Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The "Gun Lobby" is YOUR last line of defense, E.J., not the other way around. (An Open Letter to the WaPo's Arsonist of Civil Order.)

"They've got us surrounded, the poor bastards." The 101st Airborne at Bastogne.

E.J. Dionne is upset that the Lightworker apparently doesn't want to start a civil war and burn the country down to the ground around all our ears. YET. My open letter to the silly putz follows.

Mike
III

Who Will Face Down the Gun Lobby?

By E.J. Dionne Jr.Monday, April 20, 2009

Try to imagine that hundreds or thousands of guns, including assault weapons, were pouring across the Mexican border into Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California, arming criminal gangs who were killing American law enforcement officials and other U.S. citizens.

Then imagine the Mexican president saying, "Well, we would really like to do something about this, but our political system makes helping you very difficult." Wouldn't Mexico's usual critics attack that country's political system for corruption and ineptitude and ask: "Why can't they stop this lawlessness?"

That, in reverse, is the position President Obama was in last week when he visited Mexico. The Mexican gangs are able to use guns purchased in the United States because of our insanely permissive gun regulations, and Obama had to make this unbelievably clotted, apologetic statement at a news conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderón:

"I continue to believe that we can respect and honor the Second Amendment rights in our Constitution, the rights of sportsmen and hunters and homeowners who want to keep their families safe, to lawfully bear arms, while dealing with assault weapons that, as we know, here in Mexico, are helping to fuel extraordinary violence.

Violence in our own country as well. Now, having said that, I think none of us are under the illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy."

In other words: Our president can deal with all manner of big problems, but the American gun lobby is just too strong to let him push a rational and limited gun regulation through Congress.

It's particularly infuriating that Obama offered this statement of powerlessness just a few days before today's 10th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado -- and just after a spree of mass homicides across the United States took the lives of least 57 people.

No other democratic country in the world has the foolish, ineffectual gun regulations that we do. And, unfortunately, what Obama said is probably true.

Earlier this year, when Attorney General Eric Holder called for a renewal of the ban on assault weapons -- he was only repeating a commitment Obama made during the presidential campaign -- the response from a group of 65 pro-gun House Democrats was: No way.

Their letter to Holder was absurd. "The gun-control community has intentionally misled many Americans into believing that these weapons are fully automatic machine guns. They are not. These firearms fire one shot for every pull of the trigger." Doesn't that make you feel better?

Those Democrats should sit down with Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. "Time and time again, our police are finding themselves outgunned," Rendell said in Harrisburg last week. "They are finding themselves with less firepower than the criminals they are trying to bring to justice."

The Democratic governor told his own state's legislators that if they didn't support such a ban, "then don't come to those memorial services" for the victims of gun violence. "It's wrong," he said. "It's hypocritical."

And why can't we at least close the gun show loophole? Licensed dealers have to do background checks on people who buy guns. The rules don't apply at gun shows, which, as the Violence Policy Center put it, have become "Tupperware Parties for Criminals."

But too many members of Congress are "petrified" of the gun lobby, says Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), a crusader for sane gun legislation ever since her husband was killed and her son paralyzed by a gunman on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993.

Family members of the victims of gun violence, she says, are mystified by Congress's inability to pass even the most limited regulations. "Why can't you just get this done?" she is asked. "What is it you don't understand?"

Obama, at least, should understand this: He was not elected by the gun lobby. It worked hard to rally gun owners against him -- and failed to stop him.

According to a 2008 exit poll, Obama received support from just 37 percent among voters in households where guns are present -- barely more than John Kerry's 36 percent in 2004. But among the substantial majority of households that don't have guns, Obama got 65 percent, up eight points from Kerry. Will Obama stand up for the people who actually voted for him?

Yes, I understand about swing voters, swing states, the priority of the economy and all that. But given Congress's default to the apologists for loose gun laws, it will take a president to make something happen.


TO: ejdionne@washpost.com

An Open Letter to E.J. Dionne: The "Gun Lobby" is YOUR last line of defense.
re: Who Will Face Down the Gun Lobby?"
Mr. Dionne,

Ho Chi Minh once cautioned his followers to "cherish your enemies, they teach you the most valuable lessons."

