The Existential Threat to Gun Rights

Longtime friend, firearms authority and Host of Gun Talk, Tom Gresham offers a compelling look at the reality facing gun owners and the 2nd Amendment itself.

The biggest threat to the right to keep and bear arms, as well as other rights, has shifted from the government to the private sector -- a massive change I doubt we are prepared for. Three items in the news demonstrate this corporate assault against, which we have little defense.

After one court blocked and another court allowed what clearly was an illegal petition drive to put a monstrous initiative on the ballot, Washington state faces the possibility that all semi-automatic rifles will be regulated and possibly banned as "assault weapons." As I've said for 25 years, the term "assault weapon" is infinitely expandable -- by design -- and I-1639 includes even .22 rimfire rifles in that definition. What's corporate about that? Billionaires and millionaires funded the petition drive, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase signatures on forms which violated state law. Now that a friendly court has ruled that breaking the law to put this measure on the ballot is no big deal, that initiative will be passed or defeated by voters who will be assaulted with millions of dollars of advertising. Here's the harsh reality. If you spend enough on messaging, you can convince a large percentage of the population of almost anything.

This is the commercialization of civil rights. Slick disinformation campaigns funded by anti-civil rights oligarchs such as Paul Allen (Microsoft co-founder) can and have convinced the voting public that it should be a felony to loan your gun to your neighbor for a pheasant hunt, or, in this case, that the Ruger 10/22 rifle you used to train your children on gun safety is, in fact, an "assault weapon" which must be regulated or banned.

Another clear and present danger from the private sector comes in the form of suppression of information, ideas, and free speech. Two decades ago I started talking about the threat we might face from Google and its ubiquitous (75 percent of searches) search engine. What if, I asked back then, someone tweaked the algorithms so that searches about guns, gun safety, self-defense gun uses, semi-automatic firearms, and more, tended -- just a bit -- to favor news stories and sites which feature an anti-gun rights bias? Who would know? The net result would be that what the public "knows" to be true could be shifted. Public policy (laws) shifts with what people believe to be true.

Many believe that just such social engineering of search results is, in fact, being done now. Even Congress has called tech giants before a Senate hearing, but Google famously refused to appear.

When one company can alter the delivery of information to the point of shifting public opinion through an agenda-driven program designed to mislead the public, it's a threat to not only gun rights, but to any right, any group, any way of thought that the person or persons running that company deem to be worthy of attack.

Amazon -- once an online bookseller, and now a provider of almost everything -- has begun the online book burning -- a practice characteristically reserved for small-minded, intolerant ideologues. It removed a book containing the printed (non-executable) files for 3D printing of firearms. Now it appears that Amazon is actively removing from its services any book with "objectionable" content. Who's to say that any information about gun rights and the Second Amendment wouldn't be labeled as "hate speech" by a Millennial with access to the "do not sell" button?

If this were a single bookstore, most people would shrug it off. When it's the largest online bookseller, and it's the go-to source of books for millions, this virtual book burning threatens the ability to put a variety of thoughts before the public.

One other example of the growing corporate assault on civil rights may stand above all others. That's the strangulation of financial services to the firearms industry -- stores, small manufacturers, large businesses, and the credit card and online payment systems, which have become almost the only way to purchase anything online. When online retailers block the sale of your regulated and legal product, banks and credit card companies refuse to process charges made for firearms-related products, and online payment systems (PayPal) block payments for legal products, it certainly appears to be a coordinated attack designed to choke off the lifeblood of an entire industry.

Of course, this started with an Obama-administration program titled "Operation Choke Point." Todd Zywicki put it well in his article: "The ability to destroy legal industries through secret actions to deprive them of banking services has obvious political consequences." (READ Here)

Operation Choke Point stands in stark contrast to those who parrot the claim that President Obama never did anything to try to take away our guns. No. It was much larger and much more sinister than that. He tried to destroy the entire firearms industry and your ability to purchase a firearm.

Unfortunately, that secret program set the wheels in motion for others in the financial sector to carry on this legacy of intolerance by adopting corporate policies with the same goal -- destroy any company involved with firearms or firearms training.

