SaveOurGuns.com

Popgun Parade

by L. Neil Smith
lneil@netzero.com

For Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership http://www.jpfo.org

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It says here that the Second Amendment Foundation, in cooperation with Smith & Wesson, is going to have a fancy, embellished revolver made to mark the legal and historical milestone they feel that the Supreme Court's recent District of Columbia versus Heller decision represents.

Very appropriately, the revolver chosen will be Smith & Wesson's cute little .38 caliber Model 442, an excellent choice for concealed self-defense under many circumstances, but one of the puniest weapons the company makes, and in this case, highly symbolic: an airweight for airheads.

Around these parts, DC v. Heller is better known as the Viagra Decision, due to the court's embarrassingly inadequate performance in defense of the Bill of Rights. With a reluctant, grudging nod at the Second Amendment as an inarguably individual right, the old men and women in black incontinently hastened to add that it is subject to practically any "reasonable" regulation politicians and bureaucrats might wish to impose upon it. That, we submit to our dear colleagues and allies at the Second Amendment Foundation -- as well as to our old friends and enemies at Smith & Wesson -- is absolutely nothing to celebrate.

At best, it means that the ancient struggle simply goes on, over whether the plain language of the Constitution means what it says or not.

At worst, it means that within a decade, possibly sooner, we'll be fighting against the passage of nationwide legislation under which -- once again -- each of us will be compelled to beg the government for its gracious permission to exercise the fundamental, unalienable, individual, civil, natural, Constitutional, and human right of every man, woman, and responsible child to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon, any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

A right that was meant to protect us from the government.

And legislation that will be officially considered "reasonable".

Let me tell you what's reasonable, in terms the thickest judge can understand.

Individuals human beings have a right to live, and to struggle to stay alive, that predates the Constitution and the Bill of Rights by at least a couple of million years. anybody who disagrees with that, is some kind of monster whose utterances shouldn't be taken seriously as anything but threats. The Founding Fathers mostly understood all this, and they never meant the country's basic operating documents as any kind of grant of rights, but merely as an official acknowledgement and a promise that those rights would be respected and enforced by the government.

The individual right to own and carry weapons is a logical and necessary extension of the right to live, and to struggle to stay alive. Sure, all of today's local, state, and federal governments will insist that they can take better care of you than you can. But then they also insist that they can spend your money more wisely than you do.

And we all know how that's worked out.

None of this is breaking news. The Founding Fathers understood that when governments and kings don't get their own way, when their various plans and schemes collapse in humiliating failure, they will sometimes -- often -- resort to violence. We've seen it ourselves. The Marxist bees in Lenin's bonnet failed to generate a worker's paradise on Earth, so he got mad, blamed it on the people's stubborn reluctance to cooperate, and had tens of thousands of them rounded up and shot. In their time, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot did more or less the same.

In anticipation of that, James Madison wrote the Second Amendment to the Constitution, the naked, brutal point of which is exactly the same point Thomas Jefferson made -- twice -- in the Declaration of Independence, when he wrote, "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it" and "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 ... "

All of this throwing off, altering, and abolishing was intended to be accomplished by means of the arms that the people had -- and still have -- a right to keep and bear. Perhaps even more significant, as it turned out, for at least four score and some-odd years or so, throwing off, altering, and abolishing continued to be unnecessary as long as the people continued to keep and bear arms, and the government knew it.

Beyond that, the government had no power, neither within the law nor within the bounds of reason, to insist on knowing exactly who had weapons, where those weapons were kept, or what they consisted of. That was for the people -- as individuals -- to know, and for the government to find out only if and when the government made it necessary. Government still has no such power, not within the law nor within the bounds of reason. The Second Amendment makes absolutely no sense if it does. How can the government legally or logically be permitted to "regulate" -- meaning to control -- the exercise of a right that was meant by the Founding Fathers to defend the people from government itself? Gun control of any kind is, in that sense, just as illegal -- as unconstitutional -- as anything can possibly be under the Bill of Rights.

No regulation is "reasonable" that flies in the face of the Second Amendment.

Most Americans understand nothing about this, and the government, its school system, and the mass media aren't going to help them to understand.

In the aftermath of D.C. v. Heller, it is up to us to set the tone, just as it has always been. It is up to us to establish the level of discourse, and we can no longer afford to be compromising and conciliatory.

