“To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic.”
~ Ted Nugent
Seems like it's all big news these days. War goes on in Iraq. Another is coming up in Iran. New Orleans is waist deep in the big muddy and it feels like a death in the family. Supreme Court justices, the most elite among our elite un-elected ruling class, keep coming and going. We all suspect that a phantom game of suitcase nuke, suitcase nuke, who's got the suitcase nuke is being played out somewhere in the background. Maybe in our backyard. A major push is underway to develop a nationwide network of embryo farms so some very evil people can make tons of money selling dismembered baby parts to the credulous. And the whole country is living inside a real estate bubble, trying our best to overcome our immunodeficiency to reality.
As for me, I have lately narrowed my purview and adopted a more contemplative order of living. It suits me fine. Although I still have my opinions, I mostly keep them to myself. My focus these days is not saving the world, which is beyond my ken and my barbie too. Nowadays I mostly work on saving my soul, which thankfully still reports to me. Maybe the fact that so many people can still take Teddy Kennedy seriously after all these years and all the stupidity finally wore me down. If you can't make people see through such a transparent blowhard how can you expect them to see anything? At least praying for his soul is potentially more productive than trying to get him or his supporters, who must be on steroids, to make sense.
All the action today is in the big ticket items and I just don't think big anymore. Anyway, like communism, collectivist American statism will one day collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, not from any damage inflicted by me and my Dell. I'm just staying clear, hoping the pieces don't fall on me and mine. What I am about these days is living in the world, not changing it. Neither democrat nor republican, conservative nor libertarian am I. Rather I am a monarchist, and will worship the King of kings and none other. Trying to build a perfect world is a form of idolatry, and I have ceased my worship of that golden, if not gold standard, calf. They say to think globally and act locally. These days, I think locally and act rarely.
But rust never sleeps. And even though the compassionate collectivists, blue state nanny staters, red state statists, and the rest of the well fed Culture of Death are highlighting their national and worldwide power grab initiatives, there is still plenty of action down here on the ground where the fascism meets the road and an opportunity to take away some rights is rarely missed. And even I can't ignore it. There are a select few issues that can still get me out of my chair or off my knees, as the case may be. Support for the cause of life here in the US, the command center of the Culture of Death, remains an imperative.
We can no longer teach children that Cortez brought civilization to the most bloodthirsty society that ever existed on the North American continent because we took that title away from the Aztecs a long time ago. The demons the Aztec Empire worshipped demanded the sacrifice of thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of lives at the festivals the conquistadors ended. A mere bag of shells, as Ralph Kramden used to say. The demons of America's secular materialist empire require the blood of 4,000 infants every day of the year, year in and year out. And we oblige. We're proud of it. So were the Aztecs. Next will come the baby farms behind the cynical rubric of embryonic stem cell research promising to cure every sad person of every devastating condition. And the money is nice too. Outrage against the Creator on a scale this grand requires some response even if prayer, prosletyzation, and protest often seem to have no tangible impact. So these things I continue to do.
My other continuing parochial concern remains the Second Amendment. Before you start laughing, I fully appreciate the humor inherent to defending something in the 21st Century American Empire based on the Constitution. If there is a deader letter, I can't think of it. But sentimental value remains attached for a guy brought up on Johnny Tremaine, Roy Rogers, Davy Crockett, Mickey Mantle, truth, justice, and the American way. And anyway, I like guns. I especially like my guns.
First off if not foremost, they make loud noises and put holes in things. If you have never spent a Saturday with your wife honing your marksmanship skills on paper targets at an indoor range, don't criticize. And if you have never worked off the stress of a workday by causing old bleach bottles to explode with a .45 hog leg, well you just don't know what you're missing. Considered strictly as a hobby, firearms are as rewarding as all get out. And in our aggressively rude culture you will never meet a more courteous group of people than you will encounter at a shooting range. A well armed society is a polite society. A well armed society is also feared by the people who want to Schiavo your life, Patriot Act your liberty, and Kelo your property in the pursuit of their own happiness. And they are doing something about it.
The ATF, those wonderful folks who brought you Waco, and the Virginia State Police, thank you Governor Warner, have teamed up in a parlay of illegal and immoral activity against ordinary Americans here in the Commonwealth. Surprised? Me neither. But wait, I get ahead of myself. Let me start with a little bit of background.
If you don't know much about guns, you probably know less about gun shows. Where to begin? They are legal. So there's that. They are a pleasant way to while away a few weekend hours. There is lots of neat stuff to look at like old West derringers, WWI carbines, and WWII lugers. The attendees are friendly people like you and me and it's fun to chat them up. You can either overpay or save a few bucks on firearms, ammo, paraphernalia, and other cool stuff depending on how savvy you are. They are a kind of specialized flea market. What they are not is arms bazaars like the ones you see in James Bond movies and like the politicians who favor victim disarmament try to portray them.
