NOTE: If you agree with this post, please forward the link as far and wide as you can. (LATER: My thanks to Larry Pratt for the mirror on his Facebook here.)
They can jail us. They can shoot us. They can even conscript us. They can use us as cannon-fodder in the Somme. But… but, we have a weapon more powerful than any in the whole arsenal of their British Empire. And that weapon is our refusal. Our refusal to bow to any order but our own, any institutions but our own. -- Liam Neeson portraying Michael Collins, 1996.
Mike Bloomberg thought he was on a roll. In the wake of Sandy Hook, his money managed to buy unconstitutional legislation in Connecticut, Colorado, Maryland and New York. In the election just past, his money staved off defeat for two governors who did his bidding, although as Wellington said about Waterloo, it was "the nearest run thing you ever saw." Most importantly -- and the latest jewel in his anti-firearm crown -- his money and that of Bill Gates, Paul Allen and other like-minded elitists "bought the mob" (in the parlance of the Founders) with the success of I-594 in Washington state.
Yes, Bloomberg was on a roll. The so-called "mainstream" gun rights organizations, from the NRA to Alan Gottlieb's Second Amendment Foundation and all the smaller spin-offs in the affected states, had no answer to Bloomberg's millions and refused to put their own rivalries and jealousies aside to find one. This is hardly a surprise, since almost all of these groups have always been more about raising money to "fight gun control" than actually FIGHTING gun control. Each has been more obsessed with their own reputation in the collectivist-dominated press and their obsession to "win friends and influence people" in the middle. So, following their long-established patterns and refusals to think and act outside the boxes they placed themselves in, they lost. They lost in Connecticut, they lost in Maryland, they lost in New York, they lost in Colorado and now they have lost in Washington state.
In each case, Bloomberg understood his enemies, their foibles and their failures far better than they understood him. So he won and they lost.
But then something happened that Bloomberg in his arrogance never expected, something that the "mainstream gun rights organizations" for their part never expected either -- in every single state where Bloomberg had "won," it turned out that the victims of his unconstitutional laws had other ideas. And they didn't need "leaders" like Wayne LaPierre and Alan Gottlieb to lead them.
The "I Will Not Comply" movement in the various affected states began the instant Bloomberg's Intolerable Acts were passed. Individual firearm owners, led here and there by some courageous activists of the smaller rights groups who were not so worried about raising money and preserving their press image than their "betters," simply announced that they would not obey such unconstitutional laws. They refused to cooperate in their own disarmament. They refused to obey. If the government wanted to make them criminals, well, then, they would be criminals and they dared the authorities to do anything about it.
And the authorities did . . . nothing. When it became apparent that Connecticut was experiencing a stunning non-compliance rate approaching 85 percent, Mike Lawlor, the governor's appointed "gun commissar" in that state made threatening noises. But the raids did not begin. And now, almost two years later, they still haven't begun. In New York, the non-compliance rate is even higher, with county sheriffs even threatening to arrest state policemen who seek to enforce the SAFE Act in their jurisdictions. And Governor Cuomo has done . . . nothing.
In Colorado, on the day the magazine ban went into effect in July 2013, resisters gathered on the statehouse steps and broke the law. And the authorities did. . . nothing. After I announced on 20 April 2013 on the steps of the Connecticut state capitol that I had smuggled in forbidden magazines in violation of their diktat, Lawlor had the state police open a criminal investigation of me, but did . . . nothing. Since then my friends and I have smuggled in more such magazines to that state and the authorities have done . . . nothing. I even recently attended a gun show in CT simply to give the authorities a chance to arrest me if they felt froggy enough. And they did . . . nothing. The raids have not begun. The state and its newly felonized citizens have been looking at each other with firearms in their hands for almost two years now. Yet the other jackboot has not dropped. And the authorities, as with those in other states with Bloomberg Rules, don't know whether to defecate or go blind. Consequently they have done . . . nothing.