Our challenge and I admit I don't have an answer, is to push back against the individuals and companies who use their financial resources to attack a basic human right. That right belongs to every man and every woman, no matter that person's beliefs, creed, color, background, etc. It is the right to live. It's the right to protect your own life. This "rolling thunder" assault from the Corporate Left is, in fact, an existential threat to freedom, to liberty, and to life itself. ~ Tom

Tom Gresham
Author, outdoorsman, gun rights activist, and firearms enthusiast for more than five decades, Tom Gresham hosts Tom Gresham's Gun Talk, the first nationally-syndicated radio show about guns and the shooting sports, and is also the producer and co-host of the Guns & Gear, GunVenture and First Person Defender television series.

 

Attention Devout Statist

Consider:

If man creates a "system" of governance then it's already unjust, immoral and economically destructive.

No individual or even group of individuals can "engineer" how society should behave and live. It has always, will always result in the "engineers" having men with guns enforcing their will.

Regardless of how smart people are, constitutions and their "laws" are just words on a piece of paper. Those words have no authority and certainly no power to constrain the actions of wicked men. The idea of an American republic was doomed from the start.

If we as a society cannot live peacefully and productively with one another then we are the problem and no amount of government or a constitution or "laws" will make us better people.




h/t Don Cooper

Civil War

More than a month ago now, Jack Minzey sent what was to be the final chapter in the long line of books and treatises that he has written over the years...

Jack died Sunday, 8 April 2018.

Professionally, Jack was head of the Department of Education at Eastern Michigan University as well as a prolific author of numerous books, most of which were on the topic of Education and the Government role therein.
His interest in Conservative Politics was exceeded only by his intellectual ability.

This is the last of his works.

Civil War

How do civil wars happen?

Two or more sides disagree on who runs the country. And they can't settle the question through elections because they don't even agree that elections are how you decide who's in charge. That's the basic issue here. Who decides who runs the country? When you hate each other but
accept the election results, you have a country. When you stop accepting election results, you have a countdown to a civil war.

The Mueller investigation is about removing President Trump from office and overturning the results of an election. We all know that. But it's not the first time they've done this. The first time a Republican president was elected this century, they said he didn't really win. The Supreme Court gave him the election. There's a pattern here.

What do sure odds of the Democrats rejecting the next Republican president really mean? It means they don't accept the results of any election that they don't win. It means they don't believe that transfers of power in this country are determined by elections.

That's a civil war.

There's no shooting. At least not unless you count the attempt to kill a bunch of Republicans at a charity baseball game practice. But the Democrats have rejected our system of government.

This isn't dissent. It's not disagreement. You can hate the other party. You can think they're the worst thing that ever happened to the country. But then you work harder to win the next election. When you consistently reject the results of elections that you don't win, what you want is a
dictatorship.

Your very own dictatorship.

The only legitimate exercise of power in this country, according to Democrats, is its own. Whenever Republicans exercise power, it's inherently illegitimate. The Democrats lost Congress. They lost the White House. So what did they do? They began trying to run the country through Federal judges and bureaucrats. Every time that a Federal judge
issues an order saying that the President of the United States can't scratch his own back without his say so, that's the civil war.

Our system of government is based on the constitution, but that's not the system that runs this country. The Democrat's system is that any part of government that it runs gets total and unlimited power over the country.

If the Democrats are in the White House, then the president can do anything. And I mean anything. He can have his own amnesty for illegal aliens. He can fine you for not having health insurance. His power is unlimited. He's a dictator.

But when Republicans get into the White House, suddenly the President can't do anything. He isn't even allowed to undo the illegal alien amnesty that his predecessor illegally invented. A Democrat in the White House has 'discretion' to completely decide every aspect of immigration policy. A Republican doesn't even have the 'discretion' to reverse him. That's how the game is played That's how our country is run. Sad but true, although the left hasn't yet won that particular fight.

When a Democrat is in the White House, states aren't even allowed to enforce immigration law. But when a Republican is in the White House, states can create their own immigration laws. Under Obama, a state wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom without asking permission. But
under Trump, Jerry Brown can go around saying that California is an independent republic and sign treaties with other countries.

The Constitution has something to say about that.