Ensnared by your own prejudices and cut off from a complete sense of reality by your isolation from other folks (us) who do not agree with your world view, citizen disarmament advocates such as yourself present our side of the argument with a moral dilemma. Should we explain to you how little clue you have about the dangers you face or should we just let you walk forward unwarned into a minefield that you unwittingly made yourselves?

As an owner of the types of heretofore legal semi-automatic rifles you are seeking to ban, I will try to save you from your own worst impulses.

What you must understand is that the old political verities no longer apply. You berate Obama and other members of his party for failing to embrace further gun control while you are in ignorance of the fact that there are gun owners far more uncompromising than the NRA who refuse to obey any more gun restrictions. Such "bitter clingers" are known as "Three Percenters."

If such a law as you propose is passed, we will resist it and defy you to enforce it upon us. And the Government, being the government, will attempt to do just that. Shots will be fired and the next American civil war will be joined.

Now, as we come from entirely different world views, you may not believe this. It is nonetheless true. And as an advocate of other people's disarmament and the official theft of their liberty and property, you should hope that they don't choose to play by Bill Clinton's rules should push come to shove.

Surely you recall when Clinton decided to expand the rules of engagement with the Serbs in 1999, declaring that the political, media and intellectual underpinnings of their regime were legitimate targets of war? Do the precision guided munitions he had directed into the headquarters of Serbian Television and Radio ring a bell?

At the time this was roundly condemned by free speech and press advocates all over the world, and rightly so. Yet, the precedent WAS set, the point WAS made. Can you be entirely confident that it won't be invoked once more against you?

Here's the thing about "enemies lists" such as Napolitano's "Right Wing Extremists" report -- the sloppy scholarship represented by the elisions and conflations of the very real differences between veterans, constitutional militias and small government activists and mad dog white supremacist terrorists convinces all of us that we are intended victims regardless of what we believe. And the dangerous thing about "enemy of the people" lists in the real world is that they work both ways.

So cherish the "gun lobby." The way many on our side see it, as long as they exist and are able to use traditional politics to protect our rights, they protect YOU from uncompromising gun owners and not the other way around.

This may not be the "hope" and "change" you were looking for, but it is the hope and change you got.

I expect to be in Washington in the month of June and would welcome the chance to discuss these issues and answer any questions about the great percentage of your countrymen of whom you seemingly know so little.

Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com
sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com

13 comments:

straightarrow said...

I suspect he will not welcome you to a discussion. I read his crap. He cannot possibly not know how many lies he wrote. It is not possible for him to be so clueless on such an upfront topic. Ergo, we are left with the only other option. He is a liar, and he knows he is lying.

The very last thing he will want to do is appear in any venue where his lies can be refuted with fact. Should he be successful in causing the violence he seeks against free Americans, we must apply the Clinton Serbian rules of engagement. The terminally dishonest had a choice, this asshole chose unwisely.

Anonymous said...

Those Threepers stuck with the duty of carrying out the Clinton rules will be quite busy indeed.

Anonymous said...

Well, we have a REPUBLIC where certain RIGHTS cannot ever be taken away by any majority - no matter how large. This is why DEMOCRACY is an utterly EVIL form of "government" as it's nothing more than legalized mob rule.

Anonymous said...

"The rules don't apply at gun shows..."

As we all know, this simply is not true. The author has written a falsehood. In a newspaper! Where there are layers of editorial control, unlike a blog.

So. Either these layers failed, meaning they are incompetent, or else they intentionally printed this falsehood, meaning they are biased.

And they wonder why people are shedding no tears over their demise.

-Thibodeaux

WarriorClass III said...

Well said! E.J. better start donating heavily to the GOA and JPFO, as the NRA will likely compromise his safety!

Sean said...

Yo, Anon, I ain't "stuck", with anything. I have the lucky privilege of being a three percenter, and getting the duty, and using the Clinton rules. And anyone who winds up on the other side had better grow eyes in the back of their head.

mike said...

i consider myself to be a 3 percenter. i was born in this country free and have experienced the taste of those freedoms. i will die with those freedoms and they can pry my guns from my cold dead fingers

parabarbarian said...