This refusal, this armed civil disobedience, reached its highest expression to date with the "I Will Not Comply" rally at the state capitol in Olympia on the 13th of this month. Two thousand armed people met, without a permit, defied I-594, held a successful rally without incident, and the authorities did . . . nothing. I was privileged to speak at this historic event as well. I will go back to Yakima in June for a planned gun show that will refuse to conduct the 594-required background checks and we will give the authorities a chance to enforce their new Bloomberg Rules.
And where are the "mainstream gun rights groups" in this national campaign of armed civil disobedience which has negated the results of Bloomberg's money, his so-called "victories"? Why, they're nowhere to be found. They have either condemned them or ignored them. In a recent interview, Alan Gottlieb, -- who was apparently vacationing in Hong Kong on the proceeds of his members' dues while the brave men and women of his state were risking arrest defying I-594 -- denied that the rally was in fact "armed civil disobedience" because, he ludicrously claimed, "most people there weren't armed."
And if you didn't get the underlying message, he went on to say "I don't think it helped us with the general public. It doesn't help us with the public or the legislators." And, he added, "I'm not a fan of armed civil disobedience."
Coming from a guy who has never risked more than a paper cut opening fundraising envelopes . . . coming from a guy who was willing to trade away national background checks in the immediate aftermath of Sandy Hook . . . this was hardly surprising. He will do what he has always done when confronted with Bloomberg Rules. If he cannot sue it, if he cannot lobby a "compromise" that gives up a little more of other people's essential liberties and property, he will do . . . nothing.
Yet such "leaders" risk exposure and irrelevance in the new shifting paradigm. Legal challenges on all these Intolerable Acts are working their way through the courts. All have, up to now, failed. Elections have been fought and lost. Lobbying has been redoubled. Indeed, in the same interview Gottlieb asserted that the emergency was so grave that they had hired another lobbyist!
But the practitioners of armed civil disobedience, the resistance behind enemy lines in Connecticut, New York, Maryland, Colorado and Washington state, have ALREADY NULLIFIED BLOOMBERG RULES. And Michael Bloomberg himself doesn't seem to know whether to defecate or go blind.
The failures of the "mainstream gun rights groups" to protect liberty and property from Bloomberg's assaults have forced the American people -- an eminently practical people -- to make their own arrangements. If this risks exposing the increasing irrelevance of such groups there is nothing we can do about it. (Although there is certainly something THEY can do about it -- thinking and acting outside the boxes of their own comfort zones would be a good start.) But the fact of the matter is that, as demonstrated now by almost two years of experiences THERE IS NO UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAW THAT MIKE BLOOMBERG CAN BUY THAT WE CANNOT NULLIFY WITH ARMED CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE.
Refusal is a weapon. It is a weapon that has been used to good effect in this country since the time of the Founders. Michael Bloomberg's Rules are negated by the Law of Unintended Consequences. And looking back on the past two years of expensive laws and craven legislators bought and sold that all of his "victories" required, Bloomberg must be wondering this Christmas why it is that someone crapped in his stocking. He should be celebrating. Instead he has been frustrated, as the Founders intended, by the refusal of the armed citizenry of the United States to bow down to him and his tyrannical kind.
Link.
For many residents, however, mass transit remained their only viable means of commuting to work. One of those New Yorkers was Bernard Goetz, a bespectacled passenger who looked, as Darrell Cabey later told Jimmy Breslin, “like easy bait.” He wasn’t, but Cabey and his three companions didn’t realize that until too late. Goetz had been recently robbed and assaulted, and was so incensed by the lenient treatment of his assailants that he’d sought permission to carry a licensed firearm. His petition was denied, but he bought one anyway, a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson, which he was carrying, hidden, on the fateful subway ride.
A comment to the blog post below this one. It is, of course, anonymous.