A few years back some gun people estimated that about 2% of the guns used in the commission of crimes in the US were purchased at gun shows. We all thought that was pretty minimal, and that statistic received a lot of play among shooters. See! Leave us alone. We're not hurting anybody! That statistic was rendered obsolete when the Department of Justice, those well known friends of the Second Amendment (sarcasm alert), published their own study. According to the feds, 0.7% of the guns, as in less than 1%, used in the commission of crimes come from gun shows. Coming from the DOJ, which would like nothing better than to establish a monopoly on domestic firearms ownership, that's a stunning number because, if anything, it is more likely to be overstated than understated. Like I said, gun shows are not arms bazaars.
So it makes you wonder why when you learn that, "nearly 500 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents, state troopers, county and city police officers participated in an "ATF Task Force" targeting the Showmasters gun show in Richmond, Va., on Aug. 13 and 14." This comes from CNS, which has done a terrific job of reporting this story and staying with it. These operations consist mostly in harassing and bullying people at shows. One booth operator counted 72 law enforcement officers milling around on a Saturday. Saturday's an overtime day, isn't it?
It also appears that ATF officers broke federal laws, now there's a shock, by sharing privileged information with the local heat. They improvised their own private Patriot Act and invented a new procedure called the "residency check." Ooo, sounds official! While a potential buyer was waiting for his paperwork to process and clear, they would go this home, call on his family and his neighbors, inform them that the person was attempting to (legally) purchase a firearm and did they know why he wanted it? and did they know his cell phone number? and on and on. They sent menacing e-mails and signed them, "The Task Force." They think they are Team America, but who's pulling the strings? Just in case Waco had not already clued you in, the ATF is a thug agency that could not care any less about the Constitution or your safety or your legal rights. They exemplify the conclusion that gun control is not about guns. It is about control.
And it turns out that the show in August was not the first time this kind of operation has been mounted. Over the past few months, the Virginia State Police alone have spent over 1,000 man hours on harassing honest citizens at gun shows. I don't know the hourly rate for a VA trooper but when you multiply it by 1,000 it undoubtedly turns into an amount of my tax dollars that I would rather see spent in some other way. This is happening in a state that has, in a few short years, become infested by MS13. There is even a significant MS13 presence out here in the sleepy old Shenandoah Valley. The only thing we have going for us is that a significant percentage of us are armed, which helps to keep the street crime to a minimum. In fact, it is more likely that a piece purchased at a gun show by a citizen will be used to stop a crime than to commit one. Regular people with firearms stop 2 million crimes every year, which pales that 0.7% number published by the DOJ. I wonder how many the ATF stops?
Naturally, since they are not dealing with hardened criminals but with honest, law abiding citizens "The Task Force" has an impact. (Can't you just picture them standing in front of the mirror, putting on their shades, practicing their scowls, and growling, "I'm with the Task Force." Hilarious). We go to gun shows because it is fun. All this improvised fascism makes it a whole lot less fun. So people leave. People don't buy. They tell their friends and then their friends don't come. And business falls way off. It has been seen to fall off by close to 50% at some shows. Adnan Kashoggi and other US government client arms dealers do not sell at gun shows. They could absorb a few bad weekends. The people who sit behind the tables at gun shows are hard working folk who supplement their incomes by moving a few guns to other hobbyists. They cannot absorb a 50% drop in sales for very long. And, of course, that is the point. The unstated but actual goal here is to end all gun shows, to take away one more right from you and me while the Kashoggi's and the MS13's of the world continue to prosper.
So you tell me. Why are federal, state and local laws enforcement agencies harassing the honest people who pay their salaries while they are exercising their constitutional rights, making some extra green, and having a little fun of a weekend attending events that contribute virtually nothing to the crime rate and more than likely help to reduce it? Rust never sleeps. While the big ticket news from the top is blaring at you from the major media, monopolizing your attention, keeping people afraid and dependent, freedom is still under attack down here on the ground.
Consider the recent events in New Orleans if you need a reason to keep and bear arms. Honest people in that government sponsored debacle were left to fend for and defend themselves. Now we hear that soldiers and police are going door to door confiscating guns from the homeowners who are still occupying their property. Good thing that help didn't show up sooner or there might be more bodies floating in the receding floodwater. Chuckie Schumer must be kicking himself, wondering why Louisiana has all the luck.
The government courts have long since established the principle that the government police have no obligation to prevent crime or to protect you. Essentially, they are crime historians. Your safety and your freedom are your concern. The safety and freedom of your family and your neighborhood are your concern. This is not big ticket, national news type stuff. But it is actual freedom under attack. It could not be more local or more personal or more important.
September 12, 2005
