any attention to my words the first time so they bear repeating:

But we did not have to be here, at this place, with our backs to the wall, our firearms on our shoulders – forced into these awful choices. We are here because of failures -- failures of our own and failures of those entrusted to wage the political fight to secure our liberties from just the sort of threat that I-594 represented. If we are going to tell the truth to the domestic enemies of the Constitution, let us tell the truth to ourselves and to our allies in this fight.

For years gun rights groups have fought on the same battlefields using the same tactics and consistently, incrementally, sometimes almost invisibly, we've LOST. We've lost because we let the enemies of liberty define the battlefield. Yet having been pushed back, again and again, the people that we entrusted to defend our liberties politically are now insisting that WE ALL DO THE SAME THING AGAIN AND AGAIN because. . . well, because that is what they do. And if you don’t like it, if you don't like the fact that they are losing your rights for you, you simply need to send them more money SO THAT THEY CAN LOSE SOME MORE.

So let us be honest. Petty jealousies, touchy egos and cynical jockeying for position lost the political fight against I-594. The NRA did the minimum required to convince their members that they were doing something without really doing something because they did not want to ally themselves with Alan Gottlieb. For his part, Alan Gottlieb seemed happy to have the NRA cede the battlefield to him for he would claim the credit for the victory. ONLY ONE THING HAPPENED, THEY DIDN’T WIN. They lost. WE lost. And now we are here because grown men and women acted like jealous children. But it is time to cease acting like children. Because of our own failures it is time to stand up and act like adults. This is not a game with no consequences, and merely played for points. This is deadly serious. This is as serious as it gets. And as my friend David Codrea says, it is a time for any chair in a bar fight – regardless of who gets the credit afterwards.

And this means working with the very people whose mistakes are responsible for I-594’s win. The fact that we are here today, armed, pointing out that I-594 is trumped -- is NEGATED -- by the Law of Unintended Consequences, does not mean that the political fight is over. Folks, it's just getting started. We NEED the NRAs and the Gottliebs of this state to put away their petty jealousies and to fight – really fight – not to make deals that compromise essential liberty. We need them to work together.

We do need you, Alan, to defeat I-594. I am sorry that you didn't recognize those words of mine for the call to unity that it was. I'm sorry that your ego wouldn't allow for the introspective analysis necessary to change your behavior. You did everything you could to sabotage and denigrate the folks that put on the 13 December rally. This was much more evident behind the scenes than in front, for that is your style.

Still, I had hopes that you would recognize after the turnout of 2,000 folks, who risked everything in a show of armed civil disobedience, that there was something going on here that was entirely new. Instead, you dragged out the same old playbook -- compromise, compromise, send money, compromise -- even though a blind man could see that it was a recipe for more defeat.

The paradigm has shifted, Alan, and I had hoped someone as bright as you might have noticed it. This struggle is no longer something you can control. It is beyond compromise. For indeed, as I have written elsewhere, there is no compromise on background checks that we cannot wreck with armed civil disobedience.

The longer you pursue that course, the longer you make more and more enemies of principled people whom you ought to be working with, the greater the chances that the Law of Unintended Consequences is going to bite you and your fundraising operation in the ass. For example, after the latest revelations about your chosen Mini-Me, Adina Hicks, how long will it be before the anti-gun press begin to dig into the same manure pile, only with bigger and more lurid headlines? The more you attack people who ought to be your allies both in public and behind the scenes the more they will consider you to be as much their enemy as Michael Bloomberg. They may not have a lot of money, but they are not without resources and they have determination to burn.

To quote Officer Judy from The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour back in 1968: "People who live in grass houses shouldn't throw lawnmowers." This situation is not irretrievable yet, just critically close to being so. You can still back up out of your comfort zone and do a little out-of-the-box thinking. You are capable of it. The only question is can you swallow your ego long enough to do it.

Again, there is no compromise with such an unconstitutional infringement as I-594. It must and will be defeated. The only question is whether or not your reputation as a "defender of gun rights" will survive the battle.

Mike Vanderboegh