You won't let anyone comment on anything you don't agree with. You never have. You are a coward and a self promoting phony , who's only interest is your own overinflated ego. You long ago lost credibility with most of us because your sense of liberty is no better than the NSA's, so why worry about the comments of trolls? Because you are so drug addled and self deluded as to think your blog is somehow influencing the conversation? Nobody cares how many "rally's" you crash in your lust for self promotion. Your refusal to allow any voice but yours, Brands you as the same brand of statist you so loudly decry. No matter how many papers brand you a "leader". Only the left still cares.
Well, I guess he told me. Of course I might be more impressed if he had the guts to use his own name. But then, the real rabid ones never do.
Here is the face of your "instrument of justice": The Many Atlanta Mugshots of NYPD Cop Killer Ismaaiyl Brinsley.
Brinsley bought the gun he used to shoot his ex-girlfriend in Baltimore and the two officers here in Atlanta. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) is currently questioning the pawn shop in the Atlanta metro region that sold Brinsley the gun. . . Brinsley had active warrants out of Cobb County . . . for probation violation related to theft, firearm possession and criminal property damage charges. Brinsley was thrown into the Fulton County Jail nine times between 2004 and 2010. The offenses include simple battery, disorderly conduct, theft by shoplifting, criminal trespass, carrying a concealed weapon, possession of a knife during the commission of a felony, possession of marijuana, simple battery, and terroristic threats.
NOTE: All of the "kill all the pigs" comments are being deleted by me before they can be associated with this blog. I assure you that if that is what you truly believe and advocate you have not internalized the principles of the Three Percent and you should go find another hobby. Those of you who are merely federal trolls seeking to discredit the Three Percent via such messages ought to hang it up too. I instituted moderated comments early on because I was tired of neo-Nazis trying to hijack the blog. When I compare their collectivist hatred to those of a few recent commenters, there is little functional difference.
Bob Owens asks: What is wrong with these people?
C'mon, Bob. You've never heard of the Young Communists? The Hitler Youth? Collectivists ALWAYS try to achieve their aims through the weak minds of children. ALWAYS.
A centrist Democrat bemoans the collectivist wreckage of his party: "Time to Bring Back the Truman Democrats." The one thing he doesn't mention is firearms. If there is one issue that has consistently damaged his party over the years with the poor and middle class white voters that he seeks to reclaim it is firearm confiscation. It is also impossible to finesse that issue with the collectivists who control his party and their carefully constructed base that controls the primaries. How he hopes to do so is beyond me. It is the one thing the leadership and the base all agree on. The party he pines for is gone with the wind, and Harry Truman, like Generalissimo Francisco Franco, is still dead.
Now we know why he was smiling. He just spent three days partying in Hong Kong. Well, that's harsh. Maybe he was consulting with the ChiComs about the efficacy of background checks.
Fresh from world traveling to Hong Kong for "three days of fun" as he described it, Gottlieb appeared on the Mark Walters show as the quintessential Neville Chamberlain that we've come to expect.
Walters asked Gottlieb about I-594, inquiring whether we have another CT non-compliance campaign on our hands. Gottlieb answered, "I'm not expecting it in Washington state."
NOT EXPECTING IT?!? NOT EXPECTING IT?!? It's already a frigging fact! How Walters didn't choke in laughter is beyond me.
When Walters asked him about the fact of the armed civil disobedience of the "I Will Not Comply" rally, Gottlieb lied and said that it wasn't armed civil disobedience because "most people there weren't armed."
He added, "I don't think it helped us with the general public. It doesn't help us with the public or the legislators." He added, "I'm not a fan of armed civil disobedience."
Like we couldn't figure THAT out. The only thing he IS a fan of is other folks sending him money.
In the second segment, Walters asked how Gottlieb was going to try to change I-594 in the legislature. Without touching the subject of what compromises he was willing to make, he answered, "All the gun groups in Washington state have banded together and hired another lobbyist."
WOW! That's showing them, Alan. I'm sure Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Michael Bloomberg are quaking in their designer shoes.
