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From the Radio Free Michigan archives ftp://141.209.3.26/pub/patriot If you have any other files you'd like to contribute, e-mail them to bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu. ------------------------------------------------ \\\Toward The Gun Rights Movement\\\ Charles Curley \\"Never yield ground. It is cheaper to hold what you have than to retake what you have lost."\\ General George S. Patton, Jr. In this essay I intend to show that the old arguments for gun ownership should be discarded and replaced. I intend to show that they have failed to defend gun ownership. I intend to provide two sound bases upon which solid, effective arguments for gun ownership rights may be made. I also propose that the gun rights movement take the offensive, and show specific proposals that will put the prohibitionists on the defensive, where they belong. In the beginning of the twentieth century, anyone not obviously an incompetent or criminal could and often did purchase guns and wear them abroad routinely. Today, within a generation's lifetime, gun owners are rare, and discriminated against by government and citizens. Worse, they stand to lose the few rights they have left to a government which acts like it wants to reduce them under absolute despotism. \\"And I cannot see, why arms should be denied to any man who is not a slave, since they are the only true badges of liberty...."\\ Andrew Fletcher \\A Discourse of Government with Relation to Militias\\ 1698 In brief, the existing legislation is a patchwork quilt: it varies from state to state, often from county to county within the same state, and certainly from city to city. Compare, say, Fort Collins, Colorado, with New Jersey. In Fort Collins, a man (or woman, for that matter) may legally purchase and immediately walk abroad with a loaded .357 revolver clearly in sight. The police may give that person some grief, but legally there is nothing they can do. In New Jersey, the would-be gun owner must get a special ID card from the local police. This -- if permission is granted -- will permit him to purchase rifles or ammunition. However, if he wishes to purchase a pistol, he must again apply for permission. The police department will keep his ID card for however long it takes them to do a background check. If they don't lose the card, and if the background check turns up nothing on the supplicant's record, he is given back his card and a special receipt which will allow him to buy one -- count it, one -- handgun. And he had better not even apply for another handgun permission for several months. Nationally, George Bush and the Republican Party have abandoned us. As though to underscore the point, in California, "conservative" Republican governor George Dukmejian has also sold the gun rights movement out. The attitude in the Republican Party is that the gun owners have no place else to go. So, in their mad scramble to occupy the political center, the Republicans abandon those people whom they perceive to be on the fringes: the gun owners. We're losing ground, folks. Does \\anyone\\ out there, \\anywhere\\, know of \\anyplace\\ where it is seriously being proposed that the existing gun legislation be repealed? If the thought that existing gun legislation \\can\\ be re- pealed, that it \\should\\ be repealed, is a shock to you, then consider just how accustomed to remaining on the defensive you -- and the rest of the gun rights movement -- have become. \\"When caught under fire, particularly of artillery, advance out of it; never retreat from it. Artillery very seldom shortens its range."\\ General George S. Patton, Jr. There are three main arguments which have been used in the past. I call these the Second Amendment Argument, the Hunter Argument, and the Crime Argument. The Second Amendment Argument is based on the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. This is plain, simple clear language, according to those who make it, and it is -- to everyone who isn't a lawyer. Unfortunately, it is not enough. First, the Second Amendment can be repealed tomorrow, and would be if Senator Kennedy had his way. Certainly, it makes life difficult for the prohibitionists, but they can and do get around it. So they won't seek its repeal tomorrow. Even without repeal, the Second Amendment is effectively dead anyway. Like almost all of the provisions in the Consti- tution intended to limit the powers of the Federal government, it is being ignored. The only parts of the Constitution which are not being ignored are those which can be used to extend its power (such as the Interstate Commerce clause, the Necessary and Proper Powers clause, and the Income Tax Amendment) and those which pertain only to the outward form of the government. In terms of defending our rights, the Constitution is a dead letter law, and it is about time the gun rights movement woke up and smelled the coffee. But if the Second Amendment were repealed tomorrow, how would you argue for the right to own guns? On what then would you base the right to own guns? \\Why\\ shall the right to bear arms not be infringed? Unfortunately, most gun owners aren't willing to defend the Second Amendment in a more broad context. They are constitutional fundamentalists. They take the Constitution as holy writ, just as the religious fundamentalists take their Bible, their Koran, or their \\Das Capital\\, as absolute writ. Further, the constitutional fundamentalists, like their religious counterparts, can't understand why anyone else won't also accept it as writ. But that failure of other people to accept the Second Amendment as holy writ means that the argument is over, and that the gun owner has lost. The Hunter Argument states that there are "legitimate sporting uses" for firearms, and this may even be so. But this argument also has let us down, and the concept of "legitimate sporting uses" has become a