It is up to us to establish the meaning of the word "reasonable" and make it stick. We have to make Americans wonder why politicians, bureaucrats, and the media want them helpless and unable to resist the likes of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot. Anything less than that -- anything more like D.C. v. Heller -- is an authoritarian farce.

I forgot to mention that SAF and S&W plan to give these little popguns to the D.C. v. Heller plaintiffs, then sell more to the public.

Many more, they hope.

Frankly, if I thought there were something to celebrate, I'd do it with an N-frame .44 Magnum, at the least, maybe even a .50 caliber X-frame.

Or maybe I'd choose something manufactured by a company that doesn't go on making the same old political mistakes, over and over again.

Come on, Smith & Wesson, I've collected your beautiful revolvers for decades. There's a 3" Model 629 lying beside the keyboard on my desk right now. I want to love you, really I do. But you make it so difficult.

So very, very difficult.

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"Men cannot be governed and remain men. Domesticate the wolf and he changes both physically and mentally. His muzzle shrinks, his teeth diminish, he loses size, speed, and strength, He grows spots. His ears flop. His brain withers. He becomes a dog. Men are on the verge of becoming dogs -- the changes are underway already -- unless we do something to stop it."

-- The Ceo Lia Wheeler, Phoebus Krumm, forthcoming

Four-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith has been writing about guns and gun ownership for more than 30 years. He is the author of 27 books, the most widely-published and prolific libertarian novelist in the world, and is considered an expert on the ethics of self-defense. For years he has dreamed of purchasing a .44 Magnum S&W Model 629 with a five-inch fully-underlugged barrel, but S&W keeps making it difficult.

So very, very difficult.

(Find other articles by L. Neil Smith)

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Robert Mugabe and the Second Amendment
by Jacob G. Hornberger

A front-page article in last SaturdayžÃžÔ Washington Post detailed an inside account of how ZimbabwežÃžÔ thuggish president Robert Mugabe ensured his victory in the countryžÃžÔ recent presidential run-off election. The account provides a good refresher course on why our American ancestors enshrined the right to keep and bear arms in the Second Amendment and why they so detested standing military forces within their own country.

Having garnered less votes than his opponent in the general election, Mugabe, who has held power for almost 30 years, was contemplating dropping out of the race. Afraid of losing their lucrative government positions, however, loyal government bureaucrats, including many of MugabežÃžÔ military goons, convinced him to keep fighting.

Mugabe and his advisors came up with an interesting campaign plan known as CIBD, which stood for coercion, intimidation, beating, and displacement. Led by MugabežÃžÔ loyal military forces, his goons embarked on a violent and brutal campaign of murder, torture, and beatings designed to intimidate the opposition.

The plan worked, causing MugabežÃžÔ opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, to drop out of the race, delivering the runoff victory to Mugabe. Despite the fact that his election to office is as illegitimate as an election could ever be, Mugabe has promised to remain in office until God removes him.

So, what do Zimbabweans do in this circumstance? Nothing, except pray for his removal from office.

Most everyone would agree that if there was ever a right of revolution i.e., a violent overthrow of onežÃžÔ own government this is it. Unfortunately, however, Zimbabweans are precluded from exercising the right of revolution it owing to one big reason: gun control. Because they lack guns, Zimbabweans lack the means to oppose the armed government goons that do MugabežÃžÔ bidding and keep him in power.

As our American ancestors understood so well and as the situation in Zimbabwe is demonstrating, a disarmed citizenry inevitably becomes an obedient citizenry. It lacks the means to object when tyranny rears its ugly head.

Standing armies are inevitably loyal to their commanders, who are loyal to their political rulers. They will obey orders faithfully, especially when žÅžÏational security is at stake.

ThatžÃžÔ why our American ancestors detested standing armies. They knew that all too often rulers would turn the guns of their military and police forces inward, against their own people. Equally important, they knew that the military and police would faithfully, loyally, and žÅžÑatriotically obey the orders of their superiors.

Thus, the central idea behind the Second Amendment was not to ensure that people could hunt deer or shoot burglars. It was instead to ensure that U.S. rulers were prohibited from depriving Americans of their žÅžÅoomsday weapon a weapon that would always ensure that Americans would have the means to defend themselves from the tyranny of their very own government yes, the federal government in Washington, D.C. ThatžÃžÔ something that Zimbabweans are today unable to do owing to gun control in their country.