Whether it's Federal or State, Executive, Legislative or Judiciary, the left moves power around to run the country. If it controls an institution, then that institution is suddenly the supreme power in the land. This is what I call a moving dictatorship.

Donald Trump has caused the Shadow Government to come out of hiding: Professional government is a guild. Like medieval guilds. You can't serve in if you're not a member. If you haven't been indoctrinated into its arcane rituals. If you aren't in the club. And Trump isn't in the club. He brought in a bunch of people who aren't in the club with him.

Now we're seeing what the pros do when amateurs try to walk in on them. They spy on them, they investigate them and they send them to jail. They use the tools of power to bring them down.

That's not a free country.

It's not a free country when FBI agents who support Hillary take out an 'insurance policy' against Trump winning the election. It's not a free country when Obama officials engage in massive unmasking of the opposition. It's not a free country when the media responds to the other
guy winning by trying to ban the conservative media that supported him from social media. It's not a free country when all of the above collude together to overturn an election because the guy who wasn't supposed to
win did.

Have no doubt, we're in a civil war between conservative volunteer government and a leftist Democrat professional government

h/t David Webb

The Big Reveal

With State Primaries hither and thither, the countdown to the Mid-Terms has begun. The Blow-Dried MSM Talking Heads and every cable and radio Talk show host is fighting sweaty palms in palpitating anticipation of the Big Blue Wave! Their websites have their Countdown Clocks posted and ominously ticking away.

Idealistically or Most Importantly – take your pick - is the Honor, Honesty, and Integrity at stake, sworn to by those elected officials, tossed around like gaudy Mardi Gras beads in pious Party speeches the closer we get to November "E" Day.

The Russia, Russia, Russia, Trump Kabuki continues but with some real rancid meat permeating the news cycle. The Carter Page FISA Memo story has been in and out of the headlines for months. All the coverage contends massive revelations and subsequent scandals, the likes of which will shake the foundations of the Republic - regardless that, to date, only the scant unredacted portions have been quoted.

Devin Nunes has been teasing the yet unseen toxic content, appearing on several FOX shows demanding Pres. Trump unilaterally declassify the entire recently released blacked out Cater Page FISA Application. On "Tucker Carlson Tonight", he stated not only had he, as House Intelligence Committee Chairman, read all the redacted portions, but also that there is nothing of "national security interest" there; that the real "national security reason" for American Public is to see what the DOJ and the FBI has done to spy on the American people."

And then, quite inadvertently, in my opinion, Nunes swung the door wide open:

"It's our job as Congress to bring sunlight and full transparency to this."
Carlson pounced:

OK. Then why don't you send it to me now and I will put it on the air in the back half of this show.

I mean it. I'm dead serious. You are the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
That's when Nunes' crawfishing started. (See the attached link for the entire performance).

Yes. I'm not the one with the power. Now, hypothetically, could I go to the House floor, could I go out in my official duties and tell the American public what's in the rest of that FISA? I could.

However - I mean, you already see - remember most of the media and the left is against us and against it. They don't want the rest of this out. They want to keep this hidden. Can you imagine the field day they would have against me or of any other Republicans talk about what is now classified information…?

Because Nunes feared the media "field day" against him, Nunes threw the President under the bus:

But what can happen right now - how do we get this done is the president just needs to step in and declassify this. He has said he doesn't want to get involved, but, quite frankly, he needs to get involved in this. It doesn't involve him. If he would just declassify it, then we as Congress would have no problem coming on your show and talking about this declassified information.

Unfortunately, Carlson let him off the rhetorical hook but not without Nunes reaching for a change of pants.

Carlson returned from a commercial break to mention a text he just received remembering when Sen. Feinstein infamously read the CIA "torture memo" into the Senate record, knowing she knew she was protected by the Constitution's "Speech and Debate" Clause. Deven Nunes – or any Congressman or Senator - having access to the complete unredacted material could do the same thing with the same impunity.

Why not?

Why doesn't some fine, upstanding Representative or Senator do just that even without availing themselves of the protective wrapping of the Constitution? There's no death penalty or CIA torture applied for such making such a revelation. With the Public's focused interest in the matter (having been bludgeoned with it for months by the MSM), Nunes would be a National Hero!