noose around the necks of us all. The Hunter Argument has had the effect of suggesting that the only "legitimate" reason to own firearms is to hunt, an expensive sport. Further, far more people who live in the country hunt than city dwellers. The effect of this argument is to make gun owning appear to the city dweller to be the special province of a rural elite. His understandable response, however ignorant, is to inquire, why the hell should he stick his neck out for a lousy farmer? Worse, the Bambiists would like to take our guns away precisely because -- according to the Hunter Argument -- it is the only "legitimate" use for the things. \\They\\ think it isn't legitimate at all. How's that for a winning argument? Sure, you and I know enough about ecology (the science, not the nut cult) to know that this argument is a crock of fertilizer. But the Bambiists don't, and they can scream louder than we have so far. Let us also abandon a desperate ploy, and admit that hunting deer with AK-47s is about as sporting as fishing for trout with hand grenades. Yet these are the guns that are currently under attack by the prohibitionists. Even an armaments illiterate can see through trying to defend defense rifles ("assault rifles") by the Hunter Argument. The Hunter Argument has been a disaster also because it admits of a false distinction between weapons: some have "legiti- mate sporting uses"; others do not. If only some weapons are legitimate, then logically the prohibitionists can take away the rest. The problem is, \\they\\ get to define which ones they will confiscate. \\"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."\\ Benjamin Franklin At the signing of the Declaration By defending only a few weapons, the makers of the Hunter Argument leave the gun rights movement open to division and conquest. One should be prepared to defend the right to own \\any\\ weapon, whether one has a use for it or not. The pagans of the middle ages had a saying which applies here: "If they come for me in the night, they'll come for you in the morning." So, Mr Hunter, if they come for my defense rifle in the night, who will be around to defend your bolt action in the morning? And what happens when they come for your shotgun in the afternoon, Mr Trap Shooter? The Crime Argument is something like this: if the government would only enforce the existing laws, criminals wouldn't use guns in their crimes, and so we could keep our guns. This is your basic \\non sequitur\\. In fact, it proves far too much. There is a very clear cause and effect relationship between efficient law enforcement and gun ownership: governments which enforce their laws efficiently prohibit guns. No-one ever called the Gestapo lazy! This argument implies that the choice is between: felons having guns, together with high crime; and felons not having guns, correlated with low crime. This is a false choice: felons will always have guns. If alcohol prohibition, cocaine prohibition and gold prohibition have all failed to keep those respective materials out of the hands of people, then so also would gun prohibition fail to keep guns out of the hands of felons. If gun prohibition would fail to keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons, then so must any lesser effort. The reality is that we can have a society in which police and felons have guns, and citizens do not; or we can have a society in which everybody, including felons, has guns. This writer's preference is the latter. One of the most hideous failures of the gun rights movement is the taking of a kneejerk "kill the coke snorters" attitude. Aside from losing a potential ally, it puts the gun rights movement in the position of supporting one of its most deadly enemies: the drug prohibitionists. A number of drug prohibitionists are now calling for the prohibition of defense rifles on the (erroneous) grounds that these are the weapons of choice of drug dealers. Why give ammunition (literally) to your enemies? In addition, this call is base on the erroneous theory that the drug dealers use Uzis and Kalishnikovs. Outside of Miami Vice and other work of fantasy, it just ain't so. If the drug dealers are going to ignore the drug prohibi- tion, then what leap of faith in human nature leads anyone to think that they would obey a gun prohibition? These people are accustomed to bringing tons of illegal material into the US \\every day\\. What's a few ton of defense rifles here and there? And if defense rifles, why not full auto weapons, grenade launchers, howitzers, RPGs or tactical nukes? Imagine that William Bennett's worst nightmares are true, and then imagine that these people start to buy up weapons on the world arms market and ship their purchases to the U.S. You, dear reader, know that this is so. I know that this is so. Fine, let's turn it around: Why are you -- worried about having your chosen vice prohibited -- arguing that someone else's vice should be prohibited? Worse, if you know damn well that a gun prohibition wouldn't work, what makes you think that a drug prohibition ever would? (Lest I be accused of being a wacked out druggie commie, or a front man for the Medellin Cartel, or some such twaddle, let me point out that there is a distinction between opposing prohi- bition of a thing and advocating the use of the same thing. And if anyone out there still thinks that drug prohibition is working, maybe we should inquire just what \\he's\\ been smoking, ingesting, or injecting.) If the Second Amendment, the Hunter and the Crime Arguments have failed, with what can we replace them? Two arguments, of which one is a special case of the other. The key argument is that of Self Defense. Every human in the world has the right to defend herself and that which she has produced or acquired in voluntary trade. That concept was clearly in Thomas Jefferson's mind when he wrote that all men have the right to life, liberty and property. Invert this argument: if one does not have the right to self defense, then one has not the right to anything else. How can one keep a right \\except\\ by defending it? Do you have the right to life? \\Defend it!