The so-called "Gun Lobby" has never defeated any bill. The NRA is probably the best funded of the gun friendly civil rights groups but cannot come close to the money that George Soros or the Trial Lawyers Association can the throw at a campaign. All the NRA, GOA, JPFO etc can do is alert people to what new infringements the real lobbyists are cooking up. After that it is up to the membership to act.

It is people that send the letters, emails and telegrams. It is people that make the phone calls. It is people who vote. When a politician gets messages from several thousand irate constituents who will vote against him if he supports any gun control bill then, unless he has a powerful machine (California, Illinois and Louisana come to mind) behind him, he backs off. What Mr. Silly Putz is really upset about is that sometimes the systems works.

Putz's best hope for his gun free future is to join ACORN and help to expand voter fraud to include those who are vulnerable to honest elections. Then maybe he will have a Congress corrupt enough to push for his Utopian fantasy. However, as long as the three percenters exist that probably won't work either.

Anonymous said...

The "Gun Lobby" is NOT the last line of defense!!! It's the 2nd to the last!

The author of this BS should read, "Unintended Consequences" by John Ross.

He's vying for a starring role!

Where's that hog pen?

Anonymous said...

First off, he gets away with spouting falsehoods by having this printed as an editorial.

Second, I see he continues the canard of 'OMG, American guns pouring into Mexico'. *sigh* You know what that reminds me of? The old 'blood libel' against Jews.

I really do not want it to come down to shooting; as the saying goes, there's nothing 'civil' 'bout a civil war. A shame too many imbeciles in government seem hell-bent on forcing the issue.

Mad Jack said...

From StraightArrow: It is not possible for him to be so clueless on such an upfront topic. Ergo, we are left with the only other option. He is a liar, and he knows he is lying.You nailed it. Suffice to say that it is very unlikely that the author, E.J. Dionne, who is otherwise literate and well-read suddenly revert to the intelligence of an average jellyfish and the ignorance of a wastebasket.

Dionne and others like him know full well what they are writing and why. Like their political allies they have no trouble understanding the meaning of the Second Amendment. They don't care.

These people hate freedom and the lifestyle that freedom represents. Freedom isn't easy, particularly freedom of speech and freedom of the press. My real hope is that E.J. Dionne never has to find out just how hard it is to regain freedom of the press once it has been censored.

rosey said...

In spite of the Supreme Court decision affirming the right to bear arms for citizens of DC the socialists in charge are continuing the march to disarm us through other means (international treaties like LOST). The Obama administration can effectively diminish ammunition reloading rights as well as implementing ammunition sales reporting requirements. We must be ever vigilent in our opposition to these backdoor methods. I find the sipsey street irrgulars site refreshing and comforting that there are others out there that share these fears. I am equally comforted that the organization "oath takers" has a healthy following and I, as a former Navy Seabee will retake my oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Thanks for your wisdom.
http://ussamericarosey.blogspot.com

Bill Mullins said...

If it comes to shooting, it will not be a "civil war" any more than what occurred in the 1860s was. A civil war is where two groups are contesting control of a nation. The "War between the States" was not a civil war. The member states of the CSA had no desire to control/rule/run anything outside their own borders. What that was WAS was a war of conquest - illegal and entirely unconstitutional - on the part of the remaining member states of the USA to return their "errant sister" states to the fold by force of arms.

Should the anti-gun forces succeed in pushing a 2nd and more onerous AWB through, what will result will NOT be a "civil war" but a rebellion. It will be the 2nd (or 3rd if you count the "Whiskey Rebellion" as an attempted revolution) American Rebellion.

If the rebellion eventuates, the only chance those of us willing to fight for our homes and families will have is for the Armed Forces of the United States to mutiny. That is why we cannot fire the first shot. There can be no Fort Sumpters or Archduke Ferdinands. If those of us seeking freedom are perceived as the agressors then the majority of the armed forces members will press the attack against what they will perceive as enemies of the constitution. In that case the people rebelling will have no chance whatsoever. I am preparing an essay on the subject of war but for now I will remind the readers that the revolution was won by virtue of the Colonists employing unconventional tactics. Unless someone can come up with something as effective and unconventional as what folks like Francis Marion used, our own troops will sweep us from the field.