The majority of our Fearless Leaders are attorneys and therefore "officers of the court'" with an "ethical duty to tell the truth". Since this memo allegedly "exposes terrifying abuses of our civil liberties", don't these attorneys have the ethical obligation to reveal the "explosive" contents to the Public, the victims of this abuse, regardless of 'media heat'?

Since these same leaders take an oath to "...support and defend the Constitution...against all enemies..." wouldn't arbitrary "rules" conjured by a publicly elected group be subordinate to their first sworn obligation to the Constitution, the Electorate and the Rule of Law?

Discuss among yourselves – or, better yet, with your Elected Representatives.

A Short Note from the President

My Fellow Americans

I'd like a few minutes of your time to address and clarify some of my comments in Helsinki that have caused such an uproar among Fake News readers, Deep Swamp creatures, and the heavy-breathers in both parties.

It appears the source of all their exasperations and expectorations was my response to a question about Russian meddling: did I believe Mr. Putin's strong denial over the findings of the American intelligence community? That was interpreted as my siding with Vladimir Putin instead of the United States intelligence agencies. Was I?

Let me be clear. Simply stated: Yes I was.

Unfortunately, in that news conference setting, I didn't have the time or opportunity to provide a more fulsome answer – as I am going to do now.

First, I suggest you answer this simple question as honestly and objectively as your bias, prejudice, and political handlers will allow: With the whole world watching this historic event, why should I throw my support behind the same intelligence agencies that have been attempting – and are attempting at this very minute – a coup to overthrow my administration?

Why?

The Firearms Uber Primer

Elementary Information About Guns For The Currently Uninformed

For those of you new to the public debate about All Things Guns that perpetually appear after every tragedy involving firearms, this Uber Primer was written primarily for your edification, whether you are a mommy, daddy, guardian or teacher of school-age children. But most of all, if you are the typical (liberal) politician or reporter for the mainstream media, this one has your name all over it. All you have to do is pry open your mind and read...

A basic Google search for "guns" returns 299,000,000 results in 0.52 seconds. So why another gun article? Simple - because the deafening cacophony of stultifying idiocy that is suffocating the public airwaves via the Evening News, talk radio "commentary", wasted gallons of newsprint and bandwidth cries out for it. Never has the old saw, "He knows just enough to be dangerous" never been more evident than in the current blitherings and spoutings of those who have swallowed whole the mistruths, half-truths and outright lies of bovine excrement on everything from "firearm function" to the "hidden history of the Second Amendment." Granted, many of the spouting pundits hosing audiences with their pronouncements are motivated by an evil political agenda that has been marinated in decades of gun grabbing, fear mongering elitism. And worse. (See MSDNC's "Morning Joe" for daily proof.)

Sadly, the public strewing of scary stuff about guns stifles most any rational discussion or debate. Anti-gun groups are using "NRA" as a pejorative to replace "RACIST!" as their main trump card to shut down dangerously productive conversations. Claiming "we need a public debate about guns" really means "STFU and do it my way!"

To navigate this swamp of polluted palaver, here are just 3 or 4 of the 372 Unadulterated Truths you cannot only memorize for your personal edification in time for that next big argument at work or at Chuck E. Cheese but also Cut 'N Paste or carve into the business end of a baseball bat for similar situations.

Note: this piece assumes you know at least the absolute minimum about guns: they go BANG! and propel a lead projectile at remarkable speed toward whatever lies immediately ahead. This is true of rifles, pistols, and shotguns-- also cannons, bazookas, mortars, RPG's and more exotic weapons of destruction,"mass"  or otherwise.

Let's get started.

First, despite the MSM's and members of the phylum "moron", dedication to mislead you, there is no such thing as "gun violence". "Gun violence" is a code from the Aggressively Ignorant for "It's not my fault; the gun did it."  As an inanimate object, it is no more intelligent or self-actuating than a rock (an early ancestor). All firearms require some level of participation from a human to function. This phase of the interface with what is loosely described as "human intelligence" is where problems always begin.