\\ Do you have the right to liberty? \\Defend it!\\ Do you have the right to property? \\Defend it!\\ Or do you expect someone else to defend it? If so, whom? A hired guard? They can be bribed, and can turn coward in the crunch. A government policeman? Do you really think that, given the choice between defending your rights and confiscating your guns, a cop will do the former? If you know of any that will, hang on to him, he's rare. Note that most gun prohibition laws exclude the police from their effects. Why should the police be better armed than the citizen? Remember, most \\police states\\ are run by the \\police\\. Any statute which exempts the police from its constrictions creates a specialized class of privileged persons. Police who may bear arms where citizens may not have been granted a patent of nobility, although the term is not used. It is precisely the lawful bearing of arms which distinguishes the nobility from serfs, from feudal Europe to Tokugawa Japan. Furthermore, no-one has quite as much self interest as you do in defending yourself. When the revolver first showed up in the American West, it was called the "great equalizer". It has been said that God created men, and Colonel Sam Colt made them equal. Quite so: he made all men equal, in the sense in which Jefferson intended the phrase. The gun makes it possible for the puny store clerk to stand up to the professional hoodlum. It makes the poor person in the slums of East Los Angeles equal to the rich man in Bel Aire. Not in the political sense that each has an equally valid vote, but rather in the more important sense that each has the equal ability to defend himself and his loved ones. The rich man can, if he wishes, hide behind his kevlar padded Mercedes, his Bel Aire Patrol, his electrified fence. The poor man in Harlem cannot. Yet a decent revolver can be used by either to defend himself. What was true in the 1890s is equally true in the 1990s. The great equalizer makes women physically equal to men, if they know how to use it. The way to stop rape and other violent crimes is to encourage peaceful citizens to own and use guns. Armed women equal polite men. The concept of "social responsibility" has been corrupted by people who make it appear to be simply another excuse for a welfare state. Yet, let us turn it around: isn't it an irresponsible act to leave your home undefended? Not only is it irresponsible to yourself, but it is socially irresponsible. If your home is burglarized, or you are mugged, have you not encouraged someone to live by looting others? Have you not also cost your fellow taxpayers the followup by your local police department. It is socially irresponsible \\not\\ to defend yourself. There is a more practical reason to defend yourself: quite likely, no-one else will! There have been a number of cases at law recently in which the courts have held that the police are under no obligation to defend you! In addition, pure government inefficiency keeps them from providing any credible defense. Denver, Colorado, for example, has a 38% police response rate. That means that Denver PD responds to 38% of the calls for help that they get. And, if they do respond, how long will it take them to get there? You could be dead or raped before they arrive, if they ever do. Your choice: 38% or .38 Special! The best way to handle any given crime is to prevent it. Never mind dealing with it afterwards, stop it before it happens. This concept does not mean that you should only buy guns. Burglar alarms, bright lights and martial arts are all effective in different circumstances. But on a typical city street, or in almost any other public place, the presence of an armed civilian is probably the most effective crime preventive known to man. There is no way we could possibly know, for example, how many shop holdups have been prevented simply because an armed customer walked into the store. How many future rapes have been prevented because one woman had the wherewithal to kill a would- be rapist? We'll never know, but for each would-be rapist shot and killed, it is at least one. Consider the events that are being used to scare the public into supporting a ban on semiautomatic rifles. Suppose some wacko with an AK-47 opened fire on an armed population? How long would he last? A lot less time than he will last in an unarmed population! You will notice that Mr Patrick Purdy had enough sense not to take on a Long Beach, Bronx or Oakland schoolyard. In any of these, the students would probably have returned fire! Which would you rather hijack: an airplane full of people, some of whom were armed? Most of whom were armed? Or would you rather hijack an airplane full of people guaranteed by the United States Government to be completely disarmed? This line of reasoning has the side benefit of disengaging us from a futile side argument. Both prohibitionists and gun owners want to reduce crime. The one side wants to prohibit firearms and other weapons, a futile approach at best. The other side acts like it wants to deal more vengefully after the event. Both approaches are non sequiturs. The way to prevent crime is: \\to prevent crime!\\ More jail cells, more court rooms, and more police deal only with the aftermath of a crime. These things at best do nothing for the victim of the crime. They cannot restore to the victim the \\status quo ante\\. Under the current system, they make no attempt to do so. The way for the gun rights movement to win the argument is to encourage more people to be prepared to \\prevent\\ crime, by both active and passive measures. These measures include, but are not limited to, owning, carrying, and knowing the use of firearms. \\"If their ballots aren't secured by arms, they are worthless."