Some Americans claim that the Second Amendment is outmoded. They say that while U.S. personnel would do bad things to foreigners, they would never do bad things to Americans. Oh? You mean, like the way they tortured and sexually abused John Walker Lindh? Or the way they tortured, isolated, drugged, and brutalized Jose Padilla? Or the way they massacred people, including defenseless children, at Waco? Or the way they shot Vickie Weaver in the head, as she held her baby in her arms, and her teenage son in the back? Or the way they shot and killed antiwar demonstrators at Kent State? Or the way they rounded up Americans of Japanese descent and put them into concentration centers? Or the way they engaged in syphilis experiments with unsuspecting African-Americans?

The fact is that American human beings are no different from other human beings. Given a crisis environment where the fear of terrorism (or communism or whatever) is running rampant and U.S. officials are screaming that žÅžÏational security is at stake, U.S. rulers will always be able to find a certain segment of U.S. military forces and the CIA to carry out any orders against Americans, just as Robert Mugabe has. All the president would have to do is label any Americans he wants as dangerous žÅžÆnemy combatants žÅžÕerrorists or žÅžÕerrorist sympathizers and order the Pentagon and the CIA to take them into custody and treat them accordingly. If a Pentagon official or subordinate refused to carry out such orders, he would immediately be fired (or worse) and be replaced by an official who would faithfully carry out the orders of his commander in chief.

Would the Zimbabweans revolt against their government if they had guns? ItžÃžÔ impossible to know. As Jefferson pointed out in the Declaration of Independence, people will sometimes put up with lots of tyranny rather than suffer massive casualties in a violent revolution. At least the right to keep and bear arms provides people with the option of resistance to tyranny, an option that gun control has extinguished in Zimbabwe.

Source of Above:
http://mwcnews.net/content/view/23778&Itemid=1

VIDEO: Obama: 'Make Sure Your Child Can Speak Spanish'...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZprtPat1

Want some torture with your peanuts?

Aviation Security
POSTED 2:18 PM BY P. JEFFREY BLACK & JEFFREY DENNING Print
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By Jeffrey Denning

Just when you thought youÃ×e heard it all...

A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taserž®. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers.

This bracelet would:

take the place of an airline boarding pass

contain personal information about the traveler

be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage

shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes

The Electronic ID Bracelet, as itÃÔ referred to as, would be worn by every traveler ÅÖntil they disembark the flight at their destination. Yes, you read that correctly. Every airline passenger would be tracked by a government-funded GPS, containing personal, private and confidential information, and that it would shock the customer worse than an electronic dog collar if he/she got out of line?

Clearly the Electronic ID Bracelet is an euphuism for the EMD Safety Bracelet, or at least it has a nefarious hidden ability, thus the term ID Bracelet is ambiguous at best. EMD stands for Electro-Musclar Disruption. Again, according to the promotional video the bracelet can completely immobilize the wearer for several minutes.

So is the government really that interested in this bracelet? Yes!

According to a letter from DHS official, Paul S. Ruwaldt of the Science and Technology Directorate, office of Research and Development, to the inventor whom he had previously met with, he wrote, ŵo make it clear, we [the federal government] are interested in©Õhe immobilizing security bracelet, and look forward to receiving a written proposal. The letterhead, in case you were wondering, came from the DHS office at the William J. Hughes Technical Center at the Atlantic City International Airport, or the Federal Aviation Administration headquarters.

In another part of the letter, Mr. Ruwaldt confirmed, Ūt is conceivable to envision a use to improve air security, on passenger planes.

Would every paying airline passenger flying on a commercial airplane be mandated to wear one of these devices? I cringe at the thought. Not only could it be used as a physical restraining device, but also as a method of interrogation, according to the same aforementioned letter from Mr. Ruwaldt.

Would you let them put one of those on your wrist? Would you allow the airline employees, which would be mandated by the government, to place such a bracelet on any member of your family?

Why are tax dollars being spent on something like this? Is this a police state or is it America?

As we approach July 4th, Independence Day, I canÃÕ help but think of the blessing we have of living in America and being free from hostile government forces. It calls to mind on of my favorite speeches given by an American Founding Forefather, Patrick Henry, who said,

Ūs life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!