LATER: It is evident that Gottlieb doesn't believe that the state usurping the long-standing right of individuals to exchange property freely is that big of a deal. Considering that he has indicated his willingness to concede that right in the past -- and not even King George the Third was that grasping -- this is perhaps not surprising. If you are expecting Gottlieb to fight that fight is to believe in the triumph of hope over experience. With fairy dust thrown in for good measure.
Alan Gottlieb's secret weapon for defeating I-594 -- Magic Fairy Dust.
Turn on the television and you will see the clips of marchers in NYC chanting "What do we want?" Answered by "DEAD COPS!" Followed by "When do we want it?" "NOW!" These clips are followed by much hand-wringing by the collectivist talking heads that people are making a connection between the anti-police rhetoric and actions of Eric Holder and the mayor of NYC (dubbed "Big Bird" by his critics) and the assassination of the two policemen.
"Wait," they demand, "you can't blame our First Amendment expressions for cold-blooded murder. The one has nothing to do with the other." Of course these are the same people who blamed Rush Limbaugh and the militia movement for Timothy McVeigh and the OKC bombing. They are the same people who blamed me for the Georgia Waffle House geezers whose "deadly plot" was conveniently uncovered by an FBI snitch.
So which is it? If they are not guilty, then I am not guilty. If Eric Holder is innocent in the present circumstance then so was Rush Limbaugh and the militia movement at the time of Oklahoma City. It is one or the other. If I am guilty then they are guilty. Or not. Pick one, you lying collectivist bastards, and own it.
Of course the larger question is not either/or nor is it a zero sum game. As I have written before, it is possible to criticize the militarization of police without embracing race rioting as a proper response. But the deliciousness of the collectivists' current discomfiture is marvelous for those of us who have been the victim of their lying propaganda for years.
Why is this man smiling? Alan Gottlieb, Washington state's own Neville Chamberlain in a bow tie.
David Codrea reports that Alan Gottlieb will be on Mark Walters' Armed American Radio tonight at 8:00 PM Eastern. From Walters' blurb:
"Alan Gottlieb updates on his travels and latest news of defiance out of Washington State against the new law."
"Latest news of defiance. . ." Hmm. The only "defiance" I saw while in Washington state was from Gavin Seim's band of brothers and sisters at the "I Will Not Comply" rally, which Gottlieb and his friends and associates (as well as the NRA) either denounced in advance or ignored.
Now I have no conduit into the mind of Mark Walters, but were I in his position here are some questions I would have for the man:
1. The I Will Not Comply rally of armed civil disobedience at the state capitol in Olympia last weekend was an apparent success -- the state police said there were at least 1,800 people in attendance and Mike Vanderboegh, one of the speakers, estimated it at 2,000. What did you think of the rally, its purpose of armed civil disobedience to I-594, and why did you not attend or endorse it?
2. Mike Vanderboegh as I noted in the first question was one of the speakers. He said the loss of I-594 happened, because of failures on the gun rights side. (And here I would play the snippet from my speech that goes as follows. The text is here.) --
"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 NRA cede the battlefield to him for he would claim the credit for the history. 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 time for any chair in a bar fight – regardless of who gets the credit afterwards."
Were I Walters I would then ask: "How do you respond to Vanderboegh's charge? Do you concede that mistakes of judgment were made by you and the NRA in the campaign against 594? Wasn't your own backing of a competitive measure a dilution of energy, money and resources that actually helped the success of I-594?
3. In the past, after Sandy Hook, you were willing to make compromises on background checks "in order to prevent something worse." You have announced that you will be lobbying the WA legislature to achieve changes in I-594. What are those, exactly?
4. Finally, the "I Will Not Comply" folks have announced that they will be having a background-check-free gun show in June on private property to deliberately violate I-594 once again. How do you fell about another huge act of armed civil disobedience in your state? Will you participate? Or will you denounce it here tonight?
Whether Walters asks those questions or similar ones, be sure and tune in to find out what Chamberlain-in-a-bow-tie has to say for himself. The links are at David's site linked above.