\\ H. Beam Piper The second Argument is a special case of the Right to Self Defense. It is the Right to Rebellion, so eloquently described by Thomas Jefferson. "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to Alter or Abolish it,... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, \\it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for their future security.\\" (Emphasis added.) When any thing which men produce for a purpose fails in that purpose, it is replaced with something better. The old thing is retired, or perhaps used for something else. This is true of tools, automobiles and bathtubs. There is no difference between these things and governments. They are formed to protect our rights. When they fail to do so, it is up to us to get rid of them and replace them with something else. If necessary, by rebellion. It follows from this, then, that a sure indication of "a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism" is an effort to remove from the people their means of "throwing off such Government": their weapons, their guns. Like the bumper sticker says, "Fear the government that fears your guns". The world has shown shock at the events in China last summer, which culminated in the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Here we have the "Peoples' Liberation Army" killing the people, including hundreds of Army deserters who joined the protesters when the Army was first sent in. Yet those people fought bravely against horrible odds, for the benefit of a few television cameras, and for such uncommunist ideals as free markets and the right to choose who will "defend" their rights. It is no coincidence that the Goddess of Freedom strongly resembles the Statue of Liberty. What will it take to prevent a Tiananmen Square here in this country? \\"Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty."\\ V. I. Lenin Geneva, Wednesday, January 25, (12) Vperyod No. 4, January 31 (18), 1905 Yet consider how differently things turned out in Rumania six months later. That tale begins in World War II, when the US manufactured a singularly aptly named pistol, the Liberator. It was a single shot .45, and very inexpensive to make. The instructions were done entirely in picture form, and these things were dropped by the millions all over Eastern Europe. The instructions show how the gun was to be used. You sneak up on a German soldier, blow his brains out with the Liberator. Then you take his rifle, thereby anticipating Che Guevara's dictum that a guerrilla never goes into battle unless he knows he will come out of it with more supplies than he went in. Now you know why you saw so many WW II German Mausers in the newspaper accounts of the Romanian Revolution. Those pistols liberated Rumania not once, but twice! \\"Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind."\\ New Hampshire Constitution Part I, Art. 10th. I said earlier that the Right to Rebellion is a special case of the Right to Self Defense. The most horrible destruction the world has ever seen has been perpetrated by governments. I am not referring to wars, but to the organized efforts of governments to destroy their "own" citizens: the Soviet pogroms against the kulaks, the Nazi death camps for "inferior races", and so on, \\ad nauseam\\. If you have the right to defense against \\anything\\, it is the right to defense against government. If you think it can't happen here, you are wrong. It has. Consider the hounding of the Mormons, or the destruction of the American Indians. Consider that it was against local governments that the Civil Rights movement needed the most protection. Who's next? This is not to say that I would argue in favor of such a rebellion at this time. We do have alternatives, some of which I will describe later. In any case, if there were a rebellion now it would fail. Either it would never get the popular support it would need, or else the resulting government would be worse than what we have now. These arguments can be made to support the cause of gun rights. First, they are consistent. With one argument a special case of the other, they must be consistent. This means that the neither argument can be turned against the other, as the Hunter Argument is used to subvert the Second Amendment Argument. It also means that we can and will defend \\all\\ weapons. Not just our own preferred rifles or handguns, but a lot of weapons which one or another of us may not prefer. Even if I am a hunter, interested only in sporting rifles, I can and will use these arguments to support your right to own a defense rifle. The Self Defense Argument will bring a lot of people into the gun rights movement. Furthermore, it will give a lot of people a very good reason to get involved in the movement. The tide will have turned in our favor the day some black girl from Washington, DC, stands up to Senator Kennedy and says, "Hey, why do you want to take away my self defense? I thought you were in favor of the poor, man." We will have won the day that such an event gets national television coverage. If there is any group of people, any so-called minority, which has a vested interest in gun ownership, it is women. In addition to every crime problem which plagues men, women must also deal with rape. The National Organization for Women should be calling for unhampered and simple access to guns, so that their members can defend themselves. Let's face it, not many people hunt. Not many people have the emotional attachment to the Second Amendment that the constitutional fundamentalists have. But a lot of people do have homes and loved ones to protect. The "average guy" on the street will be far more interested in owning guns if he sees them as a means of self defense. \\"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids both the rich and the poor from sleeping under bridges..."