Next, for purposes of accuracy and sanity, you must understand once and for all time, the indelible, incontrovertible difference between "Automatic" and "Semi-Automatic". Simply put: "automatic" defines "machine gun" like the one that did in Sean Connery in "The Untouchables". One pull of the trigger will keep the weapon firing until the trigger is released or ammo runs out. "Semi-automatic" describes those weapons that require a trigger pull for each "BANG!". Period. This is all you need to know at this level. Further details will either confuse you or turn you into an expert who embarrasses their friends at parties by winning all the arguments. The refusal or inability to comprehend this simple distinction qualifies you to be a Network TV News Reporter where such technicalities are studiously ignored in order to keep the viewer petrified and even more ignorant than the reporter.

Third, fully automatic weapons ("machine guns") are not illegal unless acquired outside the very strict requirements and regulations of the Law. With a Federal Class 3 Special Occupational Tax license application, fingerprints, picture, license fee ($200) a few other nuances can eventually (10-12 month waiting period) receive the government's Permission Slip to purchase your very own machine gun. If this is attractive to you, be advised there are a mountain of regs imposed on the new Owner. Oh – and an M16 (the Big Boy's AR15) in decent shape starts around $15,000. 

Finally, there is no such thing as a "the gun show loophole". Like the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot or Ethical Politician, it is more effluvium. Depending on the archaic, freedom-snuffing status of the laws in your state or gulag, there are two ways to purchase a firearm at a gun show: through an FF L licensed dealer or a private citizen walking his Iver Johnson. The dealer will require you to complete the BATFE's form 4473 which requires answers to many intrusive personal history questions, show some state-approved picture ID (not your Chuck E. Cheese club card) and some approved medium of exchange (FRNs, MC/VISA or similar wampum). He will call your info into the NICS system. Assuming you are not a convicted felon or have led a similarly disqualifying life, you will eventually be "approved" and off you go with your newly acquired shootin' iron. 

The Private Citizen transaction is infinitely better, efficient and moral inasmuch as it is a simple exchange of Personal Property: haggle the price with the seller, agree, pay, leave. State laws vary, but even in the most lenient, it's a good idea for Buyer and Seller to show each other some form of picture ID. Be thoroughly familiar with State and Local laws. The world is full of (insert profane noun here) and no principled person wants to be party to a transaction that could have dire consequences of any form. While there are no "gun show loopholes", there are ways, knowingly or not, that circumvent the law. Unless you like tiny rooms with metal doors and hangin' for a few years with some dude named "Bubba", best to be intimately familiar with them instead of him.

There is a boatload of fairytales about guns floating around - usually on TV around 6p and, even worse, 24/7 on Social Media. Do your homework. Avoid becoming another brain-dead zombie, spouting clichéd, inaccurate terminal dumbness. Like free speech, guns are as useful as they are dangerous. Be certain Intelligence is engaged before shooting mouth off. Most any crime with a firearm releases a predictable frenzy of adrenaline-fired, fact-challenged, politically distorted propaganda. Know the truth – it just might keep us free.

Watch this space for the next installment of the firearms uber primer as we tackle the balance of the 362 other fallacies, misunderstandings, and outright lies that are littering the landscape of intelligent discussion about guns.

Dan Ingram

On June 24, 2018, Dan Ingram died. He was regarded as the best Top 40 DJ of all time. Unknowingly and somewhat ironically, he was a role model for my broadcasting career. Despite being asked to write something for a tribute page. the following may not actually appear anywhere else. This degree of honesty is often too rare even for "showbiz" consumption! Virtually all of the comments about Dan's passing focused on what a wonderful guy and consummate professional he was. That wasn't the Dan I knew. But the story does have a twist...
BW 

Hello there – I'm Brian Wilson, of the nearly-famous Ross & Wilson Show (among others!) In January 1981, we were brought in from Z93/Atlanta to WABC from Atlanta to replace Dan Ingram in morning drive and hopefully play a part in the salvation of MusicRadio 77 WABC, the greatest station in the world.

History has recorded how well that worked out, and In my new book 50 Stories: 50 Years in Radio coming out later this year, you'll be able to read about the shenanigans that took place on the 8^th floor of the iconic ABC Building as MusicRadio WABC died and TalkRadio WABC was born. Obviously, Dan Ingram played a big role.

But I digress…