\\ Anatole France The rich have definite advantages when it comes to self defense. They can live in exclusive neighborhoods with guards, put in expensive burglar alarms, and hire drivers to whisk them safely to their appointments. The poor cannot. The poor also tend to rent their homes, rather than own them. This gives them no reason to improve the burglar proofing of their homes. A handgun is inexpensive, and easily carried to a new home -- or anywhere else. Furthermore, poor people know this. What do they hunt in East Los Angeles? Cockroaches? No, they're buying guns for self defense, against the drug dealers, against the freelance socialists, and against the few corrupt and racist cops. They'll buy their guns illegally if need be, and who can blame them? By emphasizing the contrast between the poor gun owner and the wealthy prohibitionists, we can have a positive effect. If nothing else, we can make liberal prohibitionists feel guilty for oppressing the poor by trying to take away their guns. Another market for the gun rights movement is the minorities, such as blacks or Vietnamese. Unfortunately, these people are discriminated against still by the official system, and they know it. Given the "great equalizer", a black man or a Latino woman can defend himself or herself without recourse to the official system. But how many state laws permit ownership only to a "person suitable to be so licensed"? Indeed, one wonders whether the traditional gun movement leadership is \\deliberately\\ ignoring a potentially vast market for the gun rights movement. For whatever reason, the gun movement today consists largely of white middle class males. Why this is so, I don't know. But if you want to keep your guns, it is going to have to change. This is not to argue that the gun movement has been racist. Perhaps the existing gun movement leadership \\does\\ realize how many new people would come into the movement, and doesn't want to give up their leadership positions. If this is so, then they would obviously prefer to give up their guns than their "leadership" positions. If you are trying to hang on to your semi-auto rifle, you should pick up on the Self Defense Argument. If, as the drug warriors are (erroneously) claiming, the semi-auto rifle is the weapon of choice of the drug dealers, why can't I own one to defend myself against drug crazies? Why should the law allow these hooligans to be better armed than I am (for that is the effect of any form of gun prohibition)? \\"The tree of liberty is watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots."\\ Thomas Jefferson In addition to the Right to Self Defense, the Right to Rebellion puts the defense rifle on a very clear footing. The prohibitionists are correct on one point: the defense rifle has but one target: human beings. And that is exactly why we have the right to keep them. They are very effective against criminals, including criminal politicians and criminal bureaucrats. If we ever do have another rebellion in this country, "We the People" are going to need every defense rifle we've got! It is worth noting that the last thing that the Supreme Court has had to say on the Second Amendment is that it is precisely military weapons which are protected by it, not sporting guns. \\"Wars are not won by defensive tactics."\\ General George S. Patton, Jr. It is time for the gun rights movement to take the offensive. First, while defense is easier than offense, it is impossible to win on defense alone. That simple truth is the origin of the aphorism that the best defense is a good offense. A good offensive will tie up your opponents' assets to the point where he cannot act against you. He must put effort into defending himself. The gun rights movement must take the offensive simply in order to retain the few rights we have left, never mind to regain those lost already! General George Patton was perhaps the best American general in the Twentieth Century. Certainly his German opponents thought so, and even Stalin praised him. Patton continually emphasized offense over defense. Even when an offensive would be costly, he thought, it could save lives in the end by shortening the war. Hence his frustration when his Third Army was told to take the defensive in France. Similarly, gun owners are frustrated with the defensive action they have been fighting. The recent defection of the Republican Party ought to clearly show the folly of that plan of action. \\"Never attack where the enemy expects you to come."\\ General George S. Patton, Jr. We can and should make the prohibitionists too busy defending themselves to take any further action against us. By taking the offensive, we command the rules of the game and we set the agenda. We must make the prohibitionists react to us, not the other way around. Besides, making the prohibitionists scramble is more fun than doing it ourselves! \\"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."\\ Huey Newton There are three things we must do. Everything else in the rest of this essay is optional, but these three things are the ones without which we cannot succeed. They are, in order of importance: organize, organize, and organize. The forms and outward appearances of the various organizations will be as varied as their objectives. Organizations, new or extant, serve but one purpose: to make it possible to execute the necessary strategies and tactics. Form must follow function. \\"Plans must be simple and flexible. Actually, they form only a datum plane from which you build as necessity directs or opportunity offers. They should be made by the people who are going to execute them."\\ General George S. Patton, Jr. There are plenty of tactics and strategies we can pursue. The list here is just a starting point, a series of suggestions. You can adapt some of the things on it to your own situation, or you can come up with something entirely new. \\"Let the danger be never so great, there is a possibility of safety while men have life, hands, arms, and courage to use them; but that people must certainly perish, who tamely suffer themselves to be oppressed...."\\ Algernon Sidney The first place to go to work is with gun owners themselves. For some strange reason, Americans almost have to be browbeaten into protecting their rights. Person to person contact is far and away the most effective way to get your point across. In Colorado, there is a gun show almost every weekend of the year, sometimes two or three in a weekend. The Firearms Coalition of Colorado has had a table at almost every gun show since it was formed in 1989. Our people don't just sit behind their table, they stand in front of it and practically forcefeed literature to people as they pass by. This gets the word out to the people with the greatest interest in gun owners' rights. It also gets donations, especially after a success in a legislative battle. But that table is the easy part. The Coalition is a lean, mean operation. If you don't want to work with us, form your own organization (several people have). We have no newsletter. They're expensive and slow. Instead, we have a 24 hour multi-line hotline which we advertise heavily: 303/369-GUNS. Feel free to call it. If we have a letterhead, I haven't seen it yet: we communicate by telephone. We also have no bureaucracy and no paid staff. We run a phone bank as needed, with donated phone lines, crewed by volunteers. We keep a database, on donated equipment, with public domain software and volunteer labor. We buy our own paper by the roll for printing literature. In the year after we got organized, the Coalition gave out over a million pieces of literature, equivalent to a third of the population of Colorado. Not bad -- but not enough. We also consistently beat legislation in the state legislature. In two years running, anti-gun rights bills have lost in the Senate Judiciary Committee, by five to four and then six to three. In the following year, our opponents thought they could get a better deal in another committee. We won there also: six to nothing. Colorado is considered by some national gun rights organizations to be the best organized state in the Union. This is not a compliment to the Firearms Coalition of Colorado, but an indictment of the other 49 states' organizations, or lack thereof. Another place to start working is with the language. George Orwell and Alfred Korzybski showed how language affects the thinking process. We must regain the language. This will, unfortunately, take a long time and a lot of effort. But it can be done in conjunction with other efforts. First, gun owning must be perceived as a victimless habit. The same arguments for smoking dope and snorting coke can be made for owning guns. Sure, people are going to hurt themselves, through stupidity, incompetence or ignorance. \\That is their right!\\ The tremendous destruction caused by drug users is not due to the drugs \\per se\\, but rather to the fact that they are illegal. With legal drugs, or weapons, it is possible for information about them to spread, and for people to have legal recourse in the event they are sold bad goods. When any good or service is illegal, the flow of information stops, and the legal recourse no longer exists. In fact, not only is there no victim in owning a gun, but they actually \\prevent\\ the owner from becoming a victim! Because guns are used for self defense, their owners are less likely to end up as someone else's victim. Gun owners should also use language slanted against the prohibitionists, such as referring to them as prohibitionists. This does not mean that we should be rude, or slanderous. It does mean creative use of the language. You have probably observed the use of the word 'prohibitionist' to refer to opponents of gun ownership throughout this essay. This usage should spread, and so should other words. Similarly, we must use language that makes us look good. We support not guns themselves, but -- more important -- gun \\rights\\. We are not the gun movement or the gun lobby, but the gun \\rights\\ movement. Who dares to oppose our \\rights?\\ No one who has studied the relationship between prohibition and crime can deny that prohibition fails utterly to stop crime. If it did, then New York and Washington, D.C. would be pacific utopias. From this we must inevitably draw a moral certitude: Every politician who votes for any law that restricts our Right of Self Defense is an accomplice before the fact to every mugging, every burglary, every rape, every murder, and every other crime committed subsequently in that jurisdiction. Our opponents are excellent at manipulating the language to suit their own ends. We must be better at it than they are. Two can play at doublespeak. We need to bring out the fact that the prohibitionists are liars. They said years ago, when the big thing was Saturday Night Specials, that they only wanted to take away cheap handguns. I don't know what you've paid for a defense rifle, but they are not cheap. And even Pete Shields is smart enough to tell that they aren't handguns. What else are they going to lie about? Do they also lie when they say that all they want is our defense rifles? Another area where we can take the offensive is to point out that every "nut with a gun" incident is a failure of authority -- the same authority that is supposed to a) take away our guns, and b) protect us from wackos. The government that was supposed to protect us failed to do so when Mr Patrick Purdy took a defense rifle to a yard full of school children. \\We\\ need those defense rifles so we can defend ourselves against the next wacko. Furthermore, the Stockton school board is \\in loco parentis\\ of those children. They clearly failed in their duty. Has anyone started proceedings to get them thrown out of office, or sued them for malfeasance? Gun owners have for years supported those political candidates who have been the lesser of two evils. This is wrong: the lesser of two evils is still evil. The Republican Party has abandoned us. We should then feel free to abandon them. Sarah Brady is a registered Republican. This is not to argue that gun owners must vote Democratic. Rather, we should engage in tactical voting. This means casting the vote most likely to produce the outcome we want -- not the same as voting for the best candidate. If you have, say, a prohibitionist Democrat opposed by a pro-gun rights Republican, it may be tactically more advantageous to donate funds to a loony left candidate than to the Republican. This advantage obtains because the loony left candidate will draw more votes, per dollar spent, than the Republican will. Here, the concept is to draw votes away from the prohibitionist, rather than toward the gun rights candidate. Because you gain more votes per dollar spent, the pro-gun rights candidate wins by a larger majority. If the thought of supporting the loony left makes you gag, consider smaller parties closer to your own predilections. The Libertarian Party has consistently supported gun owner rights, unlike either of the two major parties. It is also the largest of the minor parties, in terms of both membership and votes. It has the best chance to play balance of power politics of all the minor parties. Furthermore, the Libertarian Party can be used to threaten the incumbent politicians. When you write to your incumbent congresscritter, remind him, her or it that the Libertarian Party exists, and state plainly that you will not vote for the incumbent unless he \\consistently\\ supports your right to own guns. The mathematics are very simple: there are some 70 million gun owners in the US, most of whom are of voting age. If only of a quarter of us voted for the LP's presidential candidate, those 17 million votes could throw the next election into the House of Representatives. The House has a Democratic majority. Tell \\that\\ to every Republican party hack you know. \\"Battles are won by frightening the enemy."\\ General George S. Patton, Jr. Gun owning is a right. It is a civil right, as surely as the right to freedom of religion or the right to be secure in your person and papers against unreasonable search and seizure. And it is equally protected by the civil rights laws. Further, it is illegal to conspire to violate anyone's civil rights. The prohibitionists must be threatened with this! Further, what other civil right is so hemmed in with restrictions and permissions? Do we have to undergo a background check before we can open up a ministry? Must we get permission from a police chief or sheriff before we can vote? To knowingly swear to a thing is perjury. Perjury is a criminal offense, although not a felony. Given Howard Metzenbaum's views on the rights of gun owners, his oath of office as a United States Senator is perjury, pure and simple. Again, the prohibitionists must be threatened with this. Furthermore, this and the civil rights issue are great for media grandstanding. \\"The power to tax is the power to destroy."\\ Oliver Wendell Holmes If we have a Right to Self Defense, then we have that right unfettered by government in any way. Further, if it is government policy to reduce crime, then an adequately armed civilian population is essential. Toward both of these ends, we should call for the immediate repeal of all local, state and federal taxes on all weapons and ammunition. Yes, folks, this includes Pittman-Robinson. All regulatory obstructions to the right to own guns should be repealed. To ask of some bureaucrat or politician "permission" to defend yourself and your rights against that same bureaucrat or politician is absurd -- and obscene. The right of a person to defend himself or herself with no second guessing by police or judges must be supported. Make My Day laws, such as Colorado's, should be passed in every state. \\"Government, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."\\ George Washington In order to keep government a servant, we the people should be better armed than it is. We should prohibit any government agencies the use in any jurisdiction of any weapon prohibited by that jurisdiction to the civilians there. If we may not own defense rifles, then neither may the police use them. If we are prohibited so-called "cop killer" ammunition, then so also are the police. If we could get such a law passed, then no police chief would dare argue for gun prohibition again. We have a great many sports available to our young, in school and out of it. Marksmanship, weapon care and gun etiquette should be made available as well as football or baseball. Practical shooting should be encouraged. It is the weapons incompetents like Mr Carl Rowan, of the \\Washington Post\\, who give gun owners a bad name. By encouraging proper weapons skills in schools, we will head off that problem in years to come. If the United States ever again finds itself in a war supported by the people, these skills will be most useful. Gun owners and others should push for a National Self Defense Day, on which people would be encourage to openly wear their weapons or the appropriate symbols. Marksmanship badges, black belts, Mace canisters, pistols, etc. should all be worn on this day. Given that the battle at Lexington was fought over gun control, its anniversary is an appropriate date. In a particular effort to reduce rape, police ranges should be opened to women who are new to guns. An armorer should be available to advise on a first purchase, and an instructor to teach. Further, this policy should be widely publicized, especially through the women's movement. This will be far more effective than handing out rape whistles. Further, it will pay for itself in reduced crime and more effective use of police officers in crime \\prevention\\ instead of writing up more reports. When an armed civilian shows up at a confrontation situation, police are often confused. Worse, they are prone to shoot first and interrogate later. They should be trained to accept armed civilian backup. Armed civilians are often better armed than the police (as they should be), and usually better shots. \\"You can never be too strong. Get every man and gun you can secure, provided it does not unduly delay your attack."\\ General George S. Patton, Jr. Gun owners are a minority! We should forge tactical alliances with other minorities. This will bring us a lot of new gun owners. Also, the inherent racism of modern American liberalism can be put to use when some members of these minorities start to speak out against prohibition. The gun rights movement is missing a major bet by ignoring women. Instead, the Self Defense Argument should be used to bring them in. This does not mean that they should be politicized. Rather, gun owner groups should speak to women's groups (everything from the Junior League to the National Organization for Women), and emphasis self defense. Show them proper weapon handling, and encourage them to handle a gun (unloaded, naturally). Of course, throw in a five minute lecture about current gun legislation. \\"Absolute and arbitrary power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen exists nowhere in a republic, not even in the largest majority."\\ Kentucky Constitution, 2. Gun ownership has been seen, even by its alleged defenders, as a right wing issue. It need not be. It cannot be. For good or for ill, this country has become a democracy. Gun owners must be shown to be in the majority. Further, if gun ownership is to be secure in this country, then the prohibitionists must be shown to be the loony left which they are. These two goals can best be achieved by bringing in a lot more people. These people must include minorities, but should not be limited to them. Everyone needs self defense -- except the dead. The media, especially the television media, have a kneejerk prohibitionist bias. This can be overcome. The reason that this bias exists is that they are essentially followers. They follow whatever fad they think is currently "in". This is why I am placing them last in this list of suggestions. If we lead -- as we must -- they will follow. The politics of the media, if they can be said to have any at all as a group, is: whatever will sell newspapers. It should be obvious by now that Richard Nixon did nothing that his predecessors had not done, yet he was hounded out of office by a coalition of liberal media and liberal politicians. His real error was not in bugging the Democratic headquarters or bombing Cambodia, but in being hated by the media. Similarly, Jim Wright did nothing unusual except to make enough enemies in the media and in the Democratic membership of the House of Representatives. Casting the gun rights issue in terms of the Right to Self Defense and in terms of poor vs. rich will reshape the way the liberals in the media will think about gun ownership. Mr. Carl Rowan has already proved that, in spite of their public noise, some of the media really understand the importance of guns. Ask them: how many camera crews go unarmed to cover riots? When we have the media convinced that gun ownership is for poor and underprivileged people too, then we will win in the media. There are some real idealists in the media. These people believe in such utopian fantasies as honest politicians and ethics in government. For these people, a continuous pounding of the perjury charge against Senators Metzenbaum and Kennedy will have a positive effect. It may take five years, it may take twenty, but some day Senator Kennedy is going to jail for perjury. It is the idealists in the media who will make it happen. \\"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing."\\ Edmund Burke Most gun owners would rather hunt deer than hunt tyrants. So long as this is true, we will continue to lose ground. Yet the tyrants who would deprive us of our Right of Self Defense are far more dangerous than any animal. Few gun owners would have any hesitation about using a gun to prevent a rape or a murder. Will they not act now, before it is too late, to prevent their own future rape, their own future murder? We have had two hundred years of our rights being eroded. We must now regain what we have lost. If we delay, our effort will be that much greater. If we delay much longer, we will have no rights left whatsoever. It won't be easy. But a chance at winning is better than the certainty of losing what little we have left. These methods have been shown to work. The Firearms Coalition of Colorado has been using many of these suggestions. It has engaged the enemy five times in its year of existence. It has won four times in statewide and local issues. The fifth, the defense rifle ban in Denver, isn't over yet. But the real battleground isn't in the Colorado Statehouse, or the California Statehouse. It isn't in Washington, not even in the Congress. The real battle is to convince our fellow Americans that they too have this right. And that they too should defend it. Win that battle, and the State houses and the Congress will follow. \\That,\\ dear reader, is why this article was written. \\"Americans, with arms in their hands, are fools as well as cowards to surrender. If they fight on, they will conquer."\\ General George S. Patton, Jr. \\Charles Curley is a freelance philosopher and software engineer living in Colorado. He is a recent defense rifle refugee from California. He was a founding member of the National Committee to Legalize Gold, which in 1974 regained for Americans the right to own gold.\\ -- 30 -- 8600 words Charles Curley 111 E. Drake #7091 Fort Collins, CO 80525 303/490-2944 ------------------------------------------------ (This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the Radio Free Michigan archives by the archive maintainer. All files are ZIP archives for fast download. E-mail bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu)